Movie studios don’t like risk. Inherent in the film industry’s obsession with IP is a need to find the sure things, the properties that already have a built-in fan base in hopes that it will guarantee a gargantuan opening weekend. But the lackluster box office showings of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, The Flash, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Fast X, Shazam: Fury of the Gods, and The Little Mermaid have shown us that there are no sure things.
That new reality can make it seem a little strange when new projects are announced from directors tackling familiar IP. Barry Jenkins has long been attached to a live-action Lion King prequel about Mufasa, but in a world where even The Little Mermaid is struggling to make its money back, what hope is there for a live action Disney film without the same basis in nostalgia? For a long time, the studios could turn second-string characters like Aquaman and third-string characters like the Guardians of the Galaxy into marquee names, but this summer seems like the end of that era.
So, when it was revealed this week in a New Yorker article that Greta Gerwig has a deal with Netflix to make at least two Narnia films, this summer’s box office makes the proposition a little puzzling. Sure, Netflix has different standards than traditional studios, but in such an IP-saturated market, can anyone still think this is a surefire route to success?
Gerwig has expressed the desire to work at a bigger budget level and if anyone has earned the right to make the leap, it’s her. Her solo directorial debut, Lady Bird, was a commercial and critical success for A24, and earned a best picture nomination at the Oscars. Ditto her follow-up, Little Women, which had an increased budget and blockbuster box office results. Barbie, her most expensive film yet at $100 million, is tracking for a huge opening weekend and will likely end up as one of the biggest hits of the summer. She has climbed the ladder and, so far, found a hit at each rung.
But, it’s a bummer that the actor who gave us Greenberg and Frances Ha, and the writer-director who gave us Lady Bird, may just be done with grounded dramedies. Gerwig emerged from the mumblecore scene in the late ‘00s, and her first feature, Nights and Weekends, which she co-directed with Joe Swanberg, was a scrappy microbudget indie that only cost $15,000. Her roots have been in small, human work, but it’s understandable to want to paint on a bigger canvas and do more financially stable work. It’s just a shame that Hollywood has so given up on mid-budget movies and big-budget original movies that the only way to get that stability is to work on franchise reboots.
Though directors’ fans tend to comfort themselves when a filmmaker signs onto a massive property by saying that they’ll do “one for them” then use the clout and/or paycheck to do “one for me,” that exchange rarely happens. David Lowery is one of the few filmmakers to do it, following up his gorgeous A24 adaptation of The Green Knight with for-hire work for Disney on Peter Pan & Wendy, before announcing that his next film will be a music drama, Mother Mary, at A24. Lowery has pulled this off, but few directors do. And unless you’re given Jordan Peele-like freedom to pursue your original ideas — and a very small handful of directors are — the main route to getting to make big Hollywood movies is to find IP you can get excited about working on.
It’s a bummer of a system, but the collapse of many of this summer’s would-be blockbusters may indicate that a change is coming. I just hope it happens soon, so our best filmmakers can get back to making great original art.