This Week in Gossip #45

Yet more Superhero fatigue chat, James Franco’s attempted comeback, and Anna Kendrick nails her press tour.

As Venom 3 Underperforms, Are Audiences Losing Their Hunger for Superhero Movies?

Nobody expected Venom to do well. Sony’s attempt at making a Spider-verse of villain movies without Spider-Man seemed doomed upon arrival. But Tom Hardy’s gonzo performance and this tale of a sweaty man and his emotional support parasite boyfriend surprisingly paid off. That movie made $856.1 million from a reported $100 million budget. The follow-up, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, "only" made $506.9 million but that was still big deal money. Another sequel was inevitable, but audiences don't seem to have been especially excited for Venom: The Last Dance. The conclusion to the trilogy has a budget of about $120 million (not much higher than its predecessors) but North American ticket sales have slowed down dramatically, and the second week drop was harsh.

It probably didn’t help that the film received the worst reviews of the three, but the first one wasn’t glowingly received upon opening and still broke the bank. It's not been a brilliant year for superhero films in general. Yes, Deadpool & Wolverine made over a billion dollars but that's an exception largely driven by two massive IPs and Ryan Reynolds being Hollywood's Sham Wow guy-esque ad man. Madame Web is already a meme. Joker: Folie a Deux was a box office disaster. Nobody saw the latest Hellboy movie, a transparently desperate attempt by a studio to retain the rights to the property with a rush job. Sony is hoping that audiences will rush to see Kraven the Hunter at Christmas time but come on, that's not happening, no matter how well-defined Aaron Taylor-Johnson's abs are.

I feel like a speculate every few months or so about whether or not audiences are finally sinking into superhero fatigue. There will always be exceptions to the rule but I do feel like we’re seeing a wider sense of exhaustion over the endless franchises and increasingly knotty timelines that nobody has the time, energy, or money to keep up with. When even the previously indomitable Marvel Cinematic Universe is struggling to remain on the rails, you know something’s up.

Of course, there are extenuating circumstances at play. There was a whole pandemic-related lockdown you might have forgotten about, and the hot strike summer of 2023 drastically changed the landscape of Hollywood. But we also saw the major studios recalibrate their years’ long franchise plans. Disney decided to scale back after seeing that releasing three nine-figure blockbusters a year was becoming too risky (they’ve also slowed down with the TV releases.) Several of the most prominent superhero tent-pole films of 2023 under-performed - Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, Blue Beetle, The Flash, and The Marvels (some were impacted by the strikes.)

So, what’s going on? After a while, a lot of these movies started to feel like homework. So many new characters to remember, all those plotlines intertwining, and then the multiverses?! Come on! There are so many superhero films on the market and a lot of them feel like wannabes to Marvel’s crown but with no reason to exist beyond brand expansion. Madame Web was a contractual obligation that almost veered into high camp. If you liked Morbius in the comments, wouldn’t you want to see a movie with him that’s actually horror-inspired and features Spider-Man? The Morbius we got has neither of those things. At least Folie a Deux was weird in its choices and deliberately off-putting. It would have been something had it not cost over $200 million. Also, these films are too expensive. Most of these tentpole films are. Why the hell was the fifth Indiana Jones film $300m?! Where did the money go?! Because it certainly wasn’t on the screen. So many of these movies look cheap. That’s what happens when you overwork and underpay your VFX teams.

There’s also a far more mundane answer to this issue: we’re all f*cking broke! Most people don’t go to the cinema more than four or five times a year. They don’t have the funds to keep up with this stuff and they’re less inclined to do it if the films are poorly reviewed or feel culturally inessential. Deadpool & Wolverine felt like a huge deal because of Jackman’s return to the role that made him famous. Where was the urgency for Venom 3? Or Blue Beetle? And it was a shame when it came to the latter because a cute, fun-first and low-stakes adventure movie should have been more than franchise filler. A lot of these movies are dependent on international grosses, particularly from the Chinese market, but that’s not a safe guarantee, especially as the government there clamps down on non-local releases (and takes a huge chunk of the grosses.) Venom 3 did really well in China, at least.

The thing is that this trend will continue until Hollywood is 100% sure it has something to fill the hole with. Marvel is banking hard on Robert Downey Jr. as Dr. Doom for more Avengers films, but given how much money they’re paying him to return to this series, that movie will have to earn obscene amounts just to break even. They’re back to three films a year in 2025, with Anthony Mackie taking up Captain America’s mantle and that long-awaited Fantastic Four movie on the horizon. They’re also bringing the live-action remakes of their animated movies back with a vengeance next year because IP rules all. It’s tough to be against established properties, geek fervour, and nostalgia. That’s why I think the next Jurassic Park movie with Scarlett Johansson is going to be huge (also, dinosaurs. We love dinosaurs and don’t get them enough.)

But few things feel like safe bets now, especially compared to only a few years ago. I think the days of half the year-of top 10 highest earners being $1 billion+ hits is done for now, at least until the industry gets back on surer feet post-strikes and lockdown. Frankly, I think it’ll get worst before it gets better, particularly as all these boardroom chumps try to get AI to solve all their problems.

Of Course James Franco is Attempting a Comeback

James Franco is back, apparently. Variety gave him the sad man profile treatment as he attends the Rome Film Festival for the premiere of a movie he made with Italian director Claudio Giovannesi. As they noted, this is the first Franco film on the festival circuit in about five years. Franco faced multiple accusations of sexual harassment and exploitation, largely based at an acting class he taught. A 2019 lawsuit against Franco was settled out of court. Franco later admitted to having sex with several of his students and abusing his position of power against young, vulnerable women.  The only thing that surprises me about this is that it took Franco this long to try and mount a mainstream comeback.

The Variety piece is pretty standard softball stuff, with focus on how Franco had such a glowing career before the allegations. Franco positions himself as a man whose "fall from grace" was healing. “Being told you’re bad is painful,” he says. “But ultimately, that’s kind of what I needed to just stop going the way I was going.” He's turned to self-help books written by New York Times columnist David Brooks for guidance (yikes) and that he's still acting, albeit in far lower profile works.

The interviewer asks him a pretty leading question about whether he felt his "being cast out of Hollywood was unfair", and to his credit, he doesn't take the bait. "It is what it is," is his basic response. Not entirely without passive aggression but he's also not demanding sympathy. He was clearly well-trained for this interview, probably more so than the journalist whose questions are suspect. At one point, he asks, "how did you feel when, after the accusations, you were basically snubbed for the best actor nomination for “The Disaster Artist”?" Jesus dude, do you want to insert your tongue any further up Franco's backside?

The bit that went viral from the interview was the news that Franc's former BFF Seth Rogen is no longer in touch with him. "And not for lack of trying," says Franco. Honestly, good for Rogen. This is one of the rare instances of an accused abuser's friend stepping away from them and not going on the defensive bandwagon. I suppose this Variety interviewer is doing enough of that heavy lifting for James now.

We’re seeing many of the men who faced a modicum of repercussions from the fallout of #MeToo try to shoehorn their way back into the entertainment industry at record speed. We hear so much ranting about cancel culture and its supposed evils but I feel like there’s been this really agenda-ridden embrace of, for lack of a better term, “uncancel culture.” That’s defined by this systemic rush to elevate the voices and blindly endorse the behaviour of people accused of bad things in the name of being “anti-woke.” Just look at any transphobe for evidence of this in action. A hell of a lot of people in journalism, especially on my side of the pond, have bolstered their careers rather handsomely by pretending they’re being silenced after spewing the most abhorrent crap about trans people.

We’ve seen plenty of accused abusers have the red carpet laid out for them by the industry and the trades. There’s clearly a financial incentive to get those clicks from obviously rage-inducing set-ups like this. There’s also an industrial pressure to ensure that even the most upsetting accusations are downplayed and a path to “redemption” is available for men (because it usually is men) to return to their places at the top. The idea is to position anything less than a Jeffrey Epstein or Harvey Weinstein level of abuse as “not that bad” (but even that is not fairly applied since Bryan Singer is still free and it took decades for R. Kelly to face justice.) I’ve seen plenty of people say that what Franco was accused of wasn’t “that bad.” The sexual harassment, manipulation, and abuse that so many women face doesn’t have to be ranked on a curve. It doesn’t have to meet a certain standard of unacceptability to be taken seriously. Your acting teacher preying on you is 100% a horrifying thing.

I hope James Franco has changed for the better but this absolute whitewash of his actions to sell him as a glorious artiste returning from an unfair fall from grace is exhausting, inaccurate, and just plain weird. All this for James Franco of all people?!

Anna Kendrick Gets Candid About Industry Sexism and Abusive Exes During Woman of the Hour Promotional Tour

I saw Woman of the Hour, the directorial debut of Anna Kendrick, at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival and it was a real highlight of the fest. The true-crime drama follows the so-called Dating Game Killer as he murdered at least ten women then appeared on a TV show in the midst of the manhunt. Kendrick did a great job showing the ways that sexist microaggressions force women into unsafe circumstances, forever putting us in harm’s way even as our instincts tell us to run. I hope it leads to a strong filmmaking future for her. Certainly, the movie deserves better than to be yet another piece of Netflix padding that the streaming service stops caring about three days after its release.

Promoting this film as both its director and star has given Kendrick a unique platform. She’s done the usual stuff, like popping into the Criterion closet and chatting to Letterboxd but she’s also been given some heavy lifting to deal with. She’s used this opportunity to get very raw about her own experiences with industry misogyny and abusive relationships. But she’s also given some extremely emotionally raw interviews. She talked to The Guardian about recovering from abuse and dealing with creepy industry men asking about her body (it’s a great interview that you should take some time to read.) She did the same on the Call Her Daddy podcast, which has landed some great conversations lately and seems to be greatly stepping up their game. During another interview, she said that she donated all the money she made from Woman of the Hour to charities focused on helping victims of crime and assault. The film was acquired by Netflix for a reported $11 million.

I know it’s unfair and asking for trouble to compare the two but watching how Kendrick has navigated the Woman of the Hour press tour reminded me of how poorly Blake Lively dealt with hers for It Ends With Us. I’ve written about that at length already so I won’t repeat myself, but I really drove home how Lively seemed to view a story about domestic violence as a great promotional platform for herself and her brands. Get out your florals, ladies! It’s time to watch a woman be on the receiving end of spousal abuse! The actual issues at hand were so blatantly an afterthought for her. With Kendrick, she has never lost sight of the real topic at play, or how much responsibility she has by headlining a true story centred on the murders of several women. She’s also savvily talked about the perils of the true crime industrial complex and how her project fits into that increasingly treacherous genre (if only Netflix had the same awareness.)

I’ve always had a soft spot for Kendrick, a hugely talented actress with a varied back-catalogue who hasn’t always taken the obvious route with her career. She’s been in this business since she was a kid (she got Tony-nominated as a tween!) and has been through the wringer of its vulturistic tendencies. Now she’s 39, she’s got that Trolls franchise money, and she’s striking it out as part character actress, part comedienne, part filmmaker. That’s interesting to me, especially since Woman of the Hour proves she’s got the chops. But she’s also savvy in how she navigates this treacherous path. It would have been so easy for her to do red carpets and talk shows where she joked about The Dating Game and being an artiste (frankly, if the movie was made by a guy, that’s what I’d expect them to do.) Yet she went above and beyond, and also used her own difficult experiences to further open up the conversation. It’s good work but it’s also welcome and needed work. So, check out the film if you haven’t seen it yet. It’s a welcome balm in the increasingly nausea-inducing world of true crime (looking at you, Ryan Murphy.)

Thanks for reading. It’s Election Day across the pond, which I’m sure isn’t weighing heavily on anyone’s mind right now. I can’t say I have anything encouraging or helpful to say on this matter as a Scot who’s not voting, and the last thing I wanted when we went to the polls earlier this year was mealy-mouthed platitudes about democracy and doing your bit. If you’re American and reading this, I’m sure you’ve already been through the mental and emotional wringer with an election season dominated by an outright fascist with dwindling faculties who has openly bragged about wanting journalists to be murdered. And I understand the struggle many have with voting for a Democratic candidate who doesn’t seem particularly interested in the safety of the Palestinian people. But the stakes are obscenely high. So many lives are on the line. All I can hope is that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz prevail over a barrage of anti-democracy tactics, billionaire-funded lies, and the sheer lunacy of cartoon Nazis. Lots of love to you all, my American friends.