This piece was originally published in the November 2024 issue of Pandora Curated.
Following the success of Warner Bros.' critically acclaimed and box office hit Joker, the much-anticipated sequel Joker: Folie à Deux was expected to deliver another massive win. Instead, it turned out to be one of the year’s biggest flops, barely recouping its production budget and ultimately failing to breakeven, weighed down by an alleged $100 million marketing expense.
With the pandemic no longer an excuse for low turnout, viewers have become more discerning—and unforgiving—about which films deserve their ticket dollars. This outcome shouldn’t come as a surprise: movies today are often falling short in quality, and audiences are no longer willing to settle for subpar storytelling and uninspired production. This is particularly true for superhero movies, which have become increasingly enshittified—or plagued by bloated budgets, declining quality, and formulaic storytelling—an alarming trend reflective of Hollywood’s broader decline.
Warner Bros. has consistently struggled to make effective use of its star-3 characters within the DC Comics intellectual property (IP). Their series of films within the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) concluded in December with the release of the Aquaman sequel. This came after cumulative losses exceeding half a billion dollars from consecutive films such as Black Adam, Shazam: Fury of the Gods, The Flash, and Blue Beetle. The last two alone were rumored to account for over $300 million.
The production house itself is facing significant financial strain, burdened by substantial debt. Even after merging with Discovery in 2022, it has struggled to regain its footing. At this point, they may be forced to start selling or leasing assets. Though James Gunn, known for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, took creative leadership of DC Studios in late 2022, confidence has yet to be restored, as under his guidance, the company has continued to produce several flops.
At the same time, however, Marvel hasn’t been immune to struggles either: The Marvels (2023), the studio’s second-most recent release, is now the lowest-grossing entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date earning $206 million worldwide compared to Avengers: Endgame’s $2.8 billion. Moreover, Marvel’s entire “Phase 4” of films has faced severe criticism, contributing to the notion of “superhero fatigue”—the idea that audiences are tired of today’s superhero content due to an oversaturation of similar stories, predictable plotlines, and the sheer volume of interconnected films and series requiring constant investment to keep up. However, this doesn’t fully hold, given the massive box office successes of The Batman, Spider-Man: No Way Home and the most recent Deadpool & Wolverine.
A severe lack of quality writing has plagued the majority of superhero movies from the past decade. Without engaging storytelling, there’s little incentive for audiences to turn out in theaters. The situation worsens with rising ticket prices, which further discourage attendance. If Hollywood wants any chance of digging itself out of this hole—a problem extending even beyond superhero films, as 2023 and 2024 have marked record-breaking years of financial flops—it must look beyond preexisting IP and produce well-written, original movies.
According to Matt Damon in a 2021 interview on Hot Ones, production houses can no longer rely on DVD and Blu-ray sales to generate significant revenue due to the rise of digital streaming. Unlike physical media, which provides substantial post-box office income, streaming services typically pay fixed licensing fees or rely on subscription models, resulting in significantly lower profits for studios. As a result, it has become extremely risky to invest in films without guaranteed profit, especially with marketing costs and theater recoupment to consider. This forces studios to lean heavily on preexisting IPs to generate revenue.
Even with successful IPs, there’s no reason for movies to be this expensive. Blockbuster budgets now average around $100 million, with some franchise films nearing $200 million. Disney’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny last year cost a staggering $387.2 million to produce and market. While factors like high-cost talent, advanced special effects, large-scale marketing, and inflation contribute to rising budgets, they don’t fully justify these extremes—especially when box office hits have proven possible with far lower production costs. Inflation alone can’t explain such runaway spending.
Joker was produced on a $50 million budget and grossed over a billion at the box office, while Japan’s Godzilla Minus One—separate from the American franchise—grossed $116 million worldwide, with $57 million in the United States alone, on a budget of just $15 million. Featuring an all-Japanese cast unknown to global audiences, this success shows that Hollywood doesn’t necessarily need a recurring roster of A-list actors to draw audiences—profit can be achieved with relatively unknown actors and smaller budgets, and word of mouth has shown it can drive audiences to theaters; Godzilla Minus One is a case in point.
Most important of all is the writing. The drastic decline in writing quality, arguably around 2015, is particularly egregious. Rather than investing in nuanced storytelling, studios have increasingly favored spectacle, CGI, and franchise-building over well-crafted narratives and character development. The result is a landscape filled with predictable plots, shallow characters, and cookie-cutter dialogue that fails to resonate with audiences.
Recently, Disney has turned the tide and taken significant steps toward reducing production output to prioritize “quality over quantity,” as CEO Bob Iger put it. Marvel has committed to releasing three movies and two shows annually, and Star Wars has canceled several projects to focus on fewer, higher-quality ventures. With the news of Iger’s planned departure in 2026 emerging just this month, his exit could mark a turning point, offering Disney and its brands a chance to course-correct and refocus on meaningful, innovative storytelling under new leadership.
We may yet see a new renaissance period for film and cinema. As a movie critic, I am hopeful for such a shift. It seems Hollywood is slowly realizing, given the increasing number of negative reviews and low-performing box office returns, that things need to change. Quality writing, diversification of actors, and lower production budgets are promising steps toward a revival. We cannot be relying on another Tom Cruise flick to bring cinema back to life—Hollywood must adapt, innovate, and prioritize substance over spectacle if it wants to survive in a world where audiences demand better.
Edited by the Curated Editorial Team
Yash (he/him) is a Lead Correspondent for International Affairs at Political Pandora and a student at Tufts University studying International Relations and Economics. He is passionate about the U.S. political sphere and international affairs, particularly foreign policy, and has a keen interest in pop culture.
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