Continuing with my look back at 2022 in film I wanted to take some time to detail something I’ve had in my head for a while now given that movie going really came back this year.
And that is what I like to call The State of the Studios and here I want to examine how each of our big film studios did this year and my hope for 2023.
And look there is no beating around the bush as to who the winner is:
1. Paramount: The mountain of Hollywood had a simply fantastic year this year and after so many years where they were struggling to cut through and suffered through multiple box office failures the year they have had this year it is fantastic to see them have a roaring come back.
They started the year well with Scream and then came Jackass Forever, The Lost City, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Smile all of which also did very well at the box office and their ending the year with a major Best Picture nominee in Damien Chazelle’s Babylon.
And all of those are good but they are bolstered by the enormous success of Top Gun Maverick which buzzed just about every box office tower you could ask it to do and had a strangehold in a good way over almost everyone who saw it, the film was thrilling, emotional, had those core fanservice moments and continued the story of Maverick very well while also giving us a new group of pilots who were memorable in their own right.
The only real failure they had was Paws of Fury an animated film but that was one of those that I think even they knew wasn’t going to get lots of pats from audiences but given where Paramount has been the last few years they more than deserve top spot but given that the studio heads that helped to bring it back from the brink are now gone I have my doubts that this momentum can continue but I sincerely hope it does.
2. Columbia/Tristar: Now some will be surprised that they are 2nd place here not Universal or Disney or Warner Brothers but I have my reasons as to why and I know their called Sony by many others but I can’t call them that as Sony is the parent company that owns Columbia/Tristar and its those studios that make the movies.
First of those is that they didn’t have a bad year this year not at all they had Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, Bullet Train, Where the Crawdads Sing, The Woman King and Uncharted to name a few and all of which were solid hits at the box office and with audiences but while they didn’t have a big hit on their hands they held the line and treaded water.
But they are about to end the year with I Wanna Dance with Somebody the biopic about the late great Whitney Houston who like Freddie Mercury has a lot of love but whether this can do the kind of numbers Bohemian Rhapsody or even Elvis made that remains to be seen.
Their also ending the year with signing Legendary Pictures to their roster as well who were a big co-finance company with Warner Brothers for many years and that should be a big boost to them going forward into 2023 and beyond.
However they did have a major dud on their hands this year with Morbius and it wasn’t Morbin’ Time as the kids like to say but again its one of those where deep down even they knew it wasn’t going to do well nor build on the success of Spider-Man No Way Home which bled into the beginning of this year.
3. Universal: Ah Universal the other half of the old CIC Video group along with Paramount book ends the top 3 this year.
And that is mainly due to the financial success of Jurassic World Dominion and Minions the Rise of Gru both of which brought in nearly 2 billion dollars to the studio which may have been the house that Amblin built many years ago but they built it to last and Comcast as their parent company owner has been a smart owner to stay out of the way and let those in charge run the race.
And also like a good studio should they have leveraged the success of those 2 brands to finance other fun stuff like Violent Night, The Black Phone, Nope, Ticket to Paradise and Beast to name as some examples and which had been either okay or solid at the box office.
However it hasn’t all been ham and plaques for the globe with the most this year as they have also had some big failures such as Bros a gay romcom despite good reviews, Armageddon Time by James Gray, She Said about the exposing of Harvey Weinstein and Halloween Ends which did not end this new Halloween series very well at all.
But they will end the year with a potential Best Picture winner in Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans which could either win the top prize at next year’s Academy Awards or net Spielberg a third Best Director Oscar after Schindlers List and Saving Private Ryan.
4. Roadshow: Now initially the Big V was going to be third on this list but given the big brand success Universal had they had to go third and this bottom half of the list is not great for these studios.
And sadly the Big V was let down not just this year but also the last couple of years and as someone who loves this studio it is nigh on heartbreaking to say but aside from some solid films like Everything Everywhere All at Once and Fall they had a fair few failures this year with Moonfall, 3,000 Years of Longing, Seriously Red and Good Luck to You Leo Grande to name a few.
And also the studio I feel has never really recovered from the catastrophic decision of losing the distribution rights to the Warner Brothers films here in Australia at the end of 2020 and while Roadshow Entertainment kept the home video distribution rights the theatrical rights now with Universal were the studios main financial pipeline and losing that has stripped them of a lot of reach in cinemas and money to make and I have never forgiven WB for making this decision and I sincerely hope they reverse it.
As for 2023 well things are starting to look up with Force of Nature the follow up to the Dry and the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes the Hunger Games prequel about a young Coriolanus Snow but whether that film will be a hit I don’t know but at least they have those 2 films going for them.
5. Disney: How the mighty have fallen.
There was a time when Disney reined supreme, when they could do very little wrong, and audiences lapped up almost everything they put out even if they dismissed it a few days later.
But now they have really struggled to bounce back from COVID and the after effects of the pandemic which hit not just their movies but their theme parks and to have that double whammy hit is very bad.
But just this year none of their MCU films hit a billion dollars worldwide and Phase 4 on the whole has been very polarising for a lot of fans, Lightyear and Strange World were humiliating failures losing hundreds of millions of dollars while the once great studio of 20th Century Fox was essentially strip mined for parts in terms of their library for Disney Plus, their intellectual properties such as Avatar, Alien and Predator and then Fox Searchlight Pictures so they can get some awards recognition at Oscar time.
Not to mention the near complete utter mess at Lucasfilm where there is no real word of a new Star Wars movie anytime soon and persistent stories about the fate of its head Kathleen Kennedy a woman who has given many years of loyal service to this industry and if she is to go deserves the dignity of going on her own terms not being fired or dismissed to satisfy the bloodlust of some grumpy fans.
But their ending the year with the Banshees of Inisherin which looks to be a big awards contender and Avatar the Way of Water the long awaited sequel to the big smash of Avatar in 2009 and if there is as sure a bet that you can ask for it is James Cameron.
Plus Bob Iger the head of Disney studios from 2005 to 2020 is now back at the top after the stunning surprise removal of Bob Chapek who led Disney during the COVID years but I have my doubts about Iger’s ability to turn the ship around given that so many of these problems started on Iger’s watch but if he can choose a proper successor this time then perhaps he can but we will see.
And that leaves not so lucky last the bottom of the pile:
6. Warner Brothers: Oh dear oh dear.
Where do I even begin with this once magnificent studio well I’ll start on the bright side (or should that be dark side) with the Batman in march which was their first proper theatrical release since the day and date HBO Max release strategy of 2021 of that entire slate going to theatres and HBO Max the streaming service simultaneously and despite a dark tone and 3 hour runtime it was a hit for them and well received.
As was Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis Presley biopic with Austin Butler and Tom Hanks which has been the one biopic that came anywhere close to the huge numbers Bohemian Rhapsody made in 2018 and Don’t Worry Darling despite its off screen gossip did eventually became an okay hit same with DC League of Superpets.
But WB aside from those films has had a bad year and firstly Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore was a miserable failure for them back in April and that came about just as the studio changed hands to Discovery and became Warner Brothers Discovery led by David Zaslav.
And the Axe of Zaslav came out soon after and its effects were brutal from many projects and deals being shut down to an entire Batgirl movie being cancelled for a tax writeoff just as it was nearly finished for release and a lot of animated projects and TV shows being axed and/or being taken off HBO Max as that service is due to be shutdown and relaunched under a new banner.
Then there is the underperformance of Black Adam which had Dwayne Johnson who is a steady and reliable money maker at the box office in a role he was waited a long time to play has been a bad failure for him and is most likely the final straw for this new studio leadership to try and salvage the DC brand from its current mess none of which was their fault but the fault of previous incompetent leadership that was impatient and rushed the development along to compete with Marvel only to be caught with their pants down and a pee stain on their jox.
And WB is also reeling very badly from that day and date HBO Max strategy in 2021 which saw the previous leadership essentially burn a lot of bridges with not just talent but also financing partners like Legendary and Village Roadshow who along with directors like Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve made their displeasure known with this strategy and Nolan is now at Universal and giving them Oppenheimer next year, Legendary is now at Columbia/Tristar and Village Roadshow who had been a production partner since the late 90s and had distributed WB films in Australia since the early 70s was hung out to dry especially after Matrix Resurrections was pushed up into 2021 to be part of that strategy.
Now whether Zaslav and his new heads of DC in James Gunn and Peter Safran can restore the studio to prominence I don’t know but WB has Magic Mike 3, Barbie, Blue Beetle, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom and Shazam: Fury of the Gods next year which should seem them through okay they also have the Flash but even they know deep down that that film cannot be salvaged but they have to put it out due to its big financial cost.
But both Disney and Warner Brothers will have to work very hard to restore themselves back to prominence as those 2 studios more than the others have struggled to bounce back from the effects of the pandemic and the pivot into streaming especially when they had a number of movie pundits essentially saying movie theatres are dead, let them die, kill them if you have to and streaming is now the future.
Well that has not turned out to be the case as movie theatres have bounced back strongly this year and streaming is now on the back foot with HBO Max being dismantled, Disney Plus losing $1.5 billion dollars and Netflix not only in huge debt without a parent studio to help shoulder the load but also badly mishandling the release of Glass Onion the long awaited Knives Out sequel which went to theatres for one week and then pulled it from them when they were begging Netflix to let them keep it and that kicking of the theatres when they were down is not something they will forget in a hurry.
And so that was Part 2 of my look back at 2022 in film and this was a lot of fun to write as it was something I was thinking about a lot as the year began to wind down and movie going bounced back despite some potholes along the way and with 2023 looking to be a big year I am optimistic that the momentum 2022 started with cinema going will continue and build from here.
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