The year was 2010.  Netflix had grown into a massive media company off of their business model of through the mail movie rentals.  Their success over the years even eliminated their prime competition, Blockbuster Video, who were unable to adapt to the shifting market.  But, Netflix wasn’t done disrupting the media market just yet.  They saw the growing potential in streaming after watching the rapid growth of YouTube.  If there was an appetite for watching short videos over the internet, what was keeping the industry from producing long form content as well.  Netflix began their initial dip into streaming in 2007, with low quality video of films and shows that were also available to rent on disc.  In 2010, they were ready to provide a full, high definition streaming platform for a separate fee to their subscribers.  Eventually, the disc based service would be eclipsed by the more robust on demand digital service.  But, a lot of people in the entertainment business were unconvinced by this newer model, especially when Netflix announced that they were going to begin making original programing exclusive for their platform.  Netflix was still green to the whole production side of filmmaking, and they were going up against the big entrenched studio system that had run Hollywood for over a century.  Most notably, the then Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, who was in control of Warner Brothers, notoriously dismissed Netflix’s potential to be a threat to Hollywood, saying “Is the Albanian army going to take over the world?”  Well, not long after Bewkes made his statement, Netflix premiered the show House of Cards, a buzzworthy drama that Time Warner passed on for their HBO channel, and it not only gave Netflix the industry cred it needed to prove itself, but it even set off a chain reaction that will possibly be the end of Old Hollywood as we know it.

15 years after Jeff Bewkes made his dismissive insult Netflix is now on the cusp of taking ownership of his old studio.  In September 2025, David Ellison, the CEO of the newly formed Paramount Skydance, made the first initial offer to buy Warner Brothers Discovery.  Coming so quickly off their own mega merger, Paramount Skydance was ready to expand even further, making a play to develop a mega studio that would be more competitive with the likes of Disney/Fox and Netflix; the two current leaders in the streaming market.  With backing from other investors, including Saudi royals, Ellison made the first pitch of $78 billion.  Of course, Warner Brothers had to declare their intentions to sell in accordance with the law, but they weren’t ready to strike a deal just yet with Paramount Skydance.  They believed that they could sweeten the pot for their shareholders by holding out for a better bid from other interested parties.  And they were right.  Soon after, Netflix and Comcast (the parent company of NBC Universal) began their own campaigns to bid for Warner Brothers.  No matter who was going to come out on top, the truth is that Warner Brothers worth is certainly of high value.  The victor would be gaining a century old library of some of the most important and celebrated movies and shows that have ever come out of Hollywood; not to mention some very valuable present day brands like Harry Potter and DC Comics.  A lot of people believed that Paramount would still come out on top, but surprisingly it now looks like Warner Brothers has favored someone else.  On December 5, 2025 it was revealed that Warner Brothers has accepted a $82 billion dollar deal from Netflix, which in turn has gotten much of Hollywood buzzing, as well as worrying.

The streaming wars of the last several years was born out of the Hollywood studios seeing Netflix as a threat to their decades old business models of distribution, and they were desperate to adapt to this new normal.  Even Warner Brothers got in on it by establishing their own streaming platform, which went from being called HBO Max to just MAX and then back to being HBO Max.  Despite the brand name confusion, Warner Brothers did manage to rise up to third place in the streaming market, falling just behind Disney+ and far behind Netflix.  But, with Netflix now on the cusp of owning Warner Brothers, they now have essentially become the undisputed victor of the streaming wars.  Even if Disney and Hulu combined continued to steadily grow into one platform, they still won’t have the combined subscriber reach that Netflix and HBO Max now will pull together.  And this is what worries a lot of people in Hollywood.  Netflix is essentially removing a huge competitor from the marketplace, and it is giving them a huge chunk of the market share, which will give them more of a monopoly over streaming in general.  In a studio system that has increasingly become more homogenized through mergers and acquisitions, many believe that this move will only make it harder for new inventive ideas to emerge in the entertainment industry.  We’ll have one less place to pitch a screenplay or show idea to and not only that, but two powerhouse production companies coming together means that many people are going to lose jobs out of redundancies.  It’s a scenario that we already saw play out when Disney bought Fox, which resulted in the latter essentially being hollowed out and turned into just a production label called 20th Century Studios, minus the Fox.  A lot of people on the Warner Brothers lot are probably worrying about their future in the months ahead.

This deal has only happened in the last couple days as of this writing, so a lot of the details haven’t been fully revealed just yet.  We don’t quite know what Netflix studio head Ted Sarandos and Warner Brothers Discovery CEO David Zaslav agreed to that made the deal happen, and what that means for the future of both companies.  One theory is that Warner Brothers Discovery still intends to go through with their plan to divide into two separate companies, and that Netflix’s bid is just for the half that includes the famed studio.  David Ellison’s bid of $72 billion was for the whole pot, studio and networks, but Netflix put up an even bigger bid for just the half that they want, which means that Ellison would have to double his bid in order to buy everything.  All of this is probably why Warner Brothers is confident in Netflix’s bid, because they are better able to back it up and help bring extra value to the Discovery Networks side, once they decide to put that half up for sale.  But, this is just a theory.  One thing for sure is that David Ellison is not happy and plans to take legal action against Netflix if they follow through with it.  The deal still has to go through a year’s worth of federal review before it can be finalized.  Now, the current administration has been less restrictive towards mergers and acquisitions, but that’s largely due to gaining special favors from the parties involved in a rather corrupt quid pro quo way.  This is what happened to finalize the Paramount Skydance merger, where the Paramount owned CBS Network cleared a big chunk of their newsroom of journalists who were critical of President Trump, especially on the program 60 Minutes, hired on a new news team that was more politically aligned with the administration, and even prematurely cancelled the the long running show of vocal Trump critic Stephen Colbert.  All of this spotlights a pretty clear reason why it’s a good thing Paramount Skydance isn’t getting a hold of Warner Brothers, which among other things is the parent company of CNN and other crucial news outlets.  But, there is the worry that in order to ease the review of their own acquisition, they’ll concede a lot of favors to the administration like the Ellison family did that will involve among other things censorship of critical voices.

That’s the sad state of our media landscape, and sadly there really is no good option out there.  If not Netflix, Warner Brothers would be absorbed into another studio if it were to join Paramount Skydance or Comcast, where it would destroy both itself and Universal together.  As of right now, the most vocal critics in the industry are the Guilds and Unions.  The WGA already put out a statement condemning the move, and they were quickly joined by the Teamsters, both of which are rightfully worried about the loss in competition this will bring to the industry.  One less player in the market means fewer job openings for film sets and writers rooms.  For an industry that’s already reeling from a pandemic and a lengthy strike, this will be yet another blow against recovery.  This move is not likely to strengthen the job market in Hollywood.  If anything it’s going to put more people out of work with the layoffs due to redundancy.  The one silver lining with Netflix is that they are a competitor to Warner Brothers solely through the streaming market.  What Netflix has been lacking that all the other studios have had is a distribution division that brings their movies to national theaters.  Instead of growing their own organically, Netflix has instead been trying to bend the industry to their video on demand model.  They’ll be inheriting Warner Brothers’ long standing distribution organization that has been working with theater chains around the world.  The only question is, is Netflix willing to keep it or is that going to be the first thing to go as Warner Brothers is forced to conform to Netflix’s business model?  It would be a very expensive department to just buy up to destroy, but perhaps that’s part of Netflix’s way of forcing more conformity in Hollywood to their model.  One would hope that more of Warner Brothers’ way of doing business rubs off on Netflix and remains in tact.

That’s what has a lot of other people worried about this potential merger; the downstream effects it will have on other industries.  Movie theaters have been desperately trying to hold onto their deals with the movie studios to release new films on their screens.  Thus far, they’ve been managing to scrape by, but streaming has been drying up the products available to present on the big screen.  Netflix has especially made it difficult with their business model, which they proclaim is the better option to guarantee filmmakers that their films will get seen by a bigger audience.  It would be devastating to the movie theater industry as a whole if one of the biggest studios suddenly stopped showing their movies in theaters.  And Warner Brothers has had a good year at the box office in 2025, with movies like Sinners (2025) and Weapons (2025) being especially profitable.  Imagine if movie theaters this year didn’t see any of that revenue.  It’s not just that, but physical media collectors are also worried that Netflix would also be abandoning physical releases of Warner Brothers movies, dealing a death blow to an already diminished marketplace.  For a lot of different industries, this would feel like Netflix is kicking them while they are already down.  Is it all but certain that such a deal would kill off these beleaguered industries for good.  It all depends on what was involved in the deal that was struck.  It would be difficult to end theatrical distribution as a whole at Warner Brothers, given that it involves so many longstanding contracts that will take years to finalize.  Netflix has been dipping their toes a bit more with theatrical in recent years, with KPOP Demon Hunters winning them their first box office weekend title, and their plan to put the Stranger Things series finale on the big screen this New Year’s Eve.  But, would acquiring Warner Brothers finally give them the reason to go all in, or will we be seeing Netflix forcing Warner Brothers to comply.

One thing that could be a big factor in determining the future for both Netflix and Warner Brothers is what the creatives in the industry have to say.  Netflix has managed to get some filmmakers to consent to having their movies premiere through the direct to streaming method, such as David Fincher and Richard Linklater.  But, if Warner Brothers were to follow Netflix’s lead and stop releasing their movies in theaters, there would be significant pushback to that.  Some filmmakers, such as Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan would never sign on to a deal that excluded a theatrical premiere.  In fact, Christopher Nolan ended his long time partnership with Warner Brothers over this very issue, after they planned to go against his wishes and release Tenet (2020) straight to streaming without a theatrical window.  He wanted them to wait until movie theaters were re-opened after the pandemic shutdown so that the movie would get a proper theatrical release, but Warner Brothers weren’t willing to sit on this film for another year, so what ended up happening was Tenet got a small theatrical release in whatever theaters were open during the pandemic (which excluded big markets) and it still was quickly rushed onto streaming soon after, just so Warner Brothers could fulfill the minimal requirements of the contract.  That’s why Nolan today is set up now at Universal, which benefitted in getting his Oscar winning Oppenheimer (2023) and next year’s The Odyssey (2026).  Nolan and many others would likely have it written in their contracts that their movies must have theatrical releases, and if Netflix doesn’t accept that, then they would be loosing out on many coveted projects from many established and up-and-coming filmmakers.  Recently, such a situation happened when Weapon’s director Zach Cregger walked away from developing a new film at Netflix because they couldn’t guarantee a theatrical release.  Greta Gerwig, whose developing a new adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia book series with the streamer, even went behind Netflix’s back to secure a theatrical window for the film with the IMAX corporation.  If Netflix were to force Warner Brothers to conform to their streaming first model, they would be alienating themselves even further from some of Hollywood’s most creative people, and it would make them lose out on what could ultimately be the next billion dollar idea.

We’ll have a clearer idea what this deal will entail over the next year as this acquisition goes through review.  What we know as of right now is that this deal is being met with a great amount of skepticism.  People are worried, rightfully so, about what it could mean for the future of Hollywood.  Warner Brothers has been an enduring fixture in the history of Hollywood.  It was one of the bedrocks of the studio system, and is undeniably one of the most valuable libraries of movies and television shows in the entire industry.  By buying Warner Brothers, you have access to characters as varied as Bugs Bunny to Batman.  But, there’s one thing that is undeniable about Warner Brothers and that is they go big.  Their movies deserve to be seen in the biggest way possible, so it would be a shame if the only place you could watch them is from a small screen at home.  Warner Brothers’ history shouldn’t be reduced down to a thumbnail on a streaming app.  If that Warner Brothers golden badge doesn’t grace the silver screen again, it would be a great loss.  One hopes that part of Zaslav’s negortiations with Netflix to broker this deal was to keep that legacy in tact and secure Warner Brothers ability to continue screening movies on a big screen.  Say what you will about Zaslav’s tenure as CEO of Warner Brothers; he didn’t abandon the movie theater industry, and in fact he doubled down on it over the last couple years.  We’ll see if Netflix eases up on their insistence on straight to streaming.  So many of their own movies should have been given more robust theatrical releases over the years; maybe now they’ll be convinced to give it a chance.  One thing is for sure; Hollywood will never be the same again if this deal goes through.  Warner Brothers thought it could dismiss the threat of Netflix before, and now they are about to become a part of them.  The Albanian Army is indeed about to conquer the world, and it shows you should never believe yourself to be untouchable in this business.  One hopes that Netflix will be a good steward to the legacy of Warner Brothers, but there is a lot of justifiable skepticism that is surrounding this deal and people should worry.  At a time when the movie industry should be getting bolder and bigger, we are instead unfortunately seeing it shrink even more.

Over the last 30 years, there has been a lot of debate regarding the legacy of Mel Gibson’s Braveheart (1995) and it’s place in cinema history.  The movie did not exactly light up the box office when it was first released in the Summer of ’95, but strong word of mouth helped to carry it all through Awards season, where it ultimately took away 5 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, beating out what many considered the early favorite, Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 (1995).  And from there, the movie continued to build a reputation as a prime example of epic filmmaking that was starting to die out at the turn of the millennium.  But while the movie still earns plenty of praise for it’s craft, it also has faced a lot of scrutiny for the way it has misrepresented the history of it’s subject.  And then there is also the cloud of controversy that surrounds Mel Gibson himself.  People’s attitudes towards Braveheart today mainly comes down to how well they can disassociate the movie from the man who created it.  For some, the movie stands on it’s own, but for others whose opinion of Gibson today becomes too much of a distraction, often can bring themselves towards seeing the movie without bias.  And there is validity to people’s opinions in this manner; art is subjective and no one should be forced to like or dislike a movie based on the way others feel.  But there is no doubt that Braveheart is a complicated movie for a variety of reasons.  I myself have my own complex feelings about the movie itself.  For the longest time, Braveheart was one of my favorite movies, and for the most part I still have a lot of affection for it.  But as I have grown older, and have come to terms with some aspects of myself and where I stand on issues, I have been taking a more scrutinizing look at Braveheart and what it stands for.  It’s what people usually refer to as a “problematic favorite,”  which is something that by all accounts should be a piece of media that I should like or approve of, and yet I still do.

One of the more interesting things about Braveheart is that it both feels like a product of it’s time, and yet it was very much ahead of it’s time as well.  The movie started out as spec script written by writer and filmmaker Randall Wallace.  It told the story of famed Medieval Scottish freedom fighter William Wallace and his rebellion against the oppressive British occupation of Scotland that eventually led to it’s independence in the 14th century.  The script was eventually picked up by producer Alan Ladd Jr., who eventually got it into the hands of Mel Gibson.  Gibson in the 1990’s was near the height of his popularity.  He had been the star of many blockbuster franchises like Mad Max and Lethal Weapon.  In 1989, he and his producing partner Bruce Davey co-founded Icon Productions, which would be the springboard for Gibson’s next big career move, which was directing.  He chose for his directorial debut a little drama called The Man Without a Face (1993), but it was clear that he had bigger aspirations as a filmmaker.  One of Gibson’s favorite movies is Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960), and he was searching for a story that had the same kind of epic sweep as that film had.  It’s easy to understand Mel’s desire to direct something big and epic, given that his filmmaking role models from his early years in Australia were George Miller and Peter Weir, some of the greatest epic filmmakers of their time.  For Mel, Braveheart was just the perfect fit for his ambitions, but initially he was hesitant to step in front of the camera.  He only wanted to direct the movie, and he initially considered actors like Brad Pitt and Jason Patrick for the role of William Wallace.  But to secure financing from the studio, Gibson had to agree to starring in the movie, helping to guarantee the film had star power behind it.  And so, Gibson now had his opportunity to make the big sweeping epic that he always wanted to make.

The movie was by no means a guaranteed hit, even with Mel’s name on the marquee.  Historical epics in the 1990’s were seen as more awards bait than box office gold.  There were some movies that did break that track record, like Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves (1990), but other historical epics around that time, including Ridley Scott’s 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) were huge financial and critical busts.  Add this to the fact that Gibson had never attempted to direct something on this scale before.  It could have fallen apart very easily, and yet Mel Gibson was able to deliver something quite exceptional.  It helped that his production had a stellar team on board.  Cinematographer John Toll, fresh off his Oscar win for Legends of the Fall (1994), captured the majesty of the wild Scottish Highland locations in his photography.  Editor Steven Rosenblum also did a masterful job of making this 3 hour long epic hum along with exceptional pacing and nary a sense of any scene wasted.  And then there is the musical score by James Horner, which in itself may be the most beloved part of the movie with it’s haunting Gaelic styled melodies.  What also really made the movie memorable was the cast that Mel assembled to perform alongside him.  Many actors were able to get their big break by appearing in the film, including Brendan Gleeson, David O’Hara, Tommy Flanagan, and Angus McFadyen, while other veteran actors like Brian Cox and Patrick McGoohan were able to show off a different side to their talents.  Patrick McGoohan, who before this was most famous for his starring role in the series The Prisoner, pretty much steals the movie with his memorable villainous performance as King Edward “Longshanks,” and it was a role that helped to revitalize his career as an actor.  To this day, Longshanks is still one of my personal favorite movie villains, and that’s largely due to brilliant casting choice of McGoohan in the role.  The movie’s five Academy Awards were all deserving, including Mel’s for his direction, which was quite an achievement for someone on their sophomore film as a director.

Many films peak at the point of their Oscar wins, but for Braveheart it seemed like the Oscars were only the beginning.  Braveheart would continue to have a strong influence on filmmaking in the years ahead.  The groundbreaking way that Mel Gibson staged the battle scenes in the movie, shooting them in almost a documentary style with the camera caught in the thick of the action and not shying away from the intensity and gore of combat, would go on to influence so many other films with similarly staged battle scenes.  One has to think that the battle scenes in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy borrowed a lot of their staging from what was seen in Braveheart.  The TV series Game Of Thrones even has a very direct shout out to Braveheart in one particular shot of a horseback cavalry charging toward the camera in slow motion in the episode called “The Battle of the Bastards.”  The movie also worked it’s way into pop culture.  There were so many parodies made over the years of the pre-battle pep talk speech given by William Wallace, with Mel shouting his lines with that blue streak of war paint across his face.  Mel even got to poke fun at his own movie with a hilarious guest spot on The Simpsons years later, where he and Homer Simpson end up mooning studio execs like the moment in the battle scene.  The film also gets quoted quite a bit, especially Gibson’s guttural yell of “Freeeeeedoooommm” from his final scene.  But perhaps the movie’s most striking legacy may be the effect it had on the people of Scotland itself.  Before the movie, referendums on Scottish Independence from the United Kingdom never gained much traction amongst the Scottish people, but after the movie’s release calls for Independence have grown more and more louder.  In 1998, the UK Parliament responded to the rise in Scottish Nationalism with the Scotland Act, which granted Scotland the ability to form it’s own Parliament with a great degree of self-governing powers, but in exchange for maintaining the union that makes up the modern United Kingdom.  The extant to which Braveheart led to this is uncertain, but given that the sudden change in the Scottish political climate happened so soon after the film’s release shows that the movie helped to inject a bit of Scottish pride into the conversation that was happening in those fateful years.

But of course, over the years, the movie has been scrutinized quite a bit, with many complaints certainly coming with merit.  Most of the criticisms directed at the film certainly stem from it’s many historical inaccuracies.  Scholars of Scottish history have been especially pointed in their attacks on the film.  The first thing they will call out is the fact that the Scottish characters are all wearing kilts.  The kilt wouldn’t be common attire for Scottish men until at least the 17th Century, so the fact that it’s part of the costuming of this medieval set film is definitely a historic falsehood.  If anything, Mel and his team had the Scots wearing kilts 500 years too early as a shorthand way of differentiating them culturally from the English, and nothing says Scottish like a kilt.  There’s also a lot of historical inaccuracies with regards to the battles shown in the movie.  There’s one glaring problem with the depiction of the Battle of Sterling Bridge: the movie forgot to include the bridge.  Why Mel and his team decided to excise the part of the battle that gave it it’s namesake is unknown, but it certainly has become a slight against the movie for some historians.  Another controversial choice in the movie is the depiction of one of Scotland’s other historic icons; Robert the Bruce.  The Bruce is revered in Scotland as much as William Wallace and is celebrated as the father of their nation.  But, in the movie, Robert is portrayed as a betrayer of William Wallace; fighting against him as many Scottish nobles had historically so that they could maintain their connections to the English crown.  Of course, in the movie we see Robert (played wonderfully by Scottish actor Angus McFadyen) get redeemed as he picks up Wallace’s mantle after he’s gone and leads the Scots to victory.  But, for some, having Robert start off as a betrayer of Wallace seemed to be a insult to a national hero for the Scots.  There are valid criticisms to be made about how the movie deals with the details of real historical people and events, but at the same time, there are so many other beloved historical films that also play fast and loose with history; even more so than Braveheart.  Mel Gibson himself said that the movie he was making was first and foremost to entertain, then to inspire more interest in the subject of the story.  Gibson wanted to shine a light on the person of William Wallace, who’s history is often built more on legends than actual facts, and that’s how he approached the telling of Wallace’s story; by making him a legend.

But, there are things about the movie that over time have gone on to reflect poorly on it’s legacy that go beyond historical inaccuracy.  And one of those things has personally affected my own viewing of the movie, which has caused me to acknowledge this as a problematic favorite.  The movie, objectively, has an unfortunate homophobic slant to it with regards to it’s depiction of Prince Edward II in the movie.  Showing that Edward II was a homosexual in the movie is not the issue; there are plenty of historical accounts that show that Edward II had male lovers before and after he assumed the throne as king.  The problem is that the movie portrays Edward as very fey and as a weakling, leaning into so many stereotypes that were leveled against gay men in media for decades.  Irish actor Peter Hanly tries his best to make the character more than just a stereotype, but the film unfortunately treats the character as a punchline with regards to his sexuality, standing in stark contrast to the very masculine depictions of the Scots.  As I’ve grown older and have come out of the closet myself, it has indeed changed my perspective on the film, where it’s treatment of homosexuality is undeniably out of touch and prejudiced; treating it as thing to be ridiculed.  How much of this is intentional on Mel Gibson’s part is under suspicion too.  It’s become common knowledge that Gibson is a fundamentalist follower of the Catholic Church, which would lead one to believe that he shares many of the Church’s less than favorable views on homosexuals.  And yet, at the same time, one of his closest friends in Hollywood is out and proud lesbian actress and filmmaker Jodie Foster.  Gibson has leaned more into his fundamentalist faith in recent years, but at the time he made Braveheart, he was largely quiet about what he really believed and for the most part was on friendly terms with people of all creeds, political affiliations, and sexual orientations.  He may indeed be correct when he claims that the depiction of Edward II in the movie was not intentionally meant to demean gay people, but the fact that the portrayal still leans into so many stereotypes common from that time still shows that Gibson still had some built in ignorance of the LGBTQ population that over time has aged poorly for the film, and only looks worse after seeing Gibson fall deeper into extremism over the years.  There’s still a lot for me to love about Braveheart, but this is the part of it that makes it hard to love.

While the movie is undeniably flawed, there is still something about it that makes it rise above all of it’s problems.  What I think helps the movie still hold up is the fact that it represents the kind of rousing spectacle that seems to have disappeared from Hollywood over the years.  The 1990’s seemed to be the end of an era for the historical epic.  From Gone With the Wind (1939) to the glorious widescreen spectacles of Ben-Hur (1959), Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Patton (1970), these were the movies that made us connect with history in a compelling way.  Over time, the grand historical epic became more niche and subdued, and by the time the blockbuster era came around, they had all but disappeared from the cinemas.  Once in a while, you would see something like Gandhi (1982) and The Last Emperor (1987) stand out, but these movies were more revisionist than their predecessors, and certainly were not box office draws in the same way.  But, starting with Dances With Wolves, the historical epic began to see some life in Hollywood once again.  It was shown that audiences could be compelled to sit for 3 hours or more in a theater if the story was compelling enough.  Mel Gibson found that in William Wallace’s story and he delivered an epic that really did feel like the kinds of Hollywood epics of old, while still modernizing it for the present day, especially when it came to the battle scenes.  With Braveheart’s help, Hollywood felt more comfortable investing in movies that helped to bring history back to life on a grand scale.  But even this was temporary.  James Cameron’s Titanic (1997) would go on to set box office records, and Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000) likewise also found success.  But it would be a bit mixed for Gibson in the aftermath of Braveheart, as his Revolutionary War epic The Patriot (2000) received a mixed reception, and his biblical film The Passion of the Christ (2004) would receive massive box office wins while at the same time tarnishing his image due to it’s controversies.  Eventually, historical epics once again flamed out, due in part to failures such as Troy and Alexander (both 2004) and the rise of fantasy epics like The Lord of the Rings, which ironically was inspired partially by Braveheart.  Though as brief as it was, the movie Braveheart showed that it was possible to make historical movies on a grand scale like it work in the Hollywood machine.  Gibson set out to make his own Spartacus, and there’s no doubt that he accomplished that goal.

Watching Braveheart today, it is still easy to get swept up in the cinematic grandeur of it all.  Say what you will about Mel Gibson as a person (which can be a lot) but there is no denying that he put a lot of passion into Braveheart with the primary intent to make a movie that took full advantage of what is possible with the medium of film.  The majestic scenery captured in John Toll’s Oscar winning cinematography; James Horner’s haunting musical score; the standout performances from both new and familiar faces.  It’s just unfortunate that the movie is also still strongly tied to a filmmaker who over the years has become more controversial and extremist.  Is the movie a representation of who Mel Gibson is today?  Not really, but it is hard to separate the art from the artist, especially when he’s there in front of the camera as well.  And there are plenty of things that haven’t aged well about the movie, particularly it’s depiction of homosexual characters in the narrative, which this out gay writer can’t just dismiss as it cuts close to home.  I acknowledge that the movie doesn’t treat people like myself in a dignified way, but the movie itself was not alone in the 1990’s in it’s portrayal of queer characters in popular media.  Braveheart was made at a time when visibility for queer characters in general was pretty poor across the board, so one has to account for the fact that it was a product of it’s time.  Also, even if the movie and by extension Mel Gibson have less than positive attitudes towards LGBTQ people, that doesn’t mean that all involved in the making of this movie share those same beliefs; not Brendan Gleeson, nor Angus MacFadyen, and especially not Brian Cox.  Braveheart is a movie in the end that shows just how special a historical retelling can be when done with the right amount of passion.  A good contrast to make is in comparing it with another epic movie taken from a page in Scottish history.  A movie about Robert the Bruce called Outlaw King (2018) covered much of the same ground as Braveheart, and yet even though it was an hour shorter and made with a lot more gloss and historical accuracy, it turned out to be quite dull, sluggishly paced and largely forgotten.  Despite it’s flaws, Braveheart will be remembered fondly for a long time because even though it plays fast and loose with history it feels larger than life and takes us on a ride as it weaves it’s narrative.  As William Wallace states, “Every man dies; not every man truly lives,” and what Braveheart does for us is make it’s legend come alive.

For the last few years, the entertainment industry has gone through a massive upheaval, chasing after a brand new online based revenue stream.  This “streaming war” involved a huge amount of capital being poured into creating the infrastructure as well as the exclusive content that would draw audiences to these new platforms.  For the longest time, Netflix was alone as a streaming provider, and Hollywood was taking notice of just how much money they were making on monthly subscriptions.  Netflix continued to grow even more as they had gained the ability to form their own production wing, and were not as reliant on all the licenses that they were paying the movie studios for in order to play their movies and shows.  As Netflix continued expanding, the movie studios (in particular the Big 5 of Disney/Fox, Paramount, Warner Brothers, Universal and Sony) began to consider that it would be in their best interest to take Netflix’s formula and repeat it under their own umbrella.  The expense of setting up all of these streaming platforms was not unsubstantial, but Hollywood believed that it was an investment worth making for the long term, as it seemed that streaming was the future of entertainment.  But, what ended up happening was that the pool of potential subscribers was split up among the separate streamers and many of them couldn’t reach the lofty growth projections that they hoped to reach.  Even with the assist of the pandemic forcing many people to turn to streaming as a sole outlet for entertainment over the course of that turbulent year, many of the streaming platforms struggled to find their footing.  Now, over half a decade in and only one of the studio run streaming platforms (Disney+) has managed to reach profitability, and just barely.  What Hollywood failed to see was that another factor in the streaming content market was also affecting the viewership patterns of the audience pool that the studios were hoping to capitalize on.  The user generated video streaming site YouTube has not only emerged as a primary player in the streaming wars, but possibly also it’s victor.  And the truth behind it’s dominance all comes down to economics; particularly when it comes to the audience itself.

YouTube of course existed long before there was any concept of streaming entertainment.  When it launched in 2005, home entertainment was still dominated by the likes of Blockbuster Video.  Netflix had only just started it’s DVD by mail service, and it would be another 6 years before they would make their first jump into streaming.  And yet, YouTube would instantly make an immediate splash in the online world.  The concept of “Viral Video” stemmed from the way user uploaded videos would suddenly gain attention not just in the online community, but in the whole pop culture zeitgeist itself.  Google, which clearly saw the potential of YouTube’s ability to generate buzz worthy content, purchased the platform for a then substantial $1.6 billion.  With Google’s backing, YouTube was able to expand it’s revenue through advertising monetization program, which enabled people who uploaded to the platform to make money off of the content they created.  Being a YouTube content creator could actually help people earn a living, and in some cases, people who were able to gain a massive subscriber base could become multi-millionaires.  But, to get to that place is difficult, and a large part of YouTube content creation is trying to figure out how to manage the algorithm and get noticed in a competitive market.  That’s why so many YouTubers are working a hustle in all their videos, asking people to like and subscribe to their channel.  The constant pressure to meet quotas for viewership in order to make money off of the platform has also led to a lot of creators burning out over time.  But, even with all that, YouTube still has managed to evolve into something that not only provides plenty of material for broadcast on a daily basis, but many of the creators on the platform has improved the quality of their content so much that it rivals much of what we see on linear television itself.  One big factor that helped to make YouTube even more of a worthy competitor to television itself was in 2010 when they removed the time limit for video uploads.  Before then, all content creators were bound by a ten minute ceiling, but afterwards the sky was the limit.

Now people regularly go to YouTube for any kind of entertainment they desire, and creators could take advantage of the creative freedom allowed on the platform.  YouTube became a place for underground outlets of journalism and experimental film-making.  Of course, terms and conditions set by YouTube and their parent company Google applied, but YouTube content creators found that this platform afforded them an outlet that could reach a totally different audience than they would’ve through traditional media.  The barriers to getting noticed were also smaller, as it didn’t matter if you had a foothold in the entertainment business beforehand; you could reach a massive audience and become famous if you managed to stick out in the algorithm.  Even Hollywood was taking note.  While viewership numbers for linear TV shows have been declining for years, those same shows can still retain relevancy if the clips on their YouTube channel still get a lot of views.  The Nielsen ratings, once the major barometer for judging the success of television show, now only tells half of the story.  The viewership patterns for NBC’s Saturday Night Live are a good example of this, as their TV ratings make it look like the show is falling off every single season due to dwindling broadcast numbers.  And yet it’s cultural relevance still has not waned, because it also enjoys a massive following on YouTube.  It has a 16 million large subscriber base, and their clipped videos almost continually do millions of views even in the course of a week after airing.  And in case of some of their more viral videos, like the “Lonely Island” music videos they’ve put out, they can reach far more viewers than they ever would’ve during their late night broadcasts.  YouTube has significantly changed the way that people consume television, with a lot people opting not to check out these shows live when they were originally scheduled, but instead on their own time, and repeatedly if they are viral enough.

But there is a much bigger factor in what has ultimately made YouTube the true king of streaming; that it’s free to use.  Where all the other streaming platforms derive revenue from monthly subscriptions, YouTube is primarily funded through ad revenue.  Sure, there is a YouTube Premium service available where people can subscribe to watch their content ad-free, but for the most part, people have largely accepted the ad service model as a way of getting content at no cost to them.  This is why YouTube is the second largest trafficked website on the planet, because there is no barrier to logging in and watching.  And as stated before, the quality of the content has risen so much over the years that YouTube channels are now competitive with what we see on television.  Sure, network television is still made free for the public, and also supported by add revenue, but the number of stations is limited to just a handful of networks; ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, CW, and Public Broadcasting.  Cable Television was created as a paid alternative to give viewers more choices in programming, but the fact that it’s pay walled has diminished it’s value over time, especially in competition with what streaming provides.  One thing that we have seen the big studios struggle with in the last couple of years is what to do with linear television, as the ad revenue they can generate from their holdings have shifted to other places like YouTube.  Advertisers have learned that more eyes are going to streaming instead of the networks and cable channels, so that’s where they are putting their money now.  Disney, whose holdings include ABC and ESPN, has had to reshuffle their corporate structure in order to meet the new reality in broadcasting; so much so that many have speculated that Disney may be looking to offload their linear television channels in the future in order to focus on streaming instead.  The tolerance for ad breaks has been one of the biggest surprises to come from the streaming wars, largely due to the fact that YouTube’s ad support model is getting the most traction in the online space.  That’s probably why so many of the streaming platforms have created their own ad-supported tier as a more budget minded alternative; including Netflix.

But one thing that YouTube has decided is not in their wheelhouse is the idea of creating their own original content to compete with the likes of Netflix.  Not that they didn’t try.  Before YouTube Premium became an ad-free only option, YouTube had another paid service called YouTube Red.  YouTube Red was going to be ad-free like Premium ultimately ended up being, but it was also going to offer original shows and films made by YouTube’s own in house production company.  YouTube Originals would create a string of original shows and movies that not only would compete with the likes of Netflix, but would also be useful in spotlighting the brand of YouTube itself.  One thing that YouTube Originals did was tap into their own pool of content creators to develop shows and films that would be extensions of their own channel content, only with a more substantial budget.  Creators like gamer PewDiePie and others were among the people tapped to start up this new phase of YouTube’s programming, with a large emphasis on reality based content.  But, there were scripted programs made too, including a couple of buzz-worthy programs.  It may surprise many to know that a hit show like Cobra Kai, a spinoff series based on the Karate Kid films, started it’s life as a YouTube Original.  YouTube produced the first two seasons of the series, and for those seasons it became the driving force for YouTube Red’s subscriber growth.  But it clearly wasn’t enough.  In 2018, YouTube announced that they were phasing out YouTube Red in favor of growing their Premium service, and this included the shuttering of YouTube Originals.  The majority of the original shows that premiered on YouTube Red were quietly cancelled, but a couple were allowed to be shopped out to other interested parties.  In the case of Cobra Kai, it was picked up by Netflix, which kept the show running for an additional four seasons, all of which were wildly successful for the streamer.  In the end, YouTube saw their value as a platform for content creation rather than a production outfit themselves.

This has helped YouTube to stay ahead of so many other streamers in the race for attention from potential viewers.  So many of the studio run streamers cater to such a specific kind of audience, while YouTube is literally a place where you can find anything to watch.  Sure, YouTube can’t run movies and television shows from the major studios (and they have strict rules about uploading pirated movies onto their platform as well), but they are the place where everything else is available to see: how-to tutorials, video podcasts, highlight reels, and tons of videos about cute pets.  What YouTube has done in it’s 20 year existence is change the viewing habits of the average consumer.  One phenomenon that has come from consuming programming on YouTube is the “rabbit hole” binge watching habit that so many people have developed.  It comes from people choosing one video to watch on YouTube, and then clicking on one of the algorithmic selected suggestions that are attached to that video, and then repeating the same function after watching that.  Some people can spend hours just watching the random stream of videos that are suggested to them through YouTube’s algorithm, and that’s the thing that Hollywood is trying to compete against.  Of course all the streamers operate on some kind of algorithmic programming that caters to the subscriber’s viewing habits, but their suggestions are often confined to the niche selection that they have curated from their own libraries.  Meanwhile, YouTube literally contains billions of random types of videos on their platform, with countless more added each day, so those who go down the YouTube rabbit hole are far more likely to encounter something new they haven’t seen before when they are given suggestions from the platform’s algorithm.  This is why so many people are giving their time over to YouTube; the variety of options and the simple interface of YouTube’s platform that makes it easy for viewers to continue watching.

The streaming wars as a result has become less of a race to the top and more of a contest for third place.  Netflix had a ten year head start on all the other wannabe competitors, but even Netflix has to compete for time with what YouTube has to offer.  The bad news for Hollywood is that there doesn’t seem to be any alternative path to being able to do what YouTube is able to do.  It really is an entity without peers.  Disney or Universal is not going to suddenly launch a competitor to YouTube, where users can upload videos onto a site they run.  With YouTube, it’s better to find ways to work with it than compete against it, and all the major studios have their own channels on the platform where they launch movie trailers, as well as a couple YouTube exclusives of their own.  But just like everyone else, they are subjected to the ebb and flow of how YouTube’s algorithm works, so it’s not exactly the place where they can launch one of their multi-million dollar projects.  The problem Hollywood faces now is trying to figure out how to maximize their audience reach in a market that clearly has been shaken up by streaming.  With YouTube pulling in millions of views daily, and Netflix showing little signs of weakness, the studios are searching for new ways to drive engagement on their own platforms.  For the longest time, exclusive content was the thing to bring in subscribers, but that required an insane amount of capital to produce, especially in the early days of the streaming wars when these new platforms had so little to offer.  What we’ve seen happen is a lot of these traditionally powerful media giants face some hard financial pitfalls due to their ramp up of production to feed these streaming monsters.  But, because of the large amount of offerings out there (with every studio jumping in) the potential audience was splintered and the amount or revenue coming in was not countering the investment it took to put it all together.  That’s why so many mergers and acquisitions are happening, as the studios are trying to shore up their financial burdens due to the amount of money they burned through in such a short amount of time.  Meanwhile, YouTube and Netflix have continued to maintain their leads in the streaming race, with their already firmly established hold on their audiences allowing them to weather the stormy seas of the streaming wars.

YouTube may not be a powerful player in terms of production, it still is the place where most people go to for quick, easy to digest entertainment.  Hollywood is learning more and more that their goal should be to offer audiences entertainment that is special enough to get people to click of their computers and phones for an hour or two.  For a long time during the streaming wars, the studios were under the Field of Dreams belief that “if you build it, they will come,” but as we’ve seen building isn’t enough.  You need to make people want to actively go out and see something, whether it be in a theater or on a separate platform.  One of the biggest problems facing streaming right now is the rising cost of everything.  The low price points at launch were a big help in getting people to subscribe to these new streaming surfaces, but all the incremental price increases since then have caused a lot of budget conscious people to tune out.  Moving to streaming was a big part of the whole “cutting the cord” movement that drew people away from subscribing to cable, but now the costs have risen to the point where streaming is now on par with cable TV and possibly even more depending on how many services people have signed up for.  While streaming can be a good value overall depending on how robust their libraries are, people are becoming more picky about which ones they want.  And that audience churn has become the biggest problem facing the market today, especially for the studios that have seen their growth stagnate even after spending billions creating exclusive programming for it.  All the while, YouTube is free to use, easy to navigate, and offers a lucrative creator incentive structure that enables a higher quality of entertainment than just simple home videos.  At the same time, there is truth to there being too much of a good thing, and YouTube’s monopoly on people’s attention is not exactly healthy in the long term for the future of entertainment.  Hopefully Hollywood discovers a way to deal with the competition that they face with YouTube and manage to build something special that either competes strongly against the pull of YouTube, or manages to survive alongside it.  In the face of television and home video, Hollywood has always managed to find ways to bring audiences back to the movies and prestige entertainment.  In the meantime, enjoy the best that YouTube has to offer, but in good moderation.  There are plenty of good content creators on YouTube that are deserving of your attention.  But just remember to come out of that YouTube rabbit hole before it consumes too much of your day and support the arts in far more direct and personal ways beyond it.

It’s astounding, time is fleeting.  Madness takes its toll.  50 years ago, a little movie based on a small experimental play performed on the stage in London made it’s way to the big screen for the first time.  It’s initial release was met with plenty of indifference from audiences and critics at the time, but what came next took everyone by surprise, including the people who made the movie.  The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) became a cult hit with audiences who were made up of what society would consider outsiders.  People of the LGBTQ community, punk rockers, and just people who defy societal conformity of any kind were drawn to the unashamed and in your face campiness of the film, and it’s enduring message about living open and free.  But, Rocky Horror is more than just any cult film; it is “The Cult Film.”  The very idea of “cult movies” exists because of Rocky Horror, mainly because of how the movie set the standard for creating a subculture all on it’s own.  The audiences who go to see the movie are not just there to be viewers; they are active participants.  Screenings of Rocky Horror have turned into ritualistic events, where people dress up as their favorite characters, bring their own props to imitate what they see on the screen, as well as make call backs to the movie itself with what has evolved into a whole secondary script just for the audience.  Since it’s re-release in 1977, The Rocky Horror Picture Show has remained in continuous exhibition all over the world.  No matter what day it is, there is likely some theater out there playing The Rocky Horror Picture Show; most likely around the midnight hour.  Now, even after 50 years, Rocky Horror not only has maintained it’s subversive edge but it seems even more essential for our world today than ever before.  But why this movie?  What was it that made this movie the film that would launch a subculture of it’s own that makes this more than just a movie?  The strange journey that The Rocky Horror Picture Show has taken over this half century is certainly a peculiar story on it’s own.  So, let’s do the time warp again and see how this movie became the cult hit that it is today.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show began as an idea from a struggling actor in London named Richard O’Brien.  As a fan of science fiction and B-Movie horror, he drafted a concept where he combined all the elements he loved into a rock and roll musical.  While O’Brien was briefly appearing in a London staging of Jesus Christ Superstar, he shared his concept script with the show’s director Jim Sharman.  Sharman liked O’Brien’s play so much that he decided he would make it his next project.  They managed to secure space at an experimental theater stage above the Royal Court Theater.  The mish-mash of B-movie camp and rock and roll music proved to be a hit with the London counter culture scene and it quickly outgrew the tiny 60 seat venue.  It later expanded to larger venues and eventually it crossed over the pond to be staged in America.  While the show drew in audiences everywhere it went, it still remained a bit of an underground production.  But, it did reach the attention of one very key fan of the show.  The theatrical run of the show in Los Angeles played at the Roxy Theater in West Hollywood, which was owned by a very successful music producer named Lou Adler.  Adler was the man who produced the hit albums of the Mamas & the Papas and Carole King, and now he was looking towards producing for the big screen as well.  It was fortunate timing that Rocky Horror would fall into his lap at the Roxy.  Thanks to Adler’s connections, he was able to get financial backing for a big screen adaptation of the show from a major film studio; 20th Century Fox.  Though the production was going to be financed by a major American film studio, Adler still believed that it was important to still keep the English roots of the show intact, so Jim Sharman was hired to direct the film while Richard O’Brien would adapt the play into a film script.  The production would also operate out of England, with most of the production happening at the Elstree and Bray Studios.  For the stately manor house that serves as the main location for most of the movie, the gothic style Oakley Court was chosen, mainly due to it being a favorite shooting location for the fame B-movie horror studio Hammer Films.

Most of the actors from the original stage version were carried over, except for a couple of noteworthy replacements.  Perhaps to please the American studio backers, the parts of Brad and Janet were re-cast with American actors, and rock singer Meat Loaf was also added to the cast in a small role.  In the end, the casting change worked to the movie’s advantage, because Brad and Janet were meant to be send-ups of bland, clean cut American archetypes seen in the B-Movies of the 1950’s that the show was parodying.  The production managed to find the right duo for the parts, casting stage actor Barry Bostwick as Brad and Susan Sarandon (in her first film role) as Janet.  Their sweet natured innocent performances perfectly fit the tone that the movie need to set with the two, especially in how they clash with all the other characters we meet.  Though initially reluctant to appear in the film himself, Richard O’Brien eventually gave in and brought to life the hunchbacked caretaker of the spooky manor, Riff-Raff.  Two other key roles, Magenta and Columbia, were also filled with veterans of the original stage musical.  Veteran character actor, Charles Gray, was also cast to play the omniscient narrator role of the Criminologist, lending the movie it’s only air of stateliness.  But, when we think of Rock Horror, there is one person above all who comes to mind.  The role of the diabolical Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the mad, transvestite alien scientist, will be forever linked with the one and only Tim Curry.  Curry originated the role on the stage, and despite some rumors of rock singers like Mick Jagger being eyed for the role, there was no doubt that Curry would also play the role on film as well.  From the moment that Curry first makes his descent down that iron elevator and onward, he takes command of the film.  He is nothing but swagger and indomitable confidence.  And given that he presents himself as this pansexual dynamo dressed in the most flamboyant of outfits, he was really unlike anything we had ever seen in a movie before, or really ever since.  Curry’s unique voice also helps to make the character stand out, with his smooth drool combined with a refined way of speaking which Curry purposely took inspiration from Queen Elizabeth herself in creating.

What set The Rocky Horror Picture Show apart at the time was not because of the shocking, sexualized nature of the movie.  John Waters had been making a name for himself for years that continually pushed the envelope with regards to “bad taste” in his movies (which Rocky still feels pretty tame compared to).  No, what made Rocky Horror stand out was that this was a mainstream production made by a Hollywood studio.  20th Century Fox was really taking a chance by putting their logo on this film, and initially they may have regretted doing so.  Rocky Horror was a big financial flop when it first released.  Critics didn’t know what to make of it, and audiences stayed away, forcing many theaters to pull it quickly from release due to poor attendance.  After a couple years, Fox began tossing the movie aside, allowing it to be licensed for screenings at a steep bargain.  This led to it being put on the roster for midnight screenings across the country, as various art house theaters were looking for movies that fit the kind of cheap, B-movie thrills that midnight audiences desired to watch.  Over time, audiences at these midnight showings began to realize how much a hidden gem Rocky Horror was.  The showings began to fill up more and more and pretty soon, Rocky Horror became a small cult hit.  But it would evolve to be something even more than that.  It’s hard to say when the audience interaction part of the Rocky Horror experience began, as it seems to organically grow out of so many individual showings across the world with their own contributions.  Where it seemed to be first observed was at the Waverly Theater in New York around a year into the movie’s midnight screenings run, when people at one of the screenings overheard someone else in the theater react to Susan Sarandon placing a newspaper over her head in a rainstorm by yelling, “Buy an Umbrella, you cheap Bitch.”  Overtime, more and more “call outs” as they call them were being heard at the screenings, and over time, it became part of the reason to go see the movie.

Halloween midnight screenings offered their own contribution as people started coming to the theater dressed as their favorite characters from the movie.  Dr. Frank-N-Furter was an especially favorite costume for a lot of people, particularly those who really wanted to get in on the gender-bending thrill that the character represented.  All the while, the original Rocky Horror Show continued to be performed on the stage.  While the movie was still playing in theaters, the same cast could be seen on the Broadway stage, though sadly it too had a short life span and lasted only 45 performances.  But, somehow, the movie itself would give the live show an unexpected new life of it’s own.  As the midnight screenings began to attract more an more people who dressed up, a few of those audience members went even further and began to imitate what they were seeing on the screen itself, putting on their own performance.  This evolved from just a spontaneous interaction between people in the audience and the movie itself into a stage presentation in it’s own right.  This spawned what we know now as the “Shadow Cast” phenomenon, where a group of actors will literally reenact the entire movie in front of the screen while the movie is playing.  Many people who don’t know what they are getting into when they first see one of these Shadow Cast shows may find the gimmick distracting, but for long time fans of the movie, it’s become another fun addition to the overall experience.  It’s without a doubt one of the most unique things you’ll see in any movie theater, as you’ll feel like you’re getting both a play and a movie for the price of one ticket.  There are several theater troupes across the country whose main focus is just to perform as Shadow Casts at midnight showings of Rock Horror, which apparently is a high demand gig as there are so many of those happening all over the place.  This would eventually reflect back well on the original stage musical as well.  The Rocky Horror Show would have a much longer revival on Broadway in the year 2000, which itself would embrace the raucous interactive nature of the film with audience call backs being encouraged throughout the show.

Over the years, Rocky Horror  has gone on to have a major influence on both the movies and cinema culture at large since then.  In terms of style, it helped to mainstream the glam rock aesthetic, which artists like David Bowie would continue to lean into more over the coming decade.  And of course it popularized the very idea of cult movies in the pop culture lexicon.  Many films have tried to stir up the same kind of cult status that Rocky Horror enjoys, but few have ever come close.  The only movie that seems to have come any where near what Rocky Horror has become as an audience involved experience is Tommy Wiseau’s so bad it’s good cult hit The Room (2003).  Just like with Rocky Horror, The Room has become a classic due to it’s embrace of audience call backs shouted during screenings.  But, the call back participation itself has spawned it’s own long lasting legacy in the form of a little gimmick called riffing.  In the late 80’s, the show Mystery Science Theater 3000 launched, and it’s appeal was due to the hilarious comedy that would arise from it’s characters watching very bad movies and cracking jokes the whole time while commenting on what they are seeing.  Joel Hodgson, the co-creator of Mystery Science Theater has cited Rocky Horror and it’s audience “call backs” as one of the inspirations for the comedy on the show.  Beyond just Mystery Science Theater, riffing on media has become something of a comedy staple over time, and it stands to reason that we have the rowdy audience members of The Rocky Horror Picture Show to thank for taking out all of the politeness of media consumption.  Rocky Horror’s influence even extends into the Halloween season that it very much feels at home in.  Most Halloween parties are bound to have “Time Warp” on their playlists.  It’s also got a very strong influence on several horror films over the years, including Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses (2003), which the death metal performer turn filmmaker directly cited as a major influence.

But, perhaps the most profound influence that this film has had is the effect that it had on the LGBTQ community.  The Rocky Horror Picture Show is an unapologetic queer movie and that’s probably what has helped it to retain it’s relevance over so many years.  It’s a movie all about sexual liberation and more importantly about finding yourself in a community that embraces you for who you are.  Frank-N-Furter even has a song in the film called “Don’t Dream It, Be It,” which itself has become something of an anthem in the queer community.  The movie became a lifeline for many queer people particularly during the ultra-conservative Reagan/Thatcher administrations in America and Britain.  As society began to ostracize people for their differences in sexual orientation, especially during the scourge that was the AIDS epidemic, the midnight screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show became something of a safe haven for outcasts.  There, being queer was not just normal but also celebrated, and it was a great place to meet other people in the queer community who also weren’t afraid to let their flame burn brightly.  The Rocky Horror Picture Show may not have been the thing that helped to make camp entertainment such a key part of queer culture, but it definitely helped to give it some mainstream credibility.  And given the state of the world we are in now, where the transgender community in particular has been under attack, Rocky Horror’s message of inclusiveness and liberation feels like it’s need now more than ever.  Richard O’Brien, who himself identifies as non-binary, always intended for Rocky Horror to have this deeper meaning about letting go and being yourself regardless of what everyone else thinks.  The transgender community especially holds Rocky Horror and Dr. Frank-N-Furter in particular in high regard.  It’s almost a certainty to see any drag performance include a performance of the song “Sweet Transvestite” at some point; even from cisgender straight performers who just want to indulge a little bit in some gender-bending.  The fact that Rocky Horror has been safe harbor for a queer community that has gone through some very hard times over the years has been probably the most fulfilling legacy this movie has enjoyed in it’s 50 years.

It’s strange to think about where Rocky Horror stands now.  In 2019, 20th Century Fox was merged into the Walt Disney Company, meaning that the family audience centered “House of Mouse” is now the current steward of this film.  Though there were some worries about how this movie was going to be treated by it’s new owners, Disney has thankfully treated Rocky Horror respectfully enough.  It refrained from putting the film into the Disney Vault like it has with so many other Fox properties and has kept the record-breaking streak of the movie’s 50 year limited theatrical run still going.  For it’s 50th anniversary, Disney has even given the movie a 4K restoration, helping to preserve the movie for the next 50 years and beyond.  And now that it’s reached that milestone, people are reflecting on just how meaningful and important the film has been.  It’s been singled out for preservation by the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress for “cultural and historical significance.”  It’s impact on the LGBTQ community alone is something that certainly is worth celebrating.  In that regard, it was way ahead of it’s time, and we are only now starting to recognize how influential it has been.  For the cast and crew of the movie the film is something that everyone involved looks back on fondly.  Tim Curry went on to have a prosperous career both on screen and as a voice actor, and even continued to be a beloved presence on stage, including in musicals like Spamalot.  Unfortunately he suffered a major stroke in 2012 that left him partially paralyzed, which hindered his abilities as a performer, though he still maintains work as a voice actor.  Richard O’Brien attempted to make a sequel to Rocky Horror in 1981 with the movie Shock Treatment, and while it too has a small cult following, it still pales compared to the legacy of the former.  Still, Rocky Horror has helped to keep him in the spotlight over the last 50 years and given him consistent work as an actor in both film and on the stage.  As an experience, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is really a one of a kind.  From personal experience, I actually came to this pretty late, only getting my first true Rocky Horror midnight experience this very year at the TCM Film Festival of all places.  And it was the first time where I truly got what all the hype was about.  It’s more than any movie; it’s an experience.  For anyone interested, find yourself a midnight showing with a shadow cast performance because you really haven’t seen the movie until you’ve watched it in that way.  The Rocky Horror Picture Show is everything a movie can be rolled into a one-of-a-kind experience, so take the plunge and let the movie fill you with ANTICI…PATION.

Las Vegas has done a lot to define itself as the Entertainment Capital of the World.  Started of as a hub for legalized gambling in a dry arid region with nothing else around, the city revolutionized casino operations and on top of that became a resort destination onto itself.  Beyond the slot machines and blackjack tables, Vegas catered to it’s clientele by attracting big name entertainers to come to their city and perform.  Frank Sinatra and his “Rat Pack” associates Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. became almost synonymous with the city after their long time residency.  Later on, Elvis Presley would come to Sin City and many others would follow in the decades to come, including Celine Dion and Adele.  It was also the place where illusionists like Penn & Teller and Siegfried and Roy would become international celebrities.  Vegas was definitely the place to go for live entertainment on the grandest scale.  And there were so many options too, with every Casino Resort on the Strip being home to at least one marquee theater.  But, as big as the live acts were on the strip, there was one form of entertainment that had failed to catch on in Las Vegas; the Movies.  Sure, like any city Las Vegas has it’s fair share of multiplexes scattered around, but there wasn’t a movie theater anywhere in town that fit with the larger than life character of the City.  The closest thing that Vegas could do to create a bigger than average destination for the movies in their town was an IMAX theater housed in the cavernous atrium of the Luxor Hotel; which has since closed and been replaced with a museum.  It just seemed like Vegas was going to just be a beacon for live entertainment and not be a destination for the grandest of movie experiences.  That was until 2023 when the Madison Square Garden Company (MSG) opened up a theater venue unlike anything the world had ever seen near the Las Vegas Strip.  Called “The Sphere,” this new venue was not just going to turn the live entertainment world on it’s head, but also the movie going experience as well.

The MSG Sphere is a true engineering marvel.  The $2.3 billion spherical structure is 366 ft. high and 516 ft. wide and includes enough interior seating for 20,000 spectators.  But, what sets the venue apart from everything else is it’s colossal 160,000 square foot LED screen.  The screen projects at 16K resolution, making it not just the largest LED screen in the world, but also the sharpest as well.  And if the screen inside wasn’t impressive enough, the exosphere of the building is also it’s own LED screen, lighting up the Vegas skyline with a free show for all to see.  The venue is primarily designed for live shows, with the floor in front of the screen set apart from the grandstand in order to provide room for the stage.  But concerts in the Sphere are unlike anything ever seen before.  The MSG company spends months preparing a video package for the bands that perform at the venue to play on the massive screen.  The screen allows for the sensation of being transported away as a part of the show.  For the Sphere’s opening, the band U2 was given a residency and their best hits show had the giant screen display background settings as incredible as a desert landscape, a kaleidoscope of Vegas style icons, the datascape of a computer, and an angelic like dome that envelopes the entire audience.  The concert could pretty much feel like it could be set anywhere, with only what we can imagine being the limit.  After U2, other famous rock bands have come to the Sphere to perform, such as The Eagles and the Backstreet Boys.  And each of their shows includes those custom made video packages that deliver an experience like no other.  But, a year after blowing the concert world away with the capabilities of the Sphere’s screen feature, the MSG company looked towards doing something even more state of the art.  There was always a plan to incorporate film experiences as a part of the Sphere’s rotation of acts.  While U2 had it’s concert program going, the Sphere also had an hour long nature documentary from director Darren Aronofsky called Postcards from Earth (2023).  But, MSG was looking beyond, seeking a movie going experience that already had a built in audience that at the same time would also take advantage of the capabilities of the venue.

Fast forward to this year where the Sphere debuted a new presentation of a beloved cinematic classic, The Wizard of Oz (1939).  One of the most watched movies of all time, Oz is a universally known film that has managed to remain a draw for audiences for over 80 years.  But, presenting it as is on a screen the size of the one in the Sphere is not so easy.  For one thing, as good as the restorations have been over the years to keep Oz looking pristine and sharp, the resolution of the movie maxes out at 4K resolution.  It’s limited by the fidelity of the film stock that was used at the time.  It also was made long before widescreen had gone mainstream, utilizing the standard Academy Ratio of 1.37:1. Blown up to play on a screen the size of the one inside the Sphere would also amplify all the imperfections built in to the original film stock.  The film’s grain, which helps to give it a healthy texture when played on a standard sized screen, would look very blocky on the Sphere’s screen.  So, here is where we get to the controversial side of the Sphere’s presentation.  In order to get the movie to match the 16K resolution of the screen, the movie was upscaled using AI programs to create extra detail in the image.  This is not unusual, as AI has been a tool used before in film restoration, though always with great care to retain the fidelity of the original image.  But, The Sphere team went a step further.  They used AI to not only upscale the movie, but to also add more image beyond the original dimensions of the film.  This was so they could conform the film’s image to the dimensions of the screen, which is much wider and taller than even the average IMAX screen, and also built with a curve to envelope the audience.  So, now audiences are not only watching The Wizard of Oz in a way they haven’t seen before, but in many ways also watching a version of the movie that’s never existed before.

It raises a lot of concerns about how AI should be used in the movie making process.  What is at issue with many people is that there is no one left alive from the making of the 85 year old movie, so none of them have consented to the alteration of their work with this version of the film.  Some of the demos of the making of this Sphere presentation show how AI has been used to add on to the original movie, and some of it is indeed borderline questionable.  One particular demonstration showed how they altered a scene where Dorothy is speaking with her Auntie Em and Uncle Henry inside the farm house.  In the original film, we see the actor who played Uncle Henry walk off screen for a few seconds and return.  We don’t see what he was doing off screen in that time.  In the Sphere experience, the scene from the film, which included a lot of panning around to capture the action has instead been turned into a fixed shot.  In order to keep it fixed, as lot of the shots that panned across the room were stitched together to keep the image fixed in one place using AI.  And this includes the moment when Uncle Henry is out of frame for a moment.  We don’t know what he was doing offscreen, but the AI constructed movement that never existed before of the actor pacing around the room to fill those missing moments.  This is beyond just restoring an old film; it’s putting things in that never existed before at all. You can see why so many actors are concerned about how AI will use their images in the future, because here we have a clear example of new imagery being created using a long deceased actors image out of nothing.  Now, the MSG company’s explanation is that this version of the movie is not in any way intended to replace the original.  More than anything else, they are using The Wizard of Oz as more of a test subject for presenting older films on their record breaking screen, and using it as more of an experience than a true film presentation.

The question is; will what they are doing at the Sphere be the start of a new trend in filmmaking?  Are we looking at the future of cinema with the Sphere’s Wizard of Oz experience?  The one thing we do know for sure is that this presentation in particular has been an enormous success.  With ticket prices that range in the same ballpark of concert tickets (usually higher that $100 per seat on the low end), the presentation is selling out shows and with only one screen, the movie has amassed over $50 million in grosses so far.  People are turning out to see this one of a kind experience and it’s making Hollywood take notice.  It’s been reported that MSG is already starting talks with Disney and Warner Brothers over the possible use of their own catalog titles for this Sphere experience.  It probably won’t be long before we see movies from the Star Wars and Harry Potter franchises getting the Sphere treatment.  At least with those films you still have the original filmmakers still around to approve and maybe even oversee the alterations to these films to conform them to the Sphere’s screen dimensions.  But, a large question arises about if this is where Hollywood sees film going in the years ahead.  Are we going to see more venues like the Sphere popping up across the country, and are audiences willing to pay extra for ticket prices to see films in this way?  Part of the reason why the Sphere in Vegas is doing as well as it is is because of the novelty of it all.  No other venue in the world has created an audio/visual experience on this scale before.  And that largely is why people are paying up to experience The Wizard of Oz in this format, even if it’s a movie that most people have likely seen many times before.  If you build one of these kinds of venues in every city, it will rob the original of some of that novelty, which is something that the MSG company probably is hesitant to do.  As the saying goes, what happens in Vegas is best left in Vegas.

But, we are at a time when movie attendance is down from where it was pre-pandemic.  This is largely due to economic uncertainty coupled with the ever rising cost of a movie ticket and also the dwindling number of movies making it to the big screen these days.  It’s not the first time that cinema has fallen into the doldrums.  Just as streaming is currently threatening the theatrical business there was a time when movie theaters also had to contend with the rise of television.  Theaters needed something more to draw in audiences beyond just a good movie.  They needed to create something that you just couldn’t do with television at home.  Thus came an era in the 50’s and 60’s when cinema tried to liven their movies up with gimmicks that enhanced the film experience.  One of the most famous filmmakers who revolutionized the use of gimmicks in movie presentations was a man named William Castle.  Castle worked primarily with B-movie thrillers and horror, but what he’s most famous for was the wacky gimmicks he would employ in the promotions of his films.  He famously gave out life insurance certificates to audience members in the case any of them would die of fright at one of his films.  He also implanted buzzers inside theater seats to jolt audiences members during the presentation of his horror film, The Tingler (1959).  Despite the mad science of all of Castle’s ideas, these gimmicks were still effective, as it helped to make the movie going experience more of a multi-sensory experience.  You can see the influence of Castle’s gimmicks today in the 4DX film presentations at select theaters across the country.  There were other like-minded gimmicks that also came out of that era as well, like the short-lived Smell-O-Rama.  But there were other gimmicks that managed to last much longer, like 3D, which improved over the years as the technology got better.  You could even say that Widescreen was a gimmick at first before it caught on and became a mainstream tool in filmmaking.  What movie gimmicks do more than anything is allow for innovation and experimentation with the artform of cinema, even if they sometime can come off as crude and distracting.  But, for an artform over a century old as cinema is, it’s also got to go through periods of renewal in order to survive changing times.  And using gimmicks is sometimes the best way to draw people back in after they’ve grown tired of the artform after a while.

There’s no doubt that what the Sphere is doing is another in the tradition of using gimmicks to draw people in to watch a movie.  And there are nods to the in theater gimmicks that William Castle was famous for.  In The Wizard of Oz presentation, the famous tornado scene is accompanied with in theater effects a well.  When the tornado glides across the screen, massive fans built into the auditorium will recreate the forceful winds of the twister, making it feel like a real tornado is blowing through the venue itself.  Not only that, but artificial leaves and smoke will also be blowing through the auditorium, further reinforcing the illusion.  It’s clear that MSG doesn’t merely just want to play the movie on their screen; they also want to make it come alive as well.  It could be something that supplants the theatrical experience as we know it now, or it could become something else entirely separate.  It’s an experience that uses the movie we already know and making it into an experience that we’ve never seen done before.  But, is it something that we should be doing with older movies.  If anything, what the Sphere has created is a new type of film experience that would be better suited for newer films.  The documentary made by Darren Aronofsky doesn’t have the controversy surrounding it as the Oz experience does, mainly because it was made from scratch for the venue and not enhanced with AI.  There are many filmmakers out there who might look at the Sphere and see a creative challenge that could lead them towards creating a whole new era of innovation in filmmaking.  There are also a lot of rising talent who may find the dimensions of the Sphere’s screen perfect for their revolutionary visions that they would like to immerse their audiences in.  Because of how new the Sphere is we don’t quite know how much of a lasting impact it will have on the future of cinema as a whole.  But what we know from history is that filmmaking thrives when the tools break new ground and change the way we look at the movies in general.

Speaking for myself, I have yet to actually see what the Sphere experience looks like with my own eyes.  I can only judge from a distance, and while the scale of the venue is awe-inspiring in of itself, the way they are using it could be disruptive for the art of filmmaking in general, and not all in a good way.  Taking a classic film like The Wizard of Oz, and “enhancing” it with AI as a lot of ethical red flags behind it.  If you are presenting it with a good chunk of the image added on artificially, it robs the original film of its artistic merit.  The brilliance of Oz is the unbelievable craft behind it, and a lot of the artistic intent was determined by the limitations of the film stock that was available to them.  You change things like adding on to backgrounds, removing edits, and crafting additional performances from offscreen actors that never existed before through AI technology, you have to wonder if it’s still the movie you grew up loving anymore.  The best thing for this presentation to do is to stay one of a kind, and be treated as nothing more than a gimmick.  The last thing that should happen is for Hollywood to take the wrong message and believe that the best way to re-release their films is to use AI to add on more movie.  It’s like those awful AI generated expansions of famous artworks that people began circulating on social media about a year ago.  Sure, AI is capable of filling in what could exist beyond the frames of these famous works of art, but without the original artists input to say so the artwork loses impact because their original limited frame of view was as the artists intended.  Filling in what’s not there misses the point of the composition. The same seems true for this Wizard of Oz experience.  It’s impressive looking, but it’s also not Oz.  Even still, there is potential for the Sphere to have a positive influence on filmmaking.  Imagine if other big scale filmmakers like Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve look at the Sphere’s massive screen and see it as a challenge that fits with their visions.  For now, it stands as a true achievement for the city of Las Vegas.  Finally, they have managed to gain the attention of the cinematic world and created a venue that could indeed change the theatrical experience for good.  We’ll see what the future of the MSG Sphere holds, but there is no doubt that it is one massive leap in innovation when it comes to the presentation of movies.  True to the city of Vegas, it’s a gamble of a project, and as is the case with their presentation of The Wizard of Oz, they seem to have hit the jackpot.

It’s difficult to believe that a movie released quietly in the month of June on Netflix would by the end of August that same year the biggest movie in the world, even to the point of reaching the top of the weekend box office in a short 2 day run.  That is the reality we have seen happen with the sudden phenomenon that is KPOP Demon Hunters.  The film made it to the streaming platform after it was abandoned by its original creators, Sony Animation, and right now Sony is probably kicking themselves over relinquishing this film to Netflix.  But success on streaming has come to mean many different things, and a lot of it isn’t exactly clear to most people outside of the business,  To be regarded as a success, a film needs to be measured with different kinds of barometers that assess it’s value.  For most of cinematic history, films have been judged by their box office sales.  The measure of a successful film traditionally has been based on if it can turn a profit in ticket sales, and this is weighed against the cost of making that film.  If the movie makes more than it’s cost, than it has justified it’s existence, and the goal thereafter is to maximize that profit even further.  But, the passage of time can also swing certain film’s fortunes from disappointing to successful, and this is based on ancillary factors like home video sales and tie-in merchandising.  But, streaming is a whole different kind of market that has changed the ways we judge a film’s success.  With streaming, you can calculate the value of a film based on individual sales, because there is no pay to watch factor.  With Netflix, entry is a monthly subscription fee and that opens the viewer up to watching anything they want when they want that’s available on their platform.  And the actual viewership numbers for each program is not independently measured but is instead reported by Netflix itself.  So, in that kind of market of on demand content for one nominal monthly fee, how exactly do we know what is a hit and what is not?

For KPOP Demon Hunters success was not immediate.  It released on June 20th without much in the way of fanfare.  Internally, Netflix was pleased with the viewership numbers that they were seeing, but it was not exceeding what they had gotten from other original animated films on their platform.  Films like Klaus (2019) The Sea Beast (2022) and Orion and the Dark (2024) were just modest successes for Netflix as an original animation producer.  More often, they were more successful being the refuge for small independent studios when their movies were in limbo after the studio either closed down like Blue Sky, which Netflix got the film Nimona (2023) out of, or were the place for more experimental fare, like Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022).  During the pandemic, a big studio like Sony looked to Netflix as the place where they could get their newest film released so they could avoid disaster with the theatrical market shut down at the time.  The film, The Mitchell’s vs. The Machines (2021), made it to the platform in this circumstance, and this likely helped Sony down the line determine where to send their other film that they seemed to have little faith in recovering their investment in.  KPOP Demon Hunters certainly had a built in audience with the rapid pop music fandom that would’ve certainly given it a chance, but Sony seemed more concerned with the direction that their more successful Spider-Verse was heading in.  Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse (2023) was a massive success, but completing it’s follow-up sequel was becoming an issue and that’s where Sony Animations’ focus was being directed.  KPOP Demon Hunters would’ve been too much of a creative risk for Sony which was trying hard to compete with the top dogs like Disney, Dreamworks and Pixar, and they didn’t want a financial disappointment to derail that.  So, giving it to Netflix would help to shield them in case it didn’t work out.  Maybe there it would find it’s audience.  Little did they know just how much of an audience Netflix would help this little movie find.

It wasn’t immediate.  It premiered modestly at first, bolstered no doubt by KPOP super fans.  But the premiere numbers were not exceptional.  It’s first week viewership, based on Netflix’s numbers, paled in comparison to those of the Disney+ premiere of Moana 2 (2024), a movie that was also a huge success in theaters.  But, what Netflix started to notice that took everyone by surprise was that the viewership numbers for the film weren’t going down; they kept going up, week after week.  After a month, KPOP Demon Hunters had reached the top ten movies of all time on Netflix’s streaming charts and was still climbing.  But, there was another phenomenon that proved that the movie was more than just a streaming success.  The film’s soundtrack was rising up the chart in record sales.  One of the songs from the film, titled “Golden,” had even reached number one on the pop charts.  The last song to do that was Disney’s Encanto’s (2021) “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” and it was the first movie soundtrack to chart at #1 since Encanto too.  The success of a movie soundtrack is a pretty good indicator that your film is becoming a success outside of it’s streaming boundaries.  But, it also seems that even Netflix underestimated how big this would be as well.  When you know your movie will have broad cinematic appeal, you would want to maximize profit off of it with a lot of tie-in promotions.  But, Netflix didn’t think that far ahead.  There are no tie-in merchandise or cross promotions going on with this movie, and Netflix is having to play catch-up quick so that they don’t miss the opportunity while this movie is still on a hot streak.  But, one thing they could do was break their longstanding rule about not giving their movies a wide release in theaters.  As KPOP Demon Hunters fever was at it’s highest point, the streaming giant relented and put out a Sing-Along version of the film into 1,700 screens across North America for just two days.  And even though it was brief, the end result still gave Netflix their first ever #1 film at the weekend box office.

It wasn’t the first time Netflix had charted in the box office top 10.  Two and a half years prior, Netflix had put out Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion (2022) into theaters for a one week run; likely due to an obligation in their contract with the director.  The film was a modest success in that one week, and many wondered if it would’ve continued to perform well if given a lengthier run over the holidays.  The problem is that Netflix has never allowed themselves to pursue that question even further.  They have been, since the beginning, a streaming centered business model.  They have spent billions on production costs to build up their library of films and shows, but the only revenue that is generated for them is based on their monthly subscription revenue.  Their investment in quality shows and movies has seemed to pay off in the long run, as they are undisputed the kings of streaming, beating out even the competition from the major studios that all launched their own streaming platforms in the last couple years.  But, they at the same time seem to leaving a lot of money on the table by not putting their films out in theaters.  The movie theater owners are not against accepting their movies, even though Netflix has done a lot to drive down their business over the years.  Netflix seems determined to stick with their own business model, which is to make the movie industry conform to them and have their streaming first form of distribution be the new norm of Hollywood.  But, as we have seen play out in the last couple of weeks, there is still an appetite for watching movies in theaters when it’s the right kind of movie.  A movie like KPOP Demon Hunters certainly got it’s start on streaming, but it’s grown far bigger than that and perhaps Netflix is handicapping themselves by still sticking with their own business model.  They put the movie out on their own terms, just for two days, but all it has led to is more questions about their choices.  How much bigger would it have been had they kept it playing in theaters longer than they had?

Part of Netflix’s rationalization for releasing movies they way they have is that they believe that movie theaters are a dying business and that streaming is the future of entertainment.  There is some validity to Netflix’s claim in this sense, as movie theaters have been struggling in the last few years.  Of course Covid was a major factor in the downturn of the theatrical business, but there have been underlying issues that were present long before the pandemic.  The rising cost of tickets has been a particular sticking point with customers.  For many people, they feel like they are being priced out of the movie theater experience, with tickets on the low end costing upwards of $15 dollars in most places now.  This has become especially expensive for for families, with a day out to the movies possibly costing around $100 after tickets and concessions.  Paying Netflix or any of the other streamers a flat monthly fee between $10 and $15 just seems more economical by comparison.  But, there are still movies that are able to draw people to the theater.  The number of them are fewer than it has been before, but they’ve managed to keep theaters afloat in these difficult times.  Netflix makes the case that their platform allows for better visibility for movies that normally wouldn’t have a chance in competition at the movie theaters.  It’s probably why you see a lot fewer mid-budget movies in the theaters, because putting them on streaming has been viewed as a safer bet.  Previous box office titans like Adam Sandler and Eddie Murphy almost exclusively premiere their films on streaming now.  But there’s also the argument that the reason movie theaters are struggling is because they don’t have enough in the way of movies that could boost box office, such as the ones that go to places like Netflix.  The slate of films playing in theaters are either low risk indie films like the ones from A24 and Neon, or big studio tent-poles.  What movie theaters need is more variety, particularly with the movies that have since left them for streaming.  Netflix may argue that people who go out to the movies are not the same as the ones that consume movies on their platform, but KPOP Demon Hunters just proved very definitively that there is definitely a lot of crossover that they have been ignoring.

One thing that has been changing recently is the mindset of the major studios regarding where they are choosing to premiere their films.  Disney in particular made a different judgment call with two projects that they initially planned for streaming on Disney+, and it led to some much needed financial success.  Moana 2  started off in development as a six part animated series, continuing the adventures of the characters from the popular 2016 original as an exclusive for Disney+.  But after a string of disappointments for the Disney Animation studios with Strange World (2022) and Wish (2023) falling hard at the box office, Disney needed something with a built in audience to help boost the ailing studio’s image as a box office contender.  The series was whittled down into a 100 minute film and was released in theaters in November 2024, and the result was a billion dollar grossing film.  Some complained that the film was uneven because of it being reworked in the eleventh hour and that it was not as good as the original, but that didn’t matter.  The film was a financial success because it was a movie that people wanted to see in theaters, including a lot of families.  A similar switch in release strategy also happened with the Lilo and Stitch (2025) remake, as that film was also originally developed as a Disney+ exclusive.  The lesson learned by Disney is that they should strategize which movies would have the best chance of bringing families to the theater, rather than trying to bank on just their brand giving them the boost they need.  The downside would be that studios like Disney would bank more on safer bets rather than big risks, but as well as Lilo and Stitch and Moana 2 have done, it’s counterbalanced with failures like Snow White (2025) and Wish.  What these successes have done is show that theatrical grosses are the most effective barometer for signalling how your brand is doing and it’s something that Disney and other studios are returning more often to now for deciding their future directions.  Had they gone all in on the streaming route, they would’ve missed out on $2 billion worth of revenue on those two films alone.  And premiering in theaters first has not cut into their appeal on streaming either, because Moana 2 has been one of the most streamed movies of the year; even in KPOP Demon Hunters territory.

Netflix can certainly think that monthly subscriptions alone can sustain their company.  It’s been a benefit to them so far, as they are one of the most valued brands right now in the entertainment business.  But, as KPOP Demon Hunters record-breaking weekend grosses have shown, they can make even more money if they wanted to.  The theatrical experience, given the right movie, can help a film endure far beyond it’s original release.  A lot of films benefit from audiences reactions, and that’s something that you can’t replicate just in your living room by yourself or with a couple friends and family.  KPOP Demon Hunters‘ brief but explosive run in theaters was a big deal because audiences finally had an opportunity to see this movie with a crowd of fans, all singing along with them.  It was like a concert experience for them.  Keep in mind, many of the people who sold those screenings out had already seen the movie over the two months that it had been playing on Netflix.  They already loved the movie, but they hadn’t experienced it in a way like this, and that was something worth leaving the house and paying a ticket price for.  KPOP Demon Hunters will undoubtedly be remembered far longer in pop culture because of that.  Most other Netflix films, even the ones deemed a success, have short life spans in the public conscious.  This is largely due to way that Netflix’s algorithm works.  Some movies are pushed to the top of the home page, especially the ones that Netflix wants you to see right away, but there are so many films that quickly disappear into the background if there is low interest in them.  Most people probably aren’t even aware that Netflix has had many other original animated movies on their platform, including another one from the same Sony Animation team that made Demon Hunters; The Mitchell’s vs. The Machines (which, personal opinion, I actually like a lot more).  Netflix honestly has nothing to lose and more to gain if they put their movies into theaters first before putting them on streaming; and I mean in wide release.  Something like KPOP Demon Hunters should have been playing on twice as many screens as it had and it would probably been hitting 9 digit figures in grosses by now.  It’s hard to make the argument that it’s the biggest animation success story of the year when the only thing you have to show for it is a single weekend gross and a chart topping soundtrack.

Netflix will almost certainly fall back on what has worked for them before, but I feel like KPOP Demon Hunters has challenged their business model the most out of all the other movies they have made.  There has to be some talk around the studio about what they’ll do when they inevitably make a sequel to the film.  It would be foolish not to give a sequel a wide release in theaters.  They’ll reap the benefits of a huge box office payday and see that same audience follow the film to their streaming platform.  In general, movie studios across Hollywood are definitely looking at theatrical first release strategies as a net benefit for their brands.  Some movies take more time to find an audience, but at least with a theatrical release you get that upfront monetary value to gauge the movie’s initial appeal.  You make a profit in theaters, then the rest is all an added bonus.  And we’ve seen that movies don’t lose their value by the time they make it to streaming.  If you place the movie on streaming first, there is a good chance that the film may get lost in the shuffle and buried in the algorithm.  At least when it’s put out in theaters it has a chance to generate some individual value.  Let’s not forget, Netflix has their controversial money losers too, including this year’s The Electric State (2025), which for some reason the studio poured over $300 million into.  Did Electric State drive any more traffic to Netflix? Unlikely, and after about a couple of weeks it was out of their top streaming chart and buried deep in the algorithm.  Even Netflix’s accounting couldn’t hide the wasteful spending that that movie clearly showed.  Would theatrical exhibition have helped?  Probably not, but at least you would have a clear dollar value on how audiences received the film rather than the internal number of viewership that they keep track of.  As the streaming wars have died down, the movie studios are looking at streaming as an extension of a movie’s life span more and more and not as the thing that’s going to take over the business.  They are diversifying, and Netflix should consider that as well.  They have a great many films that are sadly overlooked by most audiences, and a lot of those films would have generated more buzz if they were properly presented on a big screen from the start.  KPOP Demon Hunter’s phenomenal success could be the thing that shifts the way Netflix looks at exhibition, and hopefully we’ll see that bright red “N” logo on many more big screens in the future.

You’ve probably heard about a group of people called the “Disney Adults.”  A Disney Adult is a super fan of anything and everything made by the Walt Disney Company, as well as someone who outwardly expresses their fanhood to world.  The reason some people have singled out this group by giving them a label is because a large part of what the Disney Company produces is primarily meant for younger audiences, and a Disney Adult seems to be out of line with the target audience for their products.  To outsiders, seeing this group expressing themselves through their Disney fandom comes across as bizarre behavior, making a lot of them feel like there is something wrong with Disney Adults.  But, being a Disney Adult is not any different than most other fan communities out there.  One of the reasons it seems that Disney Adults are being singled out and in some cases ridiculed is just because of the sheer enormous reach that the Disney Company has on our culture.  In reality, fan culture has reached maximum level within human culture in general, built up over decades of blockbuster entertainment in film, television and music and spread even further throw the internet.  The rise of the Disney Adult community has been a result of this new era of pop culture being brought to the mainstream and having fans brought together through online spaces.  A lot of people who grew up with certain forms of entertainment are more and more likely to retain that fanhood well into their adult years and beyond.  That’s why you see more people these days gleefully showing off their identity as a fan.  But there are many critics who look at this as something insidious, particularly with communities like Disney Adults, who outsiders think are behaving abnormally for someone their age.  Like all fan communities there are good and bad people among the Disney Adults, but the fact that some people find the very idea of there being a community like that at all being a negative is absolutely a very closed minded way at looking at it.

I should stress this from the outset that I myself would probably fall under the Disney Adult category.  Disney Animation was the first thing that I ever latched onto as a kid, and it’s followed me throughout my life all the way into adulthood.  If you have been following this blog over the years, you can tell that it still fills a big part of my life, given my reports from the D23 events in Anaheim and my many editorials, reviews, and Top Ten Lists based around the House of Mouse.  But, as I’ve grown older, I’ve also let in a lot more influences enter my life from all corners of cinema.  My favorite film isn’t even a Disney film anymore, but rather one made by Columbia Pictures; that being Lawrence of Arabia (1962).  But, even as I’ve branched out, Disney still holds a special place for me.  How that translates into me Disney Adult?  Well, my encyclopedic knowledge of the Disney Company’s history is extensive, and I do exceptionally well with Disney based trivia.  I’m also have every Disney and Pixar Animation film in my home video collection; and I’ve repurchased many of those same titles with every format.  I’m also a Disneyland pass-holder and a D23 club member, and I attend many Disney related events in the Los Angeles area, including the already mentioned Expos.  But, where is my bar in Disney fandom.  I’ll confess I do have blind spots when it comes to the company’s history.  I know almost nothing about most of the Disney Channel Original Movie library, nor do I watch any of the programming on that network as well.  I also am not afraid to call Disney out when they do something that I don’t like, such as their heavy reliance on remakes and sequels in recent years to cash in on nostalgia, as well as some of their anti-labor practices, especially towards their theme park employees.  I’m also a fan that doesn’t outwardly show off their fanhood.  I don’t wear mouse ears when I’m in the parks and I only own a couple of T-Shirts with Mickey Mouse on them, which I also hardly ever wear.  I’m subtle with my fandom, but I also don’t look down on those who choose to be more outwardly expressive with their love of Disney.

When I visit Disneyland, I do see the phenomenon of Disney Adults playing out in front of me.  There are a lot of adults who dress head to toe in Disney gear, and many are doing so alongside their children as a fun little thing they bond over, but there are adults without children who do it too.  And these are adults of all age types getting deep into their fanhood.  I’ll see people as young as college age all the way to seniors in their mobile scooters proudly wearing their Mickey Ears and lining up to collect that newly released souvenir popcorn bucket.  I’ll see just as many enthusiastic fans of all ages at club events as well, especially at D23.  And there is variety in the Disney Adult community, with other fandoms now being added to the mix like Star Wars and Marvel.  People of all walks of life: race, gender, sexuality, you name it, Disney Adults is a big tent community.  Are there bad apples in the group?  Of course, just like any other.  I’ve read accounts from former Disney Parks employees that they’ve had some bad encounters from Annual Pass Holders who felt entitled to special treatment and often took their frustrations out on them.  Internally, these bad apple park guests have been dubbed by some parks cast members as “Pass-holes.” Also, there is a part of the fandom that unfairly uses their privilege as a pass-holder or member to horde special event merchandise, making them unavailable to the casual buyers, and some even do this as a means of re-selling those souvenirs on eBay or other online marketplaces.  But these are less fans and more opportunists than anything, often taking advantage of fans who are less privileged than they are.  This also gets into another downside of this fandom, which is that some will become too deeply involved in this kind of fan culture, and it will cause them to spend outside their means, which is where the predatory practices of the re-sellers becomes a major problem.  And this goes to another issue that people can have with Disney, even amongst fans.  Disney, like most other corporations, wants to milk as much money out of their customers as possible, and that’s why they don’t put much effort into the oversight of this re-seller market and in some cases fan the flames of the situation by creating false scarcity.  This isn’t indicative of the fandom as a whole, but it does show that there are indeed some problems that need to be addressed, amongst fans and also with Disney itself.

To outsider observers, being Disney Adults seems to come across as a bit like a cult.  But, this is a very narrow view of what the community is actually like.  The bad apples aside, there is a lot of harmony and fun to be had when interacting with other fans, no matter the age group.  What a lot of people seem to mistake about the Disney Adult community is that they think this is Toxic fandom.  What I observe in circles at Disney events like D23 is the very opposite of toxic.  Everyone is open and welcoming in those spaces, and it’s a place that brings people together regardless of how strongly they feel about any given aspect of the Disney company.  This is honestly what most fan based meet-ups are like, from comic and anime conventions to simple table top game groups at your local comic book and hobby store.  True fandoms want to bring more people into their orbit and you’ll find so many people eager to share their time with outsiders and hopefully find common ground.  When a fandom turns toxic is when they practice gate-keeping.  Beware any fan who tells you that you have to follow certain rigid rules or believe the way they do in order to be considered a true fan.  There are the odd Disney Adult who looks down on others because they don’t have the same fan bone fides as they do.  But this is a very, very tiny minority of the people that I have encountered amongst the Disney Adult community.  Some of the best discussions I’ve had at D23 were when we were all just waiting in line to get in.  I get to share all my thoughts about what I liked and disliked from Disney in the last couple years, and the people I shared that with did the same, and never once do we ever shame each other for thinking differently.  Unfortunately, if you live in an always online world where toxic fandom seems to reign, these kinds of positive conversations never get to be seen, and it leads many so-called “fans” to position themselves as being authority on what constitutes a good and bad fan.  This is where the idea of Disney Adults being a toxic group of cult like man-children has taken fruit, from these online spaces that feed on negativity, and pass judgement from afar without looking at the community from a grounded point of view.

Disney Adults are not the first to face this kind of scrutiny from critics.  Many years prior, another devoted fanbase was also looked at as being abnormal.  They were called Trekkies; a term referring to hardcore fans of the beloved sci-fi franchise Star Trek.  Star Trek was a mainstream hit television series from the 60’s that everyone was familiar with, but over the years it’s fanbase developed into something far more elaborate than what most other pop culture phenomenoms had seen.  Trekkies began to show off their fandom by appearing at fan conventions in costumes based on the show.  People were giving the Vulcan hand gesture to each other, and quoting lines like “Live long and prosper” in their everyday life.  Some even went as far as to learn the entirety of the Klingon language, and could converse with other Trek fans in that language fully if they wanted.  Back when the Trekkie community was beginning to become a larger presence in fan circles, many outsiders found a lot of this extreme fandom a little unsettling, believing that this was cultish behavior.  For a while, Trekkies were looked down upon.  A lot of critics would falsely assert that Trekkies were lonely and friendless, and probably virgins as well.  A famous Saturday Night Live sketch, in which Captain Kirk himself William Shatner appeared, had the actor speak in front of a group of Trekkies, telling them to all “Get a Life.”  This condescending attitude towards Trekkies changed over the years however as not just Star Trek fandom became more mainstream but also fan culture as a whole.  Now, people of all walks of life proudly declare themselves a Trekkie, including even some heads of state.  And fans of all sorts of other popular culture properties likewise freely express their love for the things they are drawn to.  It’s all part of the cultural shift over the last couple decades, where what was considered the lower artforms like comic books, TV shows, and video games are now getting more recognized as high art.  It’s no longer childish to be considered a fan.

But, some will still associate extreme expressions of fanhood with immaturity.  At the moment, the Disney Adult seems to be the type of fan that many people spotlight as the epitome of immaturity.  One complaint that I hear a lot is that many people consider adults without children visiting Disneyland as a sign of creepy behavior.  It follows the misconception that spaces like Disneyland are meant for families with children only.  Disneyland, nor any other theme park for that matter was never meant to be just for kids and their parents only.  Walt Disney himself scoffed at the assertion that his company only made stuff for children.  Walt intended for his movies and his theme parks to be for people of all ages; as he put it, “the young and the young at heart.”  The reason Disneyland exists today was mainly because he wanted to share in the fun with his own children, and not just watch them have all the fun on the rides.  That’s the great allure of all the best things that have come out of the Disney Company; they remain timeless, and you never grow out of it.  But the best thing that has come out of this multi-generational appeal is that the community of Disney Adults has grown out of it.  Just like Trekkies and many other fan communities, Disney Adults have found fun together through their own modes of fanhood.  At Disneyland, there are special fan organized events that have risen up over the years, such as Dapper Days where people dress up in retro, dapper style clothing when they visit the park.  Disney doesn’t put on these events, but they allow them to go on within their parks as long as the fans don’t break any park rules.  One such event, the annual Gay Days where LGBTQ Disney fans gather at the parks, became such a big deal each year that Disney itself embraced it and now they organize their own Pride Event in the park alongside the unofficial Gay Days that fans put on.  Sure, theme parks are a great place for families to vacation and have fun together, but adults who are there by themselves are just as deserving of having fun there too.

For a lot of adult fans of family friendly entertainment, a major reason they are drawn to these things is because of the way that it helps to soothe the soul.  For a lot of adults, these types of fandoms are an escape; a way of holding onto something they cherish at a time when life can be hard.  We work long hours and have to deal with the hardships of growing old and seeing a lot of the things that we took for granted suddenly turn into a problem.  When things like that happen, it becomes therapeutic to cuddle with a stuffed animal that you kept since childhood, or re-watch that cartoon you liked from years back that brings back warm memories.  It’s more than just finding comfort in nostalgia; it’s keeping a part of you grounded in the things that make you happy.  Sure, people can sometimes take nostalgia too far and become obsessive with it.  But for the most part, being a dedicated fan of something that was special to you in childhood is not a signifier of immaturity.  A person is not regressing into a childlike state just because they still like things from their childhood.  If anything, fandoms are showing a remarkable amount of complex ingenuity in how they go about showing  their fandom, particularly in lengths they go in contributing to the economy.  There are adults out there that are perfectly willing to spend lots of money shopping for toys on eBay that they remember having when they were young.  Also, a lot of toy companies cater just as much to adults as they do with children.  LEGO produces special lines of model sets just for the adult crowd alongside their ages 3 and up toy sets.  Also, the Funko company sees the majority of their sales coming from adult collectors for their vinyl figure dolls.  It’s a positive sign that the culture no longer looks down on fan communities but instead is actually finding ways to cater to them.  You will still see the occasional YouTube channel try to shame one fan base over the other as a means of stirring controversy as clickbait.  But, in general, adult fans of cartoons and the like are just as mature as any other group.  From CEOs who have action figures displayed in their office to a construction worker who spends their break time playing Pokemon, every adult has that little piece of their childhood they hold onto for comfort in their personal spaces.

So, while Disney Adults are currently finding themselves ridiculed by corners of the internet, they should not be discouraged from continuing to love the things they love.  If anything, they have been unfairly maligned for the perceived sins of the Disney Company itself.  Sure, Disney has it’s fair share of things to be scrutinized and condemned for in it’s history, but none of that should reflect back on the people who still consider themselves devoted fans.  A lot of these Disney Adults are aware of the bad things that happen in the orbit of the Disney Company, and you will find that a good many of them will be among the first to express their displeasure at what Disney has done.  It doesn’t make them any more or less a fan as a result.  Disney Adults are not naïve people, nor are any other fan communities like the Trekkies or several others.  I’ve seen it myself as a Disney Adult, with Parks fans in particular always being suspicious whenever a ride gets replaced at Disneyland or any of the other theme parks.  What I don’t see in the Disney Adult fan base is immaturity.  If anything, there is actually a greater showing of sophistication coming out of the Disney Adult community than I have seen with most other fandoms.  Disney Adults are well informed and active, often showcasing a wealth of knowledge about the entertainment industry as a whole, framed through the lens of Disney.  With my own positive experience within this fan community, it has allowed me to avoid judging other fandoms that I am not a part of harshly.  I am far from being a devoted fan of the Star Trek franchise and will probably never become a Trekkie myself, but I would never begrudge anyone who was one themselves.  In fact, I actually do admire the Trekkie community itself, even as I don’t understand it.  And that’s what fan culture as a whole should be; free of tribalism.  Even when we don’t belong to a certain fan community we should never look down and shame anybody who does belong.  There are so many worthwhile fandoms to be a part of, and in many cases you might find a community that actually helps to make your life better as a whole.  I’ve been a fan of Disney since childhood, and it’s given me a great many memories to cherish, like my first visit to the Disney Studio Lot in Burbank when I was 12, or the many times I’ve gone to the D23 Expo and met other fans just like me.  The best part of fan communities is finding that you are not alone and that there are many people out there who will share that enthusiasm with you.  So, this Disney Adult hopes to convince many of you out there reading this that you should be proud of the things you love, even the stuff that makes you come off as a little childish.

On July 17, 1955, the gates were opened to a place that would change the world of entertainment forever.  After a full year of construction and over $17 million in costs (over $200 million adjusted for inflation) the happiest place on Earth known as Disneyland was ready to meet the world.  In the 70 years since that day, the theme park industry has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry that has been not just been a boon for tourism and leisure, but also a place to showcase new technological advancements.  Nestled in a Southern Californian suburb called Anaheim, Disneyland may no longer hold the title of the world’s most visited theme park (which is held by Disneyland’s Florida based equivalent Walt Disney World), but it still stands out as a trailblazer and trendsetter in the parks industry.  The Disney company not only looks at the original park as a proving ground for the layouts and implementation of all of the worldwide theme parks they have created, but nearly all other theme parks out there also take a page from the Disneyland textbook.  But, even with all that success, Disneyland was not a success overnight.  It took several years for the park to finally recoup it’s costs, and it almost went under in it’s opening months. The survival of the park is a testament to Walt Disney’s original intent for vision.  In his own words, “As long as there is imagination left in the world, Disneyland will never be finished.”  The park has evolved over the years, replacing outdated attractions with new cutting edge experiences, and in 70 years they have managed to make use of every inch of those 63 original acres of land, and even after all this time they are still not done.  What looked at the time to be Walt Disney’s greatest gamble has turned into his greatest achievement, and perhaps the greatest gift he left for the world in his lifetime.  Of course, beyond just being any old amusement park, Disneyland brought the art of cinema to life, as Walt Disney used his showmanship skills to telling stories in a new way that allowed all of us to visit to actual be a part of the adventure.

Of course Walt Disney didn’t invent the idea of theme parks altogether.  Amusement parks had long been a staple of American culture, dating back to the turn of the century.  The Grand Expositions, including the one held in Chicago in 1893, became these extravagant playgrounds for visitors of all ages, as well as places to demonstrate cutting edge technology.  In the early 20th century, new attractions like the roller coaster started to be become staples of these amusement parks.  While Walt Disney was starting up his fledgling studio in early Hollywood, Californians were frequently going to the beachfront piers, where roller coasters and Ferris wheels were built over the water.  One of the most famous of these, the Santa Monica Pier still operates today, though the original wooden coaster has long been replaced by a newer steel coaster.  Similar parks of that era like Coney Island in New York and Kennywood in Pittsburgh have also withstood the test of time.  But, there were a few specific inspirations that fed into Walt Disney’s imagination when he first conceived of his own park.  One was a trip he made to the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark.  On his trip there, he was stunned by the way that the gardens incorporated it’s rides and attractions around carefully cultivated landscaping; a far cry from the carnival atmosphere of the amusement parks in America.  The second inspiration was Griffith Park in Los Angeles.  The large green space that lies just south of the city of Burbank, where the Disney Studios is located, is nestled on the slopes of Mt. Lee, the mountain that’s home to the Hollywood Sign.  In addition to numerous hiking trails and the Los Angeles Zoo, the park is also home to a now century old carousel.  Walt would frequently bring his two daughters to the park and watch them ride on the carousel.  Walt stated in interviews that while he was happy to see his daughters having fun in the park, he also found that he was bored just sitting on a nearby bench watching them have all the fun.  This prompted him to dream of a place where both the kids and the adults could have fun together.  Now, what Walt was dreaming of making was not impossible to make a reality; but was he the right person to do it.  He was a movie maker; what did he know about how to build theme park?  But as the world would soon learn, theme parks had a lot to learn from him.

At first, Walt Disney looked to build the park in the strip of land between his Burbank studio and the nearby Los Angeles River.  However, it became very evident right away that the land itself would’ve been too small for what Walt Disney had in mind.  Instead, Disney looked across the entire Los Angeles metro area for a plot of land big enough for his park.  He found that piece of land 40 miles away in Anaheim, where an orange grove was being put up for sale by the Dominguez family that owned and operated it for many years.  The grove was just in the right spot, with the construction of what would be the Santa Ana Freeway passing just north of the property.  The land was also big enough for future expansion and a colossal parking lot.  Though it undoubtedly made Walt’s brother Roy nervous, given that he was in charge of all the company’s finances, he nevertheless did what he could to make his brother’s dreams a reality.  The Dominguez farm was purchased and Walt was ready to build.  But he needed something to help get the banks behind his proposal.  Thankfully, being in charge of an animation studio was a great benefit to Walt because he had some of the greatest artists in the world on his staff.  In 1953, he selected one of his artists named Herb Ryman to draft up a rough concept of what this park would look like.  While there are some key differences, it is astounding just how much Ryman’s early concept actually translated into the park we see today.  It’s an ingenious design.  The park is shaped much like a wheel, with one entry lane (which would become Main Street U.S.A.) that leads guests into a central hub and then the spokes of the wheel would be lanes extending from that hub out into all the other sections of the park; or as they would be called Lands.  And at the north end of the hub, a Castle that would be the centerpiece of the park.  The overview map that Herb Ryman drew up would be the blueprint for everything that followed.  While Disney was busy getting things ready for the construction of his park, he realized that things were quickly going to outgrow his operations at the Burbank studio.  So, he set up shop for a new department of his company in nearby Glendale that would solely be devoted to the design and development of his theme park.  This new department would be called WED Enterprises, but over the years we’ve come to know it by it’s newer name, Walt Disney Imagineering.

Construction began in earnest in the Summer of 1954.  Not a moment was wasted as Disney was hoping to have the gates open the following summer.  For the residents of Anaheim that would pass by, they were seeing strange sights as they were seeing things like castle turrets and space rockets appearing in the skyline.  But while construction moved at a frantic pace, Walt Disney needed to ensure that there were going to be people lined up to see his new park.  It just so happened at the same time that he was approached by ABC television to consider producing something for this new medium called television.  They certainly hit Walt at the right time, since he was eager to get the word out about his park.  What came about from this new deal was that Disney would produce a weekly anthology series that broadcast new and classic productions from the Disney studios.  And while Disney was filling that airtime, he could also bring awareness to the public of his park project.  This was one of the first ever examples of cross promotion ever on television.  But, Disney didn’t just treat this show like an hour long advertisement.  Each program would be made under the highest quality standards that Walt himself would approve.  In addition, he would be personally involved, acting as the host of the show himself.  Naturally, he would name this show Disneyland, and it would themed around the different lands that he was planning for his park.  Episodes themed around Fantasyland would be where classic Disney cartoons and feature films would be broadcast as part of the show.  Adventureland would present nature documentaries, including Oscar winning ones that Walt had previously produced.  Frontierland would present new original stories based on historical legends and tall tales, including the story of Davy Crockett which in itself became a cultural phenomenon when it first broadcast.  And Tomorrowland would be a showcase for scientific explorations, including shows that presented ideas about how to get us to the moon.  The show premiered in October 1954 and was a huge success.  Over the years it would go by many different names in it’s long run including The Wonderful World of Color and Walt Disney Presents.  But, the original title of Disneyland did the trick, because by the time the Summer of 1955 rolled around, people were already aware of the name Disneyland, and the many lands it housed.  Towards the end of the first season. Walt finally used his opportunity to showcase what was in store for Disneyland, and the world was ready to finally see it.

The park opened to the world on July 17, 1955, with a nationwide live broadcast to celebrate the occasion, hosted by Art Linklater and future president Ronald Reagan.  In the Town Square of Main Street, Walt delivered his address to officially open the park to guests, declaring, “To all who come to this Happy place, welcome.  Disneyland is your land.”  From then on, the park earned it’s nickname as the happiest place on Earth.  But, it wasn’t all happy at the beginning.  Opening day saw the park overwhelmed by guests, many of whom got in with counterfeit tickets.  There were also a lot of parts of the park that remained unfinished, including spots where the cement pavement hadn’t quite dried.  But, Disney was able to get over the hump of it’s bumpy opening, and in a couple of years Disneyland was one of Southern California’s biggest tourist destinations.  In 1959, Disneyland saw it’s first of many upgrades, with an overhaul of it’s East end that saw the introduction of iconic attractions like the Monorail and the world’s first tubular steel coaster, Matterhorn Mountain.  But Walt Disney wanted to do more than just have Disneyland be an amusement park like so many others across America.  He wanted to use the park to experiment with new technologies that not only would enhance guests’ experience, but would also be useful in the movie making process as well.  A big opportunity came when WED Enterprises was given a commission to develop attractions for the 1964 New York World’s Fair.  This not only gave a huge boost to the budget for WED, but it also granted them a perfect testing ground for a new experimental technology they were developing; Audio-Animatronics.  These Audio-Animatronics gave the Disney Imagineers the chance to program robotic figures with incredible lifelike movement, and have their movements programed onto an automated computer system that ran on audio cues.  The audio-animatronic characters were a huge leap forward in theme park engineering, and after the World’s Fair concluded, Walt brought the attractions home and implemented them into Disneyland.  They included the shows Carousel of Progress and Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln, as well as a true icon with the catchiest of theme songs, It’s a Small World.  But Walt Disney had even bigger plans.  An expansion of the park’s west side themed to the city of New Orleans was being planned, which would included two massive rides that heavily featured the audio-animatronic technology; Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion.  And then there was his most ambitious plan yet for a “Florida Project.”  But sadly, in December 1966, Walt Disney passed away after a losing battle against cancer.

By the time of Walt’s death, there was no doubt in the world that Disneyland was a resounding success.  And the theme park industry was never going to be the same ever again.  Walt’s brother Roy guided the company through the years immediately after his passing and saw his final dream become a reality when Walt Disney World opened in Orlando, Florida in October 1971.  Shortly after that Roy himself would be gone.  But Disney’s Imagineering never stopped working through all the changes, and since then the Disney company has opened four more resorts around the world, located in Tokyo, Paris, Hong Kong and Shanghai respectively.  Disney World has also seen 3 more theme parks added to it’s sprawling property, including Epcot, the Disney Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom.  Meanwhile, Disneyland itself gained a sister park built in what used to be the parking lot called Disney’s California Adventure, opened in 2001.  But, the Disneyland effect would be felt industry wide.  Amusement parks like those wooden pier beachfront attractions fell out of style, especially in California with the Santa Monica Pier being a rare survivor.  Now parks had to be carefully planned and themed, offering not just a place for cheap thrills, but rather a true escape from the outside world.  A great example of this was just up the road from Disneyland.  Boysenberry farmer Walter Knott saw his little farm grow in popularity over the years, especially after his wife Cordelia’s Chicken Dinner restaurant became a huge draw for the community.  To accommodate the crowds, he built a themed western town attraction next to the restaurant which he called Ghost Town.  After several years, Ghost Town expanded to include rides, including a mine train and log flume, designed by some former Imagineers from Disney.  Further expansions added more and more rides, and soon there was no berry farm left, but instead a theme park in it’s place.  But the name still stayed and today Knott’s Berry Farm has become a beloved theme park in it’s own right.  But the interesting thing about Disneyland’s influence is that more movie studios didn’t jump into the theme park industry like Walt did; instead choosing to license out their IP rather than build a park itself.  The exception though was Universal.  Universal, which long had drawn tourists to it’s studio lot for tours, expanded out and created a theme park of it’s own adjacent to the studio in Hollywood.  It’s also been a catch all for all the IP properties not held by Disney, including Harry Potter (Warner Brothers) Transformers (Paramount) and The Simpsons (formerly Fox and now ironically held today by Disney).  In the theme park industry, Universal has become second only to Disney and are continuing to grow; even in Disney’s back yard nearby in Orlando.

But one thing that Universal’s competition with Disney has managed to do is to increase the presence of IP based themed attractions across the theme park industry; which has been both a good and bad thing.  One thing that unfortunately has been sacrificed over time is the way that theme parks could create their own unique stories; ones that didn’t have to be based on a familiar movie or television show.  But, in recent years, theme parks have increasingly latched themselves onto characters that already have a built in familiarity in order to spotlight their new rides and attractions.  Disney of course drew upon it’s own vast library of titles to inspire new attractions; including one unfortunate case where they used one of their most controversial movies, Song of the South (1946) as the inspiration for one of their most popular rides; Splash Mountain.  And while their new park technology was advancing even further, the studio executives were more comfortable trying the tech out on brands with built in recognition rather than giving it to original ideas.  Disney even sought outside their company for potential brands to take a chance on their new tech.  One of those interested parties was filmmaker George Lucas, who was very interested in a flight simulator concept being devised for the park.  He believed that it was a perfect way to bring his Star Wars universe to life by having guests feel like they are really flying through space.  In 1987, Star Tours officially brought George Lucas’ Star Wars franchise to life at Disneyland.  A few years later, Lucas would collaborate with Disney again on an enhanced motion vehicle concept that would of course be developed for an Indiana Jones ride in Adventureland.  The worlds crafted by George Lucas seemed to perfectly fit within Disneyland, and after Disney gained control of Lucasfilm in 2012, it wasn’t long before an entire land was designed to fully immerse guests into the world of Star Wars, which became Galaxy’s Edge, opened in 2019.  Other sectors of the Disney company have also been given lands of their own in Disney Parks, including Marvel and Pixar.  But there has been a decline over time for attractions that stand on their own independent of IP influence.  Even the stuff that was developed as original ideas for Disney theme parks have inspired their own movies, such as Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, and Jungle Cruise.  Over time, parks have become less worlds of their own and more living advertisements for the sake of corporate synergy.

But there is no denying that Disneyland is more than just any theme park.  There is an aura about the place that still endures even after all the changes it’s gone through over time.  You can still feel the love and care that went into every wall, every pathway, and every little surprise around the corner.  It’s a place for all of the senses.  The way the texture of the faux rock work feels on your skin as you place your hand on it while waiting in line for Big Thunder Mountain.  The sound of the Mark Twain’s bell and whistle echoing throughout the park.  The smell of popcorn wafting in the air from the carts along the pathways.  The taste of churro or a Dole Whip on a hot summer day.  And of course all of the sights that our fondest memories are built on.  This is what sets Disneyland apart.  It’s the one and only park with Walt Disney’s personal touch.  And though many parts of it was recreated in parks around the world, you can definitely tell that Walt’s inspirations were what made this park special to him.  His favorite hobby was building model trains, and what else would be encircling the park than a full sized steam locomotive.  There of course is a carousel at the center of Fantasyland, just like the one Walt took his girls to in Griffith Park.  And if you look above the fire station in Main Street, as well as above the entrance to Pirates of the Caribbean, you’ll see secret apartments that Walt built just for himself when he would pay a personal visit.  Though the man is long gone, his influence still reigns over both the Disney parks as well as theme parks around the world.  And the world is better for it.  Theme parks are escapes, and the better the illusion the better the fun.  Walt Disney and his Imagineers used their know how from the world of film-making to improve the theme park experience, from set design influencing the architecture of the parks to using visual effects tricks like animatronics to make the rides all that more immersive.  It helped that many of Walt’s favorite film artists managed to transition so seamlessly into working on projects for Disneyland, like Mary Blair, Marc Davis and of course the songwriting team of the Sherman Brothers.  70 years and still going strong, Disneyland truly has earned that title of the happiest place on Earth.  Though there are many like it, Disneyland is still the gold standard on which all other theme parks today are judged by.  It’s both a place for cutting edge advancement, but also a shrine to a much simpler time.  You can still see much of the original park still standing there today, including the iconic Sleeping Beauty Castle that still sits in the heart of it all.  As a long time guest myself, having gone there almost every year since I was little, it still hasn’t lost it’s aura for me.  Above it’s entrance a plaque reads, “Here you leave today and enter the worlds of Yesterday, Tomorrow, and Fantasy.”  For me and many others, Disneyland is the closest place we can get to seeing the impossible become possible.

You’ll never go in the water again!  That was the tagline of the monumental blockbuster film Jaws (1975) when it first premiered, and was there ever a tagline that hit it’s mark exactly as it did.  Hollywood was no stranger to creature features.  The whole B-Movie Sci-Fi craze of the 1950’s and 60’s was littered with movies about mankind battling the forces of nature as they run amuck.  But, Jaws was very different from those classics of the past.  It was grounded and devoid of campy cheapness.  It was a film that managed to transcend the the creature feature genre and grab a hold of it’s audience in a way that the industry likely did not expect.  It was a movie that made it’s premise feel real, and for a time, it did in fact make people afraid to go into the water.  Jaws was adapted from a novel of the same name by Peter Benchley, who had a part in adapting his own book into the screenplay alongside screenwriter Carl Gottlieb.  While the story had some of the same tropes as many other creature feature stories, Benchley’s novel rooted it’s premise in a far more grounded story about the people charged with saving their town from a rabid great white shark.  It’s a simple story, but enriched with not just the man vs. nature aspect but also with the friction that occurs between the people involved as they embark on their quest.  It’s just as much a character study as it is a story about hunting a shark.  While the movie had a lot of potential to be a fun action adventure, it would achieve a much greater status in the annals of movie history by falling into the right hands at the right time.  Jaws status as a classic is inexorably tied to the personal growth of the filmmaker who made it; Steven Spielberg.  Jaws was the movie that propelled him to the next level as a filmmaker and he wouldn’t be the icon that he is today 50 years later had it not been for the trials the he was put through in the making of this movie.

Steven Spielberg was an ambitious go-getter right from the start of his career in Hollywood.  Legend has it he snuck off of the famous Universal Studios tour when he was a teenager and wandered around on his own.  He was spared from disciplinary action after a film librarian at the studio was impressed by his ambition and he was granted a three day pass to revisit.  That three day pass expanded into a full time gig as Spielberg became a regular assistant on the studio lot.  He used his odd jobs to help finance a short film called Amblin‘ (1968), which got him noticed by a Universal executive named Sid Sheinberg, who signed the then 20 year old filmmaker to a 7 year contract.  Spielberg would direct several episodes of TV series made on the Universal lot, and he won high marks for his professionalism and ability to run productions on time and on budget.  Spielberg eventually got his chance to direct feature films for Universal, which included the critically acclaimed films Duel (1971) and The Sugarland Express (1974).  But while these movies were well regarded, Spielberg hadn’t had that big break out hit that would turn him into a household name and give him the creative freedom to do what he wanted as a filmmaker.  Thankfully, he still had the favor of Sheinberg, who by 1971 had elevated to the position of President at Universal Studios.  And it was not long after that the novel Jaws was optioned by the studio.  Based on Spielberg’s success with the movie Duel, which featured a story about a man being hunted by giant freight truck, Sheinberg believed that Steven had what it took to make this story about a killer shark work on the big screen.  Spielberg was more than happy to take up the challenge, but given what happened over the next couple years, Spielberg may have had some second thoughts about the assignment.

The making of Jaws was to put it lightly a bit of a “shit show.”  As skilled as Spielberg was up to this point, he had yet to make a movie as complicated as this one.  For one thing, half of the film was going to be set out in open water.  While you could do some of that on a studio controlled flood tank, of which Universal actually has one of the largest in the world, Spielberg believed that you needed the authenticity of being stranded out in the middle of open sea to really convey the terror of the shark’s presence.  So, the production set up shop in Martha’s Vineyard, with the small island community playing the part of the fictional Amity Island from the novel.  The sleepy, tightly knit community provided a good setting for the production of this movie, but it also was a crucial lifeline for the film once it moved into it’s oceanic phase.  In order to make it look like they were out in open water, they had to film several miles out in order to make the island disappear over the horizon.  But Martha’s Vineyard also had the benefit of having shallow waters all around it in a twelve mile radius, with the bottom being only 30 feet below the surface, making salvaging much easier if something went wrong.  And that it did.  Not only were they confined to filming on boats for most of the film shoot, but they were also dealing with three mechanical sharks that would be playing the monster.  Two of the sharks were open on opposite sides in order to create greater mechanical movement depending on the shot and the angle they were capturing it from, while the third was fully skinned and meant to bob up and down in the water, mainly for the shots showing it swimming.  But these sharks would prove to be a nightmare to maintain.  Filming out in the open sea meant that the salt water would constantly wreck havoc on the mechanical instruments puppeteering the sharks, and the sharks would constantly experience multiple issues that delayed shooting for extensive lengths of time.  Salvaging the sharks from the sea floor was also a common occurrence.  The shark problems being a constant nuisance throughout the film shoot caused Spielberg to jokingly name the sharks Bruce, which was the name of his lawyer.

Given all the production woes, Spielberg was constantly worried that he might have the project taken away from him.  He had gone from delivering on time and on budget to massively going over schedule by weeks.  But, it was through these trials that Spielberg really found himself as a filmmaker, developing skills that would carry him through the rest of his career.  While the sharks were giving him trouble, Spielberg used this opportunity to become a problem solver.  He would fill the down time between shooting with the sharks by working on shots that would build the atmosphere of the movie.  His team devised a scene that was not in the original script where Richard Dreyfuss’ character Hopper conducts an underwater investigation of a boat that was potentially attacked by the shark.  The scene is famous for a jump scare as a severed head pops out of one of the holes in the haul of the boat.  So while the scene doesn’t show the shark itself, you still get a sense of the terrifying power it holds after seeing what ends up to it’s victims.  And through all of this, Spielberg learned that it actually worked to the movie’s benefit to show as little of the shark as possible, which helped to make the shots later in the film when he does appear have a lot more impact.  They would only be able to get a handful of shots of the sharks actually working, but they would not be wasted, and thanks to the expertly handled building of dread throughout the film, Spielberg achieved his goal in making the shark absolutely terrifying.  It’s all a trick of signaling the presence of the shark without actually seeing him.  There are several underwater shots that signify the shark’s point of view as we see him swim up towards his victims who are bobbing around on the surface.  Then the movie cuts to the actors as they react to the shark capturing them in it’s razor sharp bite.   Couple this with John Williams’ iconic pulse-pounding musical score that signals the dreaded presence of the shark, and you’ve got a perfect recipe for making us forget that this is just some mechanical shark.  In the end he becomes almost as terrifying as the real thing, and we only ever get 4 total minutes of screen time with him.

But it’s not just the shark that makes Jaws an iconic movie.  Steven Spielberg also lucked out in getting the right actors for the part.  An interesting side note about the director’s history with the source novel is that when Spielberg first read it, he found himself rooting for the shark because he found the human characters so unlikable.  One of the great things about this movie adaptation is that Spielberg managed to make the human characters relatable and worth following to the end of the story.  And it mattered to have the right actors in the rolls too.  Roy Scheider was already a well respected up to this point in his career, having already garnered accolades for his work in the Oscar-winning The French Connection (1971).  He would provide the perfect everyman element to the character of Sheriff Brody.  Rising star Richard Dreyfuss would also bring a wonderful kinetic energy to the film as the cocky, self-made shark expert Hooper.  The working experience between Spielberg and Dreyfuss must’ve really been fruitful as Spielberg would cast him as the lead in his next film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).  But perhaps the most memorable character to come out of the film was the mysterious Captain Quint, played by an absolutely magnetic Robert Shaw.  Quint enters the film with one of the most memorable introductions in movie history, scrapping his nails across a chalk board in order to get the townsfolk’s attention at a community meeting, and with his salty Irish brogue he delivers a character that’s as tough and mean as the shark he hunts.  With echoes of Moby Dick’s Ahab, Quint becomes just as much of a wild card in the story as the shark, and his dynamic in contrast with the two more pragmatic heroes helps to give the movie personalities that are indeed capable of being interesting, independent of the shark.  One of the greatest additions to the film’s story is the scene where the three men have a bonding moment in between shark attacks and share their own stories to each other.  Here, Quint tells the other two about his time on the ill-fated U.S.S Indianapolis; a ship famous for sinking in shark infested waters after delivering the atomic bomb to the navy posted in the Pacific.  The monologue Quint delivers, which was written by an uncredited John Milius, is chillingly told by Robert Shaw, creating one of the movie’s most iconic moments.  Through that and many more moments like it, Spielberg managed to make this more than just a creature feature, but a truly human story about survival in the face of overwhelming terror.

In the end, the movie went overschedule by a staggering 100 days.  Spielberg was worried that this would be the movie to end him, just as he was finally starting to get a foothold as a filmmaker.  No studio would ever hire a director who ended up going three times over schedule like that.  While he still had the favor of Sid Sheinberg at Universal, that might’ve ended as well if the movie failed to recoup it’s costs, which also went massively over budget.  This was going to be the final film on his contract anyways, and there would be no need to renew if they couldn’t trust him anymore.  So, with a lot weighing on his shoulders, Spielberg would assemble his film together in the editing room, hoping that all that hard work translated into a coherent film.  The movie was orignally slated for a Holiday 1974 release, but because of the delays that the film shoot suffered, Universal had to push the release to Summer of 1975.  This was seen as a bad omen for the movie.  Back in those days, summer was seen as a dumping ground for the movie studios as films that were always considered valuable were released towards the end of the year, hoping to garner awards attention.  Summer movies were the throwaway genre flicks that the studios didn’t see much value in since they never grossed as much as the prestige films.  But, things would be different for Jaws.  The delay almost became a blessing in disguise because it not only gave Spielberg the right amount of time to assemble a stronger movie out of his edit, but by the time the film was released, it would be playing in a less crowded field at the box office with no relative competition.  The film opened on June 20, 1975 in one of the widest releases seen up to that point.  Initially wide releases were reserved for maximum saturation for films that studios had no faith behind, but for Jaws, a movie that received instant critical acclaim and wide audience interest, it would be a foundational shake-up for the industry as a whole.  Jaws became a monumental success at the box office, shattering every record in the books, including becoming the first film ever to cross the $200 million mark in it’s original release.  Jaws not only was a success story, it also fundamentally changed Hollywood forever.

If there was anything that has come to define Jaws in the annals of movie history, it’s that it started what would later become known as the era of the Blockbuster.  While Jaws wasn’t the movie that helped to coin the term blockbuster, as previous films like The Sound of Music (1965) and The Exorcist (1973) also were given the label, it was nevertheless seen as the movie that would usher in a new era where movies like it would be the driving force in the commerce of Hollywood.  After the fall of the old studio system and the rise of New Hollywood, the driving force in Hollywood through much of the 60’s and 70’s was auteur driven films from the newest crop of maverick filmmakers like William Friedkin, Brian DePalma and Martin Scorsese.  Spielberg came up through this generation, but he was also set apart from it given his studio connections.  With the success of Jaws, the studios began to fall out of favor with the auteur driven cinema of New Hollywood, which was already starting to see declining returns due to out of control productions like Sorcerer (1977), Apocalypse Now (1979) and Heaven’s Gate (1980).  Now they wanted to have the next Jaws.  There were plenty of cheap copycat movies that tried to capitalize on Jaws success, like Orca (1977) and Piranha (1978), but it wasn’t another Jaws clone that would continue the Blockbuster era into the next decade.  Spielberg’s friend and colleague George Lucas would follow Jaws’ example by releasing his new space opera adventure film Star Wars (1977) in the summer season, and in the end, he too would see a phenomenal success during it’s release, even surpassing the record setting grosses of Jaws.  In the years that followed, the Summer season was no longer viewed as Hollywood’s dumping ground, but would instead be where Hollywood would premiere their biggest tentpoles, capitalizing on audiences off all ages that were out of school and looking to cool off from the summer heat.  And both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg would continue to feed the studios’ appetite for new blockbusters, delivering more in the coming decades with big franchise like Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, and Jurassic Park.  But all of this change was the result of the turning point that Jaws marked with it’s massive success in the face of all the factors that worked against it.

Steven Spielberg may have been the man who sparked the beginning of a new era in Hollywood, where the Blockbuster would come to dominate, but Jaws was also the movie that forged him into the kind of filmmaker that would continue to survive and grow in the changing Hollywood landscape as well.  The challenging and mostly frustrating production of the movie would be his trial by fire as a filmmaker, and out of it he developed problem solving skills that have made him the most consistent and reliable filmmaker in the business.  Spielberg became the great instinctual storyteller that he is today thanks to the creativity he had to rely upon in order to make Jaws come together.  And even after 50 years, Jaws still is the thrill ride that brings you to the edge of your seat and hasn’t lost any of it’s, shall we say, “bite” over the years.  It’s gone on to have this legendary aura around it, becoming one of the most oft-quoted movies in Hollywood history, especially with Roy Scheider’s now iconic ad-libbed line, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”  You can still see regular screenings of this film in cinemas all over the world, including a recent one at the TCM Classic Film Festival in April where it played with a pristine 35mm print at the Egyptian.  It also has managed to become a mainstay at the Universal Studios lot in Hollywood, where the Studio Tour has a brief encounter with Bruce the Shark as a part of it’s showcase.  But that’s not the only lasting legacy of Jaws at Universal.  While Spielberg has gone on to make movies at every single studio in Hollywood, he still considers Universal his home base, and when he set up his own production company Amblin Entertainment, he chose to set it up on the Universal lot, next to the bungalows that he once worked out of as a page boy and assistant all those years ago.  You can still see Amblin’s offices just off the main route of the Studio Tour to this day.  Jaws made the Spielberg that we know today, and though it may have been a nightmare at the time, there’s no doubt that Spielberg is proud of what he accomplished with the film.  Those grueling 150 days of shooting set the stage for the next 50 years of Spielberg’s life and he’s still not done yet.  We may have been afraid to go back into the water that fateful summer, but we’ve always returned back to this movie again and again, and that will continue for the next 50 years as well.

It is really quite interesting looking at a movie like Brokeback Mountain (2005) in the context of the 20 years since it’s release in theaters.  For a lot of things, it was a pivotal film for many different things.  It solidified director Ang Lee as one of the industry’s greatest filmmakers, earning him his first Oscar for directing, a landmark as the first Asian filmmaker to win that prestigious honor.  It was also a crucial film in the budding acting careers of Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway and Michelle Williams.  It was also a major touchstone in the all too brief body of work for actor Heath Ledger who sadly would be lost to us in a short couple of years after his appearance in this film.  But, above all else, Brokeback Mountain stood as a monumental step forward for queer themed movies in Hollywood.  In the 20 years since this movie came out, there have been many social progressions in queer representation in cinema, with the presence of queer characters and storylines no longer being niche, but rather a natural part of the fabric of the culture.  But, 20 years ago, things were quite different, and Brokeback Mountain stood out much more as a provocative statement in it’s time.  Over the years, we’ve seen attitudes change, and it puts Brokeback into a different frame now in retrospect.  Does it still resonate with a culture that has seen so much change in 20 years, or is it becoming more of a relic of it’s time.  There are many ways to dissect Brokeback Mountain as a work of cinema, but it’s place in queer cinema is where it has stood out the most.  It certainly wasn’t the first movie centered on queer themes to be made, nor even the first mainstream film to center on queer characters.  But it perhaps was the most profound statement made in it’s time about how Hollywood as a whole wanted to deal with queer rights in society which was to be fully supportive of it.  And that was crucial as the fight for queer rights in America were reaching a breaking point.

One of the  most provocative things about Brokeback Mountain was that it was telling an overtly queer story in a genre that typically was associated with hyper masculinity; the Western.  The movie was adapted from a short story written by American author Annie Proulx.  It covers the story of two cowboys named Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist who are hired to herd sheep in a grazing range near the titular Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming.  Out in the middle of nowhere with only each other for company the two form an attachment which eventually turns into sexual desire.  After the weeks long assignment ends, the two men go their separate ways.  They both find new lives and jobs, get married and have children.  But, there’s always that nagging draw in the back of their minds about the time they spent alone at Brokeback Mountain.  They eventually reunite, and sneak away on camping trips which cover for their romantic flings.  Over time, this secretive arrangement they’ve made for themselves takes it’s toll on their relationship as well as on their marriages.  They know that if their secret gets out, it’s more than just public shame for them; in certain parts of the country it also means death.  For the sake of their sanity and what’s left of their relationships with their broken families, they part ways for good.  Years later, Ennis learns that Jack did in fact run afoul of the wrong kinds of people who looked down on their love, and it leaves an empty place in his heart now with no one else to share his secret love with.  Annie Proulx wrote her story as a reflection of what she observed in rural North America.  She would spot lonely men in country bars who often appear to be looking at the other men, but had to put on a rugged exterior in order to throw off suspicion.  She didn’t know for sure what these men were hiding, but it gave her the inspiration for writing about cowboys who had to hide their secret homosexual desires behind the aesthetic of a rugged outdoorsman, as she stated herself in an interview, “I watch for the historical skew between what people have hoped for and who they thought they were and what befell them.”

Her short story was acclaimed when it was first published and immediately garnered the attention of screenwriter Diana Ossana.  Ossana sought Annie Proulx’s approval to adapt the story into a feature script, which Proulx agreed to despite reservations about whether it could be done.  While Ossana was an accomplished writer in her own right, she also had a writing partner on this screenplay that would be crucial for the adaptation; acclaimed writer Larry McMurtry.  McMurtry was very much the godfather of modern Westerns with an impressive body of work that included dozens of novels and short stories.  He’s perhaps best know for his Lonesome Dove series, which was turned into an acclaimed TV mini-series starring Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall.  Movies that were based on his novels have also become classics, including neo-Westerns like Hud (1963) and The Last Picture Show (1971).  McMurtry and Ossana had collaborated on a few novels before and they had a great rapport together.  Larry loved the story that Ossana brought to him with Brokeback Mountain, and he had the Western bona fides to give it that genuine rugged American cowboy flavor.  They completed their screenplay almost a year after the original publication of the story in 1998, but the film would languish in development for a couple years.  Hollywood was still hesitant to invest in a provocative and unapologetic story about gay love, especially as the conservative Bush administration was coming into power.  New Queer Cinema icon Gus Van Sant expressed interest in the script for a while, with the intent of casting Matt Damon and Joaquin Phoenix in the roles of Ennis and Jack.  That eventually fell through as Gus became more intent on filming his Harvey Milk biopic project instead.  Eventually, producer James Schamus at Focus Features decided to take a chance on the film, and he handed it over to his long time collaborator Ang Lee.  Lee was an interesting choice to tackle this project, as he was very versatile filmmaker.  In between this and his Oscar nominated martial arts epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Lee was just coming off his failed attempt at a Marvel super hero movie, Hulk (2002), proving that he was open to making any kind of movie regardless of genre.  It wasn’t Lee’s first attempt at a queer themed storyline, which was 1993’s The Wedding Banquet, but it would be his first attempt at a Western.  Still, Brokeback Mountain had extraordinary luck in not only having a team of prestige writers and filmmakers in their corner, but with Focus Features involved they were getting the backing of a major studio as well.

Brokeback Mountain was released at a very crucial time in American society.  We were entering a hotly contested debate over the matrimonial rights for gay and lesbian couples in the United States.  In 2004, Massachusetts became the first US state to recognize same-sex marriage as a legal right for it’s citizens.  This set off a firestorm from the religious right, saying that it was an affront to “traditional marriage,” and they began to push back on this groundbreaking advancement in gay rights.  Unfortunately for many in the queer community, the anti-gay right wing had the political muscle to get push back.  Republican president George W. Bush and his administration used this as a wedge issue in their re-election campaign and were pushing for more bans on same-sex marriage across the country.  Sadly, the majority of states did ratify these bans into law, including deep blue California with their controversial Proposition 8.  There was even a move to write a ban of same-sex marriage into the Constitution with a “traditional marriage amendment.”  This was the flashpoint that Brokeback Mountain was brought into; a moment where the debate over same-sex marriage was the primary focus of the American “culture wars.”  In a way, this was both a blessing and a curse for the movie.  One, it was a prestige film that was going to garner more attention because the subject it was tackling was very much a focal point of the cultural conversation at the time.  But, it was also going to become the poster child for this same era of conflict, and become the target of the same backlash that the queer community was facing during this time.  The movie would be the talk of the town, but also the focal point of a debate that it may not have been built for.  Regardless, the movie premiered to critical acclaim when it first released in the Fall of 2005, and it was for the longest time seen as the clear front runner in the Oscar race for that year.  It’s eventual loss to Crash (2005) of course would set off another firestorm of it’s own.

The Oscar controversy aside, Brokeback Mountain would have a more lasting effect on the industry that did lead to profound change not just in Hollywood, but in the culture as a whole.  With a solid box office and substantial collection of awards to it’s credit, Hollywood was finally seeing that queer themed films were actually quite valuable and worth investing in.  This was helpful for Gus Van Sant’s previously mentioned Milk (2008), which became an Awards season success just a few short years later.  But it wasn’t just with prestige films that we were seeing this change happen.  The stigma of queer representation in movies became less and less of an obstacle and more of a feature of the industry.  Gay characters were popping up more and more on the silver screen and on television, and not just as a stereotype there to be made fun of.  The same evolution was also happening across the country, with a backlash starting to grow against the backlash to queer rights.  The incoming Obama administration took a much different approach towards the LGBTQ population.  While initially playing things down the middle, then Vice President Joe Biden stirred the conversation again by rightly pointing out how absurd these same-sex marriage bans were.  Eventually the administration embraced the idea of decriminalizing same-sex marriage, and California’s Prop 8 was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, thereby nullifying all bans on the books and making it legal in all 50 states.  How much Brokeback Mountain had a hand in this change is uncertain, but the movie certainly put focus on the conversation that was desperately needed, and perhaps helped to strengthen the resolve of Hollywood to no longer ignore this very vital community in the culture at large.

It is a much different world now than it was back when Brokeback Mountain was first released into theaters.  Attitudes towards same-sex relationships have certainly changed.  The stigma around same-sex marriage is almost completely gone, with now a vast majority of Americans having a positive opinion about it, with only the most rabid religious fundamentalists having any issue with it today.  Even still, there is still a lot of people out there trying to silence and erase queer voices in media.  The Trump administration in particular has courted many people intent on rolling back queer rights into his government, while also hypocritically proclaiming himself to be an ally for the queer community.  The times have changed, but a movie like Brokeback Mountain faces a challenge in trying to remain a relevant factor in this conversation.  Does it hold up in these changing times.  One thing that has negatively effected it’s place in queer cinema is surprisingly the way it deals with the relationship between it’s two characters.  One of the ways that Hollywood has dealt with garnering sympathy for the rights of queer people in society is to turn their stories into tragedies.  It does play into the underdog aspect of wringing sympathy from the viewer towards the plight of this persecuted community, but it does also send the wrong message to people who are still struggling with their identity.  This is what a lot of people today identify as the “kill you gays” trope, where a gay character is often doomed in the narrative as motivation for the plot.  Queer people don’t deny that the hardships of their struggle for rights need to be documented, but they also believe that these stories should also be balanced with stories of affirmation and triumph as well.  The fact that Brokeback Mountain ends on such a downer may be crucial for it’s own story, but what kind of message does it send to a young viewer still struggling to come out to see that queer relationships often end in heartbreak or tragedy.  It’s perhaps why much more queer themed movies today try to show more triumphant stories about love and adversity than the tragedies that often flavored their presence on the big screen before.  It also helps that many more of these movies are coming from a more insider perspective, made by queer filmmakers for the purpose of being inspirational.  Annie Proulx, Diana Ossana, Larry McMurty and Ang Lee are all well-meaning in telling this story, but they are also coming at it from an outsider perspective, which comes across as being more about pity than anything else.  It’s a good thing that we are moving beyond movies like Brokeback Mountain and presenting queer characters and storylines that don’t have to be marked by tragedy in order to be successful.

It works much better to look at Brokeback Mountain on it’s own merits as a story about love blossoming in the unlikeliest of places.  Ang Lee’s involvement serves well here, because he is never once trying to thrust the message of the movie to the forefront.  He presents the film as an unexepected love story framed within the aesthetic of the American West, and how that contrast plays out.  There’s no cinematic flourish to the love-making scenes in the movie; they play out in a very realistic way, with both men not really knowing exactly what to do in the situation.  There’s a naturalistic flow to Ang Lee’s direction, with him playing the scenes out as honest to life as possible.  It’s not a titilating movie or a preachy one either.  He’s concerned first and foremost with the lives of these characters, and how the forces of society are weighing down on them.  It helps that his actors approached the material with the same kind seriousness.  The film’s most standout performance, however, belongs to Heath Ledger.  Ledger, who had been a rising star in Hollywood for some time, was finally given the oppurtnity to play a role with great emotional depth, allowing us all to see what he really was capable of as an actor.  And we saw the making of a superstar with this performance.  Ledger’s performance as Ennis del Mar is a total transformation, showing emotional depth and command over a character that is truly impressive.  You also don’t even feel like he’s acting, as he just embodies this character wholly.  It’s through his performance that we especially feel the schism between the way a man like him presents himself publicly, with a stoic cowboy exterior, and how he feels internally with his desire to embrace the man he loves.  Jake Gyllenhaal’s performance is a bit showier and doesn’t quite stand up as well as Ledger’s, but the chemistry between the actors still works.  The real surprise though is Michelle Williams as Ennis’ lovelorn wife Alma.  The actress, who up to that time was most well known for the primetime soap Dawson’s Creek,  was finally given the chance to act in a film where she could really show her dramatic chops, and she has since become one of Hollywood’s most celebrated and awarded actresses.  Sadly, Heath Ledger was unable to see the legacy of his performance play out after his untimely death in 2008.  But there was one positive outcome of his work in this movie that still literally lives on to this day.  Both Ledger and Williams fell in love during the making of this movie, and they had a daughter together named Matilda who was born in 2005, right when the movie was hitting theaters.  Now 19 years old, Matilda is carrying on the torch of her late father and keeping his memory alive.

It’s undeniable that Brokeback Mountain is a pivotal film in the history of queer cinema, but it’s also a good thing that Hollywood has also moved past it.  As queer themes have become more mainstream in movies not just on the outskirts of Hollywood, but by the actual studio system itself, the more provocative films of the past now look like time capsules of a different time period, when things were not so great.  But, that also doesn’t mean that these films should be forgotten either.  We need to still see where we once were to know how far we have come.  Brokeback Mountain was made to make a statement at a crucial time when it almost looked like we were about to enshrine discriminations against same-sex relationships into the Constitution itself.  With gay marriage now not just the law of the land, but also embraced by the vast majority of Americans, the statement made by movies like Brokeback now seem quaint and irrelevant.  But, complacency often leads us to forgetting the importance of our hard fought for rights and it can lead to an erosion of those rights over time if we are not careful.  That’s why movies like Brokeback Mountain are still important, because it reminds us of the struggle and what it took to get where we are as a community.  When it first came out, Brokeback Mountain was undeniably provocative and stirred a conversation worth having.  As a young twentysomething closeted gay man when this movie first came out, I too struggled with how to respond to it.  I shamefully tried to dismiss it too, running away from my own feelings because the movie was very much showing me the struggle that came with being queer in America.  But over time, I saw why the struggle was necessary and I was able to accept who I am without fear, and in turn, I accept the movie much more now as a cinematic milestone.  I acknowledge that I am a better man today, and while I still have some reservations about the movie (particularly with it’s tragic gay tropes), I do now wish to celebrate it for what it did for queer representation in cinema.  Back then, some of us wished we could quit Brokeback Mountain, but now with the world once again challenging our rights in the queer community, we need this movie and the many more films of the Queer Cinema movement to inspire us to fight for a better future again.