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Milestones and Turning Points in Film History The Year 2023 |
 Timeline of Greatest Film History Milestones and Turning Points (by decade and year) Introduction | Pre-1900s | 1900s | 1910s | 1920s | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
| Event and Significance | |
| Iconic director Steven Spielberg delivered a firm statement about the current trend, through pressures by so-called 'woke cultural forces', to revise, censor, edit, alter or modify films, or other works of art or literature that were made decades earlier. At the time, calls were regularly being made for censorship to bring cultural products of the past up to current perceived standards and/or to mollify modern sensitivities. In particular, he was referring to his infamous decision in 2002, on the 20th anniversary edition of one of his most popular films E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), to digitally switch the theatrical cut from guns to walkie talkies in the hands of federal government agents who were tracking down the alien creature. He was quoted as saying that he had made a major mistake, and does not now believe in that kind of censorship: "I never should have done that because E.T. is a product of its era. No film should be revised based on the lenses we now are, either voluntarily, or being forced to peer through....I should never have messed with the archives of my own work, and I don't recommend anybody really do that. All our movies are a kind of measuring, sort of a signpost of where we were when we made them, and what the world was like, what the world was receiving when we got those stories out there. So I really regret having done that." | |
| Variety Magazine predicted that the year 2023 would be extremely "bumpy" economically, due to a number of factors that included recessionary trends, inflation, and cutbacks and layoffs in many sectors including major media, tech, and the entertainment industry. It discussed a number of volatile subject areas, such as the unfolding drama at Disney (a shake-up at the top) and Warner Bros. Discovery (after a merger), the financial viability of streaming for legacy media companies including historic subscriber losses at Netflix, and the question of whether the economy could return to pre-pandemic levels of activity. Disney was plagued with multiple rounds of cost-saving layoffs, and streaming services were trying out ad-supported options or tiers to increase revenues. | |
| Hollywood 'sex symbol' and acting star Raquel Welch died at the age of 82 on February 15, 2023. Her most notable roles were numerous: prehistoric fisherwoman Loana wearing a fur-lined bikini in One Million Years BC (1966), technical assistant Cora Peterson in the Cold War adventure sci-fi film Fantastic Voyage (1966), the trans-gendered title character in Gore Vidal's controversial X-rated Myra Breckinridge (1970), the vengeful, gunslinging frontier woman title character in Hannie Caulder (1971), Austrian dressmaker Constance Bonacieux in director Richard Lester's Alexandre Dumas classic The Three Musketeers (1973), and billionaire widow Celeste Birch being seduced in How to Be a Latin Lover (2017). | |
| Harry Belafonte passed away at the age of 96 on April 24th, 2023. The singer known as "The King of Calypso" was brought to fame with his recording in the mid-1950s of his signature song 'Day-O' ('The Banana Boat Song') (humorously paid homage to in the movie Beetlejuice (1988)). His greatest acting role was as Cpl. Joe in Otto Preminger's Carmen Jones (1954) playing opposite Best Actress-nominated Dorothy Dandridge as the title character. He also starred in director Robert Rossen's torrid political and family drama Island in the Sun (1957) as David Boyeur - a popular, "upstart" black, politically-ambitious labor union official and activist. Another role was in director Robert Wise's film noir Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) as nightclub entertainer Johnny Ingram recruited to rob a bank. | |
| A film and TV production slowdown in
Hollywood was accelerated when the Writers Guild of America or WGA
(with 20,000 members) began a work stoppage on May 2nd of 2023,
against the Hollywood studios represented by the Alliance of Motion
Picture and Television Producers. The fallout was made worse when they
were joined in mid-July by SAG-AFTRA (representing 160,000 performers).
It was the first time in 63 years that Hollywood actors joined the
writers on the picket lines. This second strike had a potentially greater
impact on production, halting shoots worldwide and derailing plans
by studios and networks to resume filming of TV series in the fall.
However, some network executives recently showcased fall schedules
led by reality TV and other nonscripted programming, and already were
cutting back on scripted series and the need for writers/actors. Previously, film and TV production had surged when COVID-pandemic restrictions were lifted, but the disruptive decline or slowdown in production now became widespread due to the two strikes, causing mass layoffs and restructuring. Many secondary, entertainment-related small businesses, who were still recovering from the earlier lockdowns, would now be grossly affected, including restaurateurs who relied on catering on studio sets, industry meetings, business lunches and private events. Negotiation sticking points for the WGA included: (1) the prevalence of the streaming model of distribution, and the residuals for shows that were distributed on streaming platforms, (2) better working conditions and fair pay given the cost of living and inflation, and growing wealth disparities in the U.S, (3) the increasing use and threat of artificial intelligence (AI), and (4) the immense pay gap between executives and union workers. The two sides - the studios vs. the industry workers - faced a difficult impasse. Barry Diller, chairman and senior executive of IAC and Expedia Group and a former Hollywood studio chief, suggested that studio executives and top-earning actors take a 25% pay cut to bring a quick end to the strikes and help prevent "the collapse of the entire industry." |
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| Walt Disney Pictures' planned 2024 live-action remake of its 1937 animated classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was regarded as needing a 'make-over,' due to the culture's changing "woke" demands, causing considerable controversy. The seven dwarfs - Grumpy, Dopey, Sleepy, Sneezy, Bashful, Happy and Doc - were judged as all-white fairytale beings and accused of perpetuating harmful stereotypes. The studio made the decision to replace the dwarfs with seven "magical creatures." The role of the iconic princess Snow White was played by Latina Rachel Zegler of Colombian and Polish descent rather than a white female. And the dwarfs were reimagined - to be played by multi-racial and multi-gender non-dwarfs (possibly one dwarf), including black actors and women, and in addition, the character of Prince Charming was eliminated. | |
| A surprise movie hit of the summer, Angel
Studios' small independent and crowd-funded film and Christian thriller Sound
of Freedom (2023) became a controversial film about child-trafficking.
Originally shot in 2018, it was bought by 21st Century Fox but shelved
when Fox was bought by Disney. It was then acquired by Utah-based Angel
Studios. Its grass-roots success as a small budgeted
film (at $14.5 million) was unexpected. According to box-office records,
there were only 10 wide-release movies in box office history that had
a second-weekend increase greater than 35 percent over their opening
weekend - and all of them achieved that milestone during Christmas. However,
Angel Studios was the only studio to accomplish this feat during the
summer blockbuster season - substantially increasing its box-office take
during its second weekend. Sound of Freedom went up against two major franchise films - the 7th film - Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) and the last installment of the IJ films: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023). Jim Caviezel starred as ex-Homeland Security Special Agent Tim Ballard, who was the real-life co-founder of Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.) - an anti-child-trafficking organization, to rescue children from exploitation in Colombia. Left-wing groups and interests targeted the film as factually misleading or misrepresentional, and associated the film with unproven, debunked and widespread QAnon conspiracy theories (that a group of international, Satan-worshipping political and media elites - paedophiles - were systematically abusing and exploiting children to harvest the chemical substance adrenochrome from their brains, and inject it to stay young). Angel Studios denied links to QAnon and distanced itself from the remarks of its star. Others claimed that technical issues at some major theatre chains (AMC theaters) during showings was clear evidence of disruptive suppression and sabotage of the film through deliberate means to hurt its performance. |
