A recurring idea permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends far back to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the tough people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the news demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
