Indie Boom
The balance between money and artistry is precarious, but in Hollywood, money has won out for the past decade and a half. What set in motion over fifteen years of franchises, reboots, and remakes, may be what tips the scales once more. The film industry of 2007-08 and 2023 seems nearly identical on paper: a looming financial crisis coupled with industry strikes. However, the events of 2023 are likely to veer straight off into an Indie Boom, thanks to what happened before.
Priscilla (2023)
2008 saw the beginning of the Franchise as a studio staple. At the tail end of 2007, the WGA went on strike for better working conditions in TV and film, just as the housing bubble was popping. It was “the ‘perfect storm’ of misery,” according to Variety, “when the double whammy of a writers’ strike and a recession hit Hollywood hard.” Superhero films and franchises were nothing new in Hollywood, but they would soon dominate the box office completely. According to IMDb, Marvel’s Iron Man was the eighth top-grossing film of 2008. Industry executives saw the superhero successes of 2008 and learned a decade-defining message: spectacle sells. Since film production is a gamble, there is always a need to make movies that will do well at the box office. Hollywood, spurred on by these successes, turned to this proven, reliable model to recoup the losses of the strike and a spendthrift consumer base. Superhero franchises benefit from formulaic, pre-written material, meaning movie studios could cut costs in the writer’s room, and redirect that into post-production CGI (Marvel VFX artists didn’t unionize until 2023, another layer of cost efficiency with this model). Compared to 2008, where four of the top films were standalone projects, the top grossers ten years later were all franchise movies except for one.
Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)
Yet this time, it feels different. Like superhero movies, the Indie film as we know it today has been a slow-growing project. King of Indie A24 has been growing its repertoire since 2013 but has only gained name recognition in the past five years from projects like Midsommar (2019), Euphoria (2019-Present), and Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022). This recognition coincides with franchise fatigue — the phenomenon where audiences are sick and tired of the spectacle. Back in 2019, when the phrase first gained traction, it lacked teeth to rip into Hollywood. As chief critic for Variety Owen Gleiberman said that year: “And — news flash! — [the franchise] works. More often than it doesn’t. And more consistently than originality.” But the difference between 2019 and 2023 is the strikes. Gleiberman noted that executives “Live by the audience, die by the audience,” but he fails to acknowledge how the audience has very little effect on the movies being made outside of box office numbers. If we are offered scraps when we’re starving, we will take what we can get. The disruption caused by the industry-wide strikes of 2023, however, is finally giving us some good food. The WGA and SAG-AFTRA gave green lights to indie productions by way of interim agreements. Writing, filming, and promotion were able to continue during the strikes. Indie films will have a head start going into 2024 compared to the stalled productions of major studios.
Midsommar (2019)
So what will the Indie Boom look like? The financial ramifications are harder to predict since much of the effects will come at a slower pace, but it is likely that lower-budget films will start to become the norm. This will manifest as more intimate stories and a return to character examination. A touchstone for this is Priscilla (2023). Directed by Sofia Coppola, this film examined the surface perfection of Priscilla Presley’s life while living in the shadow of her world-famous husband. Movies to look forward to in 2024 include the upcoming Sometimes I Think About Dying, produced by and starring Daisy Ridley, and Between the Temples, starring Jason Schwartzman and Carol Kane. Next up, expect to see the experimental. Everything Everywhere from 2022 highlights the need for something fresh, not only in its storytelling but in leads as well. Look again to Between the Temples, where Schwartzman plays a cantor who runs into his former music teacher and new bat mitzvah student, played by Kane. And while not an indie film, Saltburn’s fantastical elements and unreliable narration also tap into this expectation, which is what we and big studios need. Finally, we will hopefully see the popularity of non-English films. RRR gained worldwide success in 2022, specifically in the US where non-Western films rarely get their footing. Hopefully, this momentum will keep up for Disco Boy, a war film spanning languages, countries, and aesthetics, as it comes to American theaters later this year.
Time will only tell if these predictions will come true. At the very least, the groundwork has been laid and the foundation is solid, and God, please let them come true.
