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Notes -
Hollywood seems to be learning from the 2 confusing hits of 2022 : Minions and RRR.
As we came out of covid, both movies recognized that going to the movies was more about creating experiences than the movie itself. RRR released their viral dance 1 year in advance, and the movie screening felt more like an interactive experience than a watching experience. Does this look like a movie screening to any of you ?
At least with RRR, people genuinely cared about it being an amazing movie. Minions went the other way, pioneering the "movie as an ingroup meme". It separated the quality of movie from the theater going experience and raked in the big bucks.
Barbie and Oppenheimer have directly stolen from both movies. Going to the theater has always been a special experience. The mistake was thinking that people went to the theaters to watch movies they wanted to see. No, theaters are an experience, and the movie itself is secondary. The advent of the home theater meant that intuitions had been changing for a while. But, the 2010-2020 wisdom was that people went to theaters to see set pieces that home theaters could not do justice to. So 3D, CGI, big explosions and super hero movies dominated the big screen.
As people have tired of 3D explosions, it is now time to leverage another phenomenon that home theaters can't do justice to : "the experience of going to the theater". This paradigm shift means that we will see a flood of mid-budget viral marketting-esque movies soon. Sadly, the new paradigm is yet again divorced from the quality of the movie. Instead of CGI explosions and trailer friendly jibes, directors will pressured to create 'viral and imitable moments'. The king is dead, long live the king!
The "Russo brothers (Avengers) - Rajmouli (RRR)" interview from last year is worth watching. You clearly see the fascination of these Hollywood profit-machines as they struggle to understand how RRR is generating so much enthusiasm for going to the theaters. Looks like Hollywood finally figured it out with Barbie.
Because it's ridiculously, stupidly, over the top fun. Like Honest Trailers said, if you have a warning for "no oxen were harmed in the making of this movie", it's gonna be awesome. It had nothing to do with the concerns about Representation and Gender And Sexual Orientation and Strong Female Characters and Political Commentary (apart from "The Brits are evil", a message we can all get behind) and time round, nationalism and patriotism are good - the guy comes swinging out of the flames wrapped in the flag - and the heroes are uncomplicated, Captain America and Superman good guys, types.
It was clearly made with an agenda, but the agenda was so far from Western concerns that people could ignore that, if they even became aware of it, and just enjoy action, over the top stunts, heroism, male friendship with nobody giving one single flying fig about 'toxic masculinity', spectacle and dance numbers. This was what got people through the Depression who weren't going to see social realist documentaries, they went for escapism and Hollywood glamour far away from the grind of everyday life.
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