The scent of chlorine and desperation hung heavy in the air last Memorial Day weekend, a strange perfume for the supposed kickoff to summer. Not the sun-drenched, carefree summer of blockbuster anticipation, but a summer that felt…muted. I remember scrolling through box office reports, a growing unease settling in as numbers for “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” and “The Garfield Movie” trickled in – far below budget, a “bleak” turnout as Variety put it. It wasn’t just the numbers themselves, it was the feeling – a sense that something fundamental had shifted, that the ritual of the summer movie event was fraying at the edges. It’d be neater if this was 2025, because if 2025 becomes the year summer movies die, it will mark a closed 50-year loop, echoing the seismic shift caused by a different kind of summer scare: Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws” in 1975.
Fifty years ago, Spielberg didn’t just make a movie, he redefined the summer movie experience. He emptied the beaches, yes, but he also filled theaters, proving that a high-concept, visually arresting spectacle could dominate the cultural conversation. That fear, that communal experience of being terrified together, was a powerful draw. Today, we have spectacle in spades – the apes in “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” are rendered with a fluidity and realism that would have been unimaginable in 1968, when audiences gaped at the “coffee-mug prosthetics” of the original “Planet of the Apes.” George Miller’s “Furiosa” is a visual masterpiece, a “Lawrence of Arabia” fueled by madness and gasoline. But the communal part? That’s where things are breaking down. I watched both films in near-empty theaters, a stark contrast to the packed screenings of my childhood.
Based on the original tuscaloosanews.com report.
This isn’t simply about piracy, streaming, or the lingering effects of the pandemic, though those factors certainly play a role. It’s about a deeper cultural fatigue, a sense that we’ve seen it all before. The superhero genre, once a reliable engine of summer blockbusters, is showing cracks. While Marvel continues to churn out films, the magic feels diminished. The early success hinged on the novelty of assembling these larger-than-life characters, a concept borrowed from classics like Kurosawa’s “The Seven Samurai” and, less successfully, the Rat Pack’s “Eee-O-11.” But the constant stream of sequels and interconnected narratives has led to a sense of exhaustion. Even the self-aware humor, perfected in films like “Ant-Man” and “Thor: Ragnarok” – the kind of Stooges-level wit that Joss Whedon brought to the first “Avengers” (“Banner: That guy's brain is a bag full of cats”) – feels stale.
The genre’s evolution is also revealing a fundamental tension. Superheroes, at their core, are about exceptional individuals overcoming impossible odds, a trope that dates back to Elmo Lincoln’s silent “Tarzan of the Apes” in 1918. But the modern emphasis on team-ups and shared universes risks diluting that individual heroism. Before the Avengers assembled, supes had their own gigs, their own stories to tell. Now, they often feel like pieces in a larger, corporate puzzle. And while DC Films has stumbled into outright disaster since Christopher Nolan’s departure, even Marvel’s dominance isn’t guaranteed. The industry typically relies on summer movies to account for 40% of its yearly revenue, and the current slump is a warning sign. “Furiosa” and “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” may eventually recoup their costs, but the initial numbers suggest a worrying trend.
Beyond the headlines about box office numbers, this moment reveals a shift in how we consume stories. We’re no longer necessarily seeking the communal, shared experience of the movie theater. We’re content to watch on our home screens, pausing, rewinding, and engaging with the content on our own terms. The films themselves are still remarkable, still visually stunning, but they’ve lost their power to ignite a cultural fever dream. The question isn’t whether Hollywood can make good movies – they clearly can. The question is whether they can recapture the magic of the summer movie event, the sense of anticipation and shared excitement that once defined this time of year. Will studios adapt, finding new ways to draw audiences back to theaters, or will Norma Desmond prove prophetic, and the pictures simply get smaller? That’s the summer blockbuster battleground we’re watching now.
