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The kids are alright, at least as far as the movies are concerned. After years of speculation that too many video games and internet videos would make them disinterested in the theatrical experience, it turns out that Generation Z loves the movies, and movies on the big screen, in particular.
Case in point: the appeal that Tom Holland made to users of Letterboxd, the film-rating social media platform popular among teens and 20-somethings. Holland appeared to urge viewers to see the Christopher Nolan movie The Odyssey in different formats and to record their experience on the app. “For the first time ever on Letterboxd, you’ll be able to track and share the way you experience the film with a brand new digital punch card,” Holland declared, reading the site’s marketing copy, before issuing a challenge. “All of the formats for all your watches and rewatches—bragging rights fully unlocked.”
To be completely clear, Holland is fundamentally pitching a product here, not unlike when George Clooney flashes a smug smile talking about food delivery or Matthew McConaughey purrs about luxury cars. That’s nothing new.
What is new is the product being sold: going to the theater and watching The Odyssey in multiple different formats. Letterboxd knows that there is a market for people who not only want to see a movie on the big screen, but they want to see it in the best possible format. Moreover, they want to talk about it with their friends.
The choice of Holland as a pitch man is also interesting. Holland isn’t the star of The Odyssey; he plays Telemachus, son of the protagonist Odysseus (Matt Damon) and Penelope (Anne Hathaway). Yet, Letterboxd chose him, in part, over other big names like Damon, Hathaway, Charlize Theron, and Lupita Nyong’o because Holland is a Gen Z movie star, less like those elders and more like Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, who also appear in The Odyssey.
This trio is hardly alone. Long after Marvel and franchise films seemed to kill the movie star, replacing big names with recognizable characters, Holland, Zendaya, Pattinson, Timothée Chalamet, and Florence Pugh draw crowds on their names alone, a quality shared with the big names of earlier, healthier days of the movies.
The same is true of production companies and distributors, especially A24 and Neon. In the same way that MGM and Warner Bros pictures carried a certain pedigree in the Golden Age of the studio system, and that Miramax and New Line Cinema had in the ’90s, A24 and Neon have a cultural cache that gets attention, sometimes more than the stars or plot.
Even better, one look at the current box office shows that Gen Z isn’t just watching movies. They’re making their own, with Obsession putting new spins on old material and Backrooms bringing their interests to the screen. While The Mandalorian and Grogu, Mortal Kombat II, and Masters of the Universe—IP movies more associated with Gen X and Millennials—have all struggled to find an audience, Obsession and Backrooms are exceeding all expectations.
Of course, The Odyssey goes back far further than any of these generations, and director Christopher Nolan sees himself working in a classical tradition. But Holland’s plea shows that as long as Hollywood makes interesting movies with compelling ideas, Gen Z will show up.
The post Tom Holland’s The Odyssey Plea Is Gen Z’s Latest Attempt to Save Cinema appeared first on Den of Geek.
