Bad Omen: L.A.’s Hollywood Sign Will Be Dark in 2023
Iconic sign's plight captures box office blues as 'Babylon,' 'Dance' underwhelm
The blame game is getting a workout these days in Hollywood.
The box office is stumbling its way into the new year, and experts have plenty of reasons for the decline.
Blame the pandemic, the streaming revolution, the arctic cold sweeping parts of the country and the just-wrapped World Cup. Blame a dearth of product, a dash of superhero fatigue and a Biden economy teetering toward a recession.
Any way one slices it, fewer people are going to the movies this time of year. And it’s Christmas season, the second-best period for movie watching.
That’s why the latest news out of Los Angeles seemed more than depressing. The timing couldn’t be worse.
Mayor Karen Bass rescinded former Mayor Eric Garcetti’s final executive directive that would have created a program to illuminate the Hollywood sign…
Why?
Naysayers worry the illuminated sign could impact both wildlife and traffic safety. That sign, which debuted in 1923, originally spawned from a real estate developer and read, “Hollywoodland.” The last four letters got the heave-ho in 1949.
Then and now, the sign signifies the Hollywood dream machine, a beacon to wannabe stars and starlets seeking Tinsel Town glory.
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Now, it’ll need its signature white paint to be seen at night.
That news, combined with the current box office updates, has Hollywood begging 2023 to get here, and fast.
Total weekend box office over 3-days for all titles is estimated to come in at an estimated $85.5M, -53% from 2016 the last time Christmas fell on a Sunday, and 41% down from a year ago when Spider-Man: No Way Home was in its second weekend.
New titles like “Babylon,” “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” and “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” are all underperforming. That matches previous titles like “Bones and All,” “The Fabelmans,” “Till,” “Tar” and “Armageddon Time.”
They’re part of a shocking wave of awards season fare failing to draw a crowd this season.
The new year always brings new hope, but recent signs suggest the industry will need more than 12 months to turn things around.
The arrival of “Babylon,” the star-studded peek at Hollywood’s bawdy days, is emblematic of the industry’s woes. The film boasts big stars – Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt – plus an Oscar-nominee behind the camera – Damien Chazelle.
The budget? A reported $80 million. The opening weekend numbers? A four-day tally of $5 million over the coveted Christmas weekend.
Lol, I couldn’t even make it through the preview of Babylon. Looks horridly self-indulgent and otherwise boring.
Hollywood went dark a long time ago.
So if you are insulated, out of touch, women studies writers or funny boy studio executives at Disney and wonder why the high failure rate, figure this out… Trying to social engineer programs and gender bending roles kills the industry. All you see now is black, feminist and gay movies. Where have the straight white men gone?
You sound like a 90 year old railing against that rock n roll. Stop dragging your knuckles on the ground and catch up.
Sam could have phrased it better, but as the parent of a white boy can you name a single role model I can show him in kids’ shows or in adult actors? I’m not looking at it as a zero sum game and have no issue other demographics being represented (although I don’t know why a group that represents 4% of the polulation has to be repped in allmost every show/movie/commercial), just looking at not erasing straight white males
Thank you ❤️ for speaking the truth!! Maybe with less media spreading all of this idiotic satanic crap, the sheeple can finally see how much media mind control has been making people do the dumbest things such as parents transgender their children before they even know what their own body parts are, then parading them around like a Hermes purse.…and the trendy to be gay..all social engineering for population control…. they have even been normalizing pedophilia and even cannibalism!! Look up Celebrity Artisan meat made in the lab using human tissue!
No he doesn’t , the last sentence he wrote is the truth.
#Facts
Are you serious? George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Leo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, Hugh Jackman, Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Chris Pine, Chris Pratt, Bruce Willis, Jonny Depp, Gary Oldman, Robert Deniro , Al Pacino, Paul Rudd. Now name me a trans actor as famous as these white straight male actors. Name for me this many gay actors as famous as these men. I’m sorry that you some how feel misrepresented in todays Hollywood because you occasionally have to sit through a few previews of movies with scary gay or feminist themes. Don’t worry snowflake, you’ll survive. By the way, Clark Gable would bitch slap you for using his name in your racist diatribe. He stood up for Hattie Daniels (the first black women to win the Oscar, who wasn’t allowed to receive it on stage with her fellow white actors) by attempting to boycott the ceremony. In the end she convinced him to go anyway. That was a real man, and we do need more of them. Not a country full of misinformed, racist, cry babies.
Oooooh – you called him the ‘r’ word. Now we *know* you’re *ever* so cross.
Gable was a Republican, by the way. Just sayin’…
Wow, what an excellent and well thought out retort. Don’t worry, I’m not cross, but when a person says a factually inaccurate and racist comment, I think it’s appropriate to call them a racist, no matter what their political beliefs are. In fact, I never brought up politics. I don’t know what his politics are nor do I care. I’m personally a centrist because I think both parties are becoming too extreme. Though I would argue that the Republican Party of the 1930s is not the same Republican Party of the 2020s, and my point was that Gable was not a racist.
Blame Liberal Woke. Where have the whitemen gone? Remember Clark Gable, John Wayne? Class, elegance, culture. Hollywood wanted to let the black people in, now shocked to get ghetto violence and cultural degenerates.
Republicans started it all with all this lying misinformation conspiracy because while people want to have control over this country
You’re full of biden.
Finally. We have lost our iconic history because of the grand scale of shaming white folk. Enough is enough.