With a new year comes the tradition of setting new goals and plans for yourself, but we can’t do that without reflecting on the past year, 2023. When the pandemic began in 2020, one of the markets that was affected the most was public events and places, including cinemas.
Even after the country began to slowly recover from the pandemic, movie theaters continued to struggle. While certain movies brought people back to the cinemas, like the release of Spider-Man: No Way Home in 2021 and Top Gun: Maverick in 2022, it was in 2023 that we really saw movies begin to return to their former glory.
The craze for “Barbenheimer” had people returning to movie theaters around the world, for the first time in three years. For those unfamiliar, “Barbenheimer” is the internet trend of seeing both Barbie and Oppenheimer, together in theaters, as both were released on the same day. This cinematic experience alone generated over 2 billion dollars combined worldwide— an incredible feat for theaters post-pandemic.
But this past year we also experienced the WGA Writer’s Strike that lasted from the beginning of May to the end of September. The strike began when writers demanded increased pay, more writers on a project, and banning AI (like ChatGPT) from the writing process. This ongoing strike has caused hundreds of productions to shut down or be postponed.
Despite the writer’s strike causing a halt to many movies and TV shows, various independent films have been granted an exemption. The production company, “A24”, who specialize in creating independent, mid-budget, films, was allowed to continue making two of their upcoming films, “Mother Mary” and “Death of a Unicorn,” because they agreed to the agreements of the strike, unlike other major production companies.
The writer’s strike went on for over three months, and during the peak of movie-going with the release of “Barbenheimer” in July, production companies were anxious to get writers back to work. Yet, despite “Barbenheimer” being an outlier, big-budget movies haven’t been performing well.
In 2023 specifically, major movies like “The Flash,” “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” all with over 100+ million dollar budgets, failed to make a profit. At first glance, it may seem like “Indiana Jones” made money with its $384 million at the box office, but in order for films to make a profit they have to go over their budget.
“The typical break-even point is around 2.5x the budget of the movie. Breaking it down a bit even further in the case of [Indiana Jones], the Lucasfilm release has to make $400 million to break even, but movie theaters often take half the money from movies which is why the film needs about $800 million to hit that threshold,” writes Gaius Bolling, a student at Los Angeles Film School, with a focus on screenwriting and editing, on Movieweb.
Despite production companies continuing to use millions of dollars to make these big-budget movies, many people have found themselves taking more of an interest in mid-budget movies and “indie” films. This trend is interesting considering that mid-budget films are reported to be on the decline.
“With many recent film releases being either high-budget blockbusters or low-budget indie films, studios are moving away from theatrical releases of mid-budget movies,” writes Justin Longo in “Mid-budget films are on the decline”. Longo is the Co-News Editor for the Inkblot and has a passion for writing about movie news and critiques.
“Instead of theatrical releases, many studios are opting to release their cheaper films directly to streaming services. Searchlight Pictures, a producer and distributor of mid and low-budget art films owned by the Walt Disney Company, released half of its 2022 film slate solely on streaming platforms,” he continues.
Recently, the movie Saltburn, a 2023 mid-budget film, has been extremely popular on social media platforms, especially TikTok. The film is a black comedy, psychological thriller, that follows Barry Keogan, as Oliver Quick, as he spends a summer at his college classmate’s, played by Jacob Elordi, family estate.
From the soundtrack to the plotline, the movie has become a trend on social media. Saltburn’s plot is perverse, unexpected, and nauseating, while the atmosphere is lush, attractive, and, honestly, captures the dark academia aesthetic I strive to have.
While the film itself has been met with mixed reviews, this perfect mixture of the storyline and setting has created viral textpost memes (like this one of Venetia spilling her wine), reactions to specific scenes (e.g. the bathtub or graveyard scene), or the trend of dancing in the final sequence.
Yet in the past year, Saltburn hasn’t been the first mid-budget movie to achieve this type of fame. There have been multiple other films like The Menu, Poor Things, and The Iron Claw that have also become popular online, because of their unique stories and big-name casts, like having Jacob Eldori in Saltburn, who gained notoriety from Euphoria, The Kissing Booth, and Priscilla, despite being theatrically released, mid-budget films.
While Saltburn gained popularity because of its… unique storyline, it ultimately shows that younger people have grown to enjoy smaller-scale films. This interest in movies has allowed production companies like, “A24,” to gain popularity in the last decade, especially after the release of major movies like Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, Midsommar, and Moonlight, which have numerous awards attached to the projects.
So, as we look ahead to 2024, the movie scene will be one to watch. More people find themselves leaning away from major blockbuster franchises, like Marvel, in favor of more grounded films that tell fresh narratives and untold stories. With movies coming off the hype of “Barbenheimer” it’d be interesting to note if there’s a permanent shift from watching movies on streaming platforms to theaters.