THE WALL

Hollywood doesn’t have a movie problem. It has a budget problem. From Disney’s live-action Moana stumbling out the gate to bloated superhero and franchise swings underperforming, this summer’s box office is exposing the same ugly math: audiences still show up for movies, just not every $200 million nostalgia invoice. Smaller-budget hits are winning because they leave room for profit, while studios keep confusing spectacle with financial malpractice.

If aliens exist, why does every disclosure fantasy act like white America gets to hold the clipboard? *Disclosure Day* works because Spielberg knows awe, fear, and government secrecy. But the mythology underneath is goofy as hell: aliens cross the universe, ignore whales, elephants, coral, Indigenous knowledge, and every other form of life, just to brief the Pentagon and Topher from West Virginia.