In Apple’s excellent new show “The Studio,” Seth Rogen plays a fresh-faced Hollywood exec who comes to a startling and demoralizing conclusion.
“I love movies,” his character Matt says. “But now I have this fear that my job is to ruin them.”
Naive Matt dreams of creating artful and innovative films, which don’t make much money these days, while his corporate overlord demands he put all his focus on a schlocky “Barbie” knock-off about the Kool-Aid man.
He’s not unlike Warner Bros.’ real co-chairs Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy, who’ve churned out admirable flop after flop lately with prestigious collaborators: “Juror No. 2” (Clint Eastwood), “Mickey 17” (Bong Joon-ho) and “The Alto Knights” (Robert De Niro), among other prestige bombs.
Things are bad enough that last week their big boss, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, was reportedly interviewing replacements.
But this weekend the pair have finally notched a box-office hit — “A Minecraft Movie,” a piece of dismal video-game mush starring Jack Black. Their very own “Kool-Aid.”
Still, the duo isn’t in the clear yet. With the summer movie season kicking off next month, everybody is on thin, melting ice.
And not only at Warner Bros.
Over the next several months, the Disney-owned Marvel Studios will continue its sad quest to pretend we’re still in 2019 by releasing two more MCU flicks: “Thunderbolts” (May 2) and “The Fantastic Four — First Steps” (July 25).
For those keeping score at home, that’s No. 36 and 37. Franchise fatigue? More like franchise fatality.
Their last attempt, February’s “Captain America: Brave New World,” was a critical and box office disaster — and the Captain is one of their most popular tentpoles.
Who the heck are the Thunderbolts? A Google search reveals they are B-team antiheroes, including Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova. Uh oh. Sounds like “Eternals” to me.
“Fantastic Four,” meanwhile, has the distinct advantage of people actually knowing what it is. But name recognition won’t be enough to ensure success. The last two movies featuring these characters, produced by 20th Century Fox, were major failures.
Sweaty season will show whether Marvel has enough gas in the tank for more hits than just Spider-Man.
And whether or not audiences still want to watch Tom Cruise sweat for 2 1/2 hours.
Paramount enters the fray just before Memorial Day with “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning.” Slam dunk, you’d think. Cruise is box office gold, you say.
Well, this movie, the eighth in the 31-year-old series, is said to have cost $400 million to make, and millions more to market. I personally love these movies, and the impressive tactile stunts are a glorious break from the onslaught of CGI and AI most everywhere else.
But Cruise isn’t always “Top Gun.” The last “M:I” entry, “Dead Reckoning,” only grossed $571 million despite good reviews.
Turning that around could be Ethan Hunt’s most impossible mission yet.
The biggest test of them all, unfortunately for its embattled co-chairs, falls on Warner Bros.
On July 11 comes “Superman” from newish DC Studios co-head James Gunn, who’s been tasked with revitalizing the stagnant DC Studios.
DC’s got it even worse than Marvel. Under old management, they became an assembly line for cataclysmic disasters. After “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” and “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” fans are tip-toeing to the theater in terror.
Five minutes of “Superman,” which sees the little-known David Corenswet replace Henry Cavill, dropped on YouTube this week. Some responses were euphoric, others not so much.
Superman “doesn’t whine like a little b—h,” one eloquent commenter said.
Nope. But Warner Bros. will be if their movie isn’t a hit.
Very soon we’ll know whether Clark Kent will rescue the studio from its rut, or if he’ll be their Kryptonite.
