wes anderson

Asteroid City has been out on the festival circuit and in theaters long enough to dissect its exemplary quality as a specimen of comedic auteur Wes Anderson’s body of work. Color palate, symmetry, über-niche props and set dressing with equally complex characters to match, the negative space of pacing, the twee score, an embarrassment of riches of an ensemble cast, etc. all make for the seemingly esoteric charm of a Wes Anderson film. What stands out with Asteroid City is Wes awareness of his own auteur-ship (and the accompanying send-ups of his signature style), then unabashedly embracing his own beautiful ridiculousness in a farcical meta manner; detractors and edgelords be damned.

Again, there are plenty of reviews digging far deeper into these notions and the like whether they walked away from viewing Asteroid City with a big grin on their face (like us) or confounded at what exactly is Wes Anderson up to becoming even more Wes Anderson-y than usual.

Instead, we’d humbly point out that the inevitable bubble of Marvel/comic book/studio tentpole movies is starting to burst as evidenced by projected big box office losses on such marquee titles as The Flash and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. For decades now, the predictability of box office from adapting IP (including anything from a comic book to LEGO) was disturbingly reliable, resulting in the incessant deluge of cinematic universes that we’ve gotten at our local multiplexes. With the disruption of what should have been a “sure thing” for summer movie fare is the general public voting with their feet/dollars.

In that spirit, one could point towards a brighter future with going to see the brightly shining delight that is Asteroid City (already doing quite well in its opening weeks in the speciality box office). If the fatigue with comic book movies is real and people aren’t going to see them, eventually even the most profit driven studios will have to change tactics and focus in on more original stories/visions that folks will go out to see on the big screen rather than wait for it on streaming or not watch at all.

Sure, that might end up resulting in something like a Wes Anderson Cinematic Universe, but isn’t that more charming and aesthetically enthralling than the MCU?