The 2010s gave us many things. This was the decade where the MCU exploded, going from a couple of good movies to creating a vast interconnected universe the likes of which we had never seen in cinema before. In the realm of sci-fi, the decade saw some of the best sci-fi movies ever made, from Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” (it counts!) and Denis Villeneuve’s “Arrival,” to Makoto Shinkai’s sci-fi romance blockbuster, “Your Name.”
The decade also gave us a wave of big-budget, ambitious sci-fi movies that introduced us to brand-new worlds full of cool creatures and spectacular visuals that were also massive financial and critical flops. Movies like “John Carter,” an adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ influential sci-fi novel series that is vastly underrated, and unfortunately so underseen its very cool-sounding sequels never materialized.
Likewise, “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” was a ludicrously expensive film based on another hugely influential sci-fi series, and it had some of the most gorgeous visuals in a sci-fi movie, as well as one of the single best opening scenes in a sci-fi movie ever. Unfortunately, the movie was far too idiosyncratic for general audiences, and it featured two incredibly lifeless main performances and a script that got more conventional and dull with every passing minute.
This happened often in the 2010s, as audiences started becoming weary of non-IP-driven big-budget blockbusters, until the only big-budget genre movies were franchises. There would be no “Mortal Engines” saga, or “A Wrinkle in Time” trilogy.