[Commlist] Call for Papers Posting: Blockbuster Futures Conference

CALL FOR CONFERENCE PAPERS
Blockbuster Futures
October 28–30, 2024
Indiana University Cinema, Bloomington, IN
Presented in partnership with The Media School at IU Bloomington.
Website: https://go.iu.edu/blockbusters <https://go.iu.edu/blockbusters>
Email: (bfconf24 /at/ iu.edu) <mailto:(bfconf24 /at/ iu.edu)>

Blockbuster films have been instrumental to the evolution of the art and 
economics of the film industry for decades. What Charles Acland (2020) 
calls the “blockbuster strategy”— “the rationale that embraces the 
big-budget cross-media production at the expense of other industrial and 
artistic approaches” (8)—underpins contemporary industrial, 
technological, and aesthetic models of global blockbuster filmmaking. 
Yet, blockbusters are on the precipice of change, and in the U.S., they 
are showing their first signs of sustained destabilization. Black Widow 
and The Eternals (both 2021) were the first two Marvel Cinematic 
Universe films to fail to make back their costs in theatrical release. 
Several box-office failures from established franchises landed in 2023, 
including The Marvels, Shazam: Fury of the Gods, The Flash, Ant-Man and 
Wasp: Quantumania, and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. That same year, 
Disney announced a decrease in funding and content development in the 
Star Wars and Marvel franchises. High-profile film cancellations like 
Batgirl, Black Adam 2, and Wonder Woman 3, combined with company 
streaming losses from subscriber plateaus and high-cost-low-return 
blockbuster franchise TV production, signal a growing caution around the 
form. Simultaneously, Hollywood continues to depend on international 
markets as the primary revenue drivers even while global blockbusters 
are thriving outside of Hollywood’s influence. Indeed, the global 
success of India’s RRR (2022) and China’s homegrown blockbusters like 
The Battle at Lake Changjin II (2022) and Moon Man (2022) generated 
hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

Despite the complexity of these variables and the associated turbulence 
they engender, it’s clear blockbusters won’t be abandoned by global film 
industries anytime soon. As we approach the next phase of the 
blockbuster, this conference is interested and invested in thinking 
through the past and present of global blockbusters, broadly 
constructed, to imagine blockbuster futures across medium, industries, 
geographies, time, business models, genres, forms, and aesthetics.

Encouraged topics can include but are not limited to:
• Intersections of blockbusters and race, representation, gender, and/or 
sexuality
• Blockbusters as sites of transnational flows of financial and cultural 
capital
• Blockbusters and geopolitical impacts on cultural creation
• Blockbusters and postcolonialism/neocolonialism
• Inclusive film production
• Technological and aesthetic developments in effects-based filmmaking
• Permutations in the development, use, and utility of the term 
“blockbuster”
• Genre blockbusters/genre and blockbusters
• Impacts of blockbuster filmmaking on exhibition
• Indie blockbusters/independent film and blockbuster strategies
• Blockbusters and streaming
• Blockbusters and television
• Intersections of games (electronic and other) and blockbusters
• Risk in blockbuster filmmaking/financing
• Work on specific franchises (MCU, DC Cinematic Universe, Fast and 
Furious franchise, Mission: Impossible franchise, etc.)
• Below-the-line blockbuster labor (including unionization)
• Blockbuster franchises as star systems
• Blockbuster aesthetics
• Queering blockbusters
• Cripping blockbusters
• Blockbuster filmmaking as industrial strategy and practice

This conference will serve as the foundation of a special issue of The 
Journal of Popular Culture focused on blockbuster futures.

Conference submissions are due by JUNE 1, 2024 11:59pm EDT. We strongly 
encourage practitioners—filmmakers, programmers, and exhibitors—to 
participate in the conference to help connect blockbusters to their 
broader impacts on film ecosystems. Submissions can take the form of 
preconstituted panels (min of 3 and max of 4 participants) or individual 
submissions.

Submission Requirements for Preconstituted Panels
• panel abstract (1300 min-1500 max characters without spaces)
• paper abstracts for each presenter (1300 min-1500 max characters 
without spaces)
• bio for each presenter (300 min-400 max characters without spaces)
• 3 keywords that best describe your panel

Submission Requirements for Individual Submissions
• paper abstract (1300 min-3000 max characters without spaces)
• presenter bio (300 min-400 max characters without spaces)
• 3 keywords that best describe your panel

Keynotes:

  * An opening keynote address by David Ehrlich, head film critic of
    Indiewire, a member of the New York Film Critics Circle and the
    National Film Critics Society, and recipient of the 2022 National
    Arts and Entertainment Journalism Award for Best Film Critic
  * A closing keynote address on race, genre filmmaking, and blockbuster
    resistance by Dr. Robin R. Means Coleman and Dr. Novotny Lawrence,
    co-editors of the forthcoming /The Oxford Handbook of Black Horror
    Film/ (2024)

Blockbuster Futures includes a pre-conference weekend marathon screening 
of the /Fast and Furious/ franchise (films 1 through 10: Part 1) on 
October 26 and 27.

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