Capricorn One (1977) Wouldn’t Be Made Today (But Not For the Reasons You Might Think)
This film was requested by Chance Shirley, a fantastic and accomplished director/writer/producer/cinematographer/you name it, and an all-around lovable weirdo. Want to request a film for a future issue? Subscribe to the paid version!
Capricorn One is just one of those movies with a great hook: “What if three astronauts were coerced into faking a Mars landing?”
I love it. Say no more. I’m in.
But while I was enjoying this film, I found myself thinking about what it might look like today. Or if it would even exist today. Because it’s part of a subgenre that feels all but dead these days, even though we don’t seem to acknowledge or lament that death very much: It’s a conspiracy thriller.
I bet all kinds of conspiracy thrillers are popping up in your head now, right? Sure they are. But how many of those are from the last 5 years? The last 20 years? And do some of those examples even count?
Sure, we got Dark Water a couple years ago, but nobody saw that. We’ve gotten some journalism movies like Spotlight and Bad Education, but those are on the fringe of the subgenre, I think. And then there’s even Captain America: The Winter Soldier which, while it does involve both a conspiracy and thrills, is mostly a superhero action movie masquerading as a conspiracy thriller.
So what makes a film like Capricorn One so much fun? I think it might be because it’s fiction. Sure, it was released just a handful of years after we first walked on the moon, so it was relevant to the cultural interests of its day. But a Mars landing? That’s pure almost-sci-fi right there.
And that’s the magic of it. But now? In the Year of Our Lord 2021? Good luck trying to pitch any government-centered conspiracy plot to a major movie studio.
I promise I won’t get too political in this Friday morning newsletter, but you know, it’s all about reading the room. And this is the thing that I’m hung up on: Reader, it wouldn’t matter if your conspiracy thriller script was purely fiction or based on real events. We’re sick of that shit. All of it.
Think about it. What would a conspiracy thriller be focused on today? Is there any current-ish event that wouldn’t piss off the populace at large now that we’re bogged down in bad news?
Sticking with the space theme, consider a plot that revolves around a billionaire going into space. Nope, we hate it. Maybe it’s more politically driven, something like a financially driven global scandal involving the usual suspects like Russia or China? Nope, we hate that too. Maybe something about the dubious origins of COVI—nope, nope, nope, anything but that, please.
But the worst of all, especially right now, would be a conspiracy thriller about a Presidential election. Can you imagine? A film about Trump fixing the 2016 election? Absolutely not. A film about Biden fixing the 2020 election? Again, dear God, no. What about a plot focused on a fictional Democratic candidate meddling with the votes? Terrible! A plot about a fictional Republican candidate doing the same? Somehow just as terrible!
If you’ve been extremely online like me the last several years, you’ve seen the masses reject certain ideas outright—ideas that couldn’t read the room. Like that COVID thriller that Michael Bay produced, or that upcoming horror movie about a “Karen” terrorizing a Black couple, or that “What if the South had won?” TV series from the Game of Thrones dudes that was so reviled that HBO actually changed their minds. The room is simply not being read lately!
That’s why I wonder about what a Capricorn One would look like today. A fake Mars landing, as fun as it might’ve been in the late 70s, would feel so incredibly tame after what we’ve experienced over the last five years, doesn’t it? I have a feeling that big studio suits wouldn’t find it salacious enough, or “timely” enough.
They’d probably wind up greenlighting something about PizzaGate instead. (I hate that I even thought of that just now.)
Capricorn One is now streaming on HBO Max, and it’s available to rent elsewhere.