‘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.

[u/ChiefLeef22]

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

[u/deraser]

That’s really the issue with many recent films, especially reboots and sequels. The writing is just not good. The film needs a good base that the director, actors, and everyone else can build on.

[u/ThinkThankThonk → u/deraser]

All the good writers are making limited series now (and probably very frequently being told to stretch their feature scripts into 6+ episodes).

I love limited series, but I do miss mid-budget features a lot. Not every story has the material to stretch beyond 2 hours, no matter how well it's written.

[u/VirinaB → u/deraser]

Supergirl had a good story; an established comic. Too bad no one stuck to it.

[u/feed_me_moron → u/deraser]

Know your demographic and have good timing too. I think Supergirl and Moana suffered a bunch from that. Their timing was bad and their key demographic wasn't there. Supergirl is like Wonder Woman and should be a role model for young girls, but that's not the story you got. Which is fine, but not at that budget being released in a crowded time.

Moana should appeal to kids, but they can just watch the animated one or the sequel that just came out recently. Maybe if it gets release before Moana 2, you get something. Or make it more adult to appeal to the kids who are now older wanting to watch it.

[u/daemon-electricity → u/deraser]

Even the Super Mario movies. They're just lucky kid movies have a built in audience and if it's a big enough spectacle, those rarely fail. But they both had kind of meh writing. I liked the Galaxy movie better, but they were still pretty basic.