Peter Bart: Big Brands Boom At Box Office But Don’t Forget To Nurture The Summer Surprises

This summer’s glowing box office numbers have put smiles on Hollywood’s corporate faces, if also a hint of concern. The message: The mythic summer blockbuster is alive and well, but is someone missing from the party?

On one level, the soaring return of Universal’s Jurassic brand and Warners’ Superman brand represent triumphs in Hollywood archeology. And the techie giants are in hot pursuit: F1 marks a brilliant breakthrough for Apple, and Amazon MGM before long will be unfurling a new Bond.

But in eons past the “summer hits” that stirred cinephiles represented as much a voyage of discovery as a branding mission. The “must see” movies of summers past included an American Graffiti (1973) or a Dog Day Afternoon (1975) or a Stand By Me (1986). They were surprises, not pre-sold commodities.

Even The Godfather (1972) and Jaws (1975) arrived in a mist of confusing rumors. Both were behind schedule and over budget and endured post-production crises under filmmakers who had little experience with studio productions. Their meteoric success, to be sure, set Hollywood on a new course: Why not aggressively create the summer blockbuster rather than wait for the unexpected?

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In their quest, the studios began to stumble: In their zeal, they realized they occasionally were making the same movie over and over again. Deep Impact and Armageddon opened weeks apart in 1998 with similar plots about Earth being assaulted by space objects, for example. The blockbuster derby had run out of ideas.

So the hits of summer 2025 again raise the big question: Who is going to develop and finance the next cycle of prospective surprises? And how will the public discover them?

A search through the current list of non-branded openings and finding their showtimes requires patience. While a few releases establish a buzz on the festival circuit, most arrive behind a curtain of anonymity. Disaster looms.

When I set forth on my personal voyage of discovery this week, I wasn’t hoping for a new Graffiti, but The Life of Chuck seemed a likely target. It’s based on short stories by Stephen King, whose novels became hits like The Shining and Stand By Me.

Its director is Mike Flanagan, a 47-year-old filmmaker responsible for genre-bending films like Hush and Absentia.

Chuck itself was picked up for distribution by Neon, which last year championed Anora, a mind-bending hit.

Chuck is not Anora but it takes brave chances. Its narrative is told backwards in three acts, the third coming first. Chuck himself is a bland accountant who has one prize secret: He is a superbly talented dancer. Even as a boy he steals the show – when and if he chooses to dance, which he doesn’t very often.

Indeed, Chuck, the repressed dancer, doesn’t have a very interesting life but one which – the surprise – has a cosmic ending it would be inappropriate to disclose.

I admire Neon for distributing Chuck since there are no big names to sell, no special effects to highlight and little jeopardy. Not much plot either.

But when I left Chuck I heard people arguing. “What was it about?” they asked. They were not exactly blown away but nonetheless moved.

We all know why F1, Jurassic World Rebirth and Superman were made: to fill theaters and replenish earnings – sufficient, one hopes, that one of the production entities might be willing to grapple with a Chuck.

Because whatever Chuck’s message may be, its existence is symbolically important.