Not long ago, the images in which Steven Spielberg, at the Oscar nominees’ luncheon, hugged Tom Cruise and congratulated him for having saved the cinema with the spectacular success of ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ (2022), one of the highest-grossing films in history. She told him, “You’ve saved Hollywood’s ass!” Cruise’s film could be seen as the starting point of the blockbuster renaissance. The success of the belated sequel to ‘Top Gun. Ídolos del aire’ (1989) could have remained an isolated phenomenon, but luckily it has not been like that.
Since the premiere of ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ in May of last year (it has raised more than 1,493 million dollars worldwide), there have been several entertainment films, many of them (not all) with generous budgets, that have become true blockbusters. Some were more or less expected successes, such as ‘Avatar: The Sense of Water’ (2022). But others were not so.
Leaving aside the great and unexpected horror hits of last year and so far this year (such as ‘Smile’ or ‘Barbarian’), to which numerous articles have already been dedicated, and focusing on less specific cinema with With the desire to reach the largest number of viewers, they have also been great box office successes in the United States (and, those released internationally, in the rest of the world) ‘M3GAN’ (2022), ‘Creed III’ (2023), ‘Scream VI ‘ (2023) and ‘Vicious Bear’ (2023). The latest (opening here March 31) is an action black comedy about a bear who goes berserk after eating a shipment of cocaine.
“Well Done” Movies
Why does this happen? Have you ever wanted to go to the movies again? Perhaps the key is that the desire to return to the cine to see movies that, somehow, have the ‘mood’ of the blockbusters of another time. It is not so much a matter of nostalgia, which only works in some of the cases cited, as of being grateful for once again having the option of going to a movie theater watch “well done” entertainment movies (this is not nonsense, it is key), with packaging and with adventure and/or emotion in the foreground.
The reasons can be many and none in particular. One could be a certain exhaustion of the viewers before certain universes and franchises of heroes and superheroes: the box office of ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ (2023) has been a failure for Marvel (in relation to the numbers they handle) . Or, more evident, the evident exhaustion of some franchises and universes in themselves.
On the one hand, the public has the need to discover new stories, hence the success of ‘M3GAN’, ‘Vicious Bear’ or ‘Knock on the door’ (2023). Also less lazy approaches to those he already knows (‘Top Gun: Maverick’, ‘Creed III’ or ‘Scream VI’). On the other hand, you want to see well-made and finished films that do not seem to have been resolved on autopilot or are directly unfinished., that look different from the television series of the same universes, in which the bewilderment of the actors is not perceived when they find themselves lost in an infinite chroma and that, in some way, ask to be enjoyed on the big screen. The blockbusters mentioned in this article meet those minimums that, today, are no longer so minimal. Most, moreover, are magnificently executed.
The room as a playful space
Even so, neither should we detract from another possible reason for the success of these films. It is about the desire of the spectators to recover the rooms as a playful, entertainment space. In reality, the latter is not so different from the current fever to attend massive concerts (at any price), to recover the collective and celebratory experience that the pandemic and confinement denied us.
In the case of cinema, since the offer on platforms is so abundant and rich, it is likely that many viewers leave the smaller proposals at home and choose to see those that have this colossal, festive and celebratory nature in theaters. Hence the success of the titles mentioned, or of which other films will surely have in the line (entertainment with packaging, that goes head-on, intended for a varied audience), including ‘John Wick’ (2023), ‘Dungeons and Dragons ‘ (2023) and ‘Super Mario Bros.: The Movie’ (2023), the last two with the added attraction of being aimed above all at children and young people. These movies will arrive in the next few weeks.
Later it will be his turn, in what is predicted a year full of blockbusters, to titles such as (among others) ‘Infernal Possession: The Awakening’ (April); ‘The Little Mermaid’, ‘Fast X’ and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ (May); ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’ and ‘Transformers: Rise of the Beasts’ (June); ‘Oppenheimer’ and ‘Mission Impossible: Deadly Judgment, Part 1’ (July); ‘Dune: Part 2’ (November) and even ‘Barbie’ (this summer).