Hollywood’s Big Swings belong in their own category
About ten minutes into 2015’s Pan Peter Pan and his fellow orphans are abducted by clowns on bungee ropes. This is immediately followed by a World War II dogfight involving a flying pirate ship firing cannonballs above the streets of London. This leads to some very trippy visuals where Peter apparently grabs Saturn (or a representation of it, that part isn’t really clear) on his way to Never Never Land. Once they are there an army of previously kidnapped orphans sing “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana, led by Hugh Jackman absolutely chewing the scenery. I’m actually seriously underselling how weird the entire thing is. Oh and that is all before Garrett Hedlund shows up playing Hook by channeling every cowboy Timothy Olyphant has ever played.
Judging this movie against your typical film is misguided at best; it belongs in a special category. It’s one of a handful of truly unique large budget films I affectionately call “Big Swings.” They could perhaps best be described as a combinations of Avatar and Moulin Rouge. They are big earnest attempts at making something grand and beautiful. More often than not they are flawed and clumsy, and while a few are truly great, many of them aren’t “good films” in the traditional sense. Innovative, interesting, and enjoyable are more apt descriptions.
But what exactly are these films and how does one go about defining them? Andrew Todd wrote a great article for Slash Film discussing these films entitled “We’ve Been Failing Our Most Creative Blockbusters.” Patrick Willems has a video essay where he calls them “The Modern Class of Gonzo Blockbusters.”
In trying to figure out what really set these movies apart I figured a few things out. They fulfill the following criteria;
1) Hugely imaginative
2) Massive special effects budget
3) Impressive worldbuilding
4) Kinda bonkers
5) Not part of an existing film franchise
These kinds of films simply couldn’t exist a few decades ago because quite frankly the technology didn’t exist to create them. Sure insane and imaginative world existed in everything from The Fifth Element to Labyrinth, but the sheer size and scope of what’s possible now seemed impossible until the early 2000s. Films like Jupiter Ascending or Mortal Engines simply could not have existed in the 80’s or 90’s.
The precursor to these films is almost definitely Avatar, (although Speed Racer predates it by a couple years) with its; colorful and rich alien world, invented language, and a story not based on any IP. It was a huge risk, but ended up being the bestselling film of all time, a record it held for ten years. But unlike a lot of the films that would come after it, it lacked that weirdness factor. Its execution and worldbuilding are fairly boiler plate, and it accurately drew comparisons to films like Dances with Wolves and Pocahontas.
The thing that Avatar has most in common with the Big Swings it would go on to inspire is how much of a work of passion it is for its creator. None of these are done for an easy paycheck, these writers and directors clearly believe in what they were doing. Perhaps the purest example of this is Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, with its diverse aliens, completely unique and dense visuals, and sections of the film seemingly completely devoted to explaining how the city functions.
Most of these huge passion projects are blank checks cashed by directors after they have made a smash hit. After making the highest grossing G rated film ever, Finding Nemo, and following it up with Wall-E, Andrew Stanton was given the reigns to develop what Disney saw as it’s answer to Avatar, John Carter. Fellow Pixar director Brad Bird scored a smash hit with Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and Disney too gave him the reigns to make his bizarre opus Tomorrowland. Sticking with Disney for a second longer, after Ava DuVeunay became the first black female director to have her film nominated for best picture she received the reigns to A Wrinkle in Time.
Perhaps the best example of this however is the Watchowskis who, after finishing the Matrix trilogy made; Speed Racer, Cloud Atlas, and Jupiter Ascending.
All these movies are batshit. Some are more exciting, some are much more interesting than good, but all are worth a watch. All of these films are; from the heart, big, bold, and filled with passion. Watching them is truly a feast for the eyes. There is little like them.
That isn’t to say there is absolutely nothing like them. Occasionally some franchise films that might otherwise be classified as “Big Swings,” show up. Things like Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3, or Aquaman. However these films have a baked in fanbase, and tend to succeed at the box office because of it. In fact the most successful of the true Big Swings, and the only one to get a sequel, Pacific Rim, was about as financially successful as the least successful Big Swing from a franchise, Tron: Legacy.
Making a sequel or spinoff to a successful film franchise is a much less risky endeavor after all than adapting; a YA novel, a manga, or book series that hasn’t been popular for a hundred years. Or riskiest of all, an entirely original film. It’s a common complaint to hear about how all films today are remakes or sequels, and nothing is original. Yet when these films come along that are pure spectacle, that harken back to the earliest days of filmmaking when George Melies showed audiences something they had never seen before, they fail again and again. If we really want to see something new, beautiful, bold, and creative we have to see films like this.
Of course the deck is stacked against these movies, because of their huge budgets, they need to make insane amounts of money to turn a profit. Alita Battle Angel made north of $400 million dollars worldwide, yet people can’t seem to agree if it actually was profitable. The film was estimated to have cost somewhere between 150 and 200 million dollars to make, and the overall coasts of the film are roughly doubled when marketing is accounted for. It’s been estimated to have needed to make somewhere between $300–500 million at the box office to turn a profit.
Maybe this will be enough for a sequel. Maybe Alita’s late 2020 release during the doldrums of COVID will be enough to get it a follow up. I really don’t know.
What I fear most of all is that when the world returns to normalcy and new blockbusters return to theaters the studios will be scared to make films like these. I don’t know if WB and Disney will be willing to give a nine figure budget to an auteur who wants to make their own weird vision a reality. I worry their risk analysis will be too great and instead of seeing something new we will get something safe. Gone are the days when a madman could get hundreds of millions of dollars from a major studio to blow up half a jungle with total creative freedom because he made The Godfather. I love film, including the safe bet superhero films and the low budget indie horror masterpieces. But I don’t want the modern landscape of movies to only be those two extremes.
As long as these big weird original films fail at the box office we will see fewer and fewer innovative effects driven films. Studios will become less and less willing to back such an expensive gamble meaning that films with bold creative choices will only exist with smaller budgets or as sequels to popular films. Don’t get me wrong, I still love creative films of any budget, 2007’s Stardust is all of this but made on a middling budget and I absolutely adore that film. But we’ll be losing something without the huge insane worlds that can only be crafted by hundreds of millions of dollars.
These kinds of films have only recently began to exist and if things keep going the way they are they won’t be here much longer. So do me a favor, see them, treasure them, enjoy every; predator city, art-house retelling of Genesis, and Technicolor racing spectacle in them.
For more on Big Swing films check out the miniseries on the Underrated podcast!
