After years of declining box office totals and the closures of The Age of The Virus, it suddenly feels like moviegoing is back. Four major releases seem to be driving folks to theaters in droves: Barbie, Sound of Freedom, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, and Oppenheimer. Even with relative flops like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and the woke Pixar flick Elemental, everyone seems to be flooding back into theaters, almost out of nowhere.
To be fair, box office receipts for Summer 2022 were up, likely on the strength of Top Gun: Maverick (2022). Perhaps I didn’t darken the door of a theater in 2022 as frequently as I have in 2023 (there’s something about being single and dating that drives me to the movies frequently), so my admittedly anecdotal observations are skewed. But, dang, it sure does feel like folks are flooding back into theaters. In my mind, that’s a good thing.
When I saw Sound of Freedom, it was a 6:45 PM Sunday showing. When I arrived, the theater lobby was very busy, and after the film, it was packed. My theater for Sound of Freedom was not filled to the brim—far from it—but it had a sizable attendance. Walking around in the lobby after the film, there were floods of teenagers and adults in pink going to and coming from screenings of Barbie. Anecdotally, my brother told me that when he saw Oppenheimer the same weekend in Indiana, it was the first time he has been in a sold-out theater in probably twenty years—and that was an expensive IMAX screening of the film!
It seems like just a year ago, theaters will still limping along post-pandemic; now they’re humming with activity. The poor kid working the concession counter that Sunday told me he had reached his limit of difficult customers (the people in front of us were sampling nacho cheese, as if they’d never eaten industrial orange cheese goop before, and were generally taking forever), a testament to the number of stupid customers coming through (a side note: in this day and age, you should buy your tickets online, or at least know exactly what screening you want to attend when you get up there; your indecisiveness is making it more difficult for the rest of us). Even after the film—around 9:15 PM—the concessions were going strong.
I’m not the only one to notice this trend. Blogger Esoterica of Existential Ergonomics has picked up on it, too, detailing the phenomenon in her post “Theater-Mania.” She notes the bizarre but interesting trend of seeing Barbenheimer, a double-feature of Barbie and Oppenheimer that’s five hours long (Oppenheimer clocks in at three hours!). Perhaps it’s just the absurd contrast of these two vastly different films that has spawned this Internet-fueled sensation, but it’s getting butts into seats.
I suspect, too, that folks are just ready to see normal, engaging movies again. Yes, I hear that Barbie is pretty woke, but it is drawing in tons of women, from teenagers to middle-aged cat moms, who grew up playing with the dolls and are familiar (even if in passing) with the various non-troversies around the line of toys and their supposed contributions to and/or detractions from the ever-evolving concept and goals of feminism. Those women are bringing along their reluctant boyfriends, husbands, and cats (well, maybe not the last one), and the film is something of a cultural moment for these chicks. Sound of Freedom is the must-see film of the year, especially for Christians, but it avoids the pitfall of most Christian movies in that it’s not overly preachy. Oppenheimer is also a cultural watershed, as Christopher Nolan films tend to be. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is a classic action thriller without an ounce of wokery in it.
At the time of writing, I have not seen Oppenheimer, but I will hopefully have seen it (on IMAX, ideally) by the time this post is published; it will certainly get a full Monday Morning Movie Review treatment. I doubt I’ll see Barbie, but there are plenty of reviews of the film already out there, both positive and negative. Most of the analysis and reviews I’ve read of Barbie suggest it’s a mean-spirited feminist matriarchy fantasy in which the Kens are mere “accessories” and are second-class citizens in a supposedly utopian Barbieland, but Laura Loomer argues it’s a deeply satirical sendup of feminism; YouTuber Shoe0nhead calls it “An Accidental Anti-‘Woke’ Masterpiece.” That’s probably a stretch, but, hey, it’s generating some conversations and, again, getting people into the theater.
Whatever is happening, I hope it is sustainable. It’s great being able to watch movies at home, but nothing replaces the magic and immersion of seeing a flick on the big screen.