On April 19 of last year, a spectacular earthquake hit the film industry. The shock was of such a caliber that its echoes will mark the sector in 2023 and 2024. That day Netflix announced that for the first time in its history not only was it not gaining subscribers, but it had also lost 200,000 and that in the second half of 2022 they would abandon his service, in total, two million customers (finally, only one million left). That day, the platform sank on the stock market. And despite a good end to the year, its shares are still at half the price they were at the end of 2022. But, above all, that day the dreams of hundreds of directors who had bet on this platform, and in general the The rest of the streaming services would produce their movies. The cuts came, the cancellation of projects and, abruptly, the much-vaunted paradigm shift. There will no longer be a radical mutation, but rather a difficult fit between event films for movie theaters and titles that are popular on the Internet. In the middle, and more in Spain, auteur cinema will suffer, abandoned to its fate by all. More information ‘Avatar: The Sense of Water’ becomes the highest grossing film in 2022 in Spain in just two weeks with 21 million eurosAs much as in 2023 we are witnessing Harrison Ford’s farewell to the character of Indiana Jones (and it doesn’t seem easy for him to return to the big screen with another face), the return to commercial cinema by Víctor Erice with Close Your Eyes and a Cannes brimming with big names, the uncertainty about the future of platforms, some of which will eat others or will merge with each other, has made the industry sick. And although the world box office grew 12% last year (still far from the pre-pandemic figures, which could finally be equaled this season), in Spain the 40% lower collections than in 2019 indicate that there will be fewer movie purchases author (because his public has not returned to the theaters) and less risky financial bets for artistic works. The exceptional Spanish harvest of 2022 will not have an easy extension this year, although there will always be interesting films. Here are a good handful. Blockbusters Ethan Hunt’s team, in ‘Mission Impossible: Mortal Judgment, Part 1’ DC and Marvel continue to pull world cinema, but while the second maintains its rate of releases (and thus Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, The Marvels or Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume III), in the first, James Gunn, the new creative manager of the studio, has yet to put order in the first, which in 2023 will finally release, after years of delay, The Flash ( with Maribel Verdú as mother of the superhero), as well as Aquaman 2 and Blue Beetle, with its first Latino protagonist. Halle Bailey, in ‘The Little Mermaid’. In animation, Pixar will try to raise its head with Elemental and one of the great surprises of recent years will have a continuation: Spider-man will be released in June: crossing the multiverse. Other films called to attract a large audience will be Dune: part 2, The little mermaid (in the flesh, and with Javier Bardem as King Triton), Mission Impossible 7: death sentence, part 1 (the sun never sets on the empire Cruise). And, of course, at the end of June, Harrison Ford, at the age of 80, says goodbye to the most famous archaeologist with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Fate, by James Mangold. There are more doubts about the journey of the musical Wonka, with Timothée Chalamet giving life to Willy Wonka as a young man, when he meets the Oompa-Loompas, and with songs from The Divine Comedy. Timothée Chalamet, in ‘Wonka’ Spain After the exceptional 2022, a A stream of champagne that cheered the entire industry after the stopper that was holding it back, the covid, blew up, a more measured 2023 arrives. Although there will be interesting bets. At Sundance, which starts in two weeks, Mamacruz, by Patricia Ortega, will premiere, a comedy with Kiti Mánver as a grandmother who hasn’t enjoyed an orgasm for decades. A handful of directors will premiere their second feature, after a first quality work: Lucía Alemany (Mari(two)), Marta Díaz (Los buenos modales), Celia Rico (Little loves), Alauda Ruiz de Azúa (It’s you) and Carlota Pereda (The hermitage). Newcomers called to make noise are Eva Hache with Anyone Has a Bad Day; Pablo Maqueda (his first fiction feature in commercial theaters) with La desconocida, and above all Mario Casas, who directs Mi solitude has wings, with his own script and with his brother Óscar as the protagonist. Arantxa Echevarría, during the filming of ‘Chinas’ Among the veterans will premiere Álex Montoya (The House, adaptation of the comic by Paco Roca), Víctor García León (the comedy Vaya vacaciones), Patxi Amezcua (the thriller Infiesto), Daniel Calparsoro (the action film All the Names of God), F.Javier Gutiérrez (The Wait), Paco Plaza (who will extend his success in terror with Hermana muerte), Belén Macías (Summer in Red), and two creators with films that smell like festivals: Elena Trapé and her Els encantats, and Arantxa Echevarría , with another social immersion: Chinas. In Spain, three titles created to lead the box office are Mummies, animation directed by Juan Jesús García Galocha; Campeonex, by Javier Fesser (which premieres the continuation of Campeones at the same time that Hollywood launches the remake), and Summer Holidays, by Santiago Segura, a sure value in theaters. First image of ‘Campeonex’. Finally, the heavyweights of auteur cinema. After many years without making a film, Jaime Chávarri premieres La manzana de oro. Manuel Martín Cuenca is already working on the post-production of El amor de Andrea, as is Fernando Trueba, who has directed Haunted Heart in Greece, with Matt Dillon and Aida Folch. Benito Zambrano delves into the daily drama of emigration that lives on Mount Gurugú in El Salto. And Carlos Saura launches, before receiving the Goya de Honor, the documentary on painting Las paredes hablan. Víctor Erice, between Jose Coronado and Manolo Solo on the set of ‘Cerrar los ojos’. Besides, a capital trio. In Cannes Pedro Almodóvar will screen his medium-length film Strange Way of Life, a queer western; Juan Antonio Bayona is Netflix’s bet for the autumn festivals with The Snow Society and its reconstruction of the plane crash in the Andes, of which half a century has now passed. And Víctor Erice may also be at Cannes with Close Your Eyes, a nostalgic drama about the friendship between a veteran director and his lead actor, in a return that world cinephilia has longed for for three decades. The tremendous Cannes to comeBen Whishaw, in an image of ‘Limonov: the ballad of Eddie’. Everyone in the movie world is crazy. The Cannes festival, which will start on May 16, has an exacerbated list of possible participants. The latest Palme d’Or, El triángulo de la tristeza, by Ruben Östlund, which will hit theaters in February, is still awaiting its premiere in Spain. The machinery of rumors about the cinema on La Croisette is already at full capacity. Among those noted, Ken Loach (The Old Oak), Kiril Serébrennikov (Limonov: The Ballad of Eddie), Sofia Coppola (Priscilla), Nuri Bilge Ceylan (On Dry Grass), Rose Glass (Love Lies Bleeding), Luca Guadagnino (Challengers ), Alexander Payne (The Holdovers), Matteo Garrone (Io Capitano), Todd Haynes (May December), Lone Scherfig (The Storyteller), Roman Polanski (The Palace), Nanni Moretti (Il sol dell’avvenire), Steve McQueen (Blitz), Pawel Pawlikowski (The Island), Hirokazu Kore-eda (Monster), Aki Kaurismäki (Dead Leaves) and the posthumous film by Jean-Luc Godard Scénario could be screened there. These are the irrefutable names, because the list expands much more. Promotional image of ‘El conde’, by Pablo Larraín. There are other films with power for which the festivals will stick, and their release dates indicate them for the Oscars 2024’s Como Maestro, directed by and starring Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein; Beau Is Afraid, Ari Aster’s new horror work; How Do You Live?, which will now mean the withdrawal, after several feints, of Hayao Miyazaki; Asteroid City (shot in Spain) and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, both by Wes Anderson; Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool; Eureka, by Lisandro Alonso; Poor Things, by Yorgos Lanthimos; Alex Garland’s Civil War; El Conde, by Pablo Larraín, about a vampire Pinochet, played by Alfredo Castro, who has been living for 250 years; David Fincher’s The Killer; The Conversion, by Marco Bellocchio (tireless at 83, with his highly ideological films); Terrence Malick’s The Way of the Wind, which chronicles the last days of Jesus Christ; Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, about the scientist who developed the first atomic bombs; Killers Of The Flower Moon, by Martin Scorsese, who is still looking for his spot for its release, or Daaaaaali!, a satire on the painter, the work of Quentin Dupieux. And we’ll see if Ridley Scott ends his Napoleon in 2023, a biography of the French emperor played by Joaquin Phoenix. Christopher Nolan, on the set of ‘Oppenheimer’.Among the films that are much talked about and expected are Taika Waititi’s soccer comedy Next Goal Wins; Barbie, by Greta Gerwig, a twist on the world of the mythical doll, with Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling; Vicious Bear, by Elizabeth Banks, inspired by the true story of a black bear who snorted 40 kilos of cocaine in an American national park that had been parachuted by a fleeing drug dealer, and Renfield, in which Nicholas Hoult plays a poor man who yearns for a better life, but who can’t get away from his boss: he is Count Dracula’s servant, played by Nicolas Cage.Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, in ‘Barbie’.This season’s OscarsBefore 12 November March, the day the 95th Oscar Awards gala will be held, many of the favorites for the Hollywood awards will premiere in Spain. Like Decision to Leave, Park Chan-wook’s thriller; Banshees of Inisherin, a drama about two friends—Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson fighting for statuettes—by Martin McDonagh; Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, with a morbidly obese English teacher Brendan Fraser; Tár, by Todd Field, in which Cate Blanchett plays a prestigious conductor at the peak of her career; the French Saint Omer, by Alice Diop; They speak of Sarah Polley, who delves into sexual abuse in a Mennonite community (and which has the best female cast of the season), and Till, who also shows a true event, the lynching and murder of the child Emmett Louis Till in 1955, a crime that shocked the United States. In addition, two directors who travel to their teenage memories: Steven Spielberg does so in The Fabelmans, and Sam Mendes remembers those years in The Empire of Light. Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, in ‘The Banshee of Inisherin’, by Martin McDonaghAll the culture that goes with you awaits you here.Subscribe
