From Splash to Ferris Bueller, movies from the 80s have proved lockdown dynamite. The voice of Frozen’s Olaf reveals how he turned this nostalgia into Reunited Apart, now a
YouTube sensation
Five of the top 10 films at the US
box office last weekend were made by Steven Spielberg. Jurassic Park roared in at No 1, leaving Jaws biting at its heels at No 2. Back to the Future was No 6, just above ET, with The Goonies at No 10. What people want to watch during a pandemic, it seems, is feelgood nostalgia – especially if it’s from the early- to mid-1980s and well suited to a drive-in (pretty much the only cinemas currently open in America).
“There’s an element to these films I miss now,” says Josh Gad. “They allowed the audience to lean in and didn’t speak down to them. Today, that’s been relegated to kids’ animation, as opposed to the transcendent live-action family films we grew up with, which now don’t really exist.”