All hail the return of the grand spectacle. After a subdued few years that left more than enough blank space on our cultural calendars, it feels as though we have finally turned over a new leaf. The hangover has lifted and we’ve emerged from our cocoons, Powerade in hand, ready for a remarkable revival. Everywhere you looked in February, something special was happening.
What started with Kansas City’s incredible overtime victory in Super Bowl LVIII flowed poetically into the arrival of music’s most profitable tour Down Under. Taylor Swift’s record-breaking ‘Eras’ tour finally hit Australia, sending fans into meltdown and decibels to seemingly unprecedented levels. The energy was undeniably palpable and I guess, in some small way, we got caught up in it too. But Taylor and Travis were just the beginning.
With the long-awaited arrival of Denis Villeneuve’s genre-defining sci-fi epic Dune: Part Two, a new era of blockbuster was taking shape. Not since Top Gun: Maverick have we seen such film fanaticism grip the industry, something that lead villain, Austin Butler, was entirely cognizant of. I spoke with the Academy Award-nominated star a few months back and he shared some unique insights into the bizarre filming process, revealing the differences between working with Villeneuve and other filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and Baz Luhrmann. As a movie nerd, it was a thrilling experience, in and of itself.
From there, the February hits kept coming. Aston Martin unveiled its new flagship Vantage, America’s priciest property went up for grabs and the team behind smash-hit Succession revealed a first look at their new political satire. It was a big month, to say the least, and momentum is only growing. As we edge closer to the Formula 1 season opener and begin the long countdown to the Paris Olympics, I’m starting to get the feeling that 2024 will be a very busy year, and that can only be a good thing.
Editor-in-Chief, Man of Many
