Movie stars have been on a journey this fall, and it hasn’t been especially big, bold or beautiful. Actually, on second thought, maybe there is something bold about the way audiences have rejected, in quick succession, new movies collectively starring Margot Robbie, Colin Farrell, Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Channing Tatum, Kristen Dunst, Jennifer Lopez, Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield, Keanu Reeves, Seth Rogen and none other than Daniel Day-Lewis. This group of actors that would constitute an especially star-studded Oscars broadcast couldn’t muster a single hit among them. Even Leonardo DiCaprio must accept his status as the exception that proves the rule: his movie One Battle After Another is heading toward a respectable $200m worldwide – and all it took was one of the biggest stars in the world with support from familiar faces Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro, a multiple-time Oscar nominee directing with an Imax-sized budget, and almost universally rapturous reviews. Put all that together in an adult-driven drama and maybe you can outgross, and lose somewhat less money than, Disney’s Snow White remake. (One Battle is unlikely to turn a profit on its theatrical release.)
Meanwhile, movies such as A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, The Smashing Machine, Roofman, After the Hunt, Good Fortune, Kiss of the Spider Woman and Anemone had no such constellation of exciting elements forming in their orbit alongside their stars. Some of them couldn’t even manage particularly great reviews. But that used to be what movie stars were there to provide: some kind of baseline level of interest in a movie, even if it wasn’t getting best-of-year reviews or boasting cutting-edge spectacle. None of the aforementioned stars are expected to perform with the superhuman consistency of Tom Cruise between 1986 and 2006 or Will Smith between 1996 and 2016. But there used to be a certain number of dramas and comedies that would make $50m or more in the US every year as a matter of course, the ones with stars tending to have an advantage in that respect.
My god, are those some long grafs. It’s at least tangentially brought up later in the piece that seeing a movie is really fucking expensive when you’re also paying $7/pound for 80/20 ground beef.
I’ve only had an $80 steak once, at Canlis. And it was a Wagyu ribeye. My college roommate was in Seattle at the time, and it turned out my passport had expired, so he took care of that for me, so after the honeymoon in St. Lucia, the wife and I said, “You know what? Fuck it, we’re flying up there and taking you out for the best dinner you’ve ever had.”
And we’re looking at the menu, and Scott says to me “dude, we can split this. Do you really want gestures broadly this experience and not get the good shit?” So we both got the Wagyu. We stayed past close, not even realizing it, as the servers continued to be attentive, and the bill came to some $400 for four in 2007. I think that’s like $12,000 in 2025 dollars. 🤣
You can get a decent high-end steak here for about $60, but it’s not like Texas is keeping all the cattle to itself. We’re also getting fucked on the low end. Like, midrange is $30 sted $13. I’ve not had a steak in over a year.