With his latest film, the Palme d’Or winning “Anora,” close to release, Sean Baker has made a film that could very well garner a more-than-decent sized audience theatrically. Here’s hoping Neon does a good job with it.
Yes, “Anora” isn’t IP, it’s a true original, and these days that’s a total rarity. A recent report claimed that over 50% of next year’s big studio movies will be existing IP — a depressing stat. In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Baker says he “misses” the days when films like “Anora” would be a dime a dozen in theaters.
“Where are the mature film for adults that had human stories, that didn’t have explosions or didn’t have to have superheroes or were horror-based? Where are those? Where are they these days?” Baker said. “They don’t exist, unfortunately, or they’re very few and far between. And it’s like, let’s get the audience to remember that that stuff is just as worthy of being on the big screen as the big tentpole films, the big blockbusters.”
Richard Linklater recently stated that now studios “Only make films for 12 year olds.” Linklater nails it: culture is "bending to kids" and sanitizing movies for adults. There is no mainstream hunger for challenging cinema anymore.
I get it, most of us would love to go back to a time when CINEMA was prevalent at the movie theater, and smart non-IP character studies were not only the norm, but also made money. These films were mid-budget and driven by strong human-driven stories, not superheroes or IP.
When it comes to smart adult-oriented films, audiences are and have always been hungry for good storytelling. Sadly, they’ve all migrated to streaming platforms, where shows and mid-budget films are a safer bet to find an audience than in theaters. There’s those that argue a studio should not invest in one single $300 million movie, but rather 10 films that cost $30 million, but that’s just not the way studios operate.
The folks who love to watch character studies have stopped going to the movies, or at least a majority of them. That’s why Hollywood is now catering to 13-year-olds. Otherwise, if original character studies actually were profitable, you’d notice plenty of them being greenlit by studio execs.
I’d love nothing more than for the mid-budget movie to make a comeback in Hollywood, but audiences need to respond by driving demand up. As long as films like “TAR,” and “The Banshees of Inisherin” fail to lure an audience then the IP barrage will likely continue on, and adult-skewing dramas will remain a staple of streaming platforms.
With that said, we will probably never go back to a time when a film like “Dances With Wolves” could make $400M at the box-office. Those days are long gone. The pandemic forced studios to quickly send much of their new content on VOD/streaming.
Many moviegoers realized just how much more comfortable, and less headache-inducing, it was to watch at home than to go to their local theater. Not to mention, ticket prices having soared in recent years, to the point where going to the movies has become a pricey luxury for many. I do not believe we’ll ever be able to get that demographic back into theaters.