"Lesbians Love Cereal" - A Lisa Laman Poem Performance

Six days ago, on April 24, 2026, I once again performed an original piece of poetry that I wrote at a Sapphic Storytellers meeting. I'm so grateful and honored for the chance to read aloud this poem that I dearly cherish. Below is a video of me performing it, I'd be honored if you gave it a watch!

An Ode To Anne Hathaway's Oddball Indie Movie Era

For all intents and purposes, Anne Hathaway's The Devil Wears Prada 2 star turn is her "comeback" movie. Typing out those words already makes my soul ache because Hathaway's talents haven't wavered, and she's done nothing to necessitate a comeback. However, Hathaway herself has openly talked about how studio executives refused to cast her in features after her Oscar win. Meanwhile, Hollywood (after 2013-ish) stopped making the kind of mid-budget movies Hathaway used to regularly anchor. Thus, Devil Wears Prada 2 is her first appearance in a major studio theatrical release since Ocean's 8 in 2018. Technically, Devil Wears Prada 2 qualifies as a "comeback" for somebody whose never gone away.

For one thing, Hathaway spent some parts of the last eight years, like so many actors, dipping her toes into prestige television, namely anchoring the Apple TV miniseries WeCrashed and showing up on two Modern Love episodes. Something that deserves recognition, though, is that Hathaway embraced a slew of oddball indie movies in the years between her last traditional big-screen star vehicle (September 2015's The Intern) and Devil Wears Prada 2. David Lowery's offbeat Mother Mary dropping one week before Devil Wears Prada 2 is a perfect bit of synchonicity. As Hathaway returns to anchoring major studio theatrical films, Mother Mary put a bow on her era of admirably unusual indie features.

Monstrously Good Indie Movie Performances

To promote the January 2019 movie Serenity, Anne Hathaway took to social media to post about the film and how it was destined to spark some discussions and controversy. Specifically, she declared:

"Matthew and I are learning our film Serenity isn’t easily broken down into sound bites. I really like movies like that, but just in case I am in the minority, here are some reasons why I think you should see it: I find Serenity to be a thrilling, ambitious, violent, spiritual, erotic, charged, dark, damning, contradictory, maddening, lushly intelligent film from the brilliant mind of Steven Knight. It asks a lot of the audience. It exists outside cut-and-dry, black-and-white moralizing, beyond the realm of “thumbs up” and “thumbs down,” “it sucked,” “it was bad-ass,” etc. It will need some analysis and conversation after. Good. Serenity is a sexy, surreal, modern noir for grown ups who are into things that don’t come standard. If that sounds like you, I hope you’ll consider giving us your time and attention. Thanks for listening xx"

That desire to anchor movies that "will need some analysis and conversation after" speaks to the kind of motion pictures Hathaway anchored from 2016 to Lowery's Mother Mary. The first of these was Colossal, a movie where Hathaway portrayed a weary, messy woman who discovers she's capable of controlling the movements of a monster attacking Seoul, South Korea. Given how often Hathaway's been cast to play prim-and-perfect archetypes in projects like Ella Enchanted, watching Colossal is an extraordinary reminder that she's also gifted at portraying jagged everyday individuals. When she's portraying Colossal's Gloria forlorn in a bar or communicating profound pain with just a facial expression, it doesn't come off as a polished actor delivering a simulacrum of ordinary humanity. 

Hathaway instead melts right into Gloria. With this film, she's tasked with portraying a woman who starts out the runtime jaded, detached, eager to just drink away her worries. As she realizes the gravity of this monster situation (as well as the abusive man hiding in plain sight), she gradually depicts Gloria reawakening to the wider world. It's a character arc Hathaway handles with finesse and fascinatingly messy humanity. Right from the start, she exudes a palpable weariness consuming Gloria. This quality makes it apparent why this character is so content to just be a spectator to life. Meanwhile, Hathaway's strengths with inhabiting a realistically imperfect human being make it extra gripping to see Gloria navigate both her monstrous alter-ego and the abusive relationship she's trapped in.

Colossal isn't just one of 2017's more criminally underrated performances. It also showcases a deeply impressive Anne Hathaway performance that provides a richly human anchor for this high-concept story about abusive relationships and "monsters." From there, Hathaway kept on taking unusual, auteur-driven works, like 2019's Dark Waters. In that Todd Haynes directorial effort, which follows Mark Ruffalo's Rob Billot taking on the corrupt company DuPont, Hathaway is often playing the typical "wife" role in a biopic. However, anytime she gets to deliver a monologue or have the camera linger on her, she instantly commands your attention. Better yet, this movie ensured she worked with one of the best English-language filmmakers of our time. Please don't let this be the last time Anne Hathaway and Todd Haynes collaborate.

Right at the start of 2019, Hathaway embraced the femme fatale archetype for Serenity, the movie that launched the aforementioned social media post. Here, Hathaway plays Karen, a woman who asks her former husband, Baker Dill (Matthew McConaughey), to kill her current lover, the toxic Frank Zariakas (Jason Clarke). Writer/director Steven Knight's Serenity is a deranged creation. This is a feature that starts as a seaside noir homage before metamorphosing into a Truman Show/Minecraft hybrid with unspoken incestuous overtones. In other words, this is not the kind of movie Oscar-winning performers are encouraged or pigeonholed into doing.

Taking this boondoggle on was a massive gamble on Anne Hathaway's part, and that alone deserves kudos. The fact that she commits wholeheartedly to the role is a cherry on top. Even when she's just asked to constantly say sentences ending in the word "daddy" to Clarke's character, Hathaway is fully alert and gung-ho. She can't save Serenity from its worst impulses or disjointed nature. However, she does embody the admirably gonzo nature of the proceedings. Off the grid from major studio films, Hathaway wasn't looking to just rehash roles she'd played before. Serenity was as far from The Princess Diaries and Bride Wars as you could get. That opened up exciting new possibilities for her as an artist, even in deeply flawed productions like this one.

Not Even The 2020s Could Stop Hathaway's Indie Cinema Streak

When the world shut down in March 2020, everything ground to a halt. COVID-19 had flipped the tables on the status quo. Everyone was stuck indoors, unsure what the future would bring. Under these circumstances, Hathaway reunited with Serenity screenwriter Steven Knight to headline Locked Down, a heist film set in London during a COVID lockdown. The independently produced film (which Warner Bros. Pictures eventually acquired and released to HBO Max) is terrible, despite starring Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor. It's a thinly sketched movie that doesn't offer Hathaway anything remotely resembling a character to play. Still, this Brokeback Mountain veteran anchoring an indie film during 2020 demonstrated her resilient dedication to smaller-scale movies.

Not even a global pandemic could stop Hathaway from anchoring tinier features made off the grid. She'd return to the big screen with writer/director James Gray's 2022 quasi-autobiographical film Armageddon Time. Playing mother Esther Graff to adolescent protagonist Paul (Banks Repeta), Hathaway's gift for immediately registering as a real human being is perfect for this grounded, gritty drama. She honestly does circles around her co-star, Jeremy Strong (who plays her character's husband). Strong can't resist going for big displays of "SCREAMING!" and grand externalized gestures to sell his characters. Hathaway, meanwhile, conjures up Esther's psychologically tormented personality with understated means. 

Unfortunately, Armageddon Time's third act sidelines Esther (who's deeply distraught after her father passes). Hathaway barely factors into the final 45-ish minutes of the project. This tragically speaks to how, even here, Hathaway couldn't evade the frustrating gender norms for women in American cinema. Indie films are supposed to be the refuge of artists, the place where you eschew major studio standards and traditional narrative impulses. Unfortunately, Hathaway's Armageddon Time character's minimal screentime echoes traditional cinematic urges to relegate mothers and women characters to the background. She deserved better than that, especially since she was delivering one of the film's better performances.

In 2023, Hathaway delivered supporting turns in Eileen (which came SO CLOSE to being gay, "we were so close to greatness," as Orson Krennic once said) and She Came to Me. The latter comedy was a miscalculated endeavor that left Hathaway with not much to do, despite her fantastic comic instincts seemingly being perfectly tailored for something emulating a farce. After that, Hathaway's indie career seemed to be at an end as she began preparing for a return to mainstream work. Her 2024 Amazon streaming film The Idea of You proved a big enough viewership hit that Amazon MGM Studios asked her and Idea of You director Michael Showalter to make the theatrically-released Coleen Hoover adaptation Verity. In early 2024, meanwhile, Hathaway began filming this summer's dinosaur blockbuster The End of Oak Street. Mainstream Hollywood was finally realizing it should do more with Hathaway than The Witches.

Just a week before The Devil Wears Prada 2 inevitably blows up the box office, though, Hathaway headlined one more oddball indie movie. David Lowery's Mother Mary sees Hathaway playing the titular pop star in need of both a dress and some closure of losing her former best friend (played by Michaela Coel). Hathaway's gift for haunted facial expressions and aching, raw depictions of lived-in torment are exquisitely utilized here. Just her standing with those haunted eyes while mournfully clutching one of her arms vividly suggests Mary's been through the psychological wringer. Any set pieces where Hathaway portrays Mary as a pop star icon, meanwhile, are just sweeping. Her voice! Her on-stage charisma! She's so magnificently transportive!

Absolutely crushing these wildly disparate sides of Mary's psyche speaks to Anne Hathaway's range and talent. It's also the kind of performance that might not be possible in a major studio work. Mother Mary is rife with tonal shifts, ambiguous definitions of reality, and imagery that inevitably confounds as many as it enchants. It's not a guaranteed moneymaker or critical darling by any means. Yet Anne Hathaway took this and other offbeat projects (like Colossal) on and gave them every ounce of her talent. 

Hathaway anchoring so many major theatrical movies this year and beyond (including being The Odyssey's leading lady) is a cause for celebration. However, let it never be said she was just twiddling her thumbs in the last decade or so. On the contrary, when major studios closed doors in Hathaway's face, she opened up windows to exciting roles that expanded and reinforced her chops. Apparently, Anne Hathaway is "into things that don’t come standard" and by God did she give audiences that with her exciting era of oddball indie cinema performances.

Summer 2026 Box Office Predictions

We Bought a Zoo 2 looks weird

"Summertime, and the livin' is easy," so sang Ella Fitzgerald all those years ago. That truth is rearing its head once more as the summer moviegoing season approaches. For the first time in the 2020s (exempting 2023, when Barbenheimer, a second Spider-Verse movie, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 were all on the agenda), this feels like the first summer moviegoing season of the decade that's really bringing the heat. There's a wider array of titles available each week (heck, August 2026 will bring a new weekly big-screen comedy), several films this summer aren't just aimed at nostalgic men, and opportunities for major sleeper hits clearly exist (c'mon, I Love Boosters).

Most importantly, the 2026 domestic box office has been on a hot streak even before the first weekend of May officially kicks off the summer moviegoing season. Project Hail Mary, Hoppers, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Michael, plenty of movies have excelled this year. That momentum looks like it will continue into the hottest moviegoing season of any year. What films will dominate that season? That's what I'm here to predict today. As I try to do every year, I've listed below my predictions for the ten biggest movies of the summer at the domestic box office (ranked from tenth to first).

Each film has an explanation for why I think it'll perform a certain way as well as predictions for its domestic opening weekends and domestic final grosses. It's time to get down to business and explore what could be a massive summertime for movie theaters. Let's kick things off by looking at my prediction for summer 2026's tenth-biggest movie, which comes from the architect of the modern summer blockbuster...

10. Disclosure Day

Believe it or not, it's been a long while since director Steven Spielberg had a summertime box office hit that wasn't the fourth Indiana Jones adventure. Hell, even back in 2002, when Minority Report grossed a respectable grossed a solid $132 million (the 17th biggest movie of the year domestically), that was considered a mild disappointment. If future Lisa Laman came back in time to tell me that this got knocked out of the summer top ten by newer youth-skewing movies like The Backrooms or One Night Only, I'd believe you. The big advantage Spielberg's Disclosure Day has, though, is Universal Pictures. This studio has gotten quite adept at selling big budget blockbusters, and they've done a great job so far with prominent, memorable trailers and posters. Super 8 got to $35.4 million on opening weekend 15 years ago. IMAX ticket prices and years of inflation should get Disclosure Day to a slightly higher debut.

Opening Weekend Prediction: $41 million 

Domestic Gross Prediction: $125 million

9. Scary Movie 6

The trailer's got a transphobic joke and looks like dogshit visually. Also, it has all the goods to become a legacy sequel hit. It's actually been a while since the Scary Movie saga was back in theaters, the promotional campaign is riding the coattails of 2025 hits like Sinners and especially Weapons, it'll undoubtedly get a strong third weekend boost from Father's Day celebrations. Three of the original Scary Movie installments got to $40+ million domestic bows before we even take inflation into account. Expect this one to follow in the same vicinity and, hey, maybe even give the theatrical comedy movie a bit of a boost. If only they could've done all that without the "they/them" jokes and cancel culture moaning...

Opening Weekend Prediction: $49 million

Domestic Gross Prediction: $135 million

8. Moana

Two 2025 movies suggest very different outcomes for the live-action Moana remake at the box office. Both of these films were PG-rated titles that had trailers full of imagery people derided as hideous and an eyesore. The first of those is A Minecraft Movie. All those pre-release complaints were nothing compared to the allure of seeing a Minecraft film adaptation as well as Jack Black's appeal. Then there's Snow White and its hideous Seven Dwarfs. That feature couldn't overcome the pervasive hostility directed at its drab and off-putting visuals.

On the one hand, Moana has way more name recognition with today's kids than Snow White. On the other hand, Dwayne Johnson circa. 2026 is no Jack Black and, most damningly, this isn't a novel film. A Minecraft Movie was the first time Creepers and Minecraft Villagers appeared in a movie. The Moana trailers make it clear this is just the 2016 animated film again, but with less color. At least The Lion King and The Little Mermaid arrived decades after the original animated films to offset their inherently familair narratives. Even the youngest kids who can't stop singing "How Far I'll Go" may just opt to stay home and watch the original. There's probably enough gas in the Moana tank to keep this from totally capsizing like Snow White, but there's also enough problems here (including opening in between Minions and The Odyssey) to suggest a Minecraft-sized surprise rebound is not on the horizon.

Opening Weekend Prediction: $60 million

Domestic Gross Prediction: $145 million

7. Supergirl

Given that we just had a Superman movie last summer, another motion picture focusing on a Krypton-originating superhero like Supergirl isn't going to have immense novelty to the general public. Additionally, Supergirl's marketing is emphasizing a darker, more anarchic tone that could be less appealing while its late June 2026 date means it'll have to contend with so many July 2026 juggernauts like The Odyssey and Spider-Man. On the other hand, audiences really warmed to Superman, and the Supergirl marketing has effectively given the titular lead some relatable impulses (she wants to save her doggie!) that potential audiences can latch onto. There's also no other major action films over 4th of July weekend this year, so if Supergirl scores some good word of mouth it should still do fine. If Black Adam could get to $67 million on opening weekend, Supergirl should be able to debut a smidge higher. It'd be guaranteed the biggest domestic opening ever, though, if Comet the Super-Horse was appearing in this project...

Opening Weekend Prediction: $74 million

Domestic Gross Prediction: $183 million

6. The Mandalorian and Grogu

This is the biggest question mark of the summer. Can the first theatrical Star Wars movie in seven years prove lucrative and profitable? Right now, signs point to "not really." The marketing for this feature has been largely uninspired. More urgently, it doesn't look especially accessible to the general public given that it's rooted in a Disney+ show and its key "new" characters (Rotta the Hutt and Embo) are all Clone Wars veterans. Even the movie's imagery looks indistinguishable from the Mandalorian show, a bizarre element that means people will likely mistake it for a streaming show when they see TV ads for it. Perhaps the final six or so weeks of Disney's marketing campaign will push this one to bigger numbers. For now, expect this to perform largely like Solo: A Star Wars Story, which also debuted over Memorial Day weekend in 2018.

Opening Weekend Prediction: $85 million

Domestic Gross Prediction: $200 million

5. The Devil Wears Prada 2

It's cool that this year's summer kick-off movie is not a Marvel movie or even an action film, but rather The Devil Wears Prada 2. This new Anne Hathaway/Meryl Streep title should also have a domestic haul outgrossing past summer kick-off titles like Thunderbolts* and The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Disney/20th Century Studios has applied the same "absence makes the heart grow fonder" approach for this sequel that the Mouse House usually reserves for animated movies. That lengthy wait for more Devil Wears Prada should work like gangbusters in making this a must-see movie for friend groups across the country. Few hits look as surefire this summer as The Devil Wears Prada 2. The first movie opened to $27.53 million over its three-day opening weekend. Expect this sequel to more than triple that debut in its summer kick-off opening weekend.

Opening Weekend Prediction: $86 million

Domestic Gross Prediction: $235 million

4. Minions and Monsters

Minions and Monsters apparently had especially strong recognition and social media buzz amongst this year's Super Bowl ads, beating all other movie commercials at the game by a massive margin. Those little yellow freaks remain incredibly popular, as seen by Despicable Me 4 amassing a gargantuan $972 million worldwide. Every post-2010 Despicable Me and Minions installment has grossed $336-370 million without fail in North America (save for 2017's Despicable Me 3). Even with this one's 1920s setting and lack of the three Minion leads of the last two Minions movies, it's doubtful this money-printing machine will end anytime soon. I'll even go a bit more pessimistic and suggest this one ends up being the lowest-grossing Minions installment ever in North America, yet that would still be more than enough to catapult it to being one of the summer's biggest movies.

Three-Day Opening Weekend Prediction: $72 million

Domestic Gross Prediction: $310 million

3. Toy Story 5

I'm torn on Toy Story 5. On the one hand, the Toy Story name is still beloved across generations and the planet. Disney's also gotten super skilled at launching animated movie sequels that cater to kids but also nostalgic adults. However, I'm not sure there's as much novelty in a fifth Toy Story movie as there is in, say, the first Zootopia movie in a decade. Toy Story 3 and 4 each made more than the last and $410+ million domestically alone. I'm seeing a bit of a decrease from those two movies, given that a post-1999 Toy Story sequel is no longer an inherently special prospect. Plus, Minions opens in theaters 13 days into its theatrical run, so it'll have way more family movie competition to face than Toy Story 4 (which basically had the 4th of July holiday weekend all to itself when it came to families). Still, Buzz and Woody have anchored four beloved moneymakers. Don't expect that streak to suddenly collapse here.

Opening Weekend Prediction: $104 million

Domestic Gross Prediction: $335 million

2. The Odyssey

Three years ago, Oppenheimer delivered a mighty box office run that shattered all pre-release expectations and gave director Christopher Nolan his biggest non-Dark Knight movie ever at the box office. After conquering multiplexes and the Best Picture Oscar, Nolan's back with a star-studded take on The Odyssey. This fantasy epic cost a pretty penny to make ($250 million versus Oppenheimer's $100 million), but that's a moot point given that it should be a massive box office performer. Everyone knows this story, yet there hasn't been a definitive modern Odyssey movie, a great balancing act that gives Nolan's latest brand name recognition and scarce-based specialness. Given that this is an action film with lots of splashy special effects and (presumably) a PG-13 rating, opening above both Oppenheimer and $100 million should be a cinch. Once more, the summer box office belongs to Nolan.

Opening Weekend Prediction: $131 million

Domestic Gross Prediction: $425 million

1. Spider-Man: Brand New Day

Audiences have been chilly to the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, but Spider-Man titles are a whole different breed of blockbuster cinema. People absolutely adore seeing this web-crawler on the big screen, as seen by the last four Spider-Man movies (animated and live-action) securing either A or A+ CinemaScore grades. Expect that love for Spidey to continue at the end of the summer when Spider-Man: Brand New Day drops. No Way Home got so many more people in love with Tom Holland's take on the character, while this particular superhero hasn't been overexposed or diluted via the streaming shows. Plus, the presence of The Punisher and The Hulk should give it something new compared to past MCU Spider-Man solo movies. 

It feels...off to predict Brand New Day will top the summer 2026 box office. A new Spider-Man reigning supreme feels a bit too traditional given that unexpected movies (Barbie, Top Gun: Maverick, Inside Out 2) have taken the summer box office crown domestically in the 2020s. Maybe something else on this list pops off and topples the web-crawler. For now, though, I'm having a hard time picturing anything else surpassing this motion picture in North America. If it falls 42% from Spider-Man: No Way Home's domestic gross, it still gets to roughly $470 million domestically. That sounds about right for this title, which should have no trouble keeping the good financial times rolling for the Spider-Man saga. Watch this space, though, if Spa Weekend or something breaks out and dominates the summer 2026 box office.

Opening Weekend Prediction: $165 million

Domestic Gross Prediction: $475 million

Lisa Laman FINALLY Found An AMC Location She Likes

I don't like fascism. I ain't a fan of Burger King's crummy food. And I certainly don't like AMC Theatres locations.

Perhaps that AMC distaste is based around a silly sense of "hometown" pride. I grew up in the Plano/Allen, TX area where the only nearby theaters were Cinemark locales. AMC multiplexes existed, but you had to drive 30-45 minutes to get to the ones in Dallas and Frisco. Meanwhile, Front Row Joe, the XD auditoriums, and Cinemark Legacy's Charlie Chaplin statue were all less than 10 minutes from my house. I grew up on Cinemark, which always projected films efficiently with no technological hassle and constantly delivered the yummiest popcorn imaginable. 

That didn't mean I turned up my nose at the chance to visit Studio Movie Grill, iPic, Moviehouse Eatery, Alamo Drafthouse's, or other nearby theaters. However, Cinemark was king. Perhaps that loyalty and familiarity informed my AMC disdain.

Still, doing some Googling, it's clear others feel passionately about AMC being the worst. David Ehlrich repeatedly used AMC as a go-to reference to the nadir of cinematic experiences in his recent IndieWire piece about Alamo Drafthouse's dismal modern form. Surely all these people couldn't have had the same Cinemark-centric upbringing as me! Perhaps they've also endured the bad theatrical experiences I've encountered in my time at AMC locations. Like the time I saw Evil Dead Rise and they kept the lights on for the first half of the feature (who needs darkness for a horror film?). Or when I saw The Wedding Banquet last year, and the audio in the theater made it sound tinny and distant. Don't forget when I saw Hoppers in IMAX a month ago, and the lights remained on for the first five minutes (including the looming, vibrantly bright IMAX logo on one of the side walls).

It's not just technical shortcomings that have informed my AMC hostility. It's also food. Only get pre-packaged candy at an AMC location, good Christ. For some reason, this is the one theater chain on the planet that can't make edible popcorn. A reliably yummy treat at the Angelika Dallas, Texas Theatre, or any other big screen location is cardboard at an AMC theater. Meanwhile, I still have nightmares about innocently chomping on AMC chicken fingers during my IMAX Star Trek Into Darkness screening...only to then spend the next day vomiting the "delicacy" up.

Let me be clear, by the way: any of the employees I've encountered at AMC locations have been the nicest people, doing their best and hardest to make the theatrical experience work. These shortcomings are because of bad corporate decisions or the employees being handed faulty food/equipment. Working-class AMC employees are not why I have hostility towards this theater chain. There's greater external dark magic at work within these cinematic domiciles.

However, I must come clean and eat crow when the time calls for it. I finally found an AMC location I like. Yes, Lisa Laman was enamored with an AMC multiplex. It must be the end times.

To watch the new Tamil-language historical drama Neelira on the big screen, my best buddy and I traveled to the one Texas movie theater playing this project: AMC Grapevine 30. Established in 1997, this theater might hold the record for most auditoriums in a single theater in the North Texas area. It's got so many screens that, when we went, they were still playing The Bride!, even though Warner Bros. has stopped tracking that film's box office numbers. Upon entering this location, it was immediately clear that this theater had a spaciousness and vibrant color palette that eludes other nearby AMC locations, like the AMC Northpark. The vastly distant rooftop made this space feel instantly roomy, a great ambiance to walk into.

Even better, though, is that there's a specific atmosphere to the AMC Grapevine. Everything inside is outer space themed! Specifically, it's rooted in a mid-20th-century Jetsons/Buzz Lightyear vision of the cosmos. Colors abound, everything is a little chunky-looking, and the floors are often draped with fuzzy rockets/planets carpeting that wouldn't be out of place in a pizza joint. Yellow is a dominant color throughout the location, while places like a toppings station have cutesy cosmic-themed names. Tiny blue planets (complete with adorable spiraling wiring holding them up) adorned with various white numbers indicate which auditorium you're next to. I've never been in an AMC that looks like this. Heck, I've never seen a movie theater that commits to this old-school cosmic ambiance.

Look at those cute spirals holding up the "planets"! And all those colors!

Maintaining that specificity even as the AMC Grapevine has embraced some modern accentuations (like those Coke Freestyle machines in the concession area) does wonders for the place. It just looks so inviting. Compare these decorative details to the Studio Movie Grill on North Central Expressway in Dallas. Inside this place, everything is so sparsely detailed. White backgrounds litter the entrance space, as do generic couches and a routine-looking bar area. A friend of mine remarked that it looked like an airport lounge, and that's totally it. Nothing about it screams "movie theater" or fun showmanship. God forbid a place making its money showing Sinners and Project Hail Mary have any dynamism in its architecture.

Meanwhile, the AMC Grapevine 30 feels very much like a space specifically put aside for spectacle and fun. The cosmic theming and bright colors are so unlike the typical movie-theater ambience (especially in the modern world) that they suggest anything is possible. What a fantastic mirror of how endlessly varied cinema is as an artistic medium. There's even charm in the deeply lived-in aura exuded through this place that has existed for 29 years. Everything still functions nicely and doesn't feel remotely delipidated. Instead, the AMC Grapevine 30's age excitingly makes it feel like you're stepping into something historic. You're now watching movies in a space that's housed everything from The Emperor's New Groove to Get Out. It's the best kind of time capsule that makes the past come alive rather than calcifying the present in constrictive nostalgia.

This theater's also shockingly easy to navigate despite its massive size, another major win for the complex. Easy-to-find and read signs help visitors navigate which of the 30 auditoriums they're visiting today, while splatterings of bright colors on the walls and fun cardboard standees littering the hallways make it a joy to just walk around the complex. The latter element was pretty much a given at any movie theater I went to as a kid. Nowadays, even places that used to be bursting with theater standees, like the Cinemark 16 in Allen, have largely eschewed these entities. How lovely to see these standees enduring at the AMC Grapveine, another visual signifier that you're in a movie theater, not an airport bar.

Even the auditoriums themselves are nicely done. Me and my friend were situated in one of the auditoriums that didn't have recliners, but that's fine by me. I care more about the projection and quality of the film itself than any gigantic recliner seat. Granted, this Grapevine auditorium wasn't extraordinary or deeply specific in design. I'm sure the projectors were (like the other AMC locations I've been to) nowhere near as crisp as the projector quality at the Texas Theatre. However, it got the job done, and inside there were (albeit more muted) red and yellow colors littering the walls to extend the locations primary visual aesthetic.

Look at that seating!

When I ventured into the women's restroom, I was greeted with another surprise: a cushy couch-ish area that looked like one half of a restaurant booth shaped like a quesadilla slice. I'd never seen something like this inside a movie theater bathroom before. What a lovely place to sit if the lines get too long or even just to collect your thoughts. That little sofa isn't something I'd expect to find in a restroom, but that just made its presence all the more welcome. This idiosyncratic touch cemented that the AMC Grapevine was a special place, right down to how its 30 screens offered up so many different kinds of cinematic experiences. You can see the biggest blockbusters here AND obscure Tamil-language releases.

Perhaps on another day something would've gone so horribly wrong that the AMC Grapevine would've incurred my ire rather than my affection. But on this day of seeing Neelira on the big screen, the theater not only worked like a charm, but its interior also dazzled me. Just gazing down any hallway of this place filled my eyes with hues of blue, silver, yellow, and light green, among other colors. Vibrancy and fun abounded in this realm, in sharp contrast to the drabness often plaguing the interiors of other AMC locations. Committing to specificity-drenched decor and pizzazz got even cantankerous me charmed by an AMC.

I still didn't touch the popcorn, though (besides nibbling a few kernels from my friend's bucket). I don't trust any AMC, not even this one, to do popcorn right enough to justify spending $11+.

New Line Cinema Embodies The Perils of Movie Studio Consolidation

It's a little maddening existing. Specifically, it's enraging watching so many powerful people ignore the past just to stuff a few extra dollars into their pockets. We know what happens when you cut down environmental protection and measures to curb pollution in people's drinking water. Let's slash those anyway! History has shown America diving into wars in the Middle East for oil does nothing but inspire bloodshed and carnage. Let's do it anyway! Hopping onto tech trends only Wall Street bros and Silicon Valley losers deem "the future" merely produces entities like Quibi and the Metaverse. Let's put everyone's money into generative AI bullshit anyway!

For Hollywood right now, the same thing is happening regarding Skydance's proposed purchase of Warner Bros. Skydance would own two major studios in this regard, following its absorption of Paramount Pictures last year. It's clear this is a terrible idea. Having two massive studios owned by one company, nope, warning signs going off. However, so many prolific figures in the entertainment industry are greeting the news with either a shrug or attempts to curry the favor of Skydance head David Ellison should he gain control of Warner Bros. 

Deadline Hollywood described recent questions lobbed at Ellison about the proposed mega-merger as "softball" queries. Former Warner Bros. Pictures head Toby Emmerich said he feels the merger is a good thing and expressed hopes that the combined company would distribute films from his new production label. Openly conservative producer Jerry Bruckheimer, meanwhile, has openly supported the Skydance merger. Of course, he would. He's rich and sheltered enough to withstand any negative consequences from two movie studios becoming basically one. Meanwhile, working-class organizations like Hollywood teamsters or the theater owners' representative group Cinema United have openly opposed this proposed merger on many grounds.

These opponents have wisely pointed out how 20th Century Fox's output decreased dramatically once the studio was bought by Disney. Movie theaters and the general box office have since suffered. If they want another example of what horrors happen when movie studios consolidate, though, may I suggest referencing the poor struggles of New Line Cinema? Once a prosperous standalone studio, it was shuttered into a Warner Bros. division in the late 2000s. Cinema has suffered for that ever since.

New Line Cinema As An Independent Studio

This graphic from the University of Michigan (written by Daniel Herbert while the visual itself was made by Jamie Lai) and this timeline of New Line Cinema history from Variety writer Keith Collins should help provide a more specific and detailed history of New Line Cinema's earliest days. Real quickly, though, before we launch into New Line Cinema's 21st-century experiences, this studio was founded in 1967 by Bob Shaye. Originally, New Line handled super avant-garde and challenging arthouse titles meant to resonate with college-aged audiences. This included Jean-Luc Godard directorial efforts and the earliest John Waters directorial efforts. New Line wasn't a big label, in other words. It was the purveyor of counterculture cinema.

1984's A Nightmare on Elm Street, though, launched New Line Cinema into the stratosphere and new levels of notoriety. The studio expanded its operations, but didn't stop handling motion pictures many other studios and distributors wouldn't touch. For instance, in September 1984, New Line released Buddies, a terrific movie that served as one of American cinema's first explorations of the AIDS crisis. New Line also released fellow queer cinema staple Torch Song Trilogy in the final weeks of 1988 and, at the dawn of the 90s, this label put House Party into theaters. Similarly, when nobody else wanted to take on distribution rights to the first live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, New Line Cinema stepped up to the plate and made a fortune in the process.

New Line Cinema was putting out a lot of titles into movie theaters, including features like My Own Private Idaho released under its Fine Line Features banner (established in 1991). In 1994, the Turner Broadcasting System purchased New Line Cinema. Just two years later, Turner merged with Time Warner Entertainment. This meant New Line Cinema was now a sister company to Warner Bros., though the two remained disparate entities. Though no longer a solo act without any corporate owners, New Line Cinema still took mighty big risks like financing Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Between New Line Cinema and Fine Line, 16 New Line-owned movies got theatrical releases in 1999. New Line put out the same number of titles across its two divisions in 2002. Warner Bros. put out 23(!!!) separate new theatrical releases the same year. Unfortunately, New Line would cease to function as a standalone entity by the start of 2008. New Line's attempts to recreate that Lord of the Rings box office success with misguided, costly misfires like The Golden Compass had sunk the studio's fortunes. TimeWarner announced in late Feburary 2008 that Warner Bros. would be the company's only theatrical film studio going forward. Picturehouse (an arthouse label successor to Fine Line Features) was dead. New Line was now a Warner Bros. division.

"New Line Cinema Is Dead. Bury It."

For the next two years, Warner Bros. released a deluge of new releases (like The Final Destination, Sex and the City: The Movie, He's Just Not That Into You, Four Christmases, and more) that were already green-lit and/or filmed before New Line's demise. By 2010, though, it was clear New Line was in a new era. Only four new movies featured the New Line logo that year. Compare that to the 11 features New Line Cinema released three years earlier in 2007, or its 10 features in 2006 and 2005. In 2012, the nadir of New Line's existence, Warner Bros. only put out three films under this label. Just looking at the raw numbers here makes it apparent: corporate consolidation cost the film industry dearly. Fewer jobs, fewer titles for movie theaters to play, and fewer artistic endeavors were created after TimeWarner merged New Line into Warner Bros.

Initially, New Line Cinema’s fate under Warner Bros. appeared to be similar to 20th Century Fox’s fate under Disney leadership: a label for sequels to old movies, but nothing new. WB was happy to use the New Line Cinema logo for Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas, and Final Destination 5. From 2010 to 2012, though, it looked like the age of fresh New Line Cinema films was over. Thankfully, 2013’s The Conjuring breathed new life into New Line and allowed the label to slightly expand its annual output. 

Still, New Line, even with Conjuring and the It movies under its belt, was a shell of its former self. Excluding MGM co-productions, MGM only put out five films in 2016. The previous year, it only put out four titles (again, exempting MGM movies like Hot Pursuit and Creed). The closest the 2010s had to an “old school” year for New Line Cinema was 2019, when the label was attached to nine different movies. That included British indie Blinded by the Light, a Sundance 2019 sensation New Line acquired. A smaller scale independent title like that harkened back to the earliest days of New Line and the kind of output that used to be its bread and butter. 

Aside from 2019, though, New Line’s annual output has been significantly limited and often comprises franchise titles rather than the originals/non-sequels it used to take risks on. Recent features like Companion and Weapons are exceptions to the default releases Warner Bros. shuffles under the New Line banner. The days of New Line and Fine Line Features offering havens for John Waters movies, The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love, My Own Private Idaho, Buddies, and more have been replaced by endless Conjuring sequels and spin-offs. New Line's annual theatrical output is often 75% less than its typical slate when it was a standalone entity.

What We Lose When Studios Consolidate 

Studio consolidation is not sad because we'll see a certain movie studio logo less or because change is inherently bad. It's because it only benefits the most powerful people. Reducing competition and how many studios to operate provides more dollars for the top executives of whoever owns Warner Bros. this week. It sure doesn't offer more choices or variety for the consumer, though. It also doesn't help ensure there are options in the marketplace for filmmakers and artists needing distributors.

To boot, New Line Cinema and Fine Line Features, as part of their "let's take some risks" practice, helped get films from marginalized artists off the ground. In addition to the LGBTQIA+ movies I've already mentioned, there was a slew of features from Black filmmakers that got made at New Line Cinema. Love & Basketball, for instance, was a New Line Cinema release. Ditto other titles from Black artists like Bamboozled, Set It Off, and B*A*P*S,  among many other titles, were also New Line/Fine Line titles. Since 2013, Blinded by the Light (an outside acquisition) is the only film helmed by a woman of color to get released by New Line Cinema. Reducing this studio to being a Warner Bros. label, whether intentional or not, deprived the world of more art from non-white voices.

That's what happens, though, when studios are absorbed, bought, and collapsed into larger entities. When 20th Century Fox was merged into Disney, fewer movies got made. When Sony merged TriStar into Columbia Pictures, fewer movies were made. When Lionsgate bought Summit Entertainment, the label was gradually discontinued. A distributor that put out seven or eight movies a year as late as 2011 no longer exists. Fewer movies got made. DreamWorks SKG, after being sold to Paramount in late 2005, went through a series of financial troubles and evolutions. It's now a Universal label that's had its logo attached to just three films since 2022. Fewer movies got made. The list goes on and on and on.

Unless your'e talking about Disney buying family movie labels that previously made one or two movies annually (like Pixar or Marvel Studios), the history of movie studios purchasing and/or absorbing other studios is diminishing returns. This is the sole outcome. David Ellison can spout his notions that Skydance will have the financing to make 30 movies across Paramount and Warner Bros. annually. The historical track record bears out that movie studio purchases limit options for creators and moviegoers. The only people who benefit are the uber-wealthy like Ellison.

New Line Cinema is one of the most tragic examples of this phenomenon (and, ironically, a cautionary tale its larger sister company, Warner Bros., seems doomed to mimic). New Line once was the place that steadily supplied all kinds of movies to theaters and birthed the careers of John Waters, Gina Prince-bythewood, Paul Thomas Anderson, David Fincher, John Cameron Mitchell, and more. Heck, we have the Lord of the Rings trilogy because of this studio. In the 2020s, though, it's the home of Black Adam and a series of reboots/remakes (like new Mortal Kombat, Final Destination, and Conjuring outings) exploiting its legacy. 

Both its volume of new theatrical releases and risk-taking (each of which theaters need to survive) are gone. Do not listen to the press release-ready jargon of David Ellison. Gaze upon the dwindled modern incarnation of New Line Cinema to witness what happens when movie studio consolidation goes unchecked. Mergers obliterate jobs. They do not create them.

All It Took Was This One Tweak to Finally Make Video Game Movies Box Office Juggernauts

For the longest time, only one video game movie cracked $100+ million domestically. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider sure looked lonely on this list pre-2016, as most other video game movies (even costly features like Warcraft and Assassin's Creed) failed to even hit $60 million domestically, let alone $100+ million domestically. Of course, just a decade after The Angry Birds Movie became only the second video game movie to hit $100+ million in North America, that all feels like a distant memory. In the first few weeks of the 2020s, Sonic the Hedgehog secured the title of biggest video game movie ever domestically. 

Since then, the Illumination Mario movies, A Minecraft Movie, the Sonic sequels, and even Uncharted have all amassed major box office hauls. Minecraft and Mario especially have become some of the biggest motion pictures (of any genre) in history. The video game movie, once box office poison, is now a massive business in Hollywood. There are several reasons the video game movie has come into its own. Gearing more of these films towards family audiences has certainly helped. Meanwhile, many people who grew up with Mario, Steve from Minecraft, and Sonic as part of their everyday lives are now adults with disposable income in the 2020s. That nostalgia-driven crowd might not have been able to drive one of these movies to massive numbers as late as 2015.

The biggest difference between new and old video game movies, though, is pretty simple. These films finally focused on concrete characters, rather than just brand names, people are familiar with. The quality of these features hasn't drastically improved. However, there's a big difference between promising people a movie containing Shadow the Hedgehog and a generic action movie that happens to have the Assassin's Creed brand name.

What Kind of Characters Did Old Video Game Movies Focus On?

The very first live-action video game movies, like Super Mario Bros., Street Fighter, and Mortal Kombat, did bring Mario, M. Bison, and Johnny Cash, respectively, to the silver screen. Starting in the 21st century, though, video game films began largely eschewing familiar video game characters in favor of new fictional individuals. The Resident Evil movies, for instance, famously carved out their own new lead character (Alice) and ensemble casts.  Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, meanwhile, was adapting games based around an unnamed "Prince" character. That figure became the largely standalone new figure Prince Dastan of Persia. The Assassin's Creed movie didn't give Ezio Firenze or Edward Kenway a chance to shine on the silver screen. Instead, Michael Fassbender's Callum "Cal" Lynch was the centerpiece.

2016's Warcraft focused on a slew of various Orcs and humans that were unfamiliar to even the most hardcore World of Warcraft players. Need for Speed was adapting a series of racing games devoid of recognizable characters, so a deluge of new figures had to be conjured up for a motion picture adaptation. Mark Wahlberg's Max Payne, meanwhile, kept the titular character from the comics, but grounded him in a fantastical world with plenty of otherworldly beasties (known as Valkyrie) not from the games. On and on the examples go.

This is not to say the problems rooted in these projects were solely because they weren't loyal to the games. The Illumination Mario movies vividly demonstrate that slavish devotion to pre-existing material doesn't equal a quality motion picture. However, this phenomenon does help explain why these titles didn't register as must-see titles for most people. If you see an ad for a Spider-Man movie, you know you're going to see a story involving characters you love like Peter Parker, Miles Morales, Mary Jane Watson, and others. If you spot a billboard for a new 007 movie, you might get stoked that James Bond is back on the big screen.

Need for Speed, though, had no relation to the games beyond "cars go fast." A familiar video game moniker here just felt like a cynical cash grab, not a potentially exciting extension of a beloved gaming world. Without any specific characters to serve as connective tissue between different mediums, what on Earth does a Doom movie even mean to both hardcore Doom fans and casual moviegoers? When Tim Burton's Batman promised the first big-budget big screen version of its titular lead, there was momentous excitement even among those who didn't read Batman comics. Through cultural osmosis, everyone could understand the significance of both Batman as a fictional character and him finally getting translated into this cinematic form.

Compare that to Warcraft, which was adapted from a game where players customized their own characters and interacted with virtual friends in fantasy settings. What value was there in seeing Azeroth in the context of a narrative feature you couldn't control? World of Warcraft's joy came from interacting with your pals, not from controlling or meeting pre-existing characters like in a Mario or Last of Us title. The lack of distinguishable, concrete characters you could translate into a World of Warcraft movie epitomizes how that Duncan Jones directorial effort was a boondoggle from the start.

Frustratingly, too, eschewing source material didn't create compelling new movie experiences. This process can totally create masterpieces. Trust me as a girl who first read Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park and then watched (and fell in love with) Steven Spielberg's movie adaptation, which radically changes the text. However, rather than producing the video game movie equivalent of Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy II: The Golden Army or Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, titles like Need for Speed, Assassin's Creed, and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time were torturously boring. You got the worst of both worlds with these movies.

Lara Croft Offered A Glimpse of Video Game Cinema's Future

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was the exception amongst 2000s video game movies that proved how much identifiable characters could help these adaptations. I've never played the Lara Croft games, so I can't say how faithful the 2001 Tomb Raider film (which I found to be a snooze) is overall to its predecessors. However, I do know that the Tomb Raider marketing could emphasize a concrete character (Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft!) that audiences could finally see in a live-action movie. This wasn't just a generic action film incidentally featuring Need for Speed or Hitman's brand name. People had grown fond of Lara Croft and wanted to see her in further adventures in a new medium. Compare that to Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, which was graced with posters dominated by shrug-worthy characters nobody cared about.

Unsurprisingly, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider first lost its domestic box office crown amongst video game movies to Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, which could center its marketing campaign around that beloved yellow, electric rat. Since then, Hollywood has stuck to (largely) family-friendly video game adaptations rooted in games with concretely defined ensemble casts (Sonic and Pals, Mario and the Mushroom kingdom, etc). Even A Minecraft Movie, an adaptation of an online game built on farming and mining, avoided the Warcraft and Doom traps by making sure Steve was front and center in the marketing. 

Whereas Doom abandoned the central concept of the game's monsters coming from Hell, Minecraft bent over backwards to showcase recognizable Minecraft figures like Creepers, Skeletons, and Villagers. The Five Nights at Freddy's films, meanwhile, have centered their entire existence on the "novelty" of seeing Freddy Fazbear and the other animatronics on the big screen. The very appearance of these critters is clearly meant to elicit cheers when they show up in a key climactic Five Nights at Freddy's 2 moment.

In more directly intertwining these video game movies with their source material, and in particular characters, audiences have immense fondness for, well, "cousin, the video game movie businsess is a-boomin'!", as Lt. Aldo Raine might say. Tweaking video game movies isn't, of course, the only element propelling this subgenre to new box office heights. Chiefly, these new features are rooted in far more popular video games (Minecraft and Mario are the two most popular games in history) than Need for Speed or Max Payne.

That's also not to say this shift in priorities has enhanced the film artistically. On the contrary, video game movies have made a lateral shift in what cynical marketing desires motivate their existence. Previously, studios tried to make money by labeling Fast & Furious and Pirates of the Caribbean pastiches Need for Speed or Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, respectively. Now they try to make money through "surprise" cameos of Fox McCloud, Shadow the Hedgehog, or figures cribbed from the most obscure corners of Five Nights at Freddy's lore. The times change. Methods shift. Capitalistic urges persist. All the while, the newest Mario movies are actually worse than the 1993 film adaptation. Fidelity to the source material isn't a virtue unto itself.

Still, recognizing what separates the video game movie hits from the flops does help illustrate why audiences are finally turning out to these films in droves. It isn't enough to just invoke a recognizable brand name. A generic crime thriller that happened to be named Spider-Man would bomb at the box office. Ditto a forgettable automobile chase film that was incidentally named The Great Gatsby. Centering these projects on characters like Yoshi, Knuckles, and Nathan Drake, though, has made 2020s video game movies feel more like direct adaptations of beloved Nintendo and PlayStation titles. That's how the video game movie space is now regularly producing $1+ billion hits...even if the quality of these movies* still can't get past the tutorial level.

* = Except for Rampage and Sonic the Hedgehog 3, those two are actually goofy fun.