2022 was a year of quality over quantity. There have been some great and creative films released, but there clearly haven’t been very many. It was the first full year where movies were brave enough to be released in theaters, but then immediately blame pandemic woes for their low box office. Let’s take a look back at a year that was more notable for controversies behind the scenes, than for the movies themselves.
January
Two new releases take this month, known as the movie graveyard, seriously as Hotel Transylvania: Transformania and Scream 5 are released. The world laments the lack of creativity with the Scream sequel that reuses the first movie’s title, instead of 5cream.
Somewhere on January 1st, Ezra Miller made the New Year’s resolution that they would be the most talked about celebrity of the year. Taking their fictional superhero status seriously, they challenge the North Carolina branch of the Ku Klux Klan to battle, as they seemingly waited in the In-N-Out drive-thru.
February
Video game movies try to be a thing again with an adaptation of the Playstation classic, Uncharted. In an attempt to make more money, they miscast Gen-Z’s favorite short king, Tom Holland.
Two months have passed since Disney’s Encanto was released on their streaming platform, allowing children around the world to have rewatched it 57 times. Having just wiped any memory of “Let it Go” from their brains, parents had just enough space to add the song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” which hits #1 and became Disney’s biggest hit in 29 years. This was due in large part to instances of telling their kids “No, no, no, no” leading to compulsory singing of the entire song. Admit it, you were just triggered into singing it in your head.
March
The long-favored studio of hipsters; A24, finds its most successful movie in Everything Everywhere All At Once, which grossed a total of $370 worldwide. Director Matt Reeves releases long-delayed The Batman, revitalizing the careers of both Robert Pattinson and Nirvana.
However, all movies are overshadowed when Will Smith stormed the stage at the Oscars to slap Chris Rock. Google’s top search results for a week are “GI Jane,” “Alopecia Fatal?”, and “Unedited Oscars Slap.” The internet, in need of a new debate since arguing about masks was no longer popular, takes sides about the event being staged for Oscar ratings or not.
In an overshadowed moment, Twitter fans vote The Flash’s big save in Zack Snyder’s Justice League as the Best Fan Moment. Ezra Miller celebrates by attacking a random couple in a Hawaiian karaoke bar.
April
Sony, hot off the amazing success of the previous year’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home” continues its villain universe as they launch “Morbius” with Jared Leto. It immediately bombs. Reddit brings life and publicity to the movie as the “It’s Morbin’ Time” meme catches on. Sony is convinced to re-release the movie with its newfound popularity. It bombs again with $85k.
The third Fantastic Beasts movie is released having recast Johnny Depp to avoid any type of controversy. During a misguided press tour, star Ezra Miller is arrested for throwing a chair at a woman.
May
Two huge movies are finally released. Marvel releases the season finale of Wandavision with Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness. The movies blows audiences away whelms audiences by showing us that insane parallel universes have pizza balls and different stop lights. 36 years (or 6 Tom Cruise years) after the original Top Gun, the sequel is released and earns nearly $1.5 billion.
The world is captivated by the defamation court case of Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard. Heard attacks Depp for not having several bedpans in stock. She seemingly then tries to blame her woes on a bee that stung her dog, after the dog stepped on it. The aforementioned bee sues Heard immediately and wins $27 million in damages.
June
We’re only at June? The Jurassic World trilogy wraps up as it brings back fan-favorite dinosaurs – Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, and Laura Dern.
Desperate for ideas, Pixar releases the 17th iteration of their Toy Story franchise; though now with Chris Evans voicing the inspiration behind the Buzz Lightyear toy. It bombs, which may prevent the possibility of infinity sequels… and beyond.
Having defeated Will Smith as the most unlikable celebrity of the year, Ezra Miller sees competition from Amber Heard. He combats this by being accused of grooming a teenager using fear, paranoia, and drugs. Warner Brothers decides not to recast the Flash film, but delays the movie by a full year, hoping that the next six months will introduce someone even worse than Miller.
July
Let’s keep this month about movies. Having grown up on Despicable Me and Minion movies, young boys around the world celebrate the release of “Minions: The Rise of Gru” by dressing in suits and tuxedos. Their mothers are ecstatic to just get their “handsome little men” out of the house and away from Fortnite. Jordan Peele releases his third movie, “Nope.” Audiences comply with the title.
In cape flick news, The Rock (who has been hyping up his upcoming Black Adam movie for 10 years) promotes DC League of Super Pets, in which he voices Krypto the Super Dog. He boasts that “The hierarchy of power in the DC pet universe is about to change.” Taika Waititi releases a fever dream in Thor: Love and Thunder; a movie whose effects were done exclusively in Microsoft Paint and whose script was written through a Mad Libs bathroom reader from 1996.
August
Hulu reminds viewers that it should be acknowledged beyond Grey’s Anatomy and Bachelorette reruns with “Prey.” This Predator prequel exceeds expectations by being decent and immediately becomes the 2nd or 3rd best Predator movie.
Warner Brothers is bought by Discovery and their new CEO David Zaslav starts cutting everything to save the company $3 billion. In a huge show of force, he cancels the completed and unseen Batgirl feature film as a tax write-off. Ezra Miller celebrates his Flash movie still getting an eventual release by breaking into a Vermont home, being charged with felony burglary.
September
It’s a huge month for new releases. Disney releases their latest live-action adaptation in Pinocchio, a story where a movie studio prays to the Blue Fairy that they can gain a soul. Hocus Pocus 2 is launched on Disney+ hoping to capitalize on nostalgia. Rotten Tomatoes officially debuts a shoulder shrug meter to score every streaming movie release from this point forward.
In their quest for money, Disney releases the teaser trailer for 2023’s The Little Mermaid live action remake. It quickly gets over 2.4 million dislikes. Twitter erupts as many cry racism because Ariel’s actress is black, while dozens of redheads hold silent rage in their hearts over being replaced once again. Denmark, the nation of the story’s origin stays silent in the matter to prevent getting cancelled on social media.
In TV news, fantasy epics go head to head. Though, it’s a battle of opposites. House of the Dragon comes off of a reviled property (Game of Thrones), but is incredibly well received. The Rings of Power comes off a praised property (Lord of the Rings), but is not received well by audiences. Jeff Bezos, who paid $1 billion for the first season is flabbergasted. He was hoping that LOTR fans would finally be happy about seeing strong women in the franchise. Much like the Witch King of the Nazgul, it seems Bezos forgot that Eowyn was a woman.
Olivia Wilde and Harry Styles team up to try to take the title of most unlikable celebrities as Wilde’s new movie “Don’t Worry Darling” premieres at the Venice Film Festival. Wilde attempts to win favor by smearing Shia LeBouf (who isn’t in the movie) and Florence Pugh (who regrets being in the movie). Social media is thrown into the latest debate over Spit-Gate, where Harry Styles allegedly spit into Chris Pine’s lap during the premiere. Many conspiracy theorists are claiming that there is a second shooter. Harry Styles fangirls around the world cry out in jealousy and pay $700 for seats at Styles’ upcoming tour where he guarantees a splash zone for the first two rows.
October
Spooky season kicks off with the end of the new Halloween trilogy. In an attempt to make critics feel bad about hating Halloween Kills, the filmmakers make this final flick even worse. Who would have thought that the 13th movie in a franchise would turn out to be awful? (I’m looking at you, Littlefoot)
The Rock’s decade-long press tour of Black Adam comes to an end as his movie finally releases. The Rock spoils the return of Henry Cavill as Superman in the mid-credits stinger in an attempt to get more people to see Black Adam. Cavill officially announces his return in the role he was born for. It looks like DC movies are in a very confident place going forward.
November
It’s a huge month for studio changes. The hierarchy of power in the DC world does actually change as Peter Safran and James Gunn are announced as the new heads of DC Studios. Warner Brothers was clearly very confident about this shift given the $200 million that Gunn’s The Suicide Squad lost for the studio.
It has been a rough year for Disney with countless park issues, Disney+ ratings, layoffs in the thousands, and overall lack of interest in their movies. But don’t worry, returning hero/multi-millionaire Bob Iger returns to save the day from all the decisions he made before Bob Chapek was in power. Machiavelli would be proud.
In movie news, The Roku Channel is used for the first time on everyone’s Roku devices as “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” is released exclusively on the app. The MCU says goodbye to the cursed Phase 4 with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Rumor has it, there is a plot somewhere in this nearly three hour memorial.
And that finally brings us to…
December
James Cameron is so mad that these new celebrities are being disliked more than he is, that he releases a long-in-gestation Avatar sequel. He brings back some late 2000s elitism with his confidence in the film’s success. His bravado is so off-putting, that we scoff as we pay $47 for the 3D glasses up-charge.
The new heads of DC Studios have a thing for younger people as they fire Henry Cavill from their 10-year DCU plan. They also stir up controversy by cancelling Wonder Woman 3, Black Adam 2, and Aquaman 3. At least Henry Cavill fans can see him in The Witcher series for many years… Oh wait.
Many in the studio say that cutting fan favorite actors will allow WB to save money… to promote still-employed Ezra Miller’s Flash movie this coming Summer.
I have a feeling 2023 is going to be far more dramatic.
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