What the Market will bear - Empires of the Sequels: Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire and Godzilla x Kong: the New Empire

Earlier this year, I had a list of movies to be released. A quick tally led to a surprising result that almost half of those releases were sequels or movies based on previously existing IP. After a second or two, I caught myself and figured I didn't really need to be surprised. There are a few reasons why.

One is that it's the market attuning itself to what the consumers want based on sales trends in merchandising connected to those properties. One way to check to see what character might be in an upcoming Marvel or DC film is to check a toy store; tie-in materials sometimes make it to the shelves well in advance of a movie dropping, but the point is that those tie-ins reflect the commercial bonds that drive mass movie-going attendance and consumption.

Another reason is that, of course, what proved profitable at one time is likely to be so at another, though this is a riskier proposition for investors. Any shortfall in theatrical performance is likely to be assumed to be offset by licensing to streaming and/or broadcast revenue. In any event, studio heads bank - literally - on the assumption that if Product A Whizbang Adventure Movie 1 met with a substantial ROI, then Product A Whizbang Adventure Movie 2 will, too. 

The third reason that comes to mind is bound up with the previous two, to some degree, though not always; a lack of creative vision that moves a story forward over a series of movies. It's this last that the suits probably care less about but that will eventually wind up affecting their bottom line when the movie-going public tires of the same antics (but now louder and more frequent than last time) or character beats (do the same thing but change the costumes, actors, or where those beats happen or just make them louder, too).

None of this, by now, is new terrain. The large-scale, big budget flicks that drive the entertainment economy are necessities to sustain that economy. Bigger, louder, and more equate to ticket sales and revenues that can - more or less - forecast what the margins will be. Until they don't, in which case, development on a given IP slows or shuts down completely.

Sequelitis is no longer a new phenomenon. It's been around in some form since the Silent Era but has, in the twenty-first century ballooned to immense proportions. It's not hard to see why; while I love the cinematic art, I'd have to be a rube to not recognize that it is also very much an industry employing very many people on whom livelihoods, families, and communities rely. As an industry, across the world, studios are beholden to those market forces that financial analysts and their teams are tasked with identifying and helping aid in developing product that will continue to bring enough remuneration to keep the machine rolling. If it happens that there are some arms of the giants' complexes to fund smaller (read: "arty", "indy", etc.) films, then fine. Otherwise, let the teams behind those films continue writing grants and beating the bushes for investors elsewhere.

Is all of this bad? Well, if we are discussing what movies are made for or what art is, then the development of increasingly loud, bigger, and more barren product is problematic, at least. More money is gong to be allocated for a new Minions film than for the next Scorsese masterpiece, let alone someone without his name recognition/clout. We can safely say that most mid- to low-budget films find their market at festivals and in limited release in major cities and may find their way to secondary markets through universities, museums with film programs, and repertory cinemas. Mostly, though, they will find their audiences on streaming platforms. This latter is not the same as being experienced in a theater with an audience. 

Having said that, I've been surprised - pleasantly - over the years I've been back in the states, that even large theater chains alike AMC and Regal have shown smaller, more artistically challenging fare alongside the larger, more economically sound works made to market. Seeing Claire Denis' High Life at Regal blew my mind; it is a great film, but just that it was playing at a megaplex was inspiring. 

The more difficult discussion to have, though, is that despite smaller, more independently made and minded films making their way to the big screen for a broader exposure is that fewer and fewer actually do. It's simply not as profitable to run the latest in films from independent scenes compared to getting butts in seats by offerig up another Ghostbusters film or an old faithful character like Godzilla, let alone a Mission Impossible, Bond, Despicable Me, or some genre work cut from a template. 

In an earlier era, it wasn't hard to see a work by a budding auteur alongside a blockbuster from Spielberg or Lucas. It's simply harder now and more unusual enough that when it does happen, it's a pleasant surprise.

I'm resigned to the fact that this is the way the market goes and how much this reflects not so much what movie-goers want as the apathy toward to movies in general that is reflected in the development of so much product. If people cared about about the theatrical experience and the substance of what comprises it, there would be a very different landscape in terms of what makes it to screen. The fact is, most don't care that much. 

Why should they? Here is where the manufacturer-product-consumption loop begins to wear into a rut. A given product is successful and results in a sizable, if not huge margin for the manufacturer (studios and their executives, the talent, and though not often enough, the crews). The product is well-made or at least well received enough to warrant development of something similar to trundle out in the next production cycle.The next iteration receives "good enough" notices, but mostly, it proves almost as profitable (however, it's important to note that budgets often increase on sequels to ensure rapid development and more robust marketing; this does not necessarily equate to quality of product). Maybe by the third cycle, the studios allocate a more proportional budget to an entry that they hope will bring in enough of a margin to sustain the marketing and investment of the IP in other areas (toys, TV spin-offs, streaming licensing, broadcast usage, and so on). 

That there is typically a drop-off in quality is remarked on by critics, of course (of course!), but it's also marked by attendance and other market indicators in related product movement and sales. None of this is any longer a new development; it's simply par for the course. When taking your date to a film, let alone a family, is a significant investment on an experience that may not measure up to expectations, the desire to spend more time going to the movies feels riskier than buying up penny stocks and hoping for a million dollar pay-out. 

It's no wonder people prefer to stay home and watch streaming and/or broadcast shows that are often as rewarding as the movie-going experience used to be. I could, have, and will argue that nothing replaces sitting in a theater with an audience watching a literally larger than life dream of someone else's making play out, but most people aren't going to buy that argument nor should they. I'm single, have a Regal Unlimited membership and am more vested in film than most of my fellow consumers. Make no mistake about it; I am a consumer, no matter how much I might witter on about Tarkovsky, Bergman, or the aforementioned Claire Denis. All movies aren't created equal, but none should be dismissed out of hand (well...), if only because they do represent someone's effort to make something entertaining, if not enduring.

All of this said, we do live in a time when the Sequel trods across the landscape like an imperial army. I'm also not against sequels. When they do advance a character's journey or storyline or bring something new to not seen before in the series, this is to be recognized and frankly, applauded. This has worked, of course, in examples like The Godfather Part 2, The Empire Strikes Back, and The Dark Knight. It's also not worked, as evidenced by the third chapters in each of those trilogies. Character and/or plot development and increasingly interesting story lines have been seen in many of the individual series in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, particularly those where the forced insertion of links to forthcoming or related films were minimized. 

Indiana Jones has five films to his name; one is a stone classic, one is almost as good (or rather, felt that way at the time), but if I'm honest, the third installment is mostly a retread of Raiders of the Lost Ark (though a vast improvement over its predecessor), and of the remainders, depending on your perspective (my perspective) two suck and one is at least trying to do something different. I'll leave it at that to let the reader decide for themselves which is which. The point is that like Jame Bond, we have a series of varying quality and that lives or dies based on the character and how much we're willing to go through to see him on the big screen.

Did we need five Indy movies? Probably not, but Lucas, Spielberg, the other producers, and the studios likely decided "why not"? Do we need any follow-up to any successful work? Nope. No, we do not. We may not even want one; most often, when people leave a theater, it is (or maybe used to be) out of sight out of mind and onto the next thing in life. 

There are exceptions, of course. Some series are developed with an eye toward telling an entire tale, with world-building and a history, and all the rest. The Star Wars universe comes most readily to mind; see also, Star Trek, the MCU, and so on. In many of these cases, there is a dovetailing of creative and corporate interests and enough profitable performance and cultural acceptance to provide a continuation of these tales.

In 1954, Gojira was released in Japan, introducing to the world a figure that embodied the nuclear fears of the people of the only country to date that has suffered the results of an atomic weapon. Over the course of dozens of films, Godzilla would morph from a legitimately terrifying reminder of the darkness at humanity's heart to cuddly toy figure with his own spawn of cuddlies, back to a figure of the environmental ruination humanity has brought to and on the Earth, down to Godzilla Minus One, as an avatar of genuine existential malaise (from both within and without). Such is the range of the Japanese iterations of the character. 

The American versions have been less multifaceted. I'll pass over the Emmerich version from 1998 with Matthew Broderick and Jean Reno, two fine actors lost in a thuddingly stupid scenario and simply remark that Gareth Edwards' take on the character mirrored the longings of fans who wondered what a Godzilla at scale and with modern special effects would look like. It paid off. Sure, there was a sturdy cast in such heavy hitters as Bryan Cranston, Elizabeth Olsen, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Juliette Binoche, but what we were there for was to watch a big beastie with bad breath destroy and render trivial humanity's civilization. That he didn't quite do it, is fine, of course. His showdown with other beasts similarly revived and brought into the 21st century landscape was super satisfying.

Did we need the film? Of course not! But I was glad we got it because it was fun. Gloriously, stupid fun. Godzilla is not a signifier of anything here, the movie doesn't deconstruct anything, it isn't even trying to be substantial, except to say that, wow, just think what would happen if Godzilla was real.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters traded out Edwards for Michael Dougherty who, like Edwards, was no stranger to the fantastical (his previous directorial work was Krampus, one of my fave Yuletide movies, and he had scripted X-2, the best of the X-Men series...unfortunately, none of his other work is considered terribly great, though I'll stand by Superman Returns as much better than it was received). No big changes here, except in critters for the big guy to tussle with and a different set of humans whose storylines are what they are. The additional development of looking into the Monarch Corporation was a sound idea and one that grounds the series, somewhat analogous to the Vought Corporation in The Boys series, though considerably less malevolent. Maybe a better corollary would be Stark Industries in the MCU. 

Godzilla vs. Kong brought everyone's favorite giant gorilla into the mix, as well as Rebecca Hall and Adam Wingard as director whose bonafides in horror are, to say the least, impressive. Millie Bobby Brown reprises her role as the Godzilla Whisperer and once again, we have a fun flick where the human characters are adequate enough and don't detract from the potential of a Large Extinction Event in the forms of the two titular beasts. Additionally, the movie builds on the interlinked narrative of the Titans and humanity and so lends a little more substance to why we should care.

This all brings us to Godzilla x Kong: the New Empire. It's a little more comedic, a little less focused, and not quite as engaging as its predecessor, but that level of engagement like mileage, will vary. Hall nad Brian Tyree Henry, two of my favorite actors, reprise their roles from the previous entry and i have to ask it any reprise even matters. Oh! And Dan Stevens is on hand as a Titan vet/Hall's old flame, and he and Henry provide most of the levity and kind of flesh out characters so underwritten and sketched out as to be outlines for and improv group. That's not a knock; it's the nature of the writing.

Wingard is back and while the movie itself is boilerplate, it sure is purty. I'm almost thinking about going back to watch it in 3-D, but I don't know if I could zone out enough to not get annoyed. Don't get me wrong; the movie is fine for what it is and does what it's supposed to do, but there's not a lot of there there (Christ, if Gertrude Stein were alive today and writing movie reviews, she'd have given up on humanity, very likely). There's only so much formula a kid can drink, you know?

The mythos of the hollow earth introduced in the previous film is expanded on, we get some neat standalone moments (Godzilla curled up in a ball in the Roman Colosseum like a giant reptilian kitty cat napping and just some really colorful sequences throughout - the retelling of the tribe's history with the Titans whose formerly sole survivor is Hall's character's charge, and just some fine use of color throughout, compliments of Ben Seresin's cinematography). 

There's a lot of fun to be had here once the brain's critical functions are diminished. I find myself on board with these flicks because I'm still the five year old who fell in love with King Kong (the 1933 masterpiece that outdoes everything I'm reviewing here and other giants out of Japan and Harryhausen (all hail the Master). That doesn't completely removie me from calling out movies like this as fundamentally silly in terms of individual arcs, in terms of contrived set-ups, and of course, the overall conceit. 

Still, I do find them good fun and rarely slogs (looking at you, Godzilla from 1998).

I can't say the same for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.A large part of my antipathy toward the film is rooted in how much it never made any sense to follow up 1984's Ghostbusters with a sequel, let alone an entire series of cartoons, a TV show, and Jason Reitman's previous effort Ghostbusters: Afterlife. The 2016 reboot/reimagining from Paul Feig I actually liked and found pretty funny throughout. Like much of Feig's work, it was too long and overstuffed, but the cast delivered and I preferred the chances Feig took with the material than what Landis has done. However, I get it. I don't like it, but I get it.

Reitman - who wrote but didn't direct this entry - said he wanted to take up his father's mantle and give Ghostbusters back to the fans. You know the ones; the butt-hurt fanboys, now in their forties, whose childhoods were ruined by a bunch of girls playing Ghostbusters and destroying the lovely edifice that Reitman pêre had constructed. They did the job of sinking the 2016 movie and paving the way for not one, but two films that traffic in fan service on a scale only rivaled by Marvel and a lack of imagination that, well, is just what it is.

I remembered vaguely that the Ghostbusters cartoon was popular, but thought it was funny how a movie that trafficked in anarchic comedy and included an inferred supernatural sex scene (actually two) became a hit with the kiddies. I'll profess to not seeing Ghostbusters II, while I'm at it, because the reviews were lackluster and I just wasn't interested in what sounded more like a money grab. Plus, Bill Murray voiced his reluctance to return unless they killed him off. Obviously, they didn't, because he shows up here, very much alive.

The problem isn't with the talent. I don't think with a cast this good, it could ever be. No, the whole thing is just tired. There's a dearth of genuine spark and I felt as though I might have written this on a day whan I was amusing myself with a What If scenario of bringing the old Ghostbusters back to meet Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, and Mckenna Grace, the MVP of the movie. Oh, and Patton Oswalt who I wish we had more of.

It's not that the movie is bad, even. It just never rises to any level where its existence makes any strong case, outside of placating grown-ups whose childhood was rich in Ghostbusters lore that the rest of us don't know/don't care about. Beyond that, yes, the performances are fine for what the actors have been given (not much, truly, even less than what the humans are given in the Godzilla franchise) and frankly, the humor is so anodyne and toothless, the thrills so very not, and the special effects okay, that I question why a movie this bland was greenlit. Oh, branding. Silly me.

To date, the box office returns of Godzilla x Kong are $218,437,620 (against a budget of an estimated $135,000,000) worldwide from Boxoffice Mojo. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is $114,426,978  (against a budget of an estimated $100,000,000) worldwide. The international receipts for Godzilla x Kong are about even, but Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is domestically outperforming the international box office. Make of that what you will.

I don't usually delve into the economics of the industry as much as I do here because it doesn't really say much about the films I just watched. However, when it comes to sequels and properties and what is being proffered as a motion picture, I think you need to follow the money. Would I say that neither of these films are worthwhile because they are so much product? No. I found each entertaining in their own way, even Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (though not nearly as much as Godzilla x Kong). It's just that I don't find much more there to consider.

Before I wrap this up, I'll take a stab at thematic structures and emphasis in each film. The Godzilla flick is all about belonging, finding one's home, nnd understanding our place in nature. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire focuses on acceptance into a family, recognition of one's worth, and how to honor and continue a legacy. Or not. I think it mostly boils down to draining a comedy of whatever fun there was in its original form, "honoring" a terrific filmmaker whose son - while a skilled and original creator in his own right - apparently still has a lot to learn, and in general, just blandly telling a story that is lost in special effects when it seems to be so earnestly trying to tell another "heartfelt" story about all those other thems.

For the win, Godzilla x Kong: the New Empire.