“The Smashing Machine,” the best biopic of the bunch quality-wise, made only $21 million on a $50 million budget. The worst biopic of the bunch, “Christy,” barely made $2 million. The Boss tangled with the “Nebraska” album in “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere,” and the film managed to pull $45 million, just shy of its $55 million budget. (All numbers are worldwide grosses.)
I am well aware that box office receipts have little to do with quality. I feel dirty typing those numbers out. However, I have to sling the lingo for the studio folks to consider my resolution. Hollywood, baby! Forget my aggravation over getting multiple movies every year featuring the same tropes skewered by “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.” The bottom line is that these movies aren’t making money anymore.
This type of movie exists solely for actors to campaign for Oscar nominations by mimicking real people. Such a risky venture often pays off for the actors, but not the financiers. It worked for three cast members from 2024’s “A Complete Unknown,” but that dreadful Bob Dylan biopic barely broke even.
A lyric from Dylan’s Oscar-winning song from “Wonder Boys” best describes the audience’s reaction to these movies nowadays: “I used to care, but things have changed.”
Cool it with Oscar season category fraud
This will never happen, but isn’t that the point of making a resolution? Movie studios and their PR teams have been committing category fraud for decades, usually by running a campaign for an actor in the supporting category who is clearly a lead or co-lead. This is done to make a win more likely if another performer is a shoo-in for the correct category, or to keep two actors from the same movie out of competition with one another.
For example, “Wicked” ran Cynthia Erivo for lead actress and Ariana Grande for supporting last year. They were both nominated, so the sequel, “Wicked: For Good,” is employing the same strategy. Even if I concede that the “Wicked” sequel is more Elphaba’s movie than Glinda’s, that wasn’t the case in the first movie. The Tonys considered both Broadway performances as leads — and for roles that took half as long as they do in those movies.
Ironically, Grande’s supporting nod backfired last year due to more category fraud. Zoe Saldaña is in more of “Emilia Pérez” and she’s practically the main character. Her win was for a lead performance crammed into a supporting category.
Even when I’m happy for a win (Kieran Culkin, Timothy Hutton, and Viola Davis all deserved their Oscars, but were in the wrong category), I still think they cost someone in a true supporting role a nomination. We’ll see this yet again if Stellan Skarsgård in “Sentimental Value” and “Hamnet”’s Paul Mescal convert their lead performances into supporting Oscar nods, knocking out people like Delroy Lindo for his work in “Sinners.”
Build better popcorn bucket swag
I come from tech, so I know swag is meant to be cheap crap. I also know that people crave that cheap crap! But tech swag was free. Those popcorn bucket movie tie-ins aren’t worth the big bucks suckers — I mean audience members — pay for them! Build a better bucket and the world will beat an imitation butter-streaked path to your door.
Keep movies in theaters for more than two weeks
One of the more understandable complaints I received from readers was about their inability to see movies I reviewed in a theater. They wanted to avoid the first weekend rush, perhaps, or they had no intention of going initially, but word of mouth piqued their interest. And yet, so many movies that warranted the big screen experience were out of theaters after two or three weeks, stuffed onto streaming services or for a fee as video on demand. Some of these movies were still making money before they were yanked from cinemas, because the release schedule was pre-ordained before the movie played its first showtime.
I’m going to sound like an old man, but back in my day, movies were allowed to find and grow an audience in the theater. Look at “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” which clawed its way to the fifth highest grossing film of 2002 without ever hitting number one on the weekly box office chart. When your local AMC has 19 theaters, and 15 of them are showing “Avatar: Fire and Ash” to fill the space, you can’t tell me there’s no room at the inn for a potential sleeper hit.
I’m placing blame on the theaters, but more of it should go to Netflix, Apple Original Films, and Amazon MGM Studios, who rig these releases for smaller theatrical windows. Because of this, five of the 10 movies on my best of list this year were in theaters for less time than a viewer’s bout with the common cold.
And it’s not because people don’t want to go to the movies. “Sinners” keeps getting re-released in theaters despite it being readily available at home — and it’s selling out screenings. “Weapons” is doing the same. People want to experience movies like these communally, so it feels like money is being left on the table.
Speaking of “Sinners,” this next resolution is for the trade magazines and box office prognosticators.
Stop acting surprised when a movie starring Black people is a hit
Here’s a dirty little secret: Black people go to the movies! And not just me, even though going to the movies is technically my job. An even bigger dirty little secret is that movies with minorities in them also get viewers who are not from that minority group. I’m being facetious about these facts being unknown. And yet, whenever a movie that doesn’t have a predominantly white cast is a hit, Hollywood acts surprised. It happened with the Keke Palmer-SZA comedy, “One of Them Days,” back in January of 2025, and more egregiously, it happened with “Sinners.”
You have Ryan Coogler, one of the most successful directors working today (the first “Black Panther” movie made $1.4 billion alone), teaming up with two Michael B. Jordans for a horror movie that cost far less than Coogler’s Marvel movies did. Jordan and Coogler fans of all stripes were intrigued by the movie’s saga of a blues joint overrun by vampires, and the $63 million opening weekend take proved that; it was an impressive haul for an R-rated movie. In fact, it knocked 2025’s biggest hit, “A Minecraft Movie,” out of the top spot.
“‘Sinners’ Is a Box Office Success (With a Big Asterisk)” read the headline of a New York Times article. Variety also published an article stating “profitability remains a question mark,” which immediately drew the ire of stars like Ben Stiller and Patrick Schwarzenegger. “In what universe does a 60 million dollar opening for an original studio movie warrant this headline?” Stiller tweeted regarding the Variety article.
Such assumptions are harmful, insulting, and tiring. Movies with Black leads are often undervalued before they’re released due to the lie that they won’t play well overseas. Try telling that to Will Smith — or Michael B. Jordan. This incorrect notion leads to fewer movies with minority casts being made.
Of all the resolutions I’ve listed, this is the one I most hope gets adhered to by the powers that be. In the meantime, I’ll just wait for the presumed “Disclosure Day” UFO-based popcorn bucket.
Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe’s film critic.