The striking similarities between F1 and Top G*n: Maverick indicate that Hollywood has yet to learn its lesson and is still avoiding the larger box office issues at play here. Much has been written about the lack of emerging movie stars under the age of 35. With the exception of a handful of candidates (Timothée Chalamet, Tom Holland, and Zendaya, to name a few), the major studios have proven to be more interested in relying on movie stars of the past rather than cultivating new ones.
This inevitably has an effect on audience appeal. Why would young people get off TikTok and go to the movie theater when they are less likely to see themselves on screen and more likely to see yet another narrative about a boomer refusing to quit? Yes, if you haven’t seen F1 and Top G*n: Maverick, that is the essence of the plot of both films. Furthermore, while F1 has performed decently well so far, especially for Apple, its box office numbers are nowhere near those of Top G*n: Maverick. We also have yet to see how F1 ultimately holds up when a little movie called Superman opens this coming weekend. More importantly, though, these numbers prove that recycling the same formula can only work so many times. This can also be said of Cruise’s other franchise, Mission: Impossible, and its mixed box office performance this summer.
Some might argue that these movies should not be overanalyzed, that they’re just pure entertainment, but that perspective could very well overlap with the question of which demographic is being served and prioritized here. At the end of the day, as fun and seemingly harmless as they may be, F1, Top G*n, and Mission: Impossible are more than just surface-level boomer bait. They exemplify a core problem in Hollywood right now: an unwillingness to modernize and pass the torch to the next generation.
How Hollywood Can Pivot and Fix the Problem
There are signs of hope in mainstream cinema today, but longstanding change is only possible if studio executives look closely at what attracts a larger moviegoing audience in 2025. The success of Ryan Coogler’s Sinners shows that if you give audiences something new, with protagonists and narratives that can appeal to a wide range of individuals, then people will, in fact, show up to the multiplex.
Sinners is a good old-fashioned big-budget Hollywood film but not in the sense that it relied on a well-known movie star like Tom Cruise to lead the charge. Instead, it was a completely original film helmed by a visionary filmmaker worthy of a substantial budget. While Joseph Kosinski is not the star of F1 or Top G*n: Maverick, director Ryan Coogler is just as much the star of Sinners as his actual leading man, Michael B. Jordan. This was the case for Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan, whose bold visions for Barbie and Oppenheimer, respectively, led to massive box office success. It also applies to horror mastermind Jordan Peele, whose artistic sensibility has proven to draw in large audiences again and again.
These filmmakers imbue their projects with a fresh energy that makes their movies must-see experiences that ultimately pay off well at the box office. In addition to greenlighting more projects around younger movie stars, studios should consider seeking out and nurturing emerging auteurs because that is what audiences seem to be more interested in these days. While the box office of the 2020s indicates that there are not very many young actors who can pull in as large a crowd as Brad Pitt could attract in the 1990s, it does indicate that there is a growing interest in what filmmakers like Coogler, Gerwig, Nolan, and Peele are up to next. We don’t need to focus so much on broad-appealing actors because it seems that the next wave of movie stars are actually the directors behind the camera. Just look at Cillian Murphy and Margot Robbie’s box office numbers before Oppenheimer and Barbie were released. They weren’t the draws; Nolan and Gerwig were.
Making another version of Top G*n over and over again might provide instant gratification at the box office, but it’s not exactly reflective of what gets a truly diverse range of audiences excited these days. It’s time for Hollywood studio executives to look beyond what their own demographic and generation wants to see. Based on these trends, it’s clear that the future of movies cannot rely on figures of the past leading uninventive, formulaic narratives that repeatedly put every other demographic and generation on the sidelines. It’s time to invest in original, risky material from exciting talent behind the camera; that’s how we’re going to find the next Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise.
via @stagedreaction