Tuesday night, the Times Square ball will drop.
Meanwhile, I pray that next year the entertainment industry doesn’t drop the ball. Again.
Here are my overly optimistic New Year’s resolutions for film, Broadway and television.
At the cinema: eliminate superhero films
One of the most obvious lessons of 2024 is that audiences are growing tired of comic book stories. “Madame Web“, “Kraven the Hunter” and “Joker: Folie à Deux » everything collapsed deafeningly.
Tony Vinciquerra, delusional CEO of Sony Pictures recently claimed that “Madame Web was less successful in the cinema because the press crucified her. It wasn’t a bad movie and it did very well on Netflix. » Come back to us, Tony! Your soulless schlock has been a global punchline.
Marvel, on the other hand, has cooled its jets in 2024, releasing only “Deadpool and Wolverine”, which was a great and well-deserved success.
See? Cutting it down, building anticipation and not making the same old formulaic movie (the Ryan Reynolds/Hugh Jackman movie was a buddy comedy) worked wonders.
Rival DC (Warner Bros.) is following suit, making the juvenile reboot of “Superman” its only release in 2025. Frankly, I could even do without it.
So why is Disney-owned Marvel dropping three films this year in five months?
“Captain America: Brave New World,” “Thunderbolts” (whatever that is) and “Fantastic Four: First Steps” will hopefully return the MCU to the glory days of 2019, when “Avengers: Endgame ” brought in $2.8 billion. and “Black Panther” was nominated for best picture.
This will never happen. The moment has passed. Sayanora. Everyone should do some soul searching with capes and spandex in 2025.
On Broadway: relax with British shows
Rule it, Britannia.
London imports have been arriving at a fast and furious pace since cinemas reopened in 2021.
A parade of Anglo flops passed: “Back to the Future: The Musical,” “Caroline, Or Change,” “Life of Pi,” “The Hills of California” and “Patriots” among them. Elton John’s ‘Tammy Faye’ fetches $25 million has just been exorcised. Life will not be a cabaret for “Cabaret”
There were also hits, including “Prima Facie,” with Jodie Comer, and “Merrily We Roll Along.” And I wish the same success to the magnificent “Sunset Boulevard” with Nicole Scherzingerwho has the arduous task of selling the large and beautiful St. James until summer.
Others, sigh, are on the way. The overrated and annoying musical “Operation Mincemeat” and pitiful”Stranger Things: The First Shadow» open in spring. All the Broadway insiders who have seen “Stranger Things” can’t stand it, and sales in London have collapsed. An auspicious start!
In 2025, power-hungry (and often incompetent) British producers and our new UK-based theater owner, the Ambassador Theater Group, need to wake up and realize that Broadway and the West End are not the same thing. Unless their goal is to lose millions.
What are they saying there? Watch out for the gap.
On television: please make a unmissable show
This year, television suddenly took a back seat.
What does it say about 2024 that the biggest hit was a six-episode miniseries about a deranged stalker?
That the era of Peak TV is over. And here we are back at base camp.
Viewers are now faced with a mountain of niche fare created by studios to bolster their streaming services, but no one seems to be watching them. “Shogun” is awesome, and yet I’ve never heard anyone talk about it. Never. If a bonsai falls in a forest…
Water cooler emissions don’t have to be dead, even though we’re constantly told they are.
The pendulum of television needs to swing toward entertainment and bold narratives rather than prestige and obnoxious messages. That is, if they want eyeballs.
People want a weekly drama that they can talk about and obsess over. Give us a new “Game of Thrones.” Well, this one isn’t “House of the Dragon.”
See you next Sunday – and next year.