2023 was a year marked by Hollywood strikes and industry-shifting box office flops. These have already led to seismic shifts from Tinseltown’s elite. Disney CEO Bob Iger, for instance, announced in early 2024 that the House of Mouse was already making ruthless cuts to its upcoming movie production plans.
However, the dismal tone of 2023 has started to shift in 2024. Multiple projects released early in the year have begun to restore many entertainment fans’ faith in the moving and streaming worlds. FX’s “Shogun” series arrived on Disney+ and Hulu with extreme ratings success. The series has a 94% audience score and a jaw-dropping 99% critic rating. Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part 2” also blew up the box office and is sitting pretty with a 95% audience score and 94% critical approval.
Major entertainment events like these are showing that Hollywood isn’t dead and buried. On the contrary, the entertainment sector is making a comeback on big and small screens alike. Projects like “Dune” and “Shogun” have set a high bar for the rest of the year. They’ve established right out of the gate that people will still show up at theaters and tune in on streaming services if a project is actually good. This means much of the success or failure of each upcoming 2024 release will reside in the quality of each production. While this is as it should be, it’s not great news for Jack Black and company based on the early reactions to the latest “Kung Fu Panda” film.
