Hollywood Gadfly

Skeptical, data-driven Hollywood investigations.

[Hollywood Gadfly @Filmgadfly]

The more discourse I see like this, the stranger I find it how Asians are lumped into BIPOC. This article is written by an Indian/Canadian doctor. There has to be more transparency around these issues, because if we just have a bunch of wealthy asians and then call it diversity, I’m not really sire that qualifies as social justice

[Hollywood Gadfly @Filmgadfly]

@mackaybell The original What We Do In the Shadows mockumentary was pretty indie. But it’s accessibke in a broad, fun way which is likely what helped bring him to the studios.

[Hollywood Gadfly @Filmgadfly]

Am I the only person who thinks he’s been on a long, strange decline since the original What We Do In the Shadows?

[DiscussingFilm @DiscussingFilm]

First trailer for Taika Waititi's ‘KLARA AND THE SUN’, starring Jenna Ortega & Amy Adams.

The film follows a robot who bought by a family to help them heal physically & mentally in a dystopian future.

In theaters on October 23.

[Hollywood Gadfly @Filmgadfly]

That’s fair. I’m a kind of person who offen loves the most early, raw albums of a band before they go a bit more mainstream and corporate (which if they’re not rich most people have to do at some point, if they’re so lucky), which is how I feel a little bit about his later work. I haven’t seen Hunt for the Wilderpeople, which it sounds like I should.

[Eric Vilas-Boas 🖋 @ericvb.bsky.social @e_vb_]

“The secret that people don’t talk about is that a lot of people in independent films come from a huge amount of family money.”

great (depressing) piece by @Hershal_P on how indie filmmakers pay the bills 1/2

[Hollywood Gadfly @Filmgadfly]

@IndieGameDAV Sorry I accidentally disliked this post. This is a fair point. I liked his first Thor movie as well.

[Hollywood Gadfly @Filmgadfly]

@La2zarini Absolutely. Right here: https://t.co/PDpfGUrbyd

[Hollywood Gadfly @Filmgadfly]

When I broke down the Sundance 2020s competition box office I had the same thought; at least one or two of them might have hugely, and publicly outperformed at the box office instead of slipping away into streaming, which is always good for everyone. Those success stories are the lifeblood of an extremely risky industry.

The unlimited potential upside of theatrical rarely pays off like with Obsession, but when it does it creates a knock-on effect that gets a decade of movies made.

[Lumiere Cinema at the Music Hall @musichall3]

With the success of OBSESSION it appears the mainstream press is finally going to cover what’s been happening with theatrical exhibition. It turns out dumping your movies on a website is not a good distribution model.

[Hollywood Gadfly @Filmgadfly]

Fair.

[Ricky Hollywood @victim_burn77]

Maybe Tom Holland was an alcoholic or whatever but there’s just nothing compelling or interesting about an alcoholism journey that ends in your early 20s

[Hollywood Gadfly @Filmgadfly]

It’s partly the publicists and partly just an unexpected vibe shift, no different than a market one. Nobody can really predict when celebrity behavior will have the opposite effect on the audience as the one intended. Crowds behave in sudden and unexpected ways. But honestly, there’s no reason to bring the amount of politics she does into a superman movie. Publicists need to get smarter; they’re selling tickets, not curing cancer. Let the movies speak for themselves.

[Roberto De Zerbi @De_Zerbi_1978]

Now that the movie is coming out I’m just gonna say it James Gunn and the rest of the people in the dcu didn’t do enough to protect milly. Some of the questions she was asked on this press tour were just insane and obviously only there for ragebait headlines and it’s (1/2)

[Hollywood Gadfly @Filmgadfly]

The pessimism among progressives is such a problem at the moment. You just can’t sell enough voters on “the world is shit and it’s your fault.”

[Aly Feels @AlyssaLogic]

I love my progressive friends, but it really is crazy how negative they are. They are like recreationally miserable

I really do think it’s socially desirable and encouraged in progressive culture and it’s not all just an organic response to hardship or mental illness

[Hollywood Gadfly @Filmgadfly]

@Albesure99 I mean, I have no idea if it’s a classic artistically, haven’t seen it yet, but the financials are already spectacular. It happens every 15 years or so.

[Hollywood Gadfly @Filmgadfly]

Obsession is 2026's biggest box-office surprise — and it's being read as proof a breakout like this "could only happen to a man." I went looking at the data behind that claim. The story it tells is more encouraging than the headlines.

https://t.co/6h7gxqTzRh

[Alien Theory @Alien_Theory]

Ridley Scott, THR interview (2024)

[Hollywood Gadfly @Filmgadfly]

@Albesure99 It’s countering someone who said it was.

[Nate Silver @NateSilver538]

Good example of why Newsom is perfectly calibrated to win over partisan Democrats and miscalibrated for the general election. To be clear, GOP nomination in 2028 will likely be a huge mess so he's probably no worse than 50/50 but Democrats should aim higher.

[Hollywood Gadfly @Filmgadfly]

People do not always enjoy having their ideas engaged with.

[Kat Rosenfield @katrosenfield]

My whole schtick is really just to try to engage with people's actual ideas instead of a caricature thereof; this does not always make me popular on either side but for whatever reason, only progressives seem to take it as a personal affront

[Hollywood Gadfly @Filmgadfly]

@AxelAxeOfficial @october_cicada Yes those are mostly useless.

[Hollywood Gadfly @Filmgadfly]

Hate to mythbust, but Whiplash was Chazelle’s second feature, his first was Guy and Madeleine on a Park Bench and it played Tribeca. Whiplash the short was executive produced by 4x Oscar nominee (and son of Ivan Reitman) Jason Reitman. Also EP’d by Jason Blum, who may have just done a little film called Obsession. JK Simmons was likely a Reitman connection, and no slouch as an actor.

Chazelle did not just blindly submit it to Sundance and have it magically get in. I do believe that Hollywood passed on the feature version, causing him to have to make the short, but again, basically nobody gets into Sundance on open submissions. SXSW and Tribeca a bit, Slamdance, yes, but not Sundance.

[Best Movie Moments 🍿 @BestMovieMom]

Before becoming a feature, Whiplash existed as an 18 minute short.

Unable to raise money for a full film, Damien Chazelle created a proof of concept and submitted it to Sundance in 2013.

It won the Short Film Award, and funding followed soon after.

[Hollywood Gadfly @Filmgadfly]

@SPMJM They would never, ever publish them.