Was this the worst summer for cinema since the Pandemic? From Pixar sequels to jarring controversies like Oz Perkin’s Longlegs, Summer of 2024 was an interesting year to go to the movies. Coming off a phenomenal spring season with future cult-classics like Luca Guadgnino’s Challengers, and the box office juggernaut that was Dune II, it felt like there wasn’t any room to breathe before another must-see by some of the best filmmakers working today would be released. 

But then summer rolled around, and it seemed to get quiet. No movie seemed to be able to grab general audiences and strike well with critics for the entirety of May. June had a few box office hits – Inside Out 2 made 1.46 million dollars globally in just its first six weeks – but for the most part, every film seemed to receive, at best, lukewarm responses from audiences. A Quiet Place Day One was the franchises lowest-received and least successful film in the box office. Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders, a film fans were excited for due to its lineup of stars Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, and Mike Faist, flopped in the box office and received mediocre reviews. 

July was, for the most part, no different. The only standout films that grabbed general audiences and critics alike were Lee Isaac Chung’s Twisters, a sequel to the 90s classic, and of course the annual Marvel hit— this year being Deadpool and Wolverine, a movie filled with cameos and multiversal-crossovers. Along with August, the only movies cracking the top 5 in the box office being Alien: Romulus, which is the seventh— yes, seventh— installment in the franchise, and It Ends with Us, an adaptation of the popular Colleen Hoover novel starring Blake Lively. 

There is a clear pattern here emphasizing a larger issue in cinema: sequels, spinoffs, reboots, and franchises have taken over Hollywood. This leads to original filmmaking getting a lack of exposure; why would studios take a risk on an original project when greenlighting another superhero sequel with an established audience sells guaranteed tickets? 

The good news, however, is that this is a problem that general audiences are becoming increasingly aware of. Audience reception for Marvel films has steadily declined over the past few years, and — granted, rarely — when original projects get proper exposure, these creative stories resonate well with audiences and critics alike. Films like Sean Durkin’s 2023 release The Iron Claw, an emotional detailing of the tragic story of the Von Erich brothers, and the oscar-sweeper of 2022, Kwan and Scheinert’s Everything Everywhere All At Once, were massive box-office successes because studios took a risk on an original story not attached to a larger franchise. 

And even though I knew this, I was curious to see if it was an issue that was noticed by other Apex students. When sitting down with a couple Cougars, they had similar sentiments on the matter.

When I sat down with Carter, a sophomore here at Apex, I asked him if he had seen any movies this year that weren’t sequels, or part of a larger franchise. “To be honest, no,” he said, “ [I] think we have too many sequels, and not a lot of new movies.” 

Another sophomore here at Apex, Jack, felt the same way. When I asked him if he even saw any non-superhero, original movies, he said “Not really. I felt like they were kind of bad.” 

To close, despite some exceptions, it is clear that this is a problem that audiences are starting to notice, and it was very much evident this summer of 2024, which was overall a substandard time to go to the movies filled with mediocrity and disappointments.