The Nose looks at Marvel’s takeover of Hollywood, ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,’ and more

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is the second movie in the Spider-Verse film series and the 14th (not a typo) Spider-Man feature film. It has made more than half a billion dollars worldwide, and it is the fourth-highest grossing movie of 2023 so far. A third Spider-Verse movie, Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, is expected to come out next year, and a Spider-Woman spinoff film is in development.

And: “Whether you have spent the past decade and a half avoiding Marvel movies like scabies or are in so deep that you can expound on the Sokovia Accords, it is impossible to escape the films’ intergalactic reach,” according to Michael Schulman in The New Yorker. And it’s hard to argue that he’s wrong. The Nose looks at “How the Marvel Cinematic Universe Swallowed Hollywood.”

Some other stuff that happened this week, give or take:

• Sheldon Harnick, ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ Lyricist, Dies at 99 His collaborations with the composer Jerry Bock also included “Fiorello!” — which, like “Fiddler,” was a Tony winner — and “She Loves Me.”
• Young People Have No Idea What We Used to Do After Work. Let Me Regale You. “I never knew what time it was, so I was constantly buying watches and losing them.”
• Pixar’s ‘Elemental’ Falls Flat, Adding to Worries About the Brand The original animated film took in $29.5 million at the box office, by far the worst opening in Pixar’s three-decade history. “The Flash,” from Warner Bros., also struggled.
• The Troubling Pixar Paradox Recent misses and low expectations for ‘Elemental’ beg the question: Has Pixar lost its magic touch? Perhaps the answer is that original animation is now a smaller business—one that can’t necessarily support the unique culture and $200 million budgets that made Pixar great in the first place.
• Pixar Boss Pete Docter Says the Studio ‘Trained’ Families to Expect Disney+ Debuts, ‘Elemental’ Buzz at Cannes Was ‘Confusing’
• Richard Kind Just Doesn’t Want to Be Left Out Maybe that’s why everyone in Hollywood has this master of comedy and tragedy on speed dial.
• Apple Is Taking On Apples in a Truly Weird Trademark Battle Apple, the company, wants rights to the image of apples, the fruit, in Switzerland—one of dozens of countries where it’s flexing its legal muscles.
• The 100 Most Significant Political Films of All Time Not “best.” Not “favorite.” Not “most likable.” Most significant. Some are obvious. Some obscure. A few will be controversial. Let the debate begin.
• Come for the Broadcast, Stay for the Mets Game SNY already had some of the best announcers in baseball. John DeMarsico, the network’s director, has made every game feel like a trip to the movies.

GUESTS:

• Shawn Murray: A stand-up comedian, writer, and the host of the Nobody Asked Shawn podcast
• Tracy Wu Fastenberg: Development officer at Connecticut Children’s
• Bill Yousman: Professor of media studies at Sacred Heart University

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