“Tinseltown is in the rain for men and women / Here we are, caught up in this vague rhythm…” — The Blue Nile
“Everyone I know in show business is saying, ‘What's going on? How do you do this? What are we supposed to do now?’ They don't have any idea that the movie business is over. They have no idea.” — Jerry Seinfeld
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The tepid $15 million opening for Zendaya’s hard-marketed allegedly sexy romantic triangle set in the tennis world, Challengers, showed yet again who is a movie star and who isn’t. Actually, it only showed who isn’t: Zendaya isn’t. Then again, maybe nobody is.
Not to specifically pick on the poor probable Hollywood/Disney victim, who followed an all-too-familiar and sinister career trajectory that societally degenerated from playing squeaky clean Rat Kingdom tween starlet types to highly sexualized and often traumatized twenty-something icons of an inverted lifestyle landscape (and hold that thought!).
For years, Hollywood’s been trying to sell the very young and girlish looking 27 year old mixed-race actress as The Next Big Thing. Unfortunately for these would-be concocters of culture who want to normalize all kinds of things that shouldn’t be normalized, Challengers shows that without the big budget trappings of franchise — Dune, Spider-Man — she’s a fringe attraction.
What is a Movie Star, anyway? The best industry definition of a Movie Star has always been a “name” that can “open” a movie, i.e., provide a boost for butts in seats that drives a robust debut weekend. A Movie Star is a magnetic brand for pop culture cinema, a top attraction to get people’s attention. “Let’s go see the new Clint Eastwood movie” people said in 1985, instead of “Let’s go see the new Marvel movie” in 2015.
Zendaya did not do that with any level of effectiveness. While a 55% majority of Challengers’ opening weekend’s paying customers said they bought the ticket specifically for the actress, that unfortunately turns out to be 55% of a not-that-big audience. It’s an audience not large enough to make the movie financially successful, and one, I suspect, that is not going to gain much traction once word gets out that Challengers is — at least from what the people who’ve seen it have told me — another audience-repelling bait’n’switch gay-coded no-mance, where the so-called heroine is an insufferable bitch and the two dudes who are ostensibly competing for her love have far more chemistry with each other than the gal. The much-gossiped-about threesome turns out to mostly be an excuse to get the two young guys to make out with each other before the girl bounces out of the picture.
Despite the Hollywood trades insisting Zendaya is going to be the roaring 2020’s version of Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock or Jennifer Lawrence, she is not…though, once again, to be fair, neither are they nowadays. Nobody is.
Is Hollywood Zombieland, a dead land walking? The controlled corrupt collectivist corporate criminal clown media is lamenting that nobody’s going to the movies, and that theaters are in deep trouble, but it’d be truer to say that nobody’s going to the movies to see Movie Stars — they’ll still pony up for overpriced tix when the product is right: Just in the past two months, sci-fi epic Dune 2 made $280 million domestic/$705 global. Wonka closed out at $218/$630 million. Kung Fu Panda 4 made $185/$503 million. Godzilla x Kong made $181/$519 million. So far.
The box office for a few motion pictures strongly suggests there is still a healthy paying audience for movies, just not the ones driven by Movie Stars. All the recent successful films have been established narrative brands, sequels, proven popular characters and primarily kids’ movies, plus that one sci-fi epic. There’s not been anybody with a name above a title in a long time who’s proven they can make a movie pop at opening. Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones and Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible pair of presumed star turns both underperformed significantly last summer, making even those legends’ luminosity flicker. When Cruise couldn’t prop up the decently entertaining if overlong M:I 7, it really did start to seem like maybe This Is The End.
The old pros are wavering and the new blood is thin. The past couple months have shown us that not only is Zendaya no movie star, Henry Cavill’s not a Movie Star either. Alan Ritchson is not a Movie Star. Mark Wahlberg is not a Movie Star. Dev Patel is not a Movie Star. Melissa Barrera is not a Movie Star (yet). Even the much discussed object of ddouble ddecker fulsome red-blooded lust Sydney Sweeney is not a Movie Star (yet).
Zendaya’s Challengers will likely peak at $75 million, tops, globally; it cost $55 million to produce and I bet publicity doubled the total budget. Cavill and Ritchson’s new WW2 flick The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare whiffed big, maybe because half the country decided Ritchson’s an intolerant hypocritical asshole. Patel’s transgender-focused John Wick-y Monkey Man flopped even bigger than I thought it would. Wahlberg’s family film about a lovable mutt Arthur the King has barely made more money than his art house Catholic priest biopic Father Stu. Barrera, who I really like, and Sweeney, who is tough not to like, both had horror flicks that underperformed during a time when most horror films have been over-performing: Abigail and Immaculate.
The only caveat among the new crew is Timothéeeeeeee Chamoleeeeeeeet, star of two big Big BIG blockbuster hits, Wonka and Dune 2. I have long been dubious of TeeCee, and I still question whether he can “open” a movie that’s not an established I.P. he’s been lucky enough to lead — like that cannibal romance, for example, from the director-who-shall-not-be-named — but he is a rare contemporary screen presence who possesses the indescribable “IT” that makes somebody a Movie Star. TeeCee’s repeatedly proven me wrong, so I’m going to stop betting against him, especially when his next movie may be the first one I’m genuinely excited to see, playing Bob Dylan in a 1960s musical biopic set during the controversial period when Bobby Zimmerman shifted from acoustic to electric, and rooted in a plot concept I’m fairly sure a hovering James Mangold swiped from me in Oklahoma (no hard feelings!), which’ll make for another one of those odd stories someday, if I ever get around to telling it.
But back to Zendaya, who I’ve got nothing against personally, but as a sex symbol she does nothing for me and as a cultural force I can’t stand her, sorry. Zendaya looks like a little girl, a sexualized little girl, the little-girl-est of all the Disney (and Nickelodeon’s) sexualized little girls, from Britney Spears to Miley Cyrus to Selena Gomez to Bella Thorne to Demi Lovato to Vanessa Hudgens, all of whom, over and over without fail, were transformed from wholesome can-do optimistic all-American teen heroines to either playing or becoming drug addicted sex-obsessed tattoo-covered sullen broken weirdos afflicted by completely unnecessary cosmetic surgery habits and repeated rehab stints, with Zendaya specifically starring in back-to-back Disney series in 2011-2018 before making the career-altering 2019 leap into the nasty depressing f’d up HBO show about high school drug and sex addiction Euphoria, which won her a pair of Emmys that should’ve gone to Laura Linney or Sandra Oh instead, but is more than anything else irresponsible television “programming” as degenerate demoralization machine, aimed like heartbreak warfare at the soul of American youth.
Plus (+?), Zendaya-as-symbol was used by Disney to position her early and unassailably at the forefront of Marvel’s tiresome and unprofitable race-swapping strategy to undermine iconic comic book characters, casting her as Mary Jane Watson in the most recent trilogy of Spider-Man films. Which reminds me of another cultural force thing I don’t like about her: The eye-rolling obviously fake showmance with her Spider-twink co-star, who has never seemed more comfortable and natural on stage then when he was cross-dressing and dancing like Rihanna. Just sayin’.
Anyway, week after week, there’s more and more evidence that the Death of Hollywood and the End of the Movie Star is indeed a critical facet of the American Age of Apocalypse Zeitgeist, a sad but necessary scalp in the Culture War that’s Civil War II but actually WW3 yet above all else a Spiritual War. All red light economic signifiers are flashing bright crimson that things are only going to get worse for most residents of The Town, even as it’s the industry itself that keeps bringing the sharpest and longest nails for the coffin.
The movies in the upcoming 12 months’ multiplex, and roster of TV/streaming programs holding in the pipeline and ready to drop, were all green-lighted during the height of Hollywood’s delusional and self-destructive D.E.I. obsession. There are still many unprofessional not-so-creative decisions being made out of spite, self-righteous prioritizing of the wrong things, and sell-your-soul deals with the devil that cannot be escaped without severe career, and perhaps life, repercussions.
Even this upcoming weekend, the box office predictions for the much-hyped, much-pushed action comedy with romance The Fall Guy, starring two of the hottest names in Hollywood, Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt — is there a hotter male actor than Ryan Gosling, especially now that Alan Ritchson imploded?— is predicted to open with $35-40 million, which sounds shockingly low to me for the first big Spring/Summer movie with two popular stars.
I’ll pay to see Fall Guy, the trailers look good, but the rest of May has three more big releases up through Memorial Day weekend that hold anywhere from barely perceptible to zero to less than zero interest for me: A third theatrical animated Garfield (the cat, not Bob) comedy, a “put a chick in it” Mad Max movie without Mad Max but instead that alien-looking gal with the eyes too far apart, and yet another CGI-heavy Planet of the Apes movie in a dystopian franchise that stopped being interesting after Tim Burton took a whack at it and whiffed.
The two movies that look most interesting this summer aren’t even going to be in theaters, they’re both heading directly to Netflix: Jerry Seinfeld’s Unfrosted, an absurdist retelling of the Pop Tarts war between breakfast cereal rivals Kellogg’s and Post, which had a very likable and goofy trailer; and Richard Linklater’s comic thriller Hit Man, featuring Glenn Powell, who’s got a shot at becoming a Movie Star if he plays his cards right and stops appearing in commercial motion pictures that should be in theaters but instead sign contracts ahead of time for lucrative direct-to-streaming deals.
Otherwise, look at this schedule for summer’s movies. Do you see a blockbuster here? Is there a Barbie or Oppenheimer? The only feature with billion dollar potential I see on this list is the creatively dreary Despicable Me 4, a family film franchise that has done exceptionally well in both its primary permutation and multiple Minions spinouts. Families will flock, I’m sure, yet I remain dismayed by how much so-called children’s entertainment focuses on a previously hissible villain as misunderstood protagonist — Cruella, Maleficent, Megamind, Joker, Venom, Scarlet Witch, the upcoming Agatha-the-witch streaming series on skidmark Disney+ — and how kids’ choices are always so damn dark nowadays, populated with misshapen freakshow characters.
But here’s the thing, and you already know it: Hollywood and corporate media may be the darkest they’ve ever been, but fewer people than ever are suffering through it. The big irony out of all this is how the much-hallowed “Modern audience” Hollywood constantly chases has rejected this claptrap crap in numbers never-before experienced.
What remains to be seen is if the entertainment biz wizards are so delusionally narcissistic that they refuse to face facts — like the disappearing results of that poll of streaming viewers — and are too stubborn to pull out of the death spiral that’s been accelerating downward in speed since President Orange’s wild card (s)election broke the brains of corporate media and entertainment.
Until very recently, I thought they could and would. Now, the more I hear about the underlying cancerous rot that has infected the industry, and despite a few positive signs, I don’t think they can and I don’t think they will. Things are too far gone to adjust in time. The rot is too deep.
The slate of movies coming our way ‘til September mostly looks tired and terrible. Is there anybody still interested in another cucked Will Smith Bad Boys movie? A Pixar sequel to Inside Out? Yet another Alien snuff flick? Another Quiet Place movie? Another Twister movie? Another Deadpool movie? Another one of Disney’s Daisy Ridley-is-a-strong-Independent-Woman movies, this one set in the 1920s, about the first woman to swim across the English Channel despite every single man in her life telling her she’s not good enough? And more movies inexplicably in two parts, Kevin Costner’s big budget Western Horizon and John Chu’s two part race-baiting musical adaptation of Broadway’s smash Wicked?
My educated guess is this is going to be one of the worst summer movie seasons ever, maybe nothing crosses a billion bucks globally, but I’ll be a teeny bit upbeat and say the fourth Despicable Me dump does it. Otherwise, I’ve gradually come around to this being The End Of The World As We Know It for Hollywood: The half-people who populate the industry have simply become too stupid and hateful and petty for it to survive — a sad but astute observation that you might be able to extrapolate about our fallen and conquered nation as a whole, in fact. We’ve got an alarming number of people who think men can menstruate, remember.
I expect movie theaters are going to start closing by end of summer, end of year at the latest. The talent pool has grown too shallow, so thin as to be bulimic; the predictable product is almost always lousy; the undeserved arrogant attitude of people who often did unspeakable and self-debasing things to get ahead, too off-putting.
The times they are a-changing, and there may yet be the much-predicted (and not only by me) Black Swan event that summertime sweeps Hollywood’s release schedule off the table entirely, like a mischievous catspaw across a black’n’white checkerboard chess set. I’m talking a harsh hammer blow far harder and more conclusive than anything the entertainment industry pundits have been concerning themselves with, as they nervously rearrange their deck chairs for a better view backwards at the iceberg they’ve already hit. Glub blug glub.
Hollywood has invested a lot of time into trying to force men to like beauty standards that only women and gay men find attractive - because those are the demographics that think Zendaya is targeted to. Andie Macdowell was another great example. Like my friend noticed, she is what a woman would think a man would think is beautiful. Men think she is pretty but not drop-dead. Same with Zendaya.
“Time to stop letting Hollywood set the conversation”…Amen