An age-old motif runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends back in time to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These stories are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. 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 unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
