An age-old idea runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends back in time to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the tough people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. 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 entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Alters Little
However, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion politicians react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a frequent serving of mostly uplifting fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
