Good Versions of the Right Film

People cross West 42nd Street under advertising for A Minecraft Movie (March 25, 2025) / rblfmr / Shutterstock

At any point this summer, you could take refuge from the heat in one of the nation’s chain movie theaters and enjoy a good old summer blockbuster. Whether you chose to watch the “most authentic” racing movie ever made (F1); a heroic tale of human kindness triumphing over tech moguls-turned-arms-dealers (Superman); a superpowered quest to save the baby and, secondarily, the Earth (The Fantastic Four: First Steps); or a compelling argument against scientific experimentation with ancient lizard DNA (Jurassic World: Rebirth)—you were certain to see a charismatic leading man facing impossible odds, a thin but fast-paced plot, and a cathartic victory in the final act. In other words, these were the kind of movies where you turn to your companion afterwards and say, “That was fun!” and never think about the film again. 

These blockbusters are the tentpoles of major studios: big-budget star-studded movies, often drawing on existing intellectual property (IP), that are expected to make enough money at the box office to boost the studio’s bottom line and fund smaller projects. Almost 20 years ago, as internet streaming began to pose a serious challenge to cinema ticket sales, Harvard Business School professor John Quelch underscored that the bigger commitment is actually the safer option for Hollywood and big business generally. In 2013, his colleague Anita Elberse also advocated for the blockbuster strategy: “We can criticize Hollywood for becoming more formulaic, but its executives aren’t foolishly spending money and taking unnecessary risks. In fact, it is their intent to reduce risk that drives the reliance on blockbuster bets. If anyone is to blame, it’s us moviegoers—we simply get more of what we have been shown to want in the past.” With each restaffing of the executive suite, the studios seem to arrive at the same conclusion: Better invest in a small number of blockbusters than a wider array of mid-budget movies.

How do studios identify that guaranteed box-office hit that will once again save the studio—and the future of cinema? In an interview with Variety about the season’s box office sales, Lionsgate studio chief Adam Fogelson summed up a sophisticated strategy, worthy of such high stakes: “Summer was a reminder that as long as studios make good versions of the right film, audiences will go to see it.” It’s just about choosing the right IP, the right director with the right spin, the right actors with the right social profile, and from there millions of dollars flow naturally. 

The hypervisibility of the blockbuster can make it a lightning rod for culture war backlash, as with James Gunn’s Superman, which features David Corenswet as a super-nice take on the iconic hero and a superpowered CGI dog modeled off the director’s own rescue. On paper it was a sure bet, but Gunn’s comments on Superman’s immigrant origins and the film’s core message of kindness triggered outrage among conservative pundits and influencers. Why, they asked, did Superman need to be portrayed as an immigrant? Worse, why did the film’s central crisis—the brewing invasion of the fictional, plausibly Middle Eastern Jarhanpur by the fictional, plausibly Eastern European Boravia—need bear resemblance to Israel’s genocide in Gaza? Liberal defenders of the film pointed to its box office success as evidence of the unpopularity of right-wing rhetoric and the changing tide of Hollywood on issues such as Gaza.

For his part, Gunn has repeatedly disavowed parallels to Gaza, telling Variety, “Absolutely 100% of that movie was written and done before anything ever happened between Israel and Palestine, and everyone continues to refuse to believe that that’s not what it’s about. It’s not. It just isn’t.” Certainly, the interpretation of the film as espousing any kind of politics, let alone radicalism, requires a big imaginative leap: The film’s cultural commentary is limited to vague platitudes about helping one another out and embracing our differences, and the situation in Jarhanpur is tidily resolved by a bit of unilateral interventionism. 

However, most of the backlash was contained to morning talk shows and social media and didn’t significantly help or hurt the film’s performance. The film earned $615 million over the summer, a comfortable taking for yet another feel-good spin on old IP. It’s an enjoyable one, thanks to Corenswet’s chiseled charm and gift for screwball comedy, but hardly a rallying cry against reactionary ideology. Rather, this is Hollywood sticking to a proven formula for ticket sales. (See also: the breezy Rebirth, seventh remix in the Jurassic franchise, and the confident First Steps, umpteenth expansion of Marvel’s cinematic universe.)

Just as searching for a praiseworthy message is counter to the purposes of these films, there’s only so much critique of their artistic merit worth making. F1, which joined Superman in passing the $600 million global box office marker this summer, is a film interested in few things other than racecars, Brad Pitt and his necklaces, and technological innovations in cinematography. The message: This guy is still great! Fine. Like its predecessor Top Gun: Maverick, F1 prefers machinery to plot mechanics. The filmmakers used tiny IMAX-quality cameras mounted in the cockpit of a hunk of very expensive carbon fiber to put audiences as close to the action as possible. The rigorous training and safety protocols this kind of filmmaking demands of actors conveniently doubles as fodder for the marketing campaign. F1 is not so much a movie on its own as propaganda for very expensive cameras, the personal brands of its stars (and dozens of corporate sponsors), and the blockbuster system. This too is a tried-and-tested model.

However successful this approach may be, it’s not quite enough. Hollywood is crestfallen that the 2025 summer season won’t hit $4 billion after all; it’s a milestone that’s only been achieved once since 2020 (thanks to the Barbenheimer craze of 2023 for two blockbuster films directed by auteurs, it should be noted) but is nevertheless now the barometer of the industry’s post-pandemic health. “With only one film hitting $1 billion worldwide, it’s clear Hollywood still needs some tinkering in terms of how to reengage audiences on a global level,” Jeff Bock, a box office analyst with Exhibitor Relations, told Variety.

I came out of this summer’s blockbuster season feeling freshly pessimistic about this model. The commercial success of any one project spawns a dozen copycats that lack the circumstances that made the original film resonate, an effect that’s been compounded too many times already and will probably end only by collapsing on itself in a black hole of “tinkering.” Meanwhile, executives respond to middling or poor box office reception by steering future pictures away from risky creative choices and toward exceptional box office reception by churning out more of the same. The nine-figure profits from these films may be discussed as indicators of the industry’s health, but this prosperity rarely trickles down to more artful productions: In 2024, auteurs such as David Lynch and John Waters struggled to secure funding from major studios, to say nothing of filmmakers with fewer connections and lesser legendary status in the industry. When the industry’s hopes are hitched on the biggest, safest movie around and smarter projects with artistic merit face an increasingly narrow and precarious path to distribution, moviegoers looking for originality and excitement will be hard-pressed to find it in mainstream cinema.

The one Hollywood film to really deliver this summer, bringing in $1 billion at the global box office by mid-July, was Disney’s live-action remake of Lilo & Stitch, its 2002 animated feature in which a naughty alien falls to Earth and is adopted by a lonely young Hawai’ian girl who believes he’s a dog. The remake can’t be accused of being a culture war victory on either side, or of leaving much imprint on culture at all; The New York Times deemed it “mostly serviceable and often adorable.” It’s a better investment for Disney than F1 or Superman for the plushie sales alone.