WEEKLY RECAP #37: Steamboat Willie Entering Public Domain, Movie Musical Advertising & MORE!

12/31/23 -- 1/6/24

Steamboating on His Willie

Wait a second… what’s that sound? That faint knocking sound, echoing from down the hall? OH SHIT: it’s US copyright law, here to deliver some big news! Any piece of copyrighted content loses its copyright after ninety-five years, meaning that anything made in the year 1928 is now public domain. And who else was created in 1928 other than Steamboat Willie, the proto-Mickey mouse character that many people associate with Walt Disney Pictures animation. (Fittingly, as his iconic whistling theme was used as the opening logo for the studio for many years.) For those of you who don’t know, being in the public domain means that a piece of art can be included in or adapted for anything — a movie, a show, an album, you name it — without it being considered stealing from the original. (Pretty difficult for the original creators to sue you if they and their children have been dead for decades.) Now, legally, all of you reading this are allowed to monetize any depiction of Steamboat Willie that you want, without having to worry about Disney’s army of lawyers placing their white-gloved hands on you.

So, what does this mean? Many people have joyously started posting pictures of Steamboat Willie in various inappropriate contexts, such as sharing a photo with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, or steering his trusty tugboat with a fully erect penis. (Not to be a total buzzkill, but they could have been doing that before the copyright dropped — studios aren’t allowed to sue people over memes.) The major effect of this is a slew of horror movies that depict these classic characters murdering people, for no reason other than that they’re now legally allowed to. We saw this last year with the release of Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, and now we’ve got a trailer for Mickey’s Mouse Trap, a live-action slasher about a serial killer who wears a mask of Steamboat Willie while terrorizing a group of friends.

Now, the idea of using an iconic, family-friendly character in a controversial way as soon as its copyright lifts is exciting in concept, but if this is the way that’s going to be done, consider my interest lost. Blood and Honey was universally panned, because I guess the director’s enthusiasm and creativity started at “duhhh wouldn’t it be sick and twisted if a cartoon for kids was scary?” Low-budget horror movies can be super cool if done well, but you can’t just half-ass a concept and expect people to be wowed by the meme factor of it. The whole “twisting childhood imagery to be creepy” has been overdone for ages, and just placing whichever new character enters public domain into a slasher movie written by Chat GPT will not suffice. It is true that you can make a movie about literally anything… but the caveat is that YOU NEED TO HAVE A GOOD IDEA. I don’t see anything interesting resulting from Mickey’s Mouse Trap, nor from the other Steamboat Willie horror film that was announced to be going into production in 2024. Unless they come up with some creative shit, like Willie running over a drowning teen with his tugboat and slicing his body with the rudder, I will not be tuning in.

Falsetto Advertising

Here’s a story from a few weeks ago that I decided to cover, even if I’m a little bit late to the party. It turns out that studios have collectively decided that audiences don’t want to go see movie musicals anymore. Several publications (as well as a plethora of keen-eyed Internet users) have noticed a recent trend of trailers that never once actually reveal that the movie they’re advertising contains multiple song-and-dance sequences. (Wonka, Mean Girls, etc.) More and more movie musicals have been underperforming: this piece by Ben Lindbergh of The Ringer astutely points out that 2021, despite being dubbed “the year of the movie musical” by CBR, contained mostly flops in that genre. (Believe it or not, the anthropomorphic abortion known as Cats is not alone.) So, what do you do when a certain type of movie isn’t resonating with people, but you still have a bunch of them in the works? Simple — lie to audiences in the marketing and trick them into thinking they’re seeing a completely different product than what you’re selling!

I know that lying in trailers is nothing new — some of the best trailers of the past decade have slightly misrepresented the overall quality of the movie, which many would consider to be a job well done regardless — but such a blatant strategy like this is just stupid. Sure, general audiences who aren’t theater-pilled might go see the movie if they don’t know it’s a musical… but what happens when they sit down to watch it in theaters and realize it is? They’re gonna get pissed off! Time and time again, executives underestimate the power (and danger) of word-of-mouth. If people love your movie, they’ll hype it up to their friends who were previously iffy on whether they wanted to catch it in theaters, and convince them to buy a ticket. But if people are misled by your trailer and disappointed by your movie, they’ll immediately try to forget it, and the next thing you know, you’ll have a steep drop in your second box office week and lose millions. Short-term appeal, long-term damage — the same old story once again, thanks to profit-brained business bigwigs.

Does this marketing choice indicate that musicals are dying? Maybe, I dunno. Certain genres have dipped and risen in prominence before, so a lackluster run for musical adaptations isn’t the end of the world. My parting advice to studios is a recurring mantra of mine: if you want audiences to watch your movies, GIVE THEM A GOOD REASON TO WATCH. If it’s a good musical with strong casting and promising buzz, people might actually show up! In other words, less movies like Dear Evan Hansen and more like West Side Story (2021).

“He Thundered and Bolted.”

Here’s another disaster to throw onto Marvel’s ever-growing pile: Steven Yeun isn’t going to star in their planned Thunderbolts movie. Who in the flying fuck are the Thunderbolts, you ask? I didn’t know either, but it turns out that they’re a collection of characters that have been introduced in recent MCU movies and shows, none of whom you remember or care about. Some people are speculating that Yeun dropped out due to lack of interest — many stars have been turning down offers from Disney as of recent, and a report this week revealed that Saoirse Ronan turned down Florence Pugh’s role in Black Widow — but he claims it was due to scheduling conflicts, which I have no reason to disbelieve. Still, it’s pretty telling that an A-list actor is choosing another project over an upcoming movie from Marvel, a franchise that was the biggest thing in the world as of several years ago.

This doesn’t spell the end of the world for Thunderbolts (who knows, maybe Marvel will suddenly end their recent losing streak with a movie led by side characters from their lowest-rated movies and Disney+ series) but it does foreshadow a looming problem for the franchise: how do you rope in new talent when you’re actively fighting superhero fatigue? With Jonathan Majors convicted, they’re apparently looking to replace the role of Kang with Colman Domingo, an actor I’ve admired for a while… but will this be enough to save them? Domingo seems like a pretty thoughtful actor, so there’s a chance he might not even say yes. Jeez, what a mess.

A Series Matter

Be careful what you wish for, nerds. People have been asking Letterboxd HQ for years to add television shows to their movie-logging database — they’ve already allowed a select number of episodes from anthologies and limited series to stay up on the site — and it seems the admin in charge of the joke review website have finally given in. A reply on the platform formerly known as Twitter this week seemed to confirm the news: “Series will be coming later this year,” followed by the smiling-blushing emoji. This sounds like good news if you’re a fan of TV — but remember, just because you want to log Better Call Saul episodes and Letterboxd is willing to facilitate it doesn’t mean that you have full consent. Isn’t there someone you forgot to ask? That’s right: the many cinephiles who are already skeptical of Letterboxd have viewed this news with utter terror and disdain. It’s not entirely difficult to comprehend, after all… if you’re the type of person who can’t stomach seeing another one-liner review of May December that reads like “just two mothers mothering side-by-side in motherdom”, imagine how exponentially more annoying it would be to see your feed clogged with friends furiously rating episodes of Young Sheldon and The Sopranos back-to-back.

Now, if that prospect sounds hilariously chaotic to you, then you’re most likely more like me. I don’t really watch television that much, and yet I’m weirdly impartial to this whole thing. If the majority of people want it, let them have it — as long as I can see what my friends are watching and enjoying, I’ll be fine. It’s funny that people are audibly praying that Letterboxd makes a separate app for logging series, since there already is an app for rating and logging TV shows called Serialized, but I guess they haven’t gained enough of a crowd for Letterboxd to be “ripping them off”. Anyway, if I were you, I’d send a text of congratulations to the most annoying Succession fan I know tonight. This probably means a lot to them.

Cut Gems

I apologize for the stupid section title, but I promise it has relevance: the Safdie Brothers are no longer a directing pair. (Not for the foreseeable future, at least.) Benny Safdie announced the amicable diversion in a Variety profile, claiming that “it’s a natural progression of what [they] each want to explore”: “I will direct on my own, and I will explore things that I want to explore. I want that freedom right now in my life.” This isn’t too surprising, since Josh and Benny have already been working separately on a handful of projects in the past year or two, but given that the brothers have directed two of my favorite movies of the past decade together, it’s still major news.

Many people have been parroting the same gleeful take of “this will show us which brother had the talent all along and which brother was riding the others’ coattails,” but I think that’s a bit too extreme. This isn’t the first time that successful director pairs have split and created worthwhile work separately: Joel and Ethan Coen have briefly split and directed movies on their own to critical acclaim, and Daniel Scheinert of the Oscar-winning duo known as Daniels has made a feature film without partner Daniel Kwan. Just because the combined style of a directing pair is split down the middle in solo projects doesn’t guarantee that the quality of those solo projects dwindle. Much like the Coens, the answer to “Which of the Safdie brothers has the sauce?” may just be “They both do, but they work better together.” And isn’t that the most romantic conclusion one could possibly draw? I love two directing boys who would find each other in any universe.

Dwanye “The Camera Block” Johnson

Man… the Rock is clearly going through it. I think he got used to easily making a hundred billion dollars in every single Fast & Furious movie or “it’s the Rock being badass in a jungle setting” movie he was in. (There’s at least four of those movies, I’m pretty sure.) And when the highest-paid actor in the world gets too comfortable playing the same person in every movie, what happens when he finally experiences his first flop in over a decade? Truly fascinating stuff, I tell ya. That magic bomb came in the form of Black Adam, a movie that probably would’ve silently crossed a billion dollars with zero cultural impact pre-pandemic, but unfortunately was one of the first in the domino chain of failed comic book movies in our new post-COVID age. Lord knows Dwayne Johnson has enough money in his bank account to retire comfortably and never make another movie again, but if you couldn’t tell by his contract that prevents him from losing fight scenes, his public image is very important to him. His plans of rearranging the guts of the DCEU’s hierarchy of power tarnished, the Rock has been awkwardly hopping from strategy to another to save face in the wake of Black Adam’s failure. First, it was lying about Black Adam’s box office numbers before quickly dropping the topic and moving on. Then, it was reentering the world of professional wrestling just the other week. And now, lo and behold, it’s… a swing at arthouse cinema?

That’s right: the Rock wants to make a movie with A24. In a hilarious turn of events, it seems that Mr. Johnson is now in talks to star in a movie called The Smashing Machine directed by — you guessed it — BENNY SAFDIE. (Bet you weren’t expecting a twist sequel to the previous section, were you?) The Rock claims that he’s now interest in making “films that matter, that explore a humanity and explore struggle [and] pain.” While I’m inclined to believe this is bullshit, another part of me wonders if the ego check of Black Adam was so major that it might’ve actually changed the Rock’s brain chemistry and made him understand the appeal of artistic integrity. I really hope so, because that would be hilarious. But the question remains: will the movie be good?

On one hand, there is the fact that Benny Safdie got an Oscar-worthy performance out of Adam Sandler for Uncut Gems, which means the Rock is far from salvation. On the other hand, though, there’s the fact that the Rock has fallen into a trend of playing himself in every blockbuster he’s in — the same charismatic macho guy with no discernible vulnerabilities or flaws. If this movie is going to work, he has to actually try and let go of his ego, or else we might witness a historical misfire on the level of his performance in Southland Tales. (I know there are a lot of shooters for Southland Tales, and I haven’t seen it, but the baffling clips and mostly negative ratings I’ve seen paint a troubling picture.) This will either go wonderfully or horribly, and I’ll be seated Day One either way. Let’s pray to God that, when the first trailer for The Smashing Machine drops, we can all smell what the Rock is cooking.