10 Ways That Movies Will Change In The 2020s

In some ways big blockbuster filmmaking in the twenty-first century is taking a step back to how things used to be far earlier in the twentieth. While the dawn of the modern blockbuster was the work of individual filmmakers of vision such as Spielberg and Lucas, modern big movies are driven by the demands of their producers and executives, much as they were during the days of the studio system in the Hollywood Golden Age.

In 1939, Gone With The Wind was shot by three different directors and The Wizard Of Oz by five (Victor Fleming replacing George Cukor on both films but finishing neither) and both became classics of their age, their creative vision overseen more by studio heads than auteurish directors. We are starting to see something similar with large scale productions today.

In recent years the likes of Rogue One, Solo, Justice League and even Bohemian Rhapsody have all changed directors mid-production or prior to extensive reshoots in order to deliver a movie closer to what their studio envisioned. But all of them only ended up with one directing credit in accordance with the views of the Directors Guild of America.

However, Disney's largely overlooked 2018 Nutcracker And The Four Realms, on which original director Lasse Hallström (Chocolat) was replaced for reshoots by Joe Johnston (Captain America) to beef up the effects-heavy sequences, may point to a shift going into the 2020s. In this case, unlike the other films mentioned above, the DGA took the unusual step of granting both directors the right to a directing credit.

The likes of Marvel and DC will continue to chop and change directors (2020 has already seen Doctor Strange's Scott Derrickson dropped from the sequel), but the Nutcracker precedent suggests that, as the practice becomes more common, more co-directors will get credit for their work.