Steven Spielberg’s Hollywood ‘Implosion’ Prediction Feels Closer Than Ever

And if you take a look at the 2023 franchise movies that have really been delivering beyond this current summer, most of them were also from relatively recent brands. The first John Wick movie came out less than a decade ago and looked nothing like anything else at the multiplex; Creed III might be an offshoot of the Rocky franchise, but to a generation of younger moviegoers, this is the series where Michael B. Jordan punches people with his shirt off; and The Super Mario Bros. Movie is based on a video game popular with kids who’ve never seen anything like that on the big screen. Most of the other big successes with Gen-Z have been horror movies, both part of franchises like Insidious and Scream, and new standalones, such as M3GAN and Cocaine Bear.

Additionally, beyond the biggest shocks of the summer, other older franchises are continuing to struggle. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts was supposed to be a return to glory for the Autobots series, and to date it has failed to gross $450 million. By comparison the Transformers movie that ended Michael Bay’s previously billion-dollar-an-entry-grossing run with the IP, Transformers: The Last Knight, still was able to collect $605 million in 2017. Meanwhile Fast & Furious continues to make money, but Fast X tapped out at $704 million when just two installments earlier, the franchise was grossing $1.2 billion for The Fate of the Furious (also 2017). This, unlike the marketing, is what really suggests the end of the road really is nigh.

For the last 20-plus years, studios have bet on IP-familiarity and repetition to fuel their quarterly reports. Yet in the process, they’ve generally failed to create new franchises or pursue risks with new filmmakers who could reshape the industry. Even Spielberg produced the $295 million-budgeted Dial of Destiny (which like Dead Reckoning saw its already pricy costs balloon due to COVID shutdowns and safety procedures). Some might suggest audiences are just accustomed now to stay home after the pandemic, however the massive success of films like Avatar: The Way of Water, Top Gun: Maverick, and The Super Mario Bros. Movie suggest otherwise.

Hence why studio CEOs are beginning to obliquely acknowledge the rules of the game are changing. Last week, the once and future Disney CEO Bob Iger suggested Marvel’s current troubles outside of Guardians is because of corporate insistence that they produce Disney+ TV shows in addition to an increased output of films. “Frankly, it diluted focus and attention.” He’s not wrong. Although he failed to mention the same is true for Star Wars after he publicly announced Disney would release “one Star Wars movie a year” forever beginning in 2015, and while also pushing Lucasfilm to begin producing Star Wars-related content for Disney+, beginning in 2019 and ahead of his first retirement.

It would seem the old formula is no longer working, and there is a noticeable lack of innovation or attempts to create new characters that younger audiences might love as well as an aging one does Indy and Ethan Hunt. At the very least, spending $300 million on these type of movies and anticipating a billion-dollar gross is no longer a sustainable model.

Spielberg’s implosion is not quite here, but this summer is alerting the industry to some very loud cracks in the hull. So it may be to the industry’s peril if they keep plumbing the depths of their IP libraries and assume everything is going to be fine.