It’s no secret that 2017 has been a terrible year for any movie studio not named Disney. In an already abysmal year (between the disheartening state of global politics in general and increasingly omnipresent strife within the US in particular), most people couldn’t even find solace in colorful Hollywood escapism. What (at least on paper) should have been surefire hits, like Justice League and The Mummy, hemorrhaged money in theaters and have jeopardized the futures of franchises that they were supposed to launch for their respective studios. Although there were widely-reported success stories throughout the year, like Wonder Woman and Get Out, they were few and far between.
Disney, however, had an insanely good year. Despite the disappointment of the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie — dead series tell no tales — the studio has generated hit after unquestioned hit. Beauty and the Beast, Cars 3, Coco, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnarok and Star Wars: Episode VIII — The Last Jedi have all hit the mark, both critically and financially. In fact, less than a week into it’s release and The Last Jedi has already earned more than half a billion dollars world-wide! This isn’t even mentioning whatever future gains they’ve secured by buying out competing film studio Fox (and, by extension, reacquiring the Fantastic Four and X-Men film rights).
Despite Disney’s individual success, however, there is no saving the 2017 box office. With a little over a week left in 2017, the film industry is expected to close out the year with a total earnings of $10.35 billion. This might sound like a lot, but it’s a sizable drop from last year, which raked in over a billion dollars more. It doesn’t matter how much people like Star Wars, it’s not going to earn that kind of money by the 31st.
But money isn’t everything. Despite the lower-than expected haul at the box office, 2017 is stuffed to the brim with excellent movies that will doubtless gain more of a following on BluRay in the coming years. Mother! was undoubtedly the single best horror movie in a year marked with an unusually high number of great movies in that genre. Dunkirk was easily the best WWII movie since Saving Private Ryan in 1998 and Baby Driver resurrected the heist genre with its toe-tappingly catchy soundtrack and exceptional performances.
Great movies are still getting made. They just aren’t, as a rule, drawing in the big crowds. Meanwhile, dreck like The Emoji Movie and The Dark Tower poison the well for people actively looking for a good time. Hollywood doesn’t need to up its game in theaters, but rethink how it sells the good movies in absolutely has to increasingly skeptical audiences.
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