From what I can see out here in Flyover Country, not many Americans are terribly interested in Hollywood’s latest fare. Tom Cruise’s latest Mission Impossible offering wasn’t up to its preceding chapters. The Star Wars franchise has all but eviscerated itself on its own light saber, and with the exception of Deadpool & Wolverine, Marvel, post-Stan Lee, is digging its own grave. The Disney grooming syndicate, about to release a troubled and expensive remake of Snow White which seems destined to be one of Hollywood’s all-time turkeys, seems largely responsible.
So of course, Hollywood is blaming…wait for it…Donald Trump!
Hollywood director Todd Haynes bizarrely says filmmakers are asking themselves a “real question” about how President Donald Trump’s administration will affect the film industry. “We’re in a state of particular crisis right now,” Haynes claimed.
Everyone I know in the United States and friends abroad are witnessing this barrage of actions in the first three weeks of the Trump administration with tremendous concern, shock,” the May December director claimed.
How will Trump affect the film industry? He won’t. Unlike Joe Biden’s handlers, he’s the guy into free speech. Hollywood will get to keep doing what it’s doing: driving customers out of theaters. And has Disney learned it’s lesson? Bwahahahahaha! I really crack myself up sometimes.
It’s been a brutal week for Disney.
Several anxiety-ridden senior staffers ran to the left-leaning Hollywood trade publication Deadline to bash CEO Bob Iger, accusing him of capitulating to President Donald Trump through a series of moves that have Disney employees across the company wondering “What’s next? Where do we go from here? What do we stand for now, keeping MAGA happy?”
“This is not what I expected from Bob — I thought he had our back,” an unnamed staffer told the outlet of Iger.
Like so many other companies, dimwitted executives have given employees the idea they run the company, and really, really badly too.
Disney’s brand is in a freefall. Iger knows this. He also knows he’s late to the game of distancing Disney from DEI. The exodus of race and gender initiatives in major Hollywood companies, from Netflix to Warner Bros. Discovery, began in the summer of 2023.
The more moves Iger makes, like cutting a transgender storyline from a show for children to canceling a massively expensive and little-watched lesbian witch Star Wars series, the more he alienates the radicals inside his company that run to friendly Hollywood media outlets to bash him.
Which brings us to Disney’s latest Marvel release, Captain America: Brave New World.
Graphic: X Screenshot
Disney’s latest Marvel superhero movie, Captain America: Brave New World, has entered a new world, indeed, by suffering one of the worst critics scores of any Marvel debut ever.
As of the publishing of this report, the Rotten Tomatoes critic score, the Tomatometer, is at a disastrous 52 percent.
The next closest Marvel films on the downside are Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania which earned 48 percent and The Marvels which hit 50 percent.
The film actually did fairly well on its initial open day or two, but thereafter:
Graphic X Screenshot
The movie supposedly took at least $350 million to make, reportedly because of extensive rewriting and reshooting due to terrible reviews at advance screenings. This probably means, like so much of what Hollywood and particularly Disney is producing, it won’t come close to breaking even. Disney can only keep losing money until it goes bankrupt.
Apparently, this new Captain America film really isn’t that woke—Disney can’t do anything that isn’t at least somewhat woke—so what’s the problem? Could it be a black Captain America? Could racism be involved? After all, this is an irredeemably racist country, right?
Unlikely. Anthony Mackie is a solid and likeable actor who has done well and helped boost attendance at past Marvel movies. However, Chris Evans, for most Americans, is Captain America. Like many actors he’s a leftist who often shoots his mouth off, but he played Cap straight and well. In any continuing series based on a single, dominant character, changing actors is always a crap shoot.
I haven’t seen the movie. I’m waiting to see it on DVD, which shouldn’t take long. However, it’s easy to figure out what happened. Disney is focused on political and sexual indoctrination. Series continuity, plot and engaging, coherent storytelling must, of necessity, take a back seat. Writers focused on their, and everyone else’s, sexuality don’t write inspiring, likeable characters, nor do they tell compelling stories for mainstream America.
DEI hires tend to lack the imagination, experience and technical skills necessary to produce and maintain consistently high-quality production values. Computer graphics become lazy and lackluster. Audiences have seen it all before and better done.
When a trip to the local cinema can easily cost $50 for two, it’s easy to see why people are waiting for the DVD or catching movies online. They don't like paying for the privilege or being bored and insulted.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.