r/movies • u/ChiefLeef22 r/movies Contributor • 4h ago

Article ‘The Odyssey’ Proves It: Audiences Want Movies Made the Hard Way | This year's breakouts like 'Project Hail Mary' and 'Obsession' were made by filmmakers who sweated. While CG-stuffed franchise disappointments such as 'Supergirl,' 'Moana,' and 'The Mandalorian and Grogu' looked lazy.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/odyssey-box-office-2026-practical-effects-1236652219/
28.6k Upvotes

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u/urgasmic 4h ago

cherry picking like crazy but sure.

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u/dwide_k_shrude 4h ago

Yeah this article is stupid.

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u/sundler 4h ago

It's also very insulting to all the artists who make those computer graphics. As if they don't work just as hard.

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u/fascfoo 3h ago

Yup. This just pushes this CGI bad narrative when its BAD CGI thats bad. Great CGI is basically invisible. Now well just have more filmmakers essentially lying by saying they're doing everything "in camera" in promo material.

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u/f0xD3N 2h ago

Not to mention PHM and The Odyssey both feature tons of CGI

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u/pm_plz_im_lonely 1h ago edited 49m ago

The discussion surrounding CGI and oners is risible.

People google "oner" and "cgi" for 2 minutes, then larp this gatekeep is their personal standard while rejecting all the footnotes. Then, film promotion deliberately feeds into this amazing taste bar, as a form of collective industry gaslighting.

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u/Worthyness 58m ago

Great cgi can also be visible. The dinos in jurassic Park, Thanos and Davy Jones as performance capture entities. Godzilla and his modern takes. Everyone knows they're cgi, but that isn't a bad thing.

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u/bloodychill 1h ago

What’s way more insulting to visual effects artists and incredibly lazy is the push by some studios and big tech stakeholders for AI-generated effects.

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u/respected_prophet 3h ago edited 2h ago

Call me crazy but I don’t think plugging in green screen backgrounds on Moana is as hard as shooting 40 people on a boat in the actual water

Edit: just want every whining person who downvoted this to look me in the eye and tell me The Rock standing in front of an incredibly fake golden hour sky looks good. Please.

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u/PRSArchon 3h ago

You pretend like the odyssey doesnt use CGI, Nolan uses a TON of cgi in most of his movies (except Oppenheimer).

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u/Churba 2h ago edited 1h ago

Even in Oppenheimer, he used a bunch of digital VFX(which most people call CGI), they just tried to use and manipulate shot elements where possible, but then taking those shot elements and using digital effects to put them in the film, or make them work. Sure, he's not using any wholly generated elements, but there's a number of things that are the cinematographic equivalent of building an image in photoshop by taking bits and peices of real photos to put it together.

He's got a long working relationship with DNEG, who he's been working with as his primary VFX studio since Batman Begins, and they do incredible work.

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u/dragonmp93 3h ago

So Nolan actually found a Cyclops monster to film ?

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u/kattahn 3h ago

No but they did build a 60' puppet ...

https://nofilmschool.com/the-odyssey-practical-effects

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u/dragonmp93 3h ago

Well, it's a 60' doll to give the actors some reference, but it looks nothing like the Cyclops.

Also the article is claiming that Scylla's whirlpool was made with jet skis going on circles.

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u/blueSGL 2h ago

So they needed to edit out the jet skis... I bet that was all done by hand not a computer in sight.

And jet skis would leave a wake but not the central dip... hmm maybe they did use some CGI here...

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u/respected_prophet 3h ago

My point is that one movie is shooting on location with massive crews and the others are actors on fake backgrounds.
It’s the same reason any B-movie from the 70’s-90’s looks wayyyy better than most of the movies today.

I am aware there is CGI in the Odyssey.

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u/ringwraithfish 4h ago

The fact they included "The Mandalorian and Grogu" at the same level of "CGI-stuffed" movies like Supergirl and Moana tells me it's a worthless article.

Putting opinions of the movie aside, The Mandalorian and Grogu were heavy in practical effects.

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u/Worthyness 3h ago

And say what you want about the state of star wars, but their vfx work is fucking immaculate every time. Even in rise of Skywalker the vfx work is incredible.

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u/yes_ur_wrong 3h ago

yeah are we just upvoting anything that says Odyssey good?

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u/dragonmp93 3h ago

The article is 1 hour old and it has 12k upvotes.

So yes.

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u/yes_ur_wrong 2h ago

i'm pretty sure its just boosted as part of the marketing for the movie.

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u/KalaUposatha 3h ago

What movie is not made with “sweat”? Like, even the worst movie ever made required a shitton of effort. Movies don’t just pop into existence.

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u/dragonmp93 3h ago

I have always wondered if the anti-CGI crowd wants Hollywood to go back to the era of Orson Welles ending with severe sciatica pain after filming the sewer sequence from the third man.

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u/N8CCRG 3h ago

Also, PHM had lots of CG too. They sure as hell didn't fly a spaceship to other planets. And I haven't seen The Odyssey yet, but I'm pretty sure they didn't row a boat into a real whirlpool with a real sea monster.

How much CG is in a movie these days is a continuous sliding scale, not an on/off switch.

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u/LuinAelin 3h ago

The whole less CGI is pretty much marketing speech now as well

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u/Carvj94 3h ago

And for Project Hail Mary the scene is when he's in the glittering Petrova lit area over Adrien is fuckin gorgeous.

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u/dragonmp93 3h ago

According to this article, Nolan actually found a 10 foot tall Cyclops monster and gave it a job.

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u/_Eggs_ 3h ago edited 3h ago

"The Odyssey made a lot of money. Now listen to my completely unrelated conclusions about what audiences want."

Audiences in 2026 are sending a clear message to filmmakers: We want movies to look real — and for you to sweat while making them.

Audiences in 2026 are sending a clear message to the world: we want all movies to be filmed on water - and for you to wear funny hats while filming them.

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u/jackofslayers 1h ago

Basically every article from the Hollywood Reporter.

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u/jilko 4h ago

It's saying the reason is that it's the movie making method, but in reality it's that these successful movies are new and different. By new and different, I mean not another Star Wars, Superhero, or live action Disney Remake.

Audiences want to see variety again and they're mostly done with derivative safe bets that've been boring several years ago already.

Backrooms wasn't successful because they built a set.

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u/dalivo 3h ago

And the author picks a cherry and then an apple. Project Hail Mary had a ton of CGI. Mando had a ton of practical effects. Guess what? A good story and great characters matter the most.

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u/xin234 2h ago

I loved Project Hail Mary, and consumed almost every behind-the-scenes, interviews, etc. of it, and even the directors mention that most of the time you see Rocky on screen he is CGI. It's a disservice to the VFX team who made that movie great, to downplay the work they had to do.

Here's an interesting video about the topic of PHM's CGI from Corridor Crew: https://youtu.be/l9zqIo8KtjI?t=512

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u/redopz 2h ago

Additionally, Project Hail Mary and The Odyssey are the only two movies I have seen in a theatre this year but that certainly wasn't because of the practical effects in the films (I only learned the latter used them heavily after watching). Those films have pretty big name recognition attached to them, with proven creators. I liked The Martian and read the PHM book, and Christopher Nolan is popular for a reason (The Prestige and The Dark Knight are still two of my all time favorites). People were going to see these regardless of the usage of CGI vs practical effects.

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u/stomp224 4h ago

Masters of the Universe tanked, and from all the BTS clips theyve released, it looks like they did quite a lot of practical work too

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u/sleeplessaddict 3h ago

It's not particularly surprising that the movie tanked but it was honestly actually pretty fun

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u/callisstaa 3h ago

Hate to say it but Jared Leto absolutely killed it in that movie. It was a blast.

Similar to D&D Beyond Theives. Great movie but nobody really cared.

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u/sleeplessaddict 2h ago

Jared Leto was also substantially more tolerable because, outside of knowing it was Jared Leto, the character neither sounded nor looked like him. It's not like we were watching Tron:Ares with Jared's face constantly just there. But yes I will definitely still give him credit for playing Skeletor well because he was one of the best parts of the movie

Similar to D&D Beyond Theives

I'm still upset about this. We need more D&D content in the world that we won't get if those things don't make money

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u/JebryathHS 2h ago

I mean at least the D&D Honor Among Thieves movie was really good. I've spoken to a few people who watched Her Man and the consensus among the ones who enjoyed it was that it was the kind of bad that's funny.

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u/sleeplessaddict 1h ago

I didn't really think of it as "so bad it's funny." It was more "I have 0 expectations for this movie and I'm going in assuming it's gonna be silly and dumb" and then it was.

It also didn't help He-Man's movie backstory was basically identical to Thor's with a little bit of Captain America thrown in

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u/Katatonic92 2h ago

I watched it on Prime earlier & thoroughly enjoyed it, it is good fun & I'm sad we will most likely never get a sequel now. Or a She-Ra spinoff.

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u/sleeplessaddict 2h ago

They set up a super obvious sequel in the post-credits scenes too which is now basically just gonna be an eternal cliffhanger. And I never watched She-Ra but I know the Netflix version was rated super highly so that totally deserves a movie

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u/LongPorkJones 2h ago

They've had a live-action She-Ra television series in pre-production since 2022, right around the time they got the rights to Masters of the Universe.

They didn't originally plan to have a theatrical release for Masters, it was supposed to be a Prime exclusive. I have a feeling they'll be using streaming metrics to measure success.

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u/Katatonic92 2h ago

I'm pinning my hopes on it doing well on Prime. I was confused when I saw it was available on my Prime for free, I was expecting having to pay to rent/buy it. Then a certain scene involving an Amazon Prime delivery van occured & it was a bit of a lightbulb moment for me.

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u/LongPorkJones 1h ago

My mind keeps going back to the statement Amazon issued after the move came out. People online were saying it was damage control. Though, in 26 years of either working in movies theaters or following film production and box office takes, I've never seen a studio put out a press release basically saying "Yeah, we're okay with this" immediately after a less than stellar opening weekend. They're all usually stone quiet about it until after the streaming/home release (look at Moana and Supergirl for example). That's very...different, and it makes me think that they knew it wasn't going to do well at the box office to begin with, and that they're gauging success on merch, home media sales, and streaming numbers. Treating the theatrical release like a loss-leader while recouping those losses and earning profit from other sources.

It's a long term play if that's the case, it's not like they don't have the capital to sustain it.

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u/stomp224 1h ago

Agreed, brother in law and myself absolutely loved it. It's a shame the word of mouth did nothing for it

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u/Dead-O_Comics 4h ago

I think people are definitely avoiding 'lazy' - be it Disney remakes, tired genres or CGI migraines.

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u/pineappletequila 4h ago

To call those films “lazy” is inaccurate and frankly kind of insulting to the people that worked on it. I can guarantee a lot of people “sweated” creating the Mandalorian. Maybe “safe” is the better word

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u/Jolly-Potential-1411 4h ago

Exactly. Mando was a pretty traditional adventure, so safe in that sense, but the effects work they did was very cool and a lot of heart was put into it.

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u/MandoDoughMan 4h ago

Tons of practical effects, amazing puppetry, even had a stop-motion sequence. If "movies made the hard way" was simply what audiences wanted Mando+Grogu would have performed a lot better.

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u/Bestialman 3h ago

To call those films “lazy” is inaccurate and frankly kind of insulting to the people that worked on it.

Moana is absolutely a lazy produced movie. Doesn't mean the people who worked on it were lazy at all.

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u/The_Upvote_Beagle 4h ago

I don't know - Toy Story 5 is a bit "lazy" in my opinion and yet it did well and is the only movie I've actually seen in a theater this year (with plans for Odyssey tomorrow).

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u/MrLlamma 4h ago

Maybe creatively lazy, but did anything about the production seem lazy? asking as someone who has not seen it. Pixar generally has very passionate teams of animators

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u/Korachof 4h ago

I don’t think a sequel to a pioneering animated franchise that’s spanned decades is comparable to a live action Disney remake and other lazy garbage lately. The fact Star Wars isn’t an annual box office draw anymore speaks to how much Disney has destroyed that franchise with lazy and poor decision making. 

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u/Bluejegu 4h ago

12 year old me would spit at my feet if I told him there would be Star Wars and superhero movies coming out every year for a decade and you couldnt care less about them.

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u/Jolly-Potential-1411 4h ago

The streaming association was unfortunate, but it was a fun adventure in the vein of Lucas and Spielberg. Remember they made movies for kids in the first place. And calling it lazy is an insult to all the artists who worked hard on this movie, especially the old-school techniques like miniatures and stop-motion.

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u/Hmm_would_bang 4h ago

Toy Story is a very strong IP. There’s been 5 movies over 30ish years. Kids that grew up on them are now parents taking their kids to see them. There’s not a lot of fatigue there either due to the spacing between them

“Everyone should make a Toy Story” isn’t a good lesson to learn, because that doesn’t work.

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u/KrytenKoro 4h ago

You shoulda seen the gabby movie.

The implication that reality is run by cat gods and Gabbie is the granddaughter of their high priest is on par with the Dora movie implying the Incan gods are the one true pantheon and they demand blood.

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u/ROBtimusPrime1995 4h ago

Mario Galaxy made a billion and is one of the laziest sequels in a while. Nah, the writer of this article is cherry-picking.

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u/BillyPotion 4h ago

Lazy is a subjective term and can mean whatever you want it to mean

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u/BigTomBombadil 4h ago

Could even mean “low effort”

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u/MrLlamma 4h ago

There's probably only been a couple films in history that could truly be described as low effort, despite how creatively bankrupt they are, or how boring you think they are

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u/Dead-O_Comics 4h ago

I think most of the films that have flopped this year can definitely be described as such.

The general public are feeling the economic pinch. They're being more selective, and 'The same Disney movie but worse' or 'The TV show but 2 hours and you're paying for it' just isn't appealing.

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u/BillyPotion 4h ago

The top 4 grossing movies this year are Toy Story 5, Super Mario 2, Devil Wears Prada 2, and a Michael Jackson biopic

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u/m2thek 4h ago

The box office numbers tell a different story: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/world/2025/

3, 4, 6: Avatar sequel, Lilo & Stitch remake, Jurassic World: Rebirth

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u/BigTomBombadil 4h ago edited 2h ago

You’re looking at the wrong year my guy.

edit: Those are from 2025 results. Why not reference the list from 2026 when this article is about 2026 movies?

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u/Storm1k 4h ago

Say that after Doomsday and another Spiderman movie will make a ton of money while being lazy capeshit with a ton of CGI.

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u/Conscious_Test_7954 4h ago

You say "ton of CGI" like that's a bad a thing. The problem is bad CGI and misuse of it. Also let's wait and see, Spider-Man looks good even if you may not like those films.

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u/ThaGuy34 4h ago

Hating on Spider-Man for no reason.

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u/uniqueusername623 3h ago

I’m just over them. We have too many. We really do not need a SpiderMan movie every 2-3 years. But they print money and the people love them, so I fully understand the studios commitment towards making more.

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u/Arachnoidocon 4h ago

Spider-Man looks super inspired, give it a chance

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u/mangongo 4h ago

Yeah Doomsday looks like it's going to have the laziest writing of any movie this year but it will still gross the highest.

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u/New_Cockroach_505 4h ago

Super Mario is the highest grossing film this year…

People have always avoided some “bad films”. Doesn’t mean they avoid all of them.

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u/mbdtf95 2h ago

Actually Michael overtook it these past 2 days.

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u/New_Cockroach_505 2h ago

Ah. I was just looking at this

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/world/

Either way it still proves people are okay with “bad” films. Michael didn’t review any better either so it’s more support.

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u/mbdtf95 2h ago

Yeah, you posted correct official info from studios who update it every Monday with international numbers from week before. I just wanted to add that Michael passed it since it still plays heavily in Japan, and somewhat in Russia and that around yesterday it passed Super Mario by small margin, but they're both very close.

And Toy Story 5 will pass Michael at the beginning of next week

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u/Dead-O_Comics 4h ago

Kids IPs are a whole different ballgame.

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u/New_Cockroach_505 4h ago

Yes because Moana and Star Wars are famously not kids IPs.

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u/Think_Breadfruit2460 3h ago

Avatar 💰💰💰

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u/LuinAelin 3h ago

It happens every year.

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u/FrostyD7 3h ago

Multiple times a year. Every R rated film with box office success results in this kind of a reaction that it has proven the viability of R rated films. Surely it's not just that Deadpool is an exception to the rule, no no no.

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u/GhormanFront 1h ago

It's hilarious that this trash article has over 20k upvotes

is this sub just a complete joke?

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u/SirBumbles 4h ago

Especially when Obsession is a rip off of that one Supernatural episode from over a decade ago... and Fatal Attraction.... but yeah lets keep calling it original 🤣

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u/Zegram_Ghart 3h ago

Yeh, I think I’ll wait until both marvel movies come out before I give this any kind of credence

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u/heitor2203 2h ago

It is amazing that between those 5 movies, the writer thought that the amount of cgi was the reason some of them succeded and others not.

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u/bohner84 2h ago

I have found that a lot of movies are cgi'ing every aspect of the action. The wrecking crew I thought was a fun movie to watch but the cgi of bragging glass Angus bullet holes ruined it.

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u/No_Macaroon_5928 1h ago

This articles are getting boring and predictable, watch this people glaze over Doomsday when it makes a lot of money when it's the opposite of they've been writing this whole past 4 months lol

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u/shewy92 1h ago

They didn't even watch Mando it seems

In the wake of Project Hail Mary’s practical effects headlines, the team behind The Mandalorian and Grogu put out a “Hey, we did that, too!” video touting the Star Wars film’s practical puppet work, but the movie’s trailers and clips looked slathered in CG glaze

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u/skepticalbob 42m ago

Also these movies have a ton of CGI.

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u/bjankles 4h ago

You know, obsession and the odyssey! Those two movies that have so much in common!

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u/lonnie123 4h ago

Proves audiences are clamoring for movies that start with the letter O

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u/Chief_White_Halfoat 4h ago

It's fine. This is the propaganda we want to push anyways. Just pretend.