Megalopolis seems like a bit of an outlier here because of how much of a labor of love this was for Coppola personally. Most of the film’s funding came from Coppola himself and I’m sure he used a few of his connections he’d made over 50+ years in Hollywood to get it produced, but I don’t think anyone involved ever expected a narrative-heavy sci-fi(?) film to break any box office records in 2024.

As for the rest of the movies mentioned, I feel like it’s a combination of A) too little incentive to see a movie in theaters and B) film budgets seem to be wayyy too high for the final product.

It’s fascinating to contrast this to the myriad of essays about the dead of cinema. This examples fit to tee to the template of reasons to not go to the movies anymore. The model ran out, stars don’t matter anymore, streaming is king, scripts are stale, IPs are no longer guarantees, the silver screen is disconnected from the imagination of audiences, but still trying to funnel their wallets with outrageous overpriced projects.

This is adapted from videogame journalism but it fits cinema as well. I want less films, with smaller budgets, that are shorter, that pay their writers, actors and crews better, while telling more creative and original stories, and I’m not joking.

I have to admit, Megalopolis looks like my kind of bonkers. This is the exceedingly rare movie I will actually try to catch in the theater.

Megalopolis sounds bizarre, I’m actually looking forward to checking it out. I’m not really interested in anything else coming soon except Deadpool.

Megalopolis looks like an expensive masturbatory exercise. If Life of Pi had less of a story line.