For those who are not chronically online (like me), you may have seen images of Ryan Gosling floating around, next to the word hopecore, and wondered what it all means.
Per the Urban Dictionary, it’s a genre of videos that invoke a feeling and emotions of hope, glee and wholeness. That sounds pretty nice given the current state of the world, which may be why movies in that vein are doing so well this year.
Project Hail Mary, the Ryan Gosling-led film that released on March 20, has earned more than $300 million globally and has become the poster child for this genre. It follows science teacher Ryland Grace (Gosling), who wakes up alone on a spaceship with no memory, and is aided by an unexpected friendship with an alien to stop a mysterious substance killing Earth’s sun. For such a depressing topic, it focuses on optimism, not doom and gloom.
Kit Lazer, who has built a mass following on social media with his passionate reviews of film and TV, has noticed the recent hopecore movement. “There was this trend in media for people to view any kind of sentimentality or earnestness as cringe or corny,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter. “And that was a shift from the way it was in the early 2000s.”
The Phil Lord and Christopher Miller-helmed pic isn’t the only optimistic film making waves recently. The animated film Hoppers, released on March 6, scored the biggest launch for any Hollywood original animated title since Pixar’s Coco in 2017, grossing more than $297 million worldwide. Directed by Daniel Chong, it centers on a 19-year-old animal lover who uses technology that places her consciousness into a robotic beaver to uncover mysteries within the animal world beyond her imagination.
Movies have long been used as a way to escape what’s happening in the real world. And when the real world is giving dystopian-like vibes, seeing a movie about an apocalypse or dystopian future definitely isn’t giving that sense of escapism.
“You do kind of see the shift back now, and I think it is a result of how much craziness we’re seeing daily,” Lazer notes. “The world seems to be crumbling more than usual for the last five to 10 years.”
Darker themes, of course, do still succeed with audiences. There’s undoubtedly been a major focus on films and TV shows with grittier tones in the last two decades, going back to 2008’s The Dark Knight, with shows like The Last of Us and Andor earning praise and winning over audiences.
At least in some corners, that’s changing.
“We’ve seen a lot of cynicism and kind of an artistic shift away from sentimentality in a lot of the 21st century, and I do think it’s natural that it’s gonna turn back, especially with the way that the world looks,” Lazer notes to THR, adding that he’s also seen rom-coms and stoner comedies starting to make a comeback.
But for sentimentality specifically, Project Hail Mary delivers just that. While most space films emphasize suspense and existential dread, the Gosling-led pic was grounded in a much more optimistic spirit, specifically with the collaborative friendship between the actor’s Ryland Grace and the alien Rocky (voiced and puppeteered by James Ortiz).
The hopecore bandwagon is likely fueled by younger millennials and Gen Zers craving nostalgia. Amid so many uncertainties in the world right now, with heightened political tensions and ongoing global conflicts, people long for the feelings they had when life seemed simpler and less stressful.
Paul Anleitner ignited a similar discussion about hopecore on social media recently when he pointed out the “vibe shift” in Project Hail Mary, writing that he predicted years ago this type of content would explode in pop culture, “from deconstructing the past, to a nostalgia for some positive ‘vibe’ we lost in the deconstruction.”
Last year’s live-action Lilo & Stitch, which thrived at the box office, grossing over $1 billion globally, also backs up this assertion. Non-families made up 57 percent of the opening weekend audience, proving that “zillennials” have a hold on childhood viewing habits. And more recently, the Miley Cyrus-focused Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special tallied 6.3 million views in its first three days on Disney+ and Hulu.
When these shows and movies first came out, decades before the remakes and anniversary specials, these now-adults were in their pre-teens and teens. And for most, those years fostered more social connections, as it was before life revolved around social media and analog experiences.
So maybe the tide is turning, as another person shares on social media, “My X feed is full of Project Hail Mary hopecore, and it’s like the movie infected the timeline with good vibes.”
