Hobbling into a new year

A year ago, things were looking up for the movie industry. Spider-Man: No Way Home had become something of a Christmas miracle, eventually rocketing to the No. 3 spot on the list of highest domestic grossing movies of all time. Analysts hoped the theater industry, which had been imperiled by the COVID-19 ­pandemic, was back on track. But it turns out Spider-Man couldn’t save cinemas by himself.

Movie theaters were fully opened for the entirety of 2022, but box office receipts for the year were less than two-thirds of what they were in 2019. Some potential movie­goers remained wary of COVID exposure, but others stayed home because the local multiplex didn’t have enough tempting options. In 2022, about half as many movies hit theaters as compared with the years ­leading up to the pandemic.

Studios had fewer films in the pipeline due to a combination of pandemic restrictions and uncertainty about the economy. A backlog of computer-generated-effects work delayed some movies planned for 2022, and others that were originally slated for theaters went straight to streaming ­services as media companies tried to juice subscription numbers. Weeks often passed without any major new release, leaving theater chains languishing.

In September, Cineworld Group, the world’s second-largest theater operator, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and AMC Entertainment, the world’s largest operator, lost more than 80 percent of its stock value in 2022.

The year, however, did hold some bright spots. Top Gun: Maverick was a surprise hit and the top movie of the year, grossing $718 million domestically and almost $1.5 billion worldwide. The movie had been scheduled for release in 2020, and Paramount executives considered sending the movie straight to streaming. Tom Cruise convinced the ­studio to wait for a theatrical release, and the decision paid off. With lighter than usual competition, Top Gun: Maverick became the biggest movie of Cruise’s career.

This year will be another tough one for theaters because it takes time for studios to increase the volume of projects in the pipeline. But 2023 will see an increase in the number of releases, with more of them being the big-budget tentpole films theaters crave.

For more than a decade, superheroes have dominated the box office, and for better or worse that trend isn’t going to change this year. At least 10 new superhero movies are slated for release in 2023. Barring any last-minute delays, this year will tie 2019 for most superhero films in a year. The superhero movie is the most popular genre right now. But will 2023 be an embarrassment of riches or is Hollywood just flooding the market to make a quick buck?

In February, Marvel Studios will launch Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe—the most profitable movie franchise in history—with the third Ant-Man movie, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Two more MCU movies will follow in the spring and summer, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and The Marvels, a ­follow-up to 2019’s Captain Marvel. Previous Ant-Man and Guardians movies have been popular with critics and fans alike, and both new installments feature directors returning to the projects they made successful. Expect these two to appeal to audiences—though Ant-Man appears to be moving away from the heist genre that made his movies so much fun. Fans hated the first Captain Marvel movie, but Marvel Studios hired a new directing and writing team for the sequel.

This year will be a test for Marvel. In addition to the three new movies, the MCU has six new TV series coming to Disney+. These movies and shows need to be better than the lackluster Phase 4 to bolster the franchise’s momentum. Otherwise even the most die-hard fan will start to succumb to franchise fatigue.

Marvel superheroes aren’t the only ones promising big-budget cinematic events in 2023. DC Studios, home of Batman and Superman, will release four films this year as part of its DC Extended Universe: Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Flash, Blue Beetle, and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. These four movies can be safely skipped. They are the flotsam and jetsam of a franchise that’s dead in the water.

DC Studio’s movies have lacked both a cohesive creative vision and a sense of fun. Toward the end of last year, Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns DC Studios, hired James Gunn, the creator of Guardians of the Galaxy for Marvel, to transform its foundering franchise into a Marvel-style juggernaut. Gunn is cleaning house, firing Henry Cavill as Superman and perhaps scrapping the entire DC Universe and starting over fresh. Maybe some of those iconic heroes will finally get the movies they deserve, but it won’t ­happen this year.

One of the most anticipated superhero films this year is an animated ­feature from Sony, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. It’s the sequel to 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, one of the best superhero films ever made. The original had groundbreaking ­animation coupled with spirited storytelling. The sequel proved to be so ambitious the studio opted to split it into two parts. The third installment arrives early next year.

Comic-book movies will generate the bulk of ticket sales in 2023, but non-super-powered action-adventure looks to leave its mark as well. Studios hope to lure people back to theaters with a slew of franchise films. A 10th Fast and Furious movie should appeal to millennials and 20-somethings, and a fifth Indiana Jones movie (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny), 15 years after the last installment in the series, might succeed in bringing some older viewers back to the theater. Theaters are also pinning much of their hopes on Tom Cruise’s seventh Mission: Impossible movie. Will the goodwill Cruise gained with audiences who loved Top Gun: Maverick spill into 2023?

Also expect a third Creed movie (which could be considered a ninth Rocky movie), a third Agatha Christie film starring Kenneth Branagh, and the second installment of 2021’s Dune.

Adults looking for something fresh might check out Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer—a biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.

This kind of adult drama is becoming an endangered cinematic species. Oppenheimer, however, might have enough scale to warrant seeing it on the big screen. Nolan (known for the Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception, and Dunkirk) claims he used real explosives rather than computer-generated effects to create his depictions of the nuclear tests.

For the kids, 2023 will offer plenty of new features, but not necessarily any surefire hits. Disney and Pixar have been in a drought, and Disney alienated many families with its LGBT agenda. But Disney films weren’t the only box office disappointments in the kids’ genre. In 2022 kids’ films as a whole underperformed, leading many in the industry to speculate that price sensitivity has increased for parents.

The traditional dynamic between studios and theaters has been complicated by moviegoers’ changing habits. The pandemic accelerated the trend toward watching at home, with many viewers opting to wait for adult dramas and kids’ movies to arrive on streaming. Watching at home proved more convenient and much more affordable. Viewers now reserve their trips to the theater for “event” movies full of noisy spectacle.

But the new streaming model hasn’t turned out to be as profitable as studios imagined. Without ticket sales to help offset production costs, studios will likely cut back on the number of adult dramas and comedies they make in the future. Hollywood will have to find a new model that works for fans and ensures profits for the studios. Many theater owners hope 2023 will be a good enough year to buy them some time. They’d like to still be around when that new model gets figured out.