What the success of 'Don't look up' explains about current cinema

An

president

of Donald Trump, a world that ignores scientists and a technology guru who only thinks about making the most of misfortunes.

With those wickers,

by Adam McKay, hit theaters two weeks ago and Netflix on Christmas Eve: the platform bought it from Paramount in April 2020, just when filming had been postponed to November of that year for global confinement, and according to his data, last Tuesday he was already leading his service in 94 countries.

By the way, satire has become a topic of conversation on the networks: for four days it was a

More information

It will not be Leo DiCaprio who warns us of the apocalypse

All this, despite the unanimity of negative reviews, and hooked on a cast led by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, but which also contains popular names for different generations of Internet users: Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry ( megastar in the US, not so popular outside his country), Timothée Chalamet, Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi. This list covers the ages of any social media user and family members who have seen the film on the platform. By the way, Netflix assures that it has already obtained 111 million hours viewed with it, although, as usual, it does not give more data or specify the box office figures in its previous passage through theaters. In Spain, according to the ICAA, the body that governs cinema within the Ministry of Culture and Sports,It has sold 1,825 tickets since its premiere, which in collection represents 12,641.04 euros.

The plot of

It begins when an astronomy doctoral student, Jennifer Lawrence, discovers a 9-kilometer-long comet heading straight for Earth. Together with his teacher and mentor (DiCaprio), they warn NASA, and the space agency in turn to the president of the United States, scared at that time by a greater political threat: the mid-term elections that can change the majorities of the Congress and Senate of your country. There are only six months left to save the planet, and the rulers do not seem to realize the urgency. Beyond the scientific aspect, which Javier Salas reviews in the Matter section of EL PAÍS, credible about an asteroid hitting Earth (McKay had the advice of the astronomer Amy Mainzer, a specialist in these celestial bodies),Much more doubtful in the way in which the discovery is communicated and in how it is reacted to, the director warns that his objective is another: the political and social inability to listen to scientific truths, extrapolated to global warming.

Director Adam McKay, with Jennifer Lawrence, on the set of 'Don't Look Up'

McKay, who had already made previous political films with comic tones such as

(2015), about the bursting of the real estate bubble, and

(2018), the biography of Dick Cheney, George W. Bush's vice president, managed a handful of ideas to write a script on climate change, until in January 2019 he gave up. "How to tell this story, the largest in 66 million years, since the impact of Comet Chicxulub, which exterminated the dinosaurs, more than the Black Death or the eruption of Krakatoa?" Its producer, David Sirota, a journalist who advised Bernie Sanders in the 2020 election campaign, insisted on how the media does not react to the government's inaction on global warming. "A meteor could hit Earth and no one would seem to understand it," he told her, and McKay changed the world disaster.

Interestingly, McKay and Sirota are convinced Democrats, and despite filling with

clues

about their ideological position, many users in networks have not understood it. Meryl Streep suffered in 2017 the attack of Donald Trump, who described her as an “overrated actress”, and McKay's response was to characterize her as president with Trump's manners, speech and even red caps; a portrait of Richard Nixon hangs in its White House. After several hairstyle tests, Streep was left with the one that she felt closest to republican blondes. And the script is filled with phrases with an ideological background: "They want to steal your freedom!" Say the defenders of #NoMiresArriba, the

promoted by the president's followers, a message to dismiss the obvious danger. The statement has found a special echo in Spain, and even more so in the Community of Madrid, and is riveted by what the astronomer hears from her mother: "Your father and I are in favor of the job that the comet will create."

The media are not doing well either.

The sector had already been the object of derision by McKay in his best years as a filmmaker, when he collaborated with Will Ferrel, in

(2004) and its continuation,

(2013).

Also the Spanish social networks have vibrated with the curious and unexpected similarity of tone and physicality between Brie Evantee —character who plays Cate Blanchett— and the journalist of Antena 3 Susanna Griso.

So much so that Netflix Spain made a joke about it last Tuesday, April Fools' day, on its Twitter account.

OFFICIAL COMMUNICATION: Negotiations begin with Susanna Griso to interpret the role of Cate Blanchett in the Spanish version of #NoMiresArriba pic.twitter.com/ye5vn9URIa

- Netflix Spain (@NetflixES) December 28, 2021

Nor does the good-looking sector

out well: its most striking action consists of a concert starring the singer Riley Bina, played by Ariana Grande.

However, many conservative and denial Internet users think that

supports their ideas, confirmation that each viewer sees what they want to see, said McKay, who insists that in current US politics "neither party has much of what they want to see. to be proud of in the last 40 years ”.

It's hard to know if a movie like

is profitable for Netflix. According to his figures, the film's budget reached 75 million dollars (66.8 million euros), an amount that seems doubtful, since DiCaprio collected 30 million dollars (about 26.5 million euros) and Lawrence, Despite the fact that their name appears first in the credit titles, 25 million dollars (about 22 million euros) - usually both earn about 20 million dollars, 17.65 million euros. Meryl Streep's average salary is close to 24 million dollars (more than 21 million euros), and the rest of the actors, McKay's salary and the production itself have yet to be added: the accounts do not come out. Only one other movie in theaters can match this cast:

which features Tom Holland, Andrew Garfield, and Tobey Maguire as the Three Spider-Men, and with Zendaya, Jamie Foxx, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alfred Molina, Marisa Tomei, Willem Dafoe, and Jon Favreau completing the lineup.

What is the highest grossing film in the world in 2021 (it already has more than 1,000 million dollars) works commercially in a triple aspect: it belongs to the Avengers / Marvel world, it is another adventure of the arachnid superhero and according to a study of the company PostTrak, 43% of its viewers on the weekend of its US premiere mentioned the cast as the main factor to buy tickets: half of them specifically cited Zendaya, a star for the young generation.

The more the merrier

So the stars still matter, though they are not a determining factor: the US box office disaster

of Guillermo del Toro's

(with Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Rooney Mara, Mary Steenburgen and David Strathairn) reaches the category of epic, after raising from its premiere on December 17 until Tuesday 28 not six million dollars (it has cost ten times more).

It may be against him that it is a drama with notes of

for adults, while most of the spectators in the US of

do not reach 34 years (according to its distributor, Sony) and

is a satire for the whole family.

The 'Don't Look Up' Oval Office.

In Netflix they do believe in the idea of ​​a more distribution, and have bought the two continuations of

for 465 million dollars

Or that

film

has changed: Ariana Grande has more than 286 million followers on Instagram, a network far from hate that exudes Twitter and much more youthful than Facebook.

TV commercials or promotions in traditional media are no longer so important, but what specialists call "adding niches": achieving stories with castings of all ages, in which celebrities who drag viewers before the screen heterogeneous.

As Telecinco does in Spain, the platform has converted

(which is still another of the ten long apocalyptic films that have been released in the last two years) into the film Christmas event, and it is accompanied by Pieces like the three-part documentary

about Adam McKay, which can be seen on the Netflix Film Club YouTube channel.

Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio, in 'Don't Look Up'

Of course,

has taken the most negative reviews of this end of the year. Pete Bradshaw, in

resembles it more to a

of the

that yes, of 148 minutes, that to the substance that emanates the

series

of which McKay is executive producer. And he misses other titles that in part

tries to honor:

or

Its ending, in which McKay bets on transcendence, sinks away from another comparable apocalyptic film:

by Lars Von Trier when we have the information.

Manohla Dargis, in

recalls the passion of cinema to destroy the Earth in titles such as

or

before emphasizing that the

rhythm

that McKay prints does not help the mixture of comedy and drama, and that there is little to satirize when world political reality is more than fiction.

It is true that products such as

the Spanish

or

they work better because the viewer doubts whether they satirize or reflect a situation.

The critic aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives it a low 55% (after analyzing 218 texts about the film), although its users reach 77% approval.

And finally, Carlos Boyero, who in this newspaper pointed out that it was an “easily forgettable film”, and of McKay wrote: “He is a very pretentious director, convinced that he is extremely clever.

But I don't get the point ”.