A movie like Sinners finding success points to a healthier future for cinema, one where charismatic movie stars, talented directors, and great scripts — not just IP — can make hits.
Time will tell if it sticks, and this weekend will be another helpful indicator of where we’re headed. Marvel’s Thunderbolts* is set to rule the roost at the box office,tracking to open to $70-75 million in the United States and Canada and an additional $90-100 million internationally. Normally, this would annoy me. I’ve been sick of theMCUfor years, and the franchise’s ability to dominate theaters is frustrating, even if its draw has gradually but significantly waned post-Endgame.
But given that Thunderbolts* is taking the top spot after Sinners' back-to-back blockbusting weekends, I’m more willing to enjoy it. It feels less and less like the MCU is the only game in town anymore.
How The MCU Changed Franchise Filmmaking
Marvel’s mega-franchise dominated the 2010s, and moved Hollywood in a more corporate direction than ever before. Franchises and IP weren’t new, but in earlier eras, filmmakers had been able to shape an adaptation to fit their vision. The Tim Burton Batman movies are distinctly Burton-y, the Christopher Nolan Batman movies are distinctly Nolan-y, and so on. The MCU, effectively, turned movies into really expensive TV where Kevin Feige, an executive, served as showrunner. The result was that individual filmmakers didn’t have much freedom to leave their mark. The machinery had to keep running smoothly when they left, after all.
Ryan Coogler was one of the few directors who was able to leave his stamp on the system. With Creed,Black Panther, and Wakanda Forever, he proved that he was good at telling emotionally resonant stories within established franchises. Even then, his Black Panther movies have to advance the franchise’s goals, not just be good movies.
Coogler Is Succeeding Where Other MCU Alums Have Failed
Seeing Coogler strike out on his own and make something successful from his own original story feels like the best case scenario for the MCU. This hasn’t been the case for most MCU directors. Jon Favreau (Iron Man, Iron Man 2) has become a Disney company man, delivering successful live-action adaptations of The Jungle Book and The Lion King, then overseeing Star Wars' foray into TV with Dave Filoni. James Gunn, similarly, has only made superhero movies since the first Guardians of the Galaxy. The Russo Brothers have failed to find much critical or commercial success in their streaming era, and their $300 million The Electric State adaptation was the Netflix equivalent of a box office bomb. Taika Waititi has made his own stories between MCU outings, and while Jojo Rabbit was a hit, it was a much smaller movie. Only Coogler has been able to take his MCU cache and use it to make an alternative to the MCU: a big, original blockbuster.
Sinners is doing remarkably well for an original movie and, if it keeps posting holds like this, could enjoy a Top Gun: Maverick-style box office run. That Tom Cruise hit opened well (giving Cruise the biggest box office debut of his career), but became the highest-grossing movie in America that year thanks to it having really long legs. After months in theaters, it took number one in August, closing out the summer on top. After years and years of IP having an increasingly tight stranglehold on theaters, it’s refreshing to see an original movie debut at the top of the heap and stay there — and make the kind of money we typically only expect from franchise movies.
This is what I’ve been waiting for all throughout the theater’s post-pandemic era. Give me something, anything, other than franchise slop. Now that a real alternative is here, heck, I might give the slop another chance.
