Well, it’s been 15 years since Iron Man 1, but also 23 years since X-Men 1 (if you want to begin when superhero movies really became hegemonic in pop culture), and perhaps more importantly, about a quarter century since an increasingly corporatized Hollywood, which is beholden to Wall Street instincts to minimize risk, pivoted to managing the same blockbuster brands in perpetuity—superhero and otherwise. While I’d hesitate to say we’ve reached Spielberg’s implosion—a la the type of disaster that killed the Western and Golden Age Hollywood musical in 1969 with flops like Hello, Dolly! and Paint Your Wagon—I would suggest it’s starting to feel quite a bit like the years leading up to that implosion when the old Hollywood system whistled past the graveyard of Doctor Doolittle flopping in 1967, or when the gaudy historical epic of Cleopatra nearly sank 20th Century Fox in 1963. Spielberg’s comments seemed plausible to us in 2015. In 2023, they look prophetic.

Hence why they went viral again this weekend after Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One opened to a disappointing box office tally of $56.2 million in its first three days in the U.S. For the record, this is actually quite in line with how the franchise has historically performed, only slightly down from Mission: Impossible – Fallout’s $61.2 million debut in 2018. Additionally, Dead Reckoning actually grossed $80 million over its first five days (which I’d argue should count as its real opening).

Nonetheless, it’s quite a bit below expectations for a movie that not only was supposed to beat Fallout in the three-day, but also perform closer to Top Gun: Maverick, Cruise’s previous sequel for Paramount (and the first in 36 years for that franchise), which opened at $160.5 million across its four-day weekend last year. Instead Dead Reckoning’s box office follows a familiar pattern over the last month: exceedingly expensive blockbusters in aging franchises starring even older movie stars are not justifying their $250 million to $300 million budgets. And because of the glut of their costs, openings like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’s $60 million (and $83 million over the Fourth of July weekend) and The Flash’s $55 million are considered deadly.

Each of these movies were marketed around an anticipated nostalgia for actors like Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford, and Michael Keaton reprising roles they originally played in either the 1980s or ‘90s. And each has become an albatross around its studio’s neck—although we should note Dead Reckoning has a strong likelihood to outperform Indy and the Flash both globally and domestically due to its enthusiastic word-of-mouth, as demonstrated by its “A” CinemaScore. However, it seems somewhat unlikely a leggy run (also in the shadow of Barbie and Oppenheimer) can make up the difference of a $300 million budget.

So should Hollywood take heed that the real implosion is imminent? Quite possibly. There is of course evidence to the contrary, which again suggests we’re not quite in the 1969 death rattle for any one genre or current studio system. However, it is worth noting that the only major blockbuster successes this summer have been Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. They’re both superhero movies, both part of larger intellectual properties that their studios have been mining for better than a decade, and both were well-received by audiences. However, I’d contend Guardians was viewed by audiences (and marketed by Disney) as the end of a beloved story: one last ride with James Gunn’s version of this team, who we’ll never see like this again.

Meanwhile Across the Spider-Verse was a successful Spider-Man movie, but it also looks little like the Spider-Man movies released 20 years ago. As voiced by Shameik Moore, the character of Miles Morales is a new protagonist with a visually striking and distinct aesthetic in those films’ kinetic animation style, and whose popularity arose out of what ostensibly felt like a “new” franchise from the last few years thanks to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018).