Superheroes Are Rescuing Hollywood

You can thumb your nose at CGI slugfests, but their success buoys the sinking industry.

Andy Kessler

Feb. 24, 2019 4:57 p.m. ET

I’ve been around the special effects and movie business for decades as an adviser and investor and had a front-row seat to the development of computer-generated imagery. On a tour of the back lot at Paramount Pictures in the early ’90s, my host pointed to a shallow pool and said: “Here’s where Charlton Heston parted the Red Sea in ‘The Ten Commandments.’” I was impressed—but playing my role as an annoying Silicon Valley visitor, I replied “Someday this will all be replaced by CGI.” I was right. CGI has been the best thing to happen to the movie business—and a curse.

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