Every three decades, or roughly once a generation, Hollywood experiences a seismic shift. The transition from silent films to talkies in the 1920s. The rise of broadcast television in the 1950s. The raucous cable boom of the 1980s.
It’s been happening again, for some while now, as most folks have observed.
The long-promised streaming revolution — the next great leap in how the world gets its entertainment — is finally here in all its glory.
Warner Bros. Discovery studio in Burbank, Califoria, one of the oldest and largest Hollywood studios
In the 115-year history of the American film industry, never has so much upheaval arrived so fast and on so many fronts, leaving many writers, directors, studio executives, agents and other movie workers disoriented and demoralized. These are melodramatic people by nature, but talk to enough of them and you will get the strong sense that their fear is real this time.
“The last four years have shaken the movie business to its bones,” Jason Blum, the powerhouse producer whose credits range from The Purge series to Get Out and the BlacKkKlansman.” recently told Los Angeles Times film writer, Justin Chang.
Streaming, of course, has been disrupting the entertainment business for some time. Netflix started delivering movies and TV shows via the internet in 2007.
In 2024, however, the shift towards streaming has greatly accelerated, with Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV, Crave/HBO, Prime Video, YouTube Premium, CBC Gem and Kanopy, among other streaming platforms, competing for your movie attention.
Adding to Hollywood’s misery is the abrupt changing of the guard in Hollywood’s highest ranks. Nine of the top 20 most powerful people in show business have left their jobs, including Universal’s Ron Meyer, whose 25-year Universal career ended in 2021. David Zaslav is now in firm control of Warner Bros. Discovery, with Kevin Tsujihara exiting his role as chairman and CEO of Warner Bros.Entertainment, a job he held for six years. Paramount Global CEO Jim Gianopulos was removed, in favour of Bob Bakish, also now on the way out, with the company up for sale.
“It’s not clear that full normal will return even well into the fourth quarter of 2024,” Warner Bros. Discovery Chairman David Zaslav, told Chang in an interview on how Hollywood is faring against the streaming wars, and the slow recovery from the pandemic.
An empty cinema with no patrons. Is this picture an indication of what presages cinema in the future?
Will young people — trained during the pandemic to expect instant access to new movies — get into the habit of going to the movies like their parents and grandparents did? Generation Z forms a crucial audience: About 33% all moviegoers in 2023 were under the age of 24, according to the Motion Picture Association.
“Cinema as an art form is not going to die,” Michael Shamberg, the producing force behind films like Erin Brockovich and The Big Chill” told the New York Times’ Manohla Dargis in a recent interview. “But the tradition of cinema that we all grew up on, falling in love with movies in a theatre, is over.”
In other words, the art may live on, but the myth of big screens as the be-all and end-all is being dismantled in a fundamental and perhaps irreversible manner.
People either love them or hate them, and even those that love them are critical of on-screen adaptations of their favourite stage shows.
In recent years, Hollywood hasn’t had a great track record of adapting musicals from the stage to the screen in a way that works, and many movie musicals in past years have been criticized for not having that certain something that makes the onstage musicals feel so special and unique.
That was the case until three years ago, 2021, which apparently became the year when Hollywood figured out how to make a good movie musical.
As the musicals that were made that year were, sadly, not big box office hits, nor successful streaming, movie musicals have once again faded from our screens, both in our local multiplex, and on Netflix and other streaming platforms.
Still and all, if you love musicals, you can still take heart with the rich and glorious history of the musical, in whatever form it has taken cinematically.
Regardless of their box office success, there were there a great many 2021 musicals that were Oscar nominated — In The Heights, Dear Evan Hansen, tick, tick…BOOM!, West Side Story, and even Encanto (which wasn’t derived from a stage play). For the most part, they were well executed, and loved by critics, if not by a mass, anticipatory audience.
For the past century, the Hollywood musical has been recognized as a distinguished part of our movie history, playing an integral role in the evolution of movies during the 1920s through 1950s, til now.
It wasn’t until 1927 that Warner Brothers first introduced to the big screen singing along with sound in their release of The Jazz Singer; a remake of the Broadway musical of the same name.
The late 1920s brought difficult economic times, and a worldwide Depression.
It was during this time that Hollywood came to the public’s rescue with the dynamically entertaining diversion of the Hollywood musical.
Hollywood studios began to release a plethora of musicals which offered the movie-going public a chance to temporarily escape from the dire economic issues that had the world in its grip.
In the 1930s, with Warner Brothers’ acquisition of choreographer Busby Berkeley, the musical genre was truly born with the release of popular musicals like 42nd Street, Bright Lights, and Gold Diggers.
Capping the decade was 1939’s The Wizard of Oz, still one of the classic musicals that continues to entertain audiences today.
It was during the 1940s that the Hollywood musical really came of age, and the popularity of the movie musical continued right through the 1950s.
One of the more popular 1940s musicals was Yankee Doodle Dandy, a film that introduced movie lovers to a young James Cagney who gave a performance that earned him an Oscar. Another popular 1940s title, long a holiday tradition, is The Bells of St. Mary’s.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer embraced old-fashioned musical films in the ’40s and ’50s, furthering the boundaries of the musicals, with stars like Judy Garland, Fred Astaire and Mickey Rooney leading the way.
Starting with Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincent Minnelli, 1944), MGM began producing some of the most popular films of the era, including Easter Parade (Walters, 1948), An American in Paris (Minnelli, 1951), and Singin’ in the Rain (Kelly and Donen, 1952).
Marilyn Monroe brought a new element to the musical movie during the 1950’s.
This was also the time to bring Broadway to film in movies such as Oklahoma! and Guys and Dolls.
Elvis also started to make the big screen his home, which many believe signalled the beginning of the end for the genre.
Through the 1960s, though, the adaptation of stage material for the screen remained a predominant trend in Hollywood. West Side Story, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, and Oliver! were all adapted from Broadway hits and each won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
The genre changed slightly during the 1970’s, where in some cases, such as Saturday Night Fever and Tommy, the stars were not the singers. The movie plot was being driven by song, but in a pre-recorded way.
There were a few musicals to note in the ’80s, like Annie and Purple Rain, but for the most part, the entire genre had changed to musicians supplying the music.
With the arrival of the early 1990s, one of the more successful modern-day musical movements emerged: Disney’s animated musical blockbusters, including such films as The Little Mermaid, Aladdinand The Lion King, all released in rapid succession, amassing an enormous fan base along the way.
In 2000, let us not forget the Coen Brothers’ O Brother, Where Are Thou?
Although the animated musical film has become a popular route for the genre in recent years, the success of musicals like Chicago, Rent, Sweeney Todd, and Les Misérables seems to indicate that large scale, live action musical productions are still very much relevant to film today.
In 2006: John Carney’s début film, Once, with Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová.
In 2017, three musicals were nominated for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globes: Florence Foster Jenkins, La La Land, and Sing Street, with La La Land taking home the award (well, sort of).
Although musicals might not necessarily find success in terms of receiving the most awards recognition, they are nonetheless popular and enjoyed by audiences.
Once upon a time, huge, spectacle musicals were the backbone of Hollywood.
The pandemic year of 2021 offered Hollywood a chance to return to the glory days of the 1930s Depression era musical, allowing audiences to reacquire a taste for the musical, to help lift of us out of the malaise that had us in its grip.
The Hollywood musical has always offered viewers a page out of movie history, memories that will forever be captured on film, and musical films that will continue to be enjoyed by audiences around the world.
Summer blockbusters, action-packed thrillers, sweet rom-coms, and much-anticipated sequels are all on the upcoming movie slate for 2024.
2024 at the movies promises to be one for the books, especially with the long-awaited releases of a surfeit of films that were delayed for release until 2024, as a result of the strike of WGA and SAG-AFTRA members last spring and summer.
From dramatic biopics like Bob Marley: One Love and the Amy Winehouse film Back to Black to epic sequels like Dune: Part Two, as well as a surfeit of movies pushed back from 2023, this new year is already shaping up to be a wild year in film.
Here’s a list of the 26 most anticipated Hollywood releases set to hit your local multiplex in 2024, between now and the end of June.
Argylle (Feb. 2). Matthew Vaughn returns to the espionage genre in a new movie that follows a spy novelist (Bryce Dallas Howard) who, unbeknownst to her, is writing real-life events into her beloved books series. Sam Rockwell, Henry Cavill and Bryan Cranston also star, alongside pop star Dua Lipa.
Lisa Frankenstein (Feb. 9). The campy, young adult take on the Mary Shelley classic sees a high schooler re-animate a corpse who turns out to be a love interest. The movie is the feature début from Zelda Williams and features a screenplay from Jennifer’s Body scribe Diablo Cody.
Madame Web (Feb. 14). Dakota Johnson leads this Spider-Man spinoff as a clairvoyant who becomes entangled with multiple superheroes.
Bob Marley: One Love (Feb. 14). The biopic of Jamaican singer-songwriter Bob Marley comes from King Richard director Reinaldo Marcus Green and stars Kingsley Ben-Adir as Marley, the film following the singer’s rise, and personal and political journey.
Dune: Part Two (March 1). This follow-up to Denis Villeneuve’s first Dune was originally set for release in 2023. The sequel picks up with Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) looking to avenge his family line. Austin Butler and Christopher Walken join the cast that is also led by Zendaya.
Road House (March 21). Patrick Swayze’s 1989 action flick is getting a 2024 re-do thanks to director Doug Liman, with Jake Gyllenhaal taking over the starring role as an ex-UFC fighter turned bouncer.
The American Society of Magical Negroes (March 22). Set for a Sundance 2024 début later this month, this featurefrom comedian and satirist Kobi Libii follows a young man who’s recruited into a secret society of Black people who are meant to make white people’s lives easier. Justice Smith leads this Focus Features project.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (March 29). After revitalizing the franchise with 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife, stars Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace and Paul Rudd return to team up with original Ghostbusters stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson and Annie Potts as they attempt to save New York.
Mickey 17 (March 29). The new film from director Bong Joon-ho, his first since his Oscar-winning Parasite, stars Robert Pattinson as a “expendable” employee sent to colonize a foreign world.
The First Omen (April 5). Nell Tiger Free stars in the prequel to the classic Richard Donner film. The project kicks off when a young American woman moves to Rome in service of the church, only to encounter a mysterious darkness. Tawfeek Barhom, Sonia Braga, Ralph Ineson and Bill Nighy also star in the project, from.filmmaker Arkasha Stevenson.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (April 12). Godzilla vs. Kong filmmaker Adam Wingard returns with a film that teams Godzilla and Kong set to face off against previously hidden monstrous Titans. Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry and Dan Stevens are on board as the human stars.
Challengers (April 26). Another holdover from 2023 pushed due to the actors strike, this Luca Guadagnino film stars Zendaya as a tennis star turned coach in a love triangle with competing champions. Josh O’Connor & Mike Faist co-star.
Civil War (April 26). This Alex Garland movie is set after the United States has fallen into a state of civil war, and follows reporters as they try to traverse the fractured and increasingly dangerous country. Kirsten Dunst, her husband Jesse Plemons, Nick Offerman and Priscilla’s Cailee Spaeny co-star.
Idea of You (May 2). The beloved romance novel is turned into a romantic comedy. Michael Showalter directs and Anne Hathaway stars as a single mom who goes to a concert with her daughter where she begins a relationship with the lead singer of a beloved boy band (think Harry Styles). Nicholas Galitzine stars as the love interest in the feature which will stream on Amazon.
Fall Guy (May 3). This feature film version of the 1980s TV series follows a Hollywood stuntman who gets embroiled in a real-life crime plot that will require him to use his skills to save the day and the movie he is working on. Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt co-star in this feature film directed by David Leitch.
Back to Black (May 10). Marisa Abela stars as the late Grammy winner Amy Winehouse in the biopic from Sam Taylor-Johnson.
https://youtu.be/MbvonXc8QjI?si=xElVFjFFSzC3ZPLl
IF (May 17). John Krasinski directs and acts in this feature centering on a young girl (Cailey Fleming) who can see imaginary friends (also known as IFs) and must help IFs who have been abandoned by their kids. Ryan Reynolds leads the Paramount feature that voice stars Steve Carell as an IF named Blue.
Garfield (May 24). Chris Pratt voice stars as the classic comic strip cat, who goes on a heist with his feline father (Samuel L. Jackson) and canine pal Odie (Harvey Guillén). Nicholas Hoult voices Garfield and Odie’s owner, Jon, while Chicken Little filmmaker Mark Dindal directs.
Furiosa (May 24). Nearly a decade after George Miller’s Fury Road was heralded as one of the greatest action films of all time, the filmmaker returns with a prequel centered on the early days of Furiosa, played by Anya Taylor-Joy.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (May 24). Set 300 years after the trilogy of Apes films, this new film, like the classic 1968 Planet of the Apes installment, is set in a time when apes have taken over Earth and humans are subjugated.
Ballerina (June 7). John Wick 4 grossed a series-best $440.1 million. Ballerina will be a new test of the franchise’s strength, with this feature spinoff movie starring Ana De Armas as a ballet dancer / assassin named Rooney.
Inside Out 2 (June 14). The gang is back in this animated follow-up to the beloved Pixar movie that follows the anthropomorphized emotions of a young girl led by Amy Poehler’s Joy. Joining for this round is Anxiety, voiced by Maya Hawke.
Bad Boys 4 (June 14). In many ways, Bad Boys 4 is a much-needed palette cleanser for those involved. For one, it marks Will Smith’s return to the summer blockbusters following his infamous Oscars slap in March 2022, the film arriving nearly 30 years after the 1995 original, directed by Michael Bay.
The Bikeriders (June 21). Disney opted not to release The Bikeriders amid the SAG-AFTRA strike. Focus Features will release this Jeff Nichols-directed movie focusing on the culture of a 1960s Midwestern motorcycle club, the film’s stars: Tom Hardy, Jodie Comer and Austin Butler.
A Quiet Place: Day One (June 28). Six years after John Krasinski launched a new franchise for Paramount, the studio is releasing its first spinoff. Set in New York City on the first day of an alien invasion, the feature originated from an idea Krasinski. Pig’s Michael Sarnoski directs a cast that includes Lupita Nyong’o, Joseph Quinn, Alex Wolff, Djimon Hounsou and Denis O’Hare.
Horizon: An American SagaChapter 1 (June 28), Chapter 2 (Aug. 16). Kevin Costner’s multi-film western saga has been in the works since 1988, with the star-filmmaker putting at least $20 million of his own money into the project.
The cinematic landscape of 2024 promises a kaleidoscope of experiences, from the grandeur of Hollywood blockbusters to the intimacy of independent gems discovered at film festivals.
As audiences prepare for a year filled with visual spectacles, emotional journeys, and thought-provoking narratives, the global film industry stands ready to captivate, challenge, and inspire.
Whether it’s the excitement of summer blockbusters or the anticipation of the autumn Oscar season, 2024 is poised to be a remarkable chapter in the ongoing saga of cinema.
Film has always been a central, organizing force in my relationship with both my daughter, Megan, and my son, Jude.
Our collective love of the cinema, attending film festivals and discussing what we saw following the various screenings we attended (usually at the Fresgo Inn on Davie, which was alive no matter the time of night or early morning) was, over the years, a central feature of our relationship — the relationship between son and daughter, and dad — that allowed us to delve deep into discussions of the meaning of life, and our collective responsibility to work towards creating a fairer and more just world for everyone.
Heart and deep caring for humanity was at the centre of our love of film, and at the centre of our loving familial relationship, informing the choices we made about how we would conduct ourselves in the world, and the projects and causes to which we would devote our time and our energies.
In the 1980s, when Cathy and I were going through a rancorous divorce, film brought us together.
When in Seattle — which we visited frequently, always staying on the non-smoking 33rd floor of the Weston twin towers — in 1984, we took in a screening of Garry Marshall’s The Flamingo Kid — the story of a working class boy (Matt Dillon) who takes a summer job at a beach resort and learns valuable life lessons.
Megan was seven years of age, and Jude 9 — both were uncertain about the efficacy of our trip south (without their mother’s permission — we called her upon arriving at our hotel), but the screening alleviated and, finally, repaired any of their concerns, and all went well that weekend. Fortuitously, too, upon our return, the divorce proceedings inexplicably moved forward into a more reasonable and thoughtful direction, reflective of all our collective concerns.
Whenever there was “trouble” in our relationship — generated, most usually, by their mother — film served to salve the wounds of dysfunction, allowing us to find our collective centre while healing the wounds that rent all of our lives during a decade-long, million dollar custody dispute.
Film spoke to us, made us better, took us out of the drudgery of our too often protean daily and, more often, troubled lives, and engaged us while putting our lives into a broader and more human scale perspective. Never once was there a film that we saw together when we didn’t come out of the screening feeling more whole, and more at one with ourselves and the world.
Such was true, at the screenings of Glenn Close and John Malkovich’s Dangerous Liaisons over the holiday period in 1988, or months later at the screening of Kevin Costner’s Field of Dreams,which we took in at the Oakridge Theatre, a favourite and comforting cinema haunt of ours.
When Megan wanted some “alone time” with me, it almost always revolved around watching a film together, although as Megan matured (and as her love for film matured), Megan made it plain that she was present in the theatre to watch the film, not “share time” with me, choosing always to sit in a whole other section of the theatre (it drove her crazy in the times that we were sitting together in a theatre that I would check in occasionally with her, looking at her to determine how she felt about the film — talking during a film was an unforgivable sin, so that was never going to happen).
Some days, Megan would call and say, “Dad, take me to a film.” And because I was a film critic at the time, and had a pass to attend at any cinema in North America, off the two of us would traipse to see Kathy Bates’ Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) or Johnny Depp’s Benny & Joon (1993) at the old 12-theatre complex downstairs in the Royal Centre mall.
Other times, post dinner and after Megan had finished her homework, I’d say to Megan out of the blue, “I’m heading out to attend a preview screening of a film. Do you want to come along with me?” Megan would ponder my question for a moment before asking, “Which film?”
In 1991, one very long film preview screening we attended was Kevin Costner’s directorial début, Dances With Wolves, about which we knew nothing other than it starred one of our favourite actors, and off the two of us went.
At screening’s end (Megan and I actually sat together at this particular screening, which took place in the huge Granville 7 Cinema 7, cuz the preview theatre screening room was just packed), Megan turned to me, and said, “Dad, I knew this was going to be a great film.” And it was. “And, you know what else? It’s going to pick up a raft of Oscars this year, too, and be considered one of the, if not the, best films of the year.”
Jude and Megan also attended film festival screenings with me.
Almost inevitably, Vancouver International Film Festival founder, and co-owner of Festival Cinemas Leonard Schein was present with his wife Barbara, and at a screening’s end, Megan would make her way over to wherever Leonard and Barbara were sitting to enquire of him whether or not he intended to book the film into either the Varsity, Park or Starlight.
Following screenings of Neil Jordan’s 1992 putative multiple Oscar award winner, The Crying Game or, that same year, Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom, Megan marched over to Leonard, and asked him boldfacedly, “Well, what did you think?”
When Leonard indicated that he thought the films were not quite his cup of tea, both films would have difficulty finding an audience, and it was unlikely he’d be booking either film into one of his cinemas, Megan lit into Leonard with a passion and fury that I had rarely observed as coming from her, saying, “Are you out of your mind? Strictly Ballroom (or, The Crying Game) is a wonderful film, and just the sort of film that not only should you book, but that you MUST book — these are both groundbreaking films that will only serve to reinforce your reputation as an arts cinema impresario, but will also make you a tonne of money, and we all know that you’re all about the money. Either you book these films into The Varsity, or believe me when I tell you that there’ll be hell to pay when you see me next.”
And with that, Megan marched off.
At the 1990 Vancouver International Film Festival, I’d caught a screening of Whit Stillman’s directorial début, Metropolitan, in preview, and knew that this would be a film that Megan would love (and be astounded by, at the revelation of one of the characters, mid-film). I made arrangements to pick Megan up from University Hill Secondary at 3pm sharp on the day of the festival screening, we drove downtown, found a parking spot, and rushed over to The Studio Cinema on Granville to catch the 4pm screening of Metropolitan — which as I had predicted, Megan loved.
In early December 1993, on a particularly chilly and overcast day, at 10am in Cinema 2 at the Granville 7 theatre complex, I caught a screening of Jonathan Demme’s groundbreaking new film, Philadelphia — a film about which I knew little, and a film that knocked me out (along with the handful of film critics in attendance — the Vancouver Sun’s Marke Andrews and the late Michael Walsh, long the lead film critic at The Province, as well as the late Lee Bacchus, soon to join Michael Walsh as a film critic at The Province) all of us at the theatre for the screening.
Emerging from the theatre just after noon, making my way onto Granville, I looked for the nearest telephone in order that I might call Megan at school.
I called the office at University Hill Secondary, and asked them to find Megan and bring her to the phone. When Megan asked, “Dad, is everything all right?”, I told her about the film I had just seen, and that when it opened in January, I wanted to take her and Jude to a screening at the Granville 7. We talked about the film for a few minutes, with her saying about 10 minutes in, “I’m holding up the school phone, and calls coming in. Let’s get together after school. Come and pick me up, and we can continue our conversation. I’ll see you then, Dad. I love you.”
There are gifts we give our children. From my parents, it was what would emerge as a lifelong love for country music. For Jude and Megan, my gift was a love of music, a love of the ballet, and an abiding love for film.
