Hollywood Signs

The Get Out Effect 

Does Hollywood know what to do with a surprise success?

- Mark Harris

THERE IS NOTHING more disruptive to Hollywood than a movie that makes a ton of money while ignoring every current rule about how a movie makes a ton of money. Pull that off, and you may end up with a moment that not only defines the movie year but lays down some new rules for years to come. Four months into 2017, we may already have that film: Over the past two months, Get Out has messed with Hollywood’s head, and with America’s.

Get Out is not the year’s No. 1 movie. That title is currently held by Disney’s live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast, which recently passed the original Star Wars to become one of the ten biggest domestic grossers in history. Beauty and the Beast is huge, but its success is confirmatory rather than subversive. It is an immaculate execution of the studio playbook circa right this minute—an expensive extension and refurbishing of an already profitable and well-known piece of intellectual property (“intellectual property” is what everyone in Hollywood says now when they want something that sounds fancier than “brand”), the formula for which is easily duplicated. It has arrived, and it has been received, and more than a billion dollars worldwide has changed hands, and it will pass through pop culture without leaving so much as the mark of a kiss or a bruise. This is what studios mostly attempt to do now.