We’re living in an upside-down world, aren’t we?

It’s a world in which scientists whose research findings that COVID-19 probably originated as a spillover from wildlife have been validated by dozens of scientific studies, but got them hauled before a Republican-dominated House committee to be brayed at by the likes of Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and accused of academic fraud.

Meanwhile, the purveyors of claims that COVID’s danger was overstated and could be met by exposing the maximum number of people to the deadly virus in quest of “herd immunity” have been offered a platform to air their widely debunked and refuted views at a forum sponsored by Stanford University.

The event is a symposium on the topic “Pandemic Policy: Planning the Future, Assessing the Past,” scheduled to take place on campus Oct. 4.

No one can doubt that a sober examination of the policies of the recent past with an eye toward doing better in the next pandemic is warranted. This symposium is nothing like that.

Most of its participants have been associated with discredited approaches to the COVID pandemic, including minimizing its severity and calling for widespread infection to achieve herd immunity. Some have been sources of rank misinformation or disinformation. Advocates of scientifically validated policies are all but absent.

The event is shaping up as a major embarrassment for an institution that prides itself on its academic standards. It comes with Stanford’s official imprimatur; the opening remarks will be delivered by its freshly appointed president, Jonathan Levin, an economist who took office Aug. 1.

The problem with the symposium starts with its main organizer. He’s Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford professor of health policy. Bhattacharya is one of the original signers of the “Great Barrington Declaration,” a manifesto for herd immunity published in October 2020. The university didn’t respond to my question about Bhattacharya’s role. He didn’t respond to my request for comment.

The core of the declaration is what its drafters call “focused protection,” which means allowing “those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk” — chiefly seniors, who would be quarantined.

Focused protection, the promoters wrote, would allow society to achieve herd immunity and return to normalcy in three to six months.

The quest for herd immunity from COVID has several problems. One is that infection with one variant of this ever-evolving virus doesn’t necessarily confer immunity from other variants. Another problem is that COVID can be a devastating disease for victims of any age. Allowing anyone of any age to become infected can expose them to serious health problems.

Bhattacharya’s name doesn’t appear in the event announcement, but he has identified himself on X as its “main organizer.” Among the announced speakers is epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta of Oxford, another of the declaration’s original signers.

Several other speakers have advocated fewer restrictions on schools and businesses while predicting that COVID would be manageably mild, like the flu — predictions that were consistently and catastrophically wrong.

The date of the symposium, by the way, is the anniversary of the signing of the Great Barrington Declaration. It’s also Rosh Hashanah, one of the High Holy Days of the Jewish calendar. Stanford says the “overlap” with the holiday is regrettable, but it hasn’t offered to reschedule.

Stanford responded to my request for comment about the event by simply reproducing language from the event announcement.

“The conference was organized to highlight some of the many important topics that public health officials and policymakers will need to address in preparing for future pandemics,” the university said. “The speakers, including those already listed and others who will be added over the next several weeks, represent a wide range of views on this issue. We look forward to a civil, informed, and robust debate.”

That won’t do. Stanford’s argument that it’s merely providing a platform for “robust debate” among speakers with a “wide range of views” is belied by the roster of speakers, in which members of a discredited fringe of pandemic policy advocates are heavily overrepresented.

The event announcement has elicited skepticism and dismay among scientists seriously concerned about pandemic policy.

“Knowing who the speakers and panelists are,” wrote the veteran pseudoscience debunker David Gorski, “I know that ‘assessing the past’ will likely consist of highly revisionist history … claiming that public health interventions didn’t work.”

The description of some of the daylong symposium’s sessions should give one pause. The precis of a panel titled “Misinformation, Censorship, and Academic Freedom” states as fact that “governments censored information contrary to public health pronouncements in social media settings.” It asks rhetorically, “Does the suspension of free speech rights during a pandemic help keep the population better informed or does it permit the perpetuation of false ideas by governments?”

Yet who among the panel speakers lost their “free speech rights”? On the contrary, several, including Bhattacharya, have ridden their discredited claims to regular appearances on Fox News, op-eds in the Wall Street Journal and appointments to blue-ribbon government committees in red states.

A look at the speakers list should tell you where this event is heading. On a panel titled “Evidence-Based Decision Making During a Pandemic” is Anders Tegnell, the architect of Sweden’s pandemic policy. Sweden has been held up by critics of school closings and lockdowns and advocates of herd immunity as a success story, the theme being that by keeping schools and restaurants open, the country beat the pandemic.

The truth is just the opposite. As I’ve reported, the Tegnell record is disastrous. Sweden’s laissez-faire approach sacrificed its seniors to the pandemic and used its schoolchildren as guinea pigs. Swedish researchers concluded in retrospect that its policies were “morally, ethically, and scientifically questionable.” The death toll rose so high that the government was eventually forced to tighten up the rules.

Sweden’s death rate from COVID was much worse than that of its Nordic neighbors Denmark, Norway and Finland, which all took a tougher approach. If Sweden’s death rate had only matched Norway’s, it would have suffered only about 4,400 COVID deaths, rather than its toll of 18,500.

Then there’s Scott Atlas, a radiologist and former professor at Stanford medical school, who is currently a fellow at the Hoover Institution, the right-wing think tank housed on the Stanford campus.

Atlas was recruited to join the Trump White House as a COVID advisor in July 2020 after having volunteered to Medicare Administrator Seema Verma that the government’s pandemic policies were “a massive overreaction” that was “inciting irrational fear” in Americans.

Atlas estimated that the coronavirus “would cause about 10,000 deaths,” which “would be unnoticed” in a normal flu season. By the end of 2020, as it happens, COVID deaths in the U.S. exceeded 350,000. As of today, the toll is more than 1.2 million.

At the White House, Atlas promoted scientifically dubious prescriptions for the pandemic. He pushed for reduced testing for COVID and dismissed masking as a countermeasure. Most damaging, he called for a herd immunity policy.

Atlas’ prescriptions disturbed his Stanford colleagues, about 110 of whom wrote an open letter in September 2020 alerting the public to “the falsehoods and misrepresentations of science” that Atlas was preaching.

“Encouraging herd immunity through unchecked community transmission is not a safe public health strategy,” they wrote. “In fact, this approach would do the opposite, causing a significant increase in preventable cases, suffering and deaths, especially among vulnerable populations, such as older individuals and essential workers.”

The Stanford administration also formally disavowed Atlas’ statements and prescriptions. “Dr. Atlas has expressed views that are inconsistent with the university’s approach in response to the pandemic,” the university said. “We support using masks, social distancing, and conducting surveillance and diagnostic testing.”

Yet now Atlas appears to be back in the university’s good graces, judging from his presence on the roster. Stanford didn’t respond to my questions about Atlas’ role, and he didn’t reply to my request for comment.

Allowing this symposium to proceed along the lines laid out in the announcement will be a black mark for Stanford in the scientific community.

“What’s happening at Stanford?” asked vaccine expert and disinformation debunker Peter Hotez on X. “This is awful, a full on anti-science agenda (and revisionist history), tone deaf to how this kind of rhetoric contributed to the deaths of thousands of Americans during the pandemic by convincing them to shun vaccines or minimize COVID.”

Stanford’s claim to be a neutral host of a scientific symposium falls short as a fair description of its duties as an academic institution.

No university claims to be open to the expression of any or all views, no matter how unorthodox or counterfactual; they make judgments about the propriety of viewpoints all the time; the level of discernment they practice is one way we judge them as serious educational establishments.

By that standard, Stanford deserves an “F.” On the evidence, neither the university nor its medical school, which is a sponsor of the symposium, exercised any judgment at all before greenlighting an embarrassing gala for the pandemic fringe.

Foul-mouthed superheroes, babbling Minions and plenty of Anxiety (the animated kind) have propelled this summer’s box office past the winter and spring theatrical doldrums, marking one bright spot in an otherwise industry-wide gloom.

Boosted by a bevy of sequels, the summer’s gross box office receipts (starting from the first Friday in May) is projected to total roughly $3.6 billion through the Labor Day weekend, according to Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.

That’s short of last year’s “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer”-fueled haul of $4 billion, but still higher than summer totals in 2022, 2021 and 2020 — a positive sign for theater owners and studio executives who weathered a tough January-to-May stretch of limited and underperforming films.

And with a much-anticipated fall and winter slate of films including “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” “Wicked” and “Moana 2,” industry insiders are sounding more upbeat for the end of the year and beyond.

“If we can carry this same momentum that we have this summer currently into the fall and then into the beginning of 2025, I think exhibition will be very pleased,” said Jim Orr, president of theatrical distribution at Universal Pictures. “We can truly say we’re back.”

The optimism is a far cry from earlier this year, when the industry collectively wrung its hands as the box office struggled to captivate audiences. That concern turned into panic by Memorial Day, when films such as “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” and “Garfield” did not perform up to high expectations, leading to the worst Memorial Day weekend box office in almost three decades.
(“Garfield” ended up grossing more than $257 million in global box office on a reported budget of $60 million.)

Industry observers now see that five-month stretch as the low point in the theatrical slump, fueled in part by a lingering slowdown from the pandemic and the dual strikes by writers and actors, which disrupted the production and marketing of films.

“This industry took a double gut punch,” said Charles Rivkin, chairman of the Motion Picture Assn. “First we had COVID, which turned our $11-billion industry into zero overnight. And then when we were recovered from that, we immediately had the strikes.”

Morale was low at the outset of the season. Save for a few successes, such as Disney’s “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” May releases — from Universal’s “Fall Guy” to Warner Bros.’ “Furiosa” — mostly fell flat.

“The expectations for ’24 were definitely tempered,” Dergarabedian said. “We didn’t have a Marvel movie kicking off the summer.”

But starting with June’s “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” the box office started to pick up. It would be the first of several sequels to power the all-important summer box office.

Animated films helped to power the rebound.

“Inside Out 2” and “Despicable Me 4” put up blockbuster numbers, which is notable because animation was one of the slowest genres to recover from the pandemic due to families’ wariness to return to theaters and the ease of watching movies on streaming platforms.

With several animated films set for release later this year, worldwide family box office revenue could reach $6.1 billion, which would surpass 2018’s total, said David A. Gross, who publishes the FranchiseRe movie industry newsletter.

“It’s fair to say that since ‘Super Mario’ in spring of 2023, family moviegoing is back to pre-pandemic levels,” he said.

To date, the domestic box office has generated about $5.6 billion, down from $6.6 billion at this point last year, according to Comscore. But the summer box office has made up a lot of ground.

“I don’t like to spike the ball on the five-yard line, but I think we’re in the right direction,” said Rich Gelfond, chief executive of Imax Corp., the giant-screen technology company that operates out of Playa Vista. “We’re certainly on the road back.”

One reason for the recovery: Walt Disney Co. got its groove back this summer, with the help of “Inside Out 2.”

The Pixar animated sequel to 2015’s “Inside Out” drew $1.6 billion worldwide, making it the highest grossing animated title of all time, and the top movie of the summer season. Then, Disney-owned Marvel Studios packed a punch with the R-rated “Deadpool & Wolverine,” which amassed $1 billion in global revenue and became the second-highest grossing film of the summer.

“Historically, there’s been a bit of a ceiling for R-rated movies just because a bunch of kids can’t come,” said Greg Marcus, chief executive of Marcus Theatres, a Milwaukee, Wis.-based chain with about 80 locations spanning 17 states.

But the reception for the movie “speaks to the … clamoring for product. The people are saying, ‘If you build it, we will come,’” he said

The box office showing for Pixar and Marvel was significant, as the key Disney brands have struggled to consistently deliver in recent years. The House of Mouse’s uncharacteristically weak post-pandemic track record was one reason box office analysts drastically lowballed opening weekend projections for “Inside Out 2.”

“Everyone had high hopes for that film,” said Sean Gamble, CEO of Cinemark, the Plano, Texas-based theater chain with more than 300 locations, including 20 in Southern California. “We certainly did, but that proved out to be way beyond what we expected. It’s probably one of the biggest outperforming films … we’ve seen in a very, very long time.”

Tony Chambers, executive vice president of theatrical distribution at Disney, said, “Quality matters, and quality delivers” — echoing a key point from Disney CEO Bob Iger, who has ordered sweeping cuts across the company to stem losses from its streaming business and has directed creative departments to focus on theatrical and not crank out as much content.

Appealing to broader, multicultural audiences doesn’t hurt either, Chambers said.

“It sounds very simple, but if you cast your net wide enough, the more fish you’re likely to get,” he said. “That’s been the common denominator for all the movies that have worked successfully this summer.”

To be sure, the movie industry still faces massive challenges, regardless of this summer’s slight reprieve. Box office revenue is still below pre-pandemic levels, and it’s unclear whether it will ever fully rebound as viewing habits shift.

So far this summer, theaters across the U.S. sold 274 million tickets, an 18% decline from last summer, according to industry data firm EntTelligence. That pales in comparison to the 406 million tickets sold in summer 2019 — a time when moviegoers weren’t yet accustomed to watching major releases at home on streaming services.

What’s more, film financing has become more difficult as interest rates have increased. China is no longer a reliable market for boosting American films’ box office revenue. And studios have slashed budgets and laid off thousands of employees as they struggle to balance their massive spending on streaming services with the lower-than-expected returns.

Still, if box office returns for the second half of this year are down by only 10% compared to pre-pandemic levels, that would be a good result, Gross said.

And this summer, the charge was led by a plethora of sequels.

“Sometimes people question, ‘Are there too many sequels?’’’ Gamble said. “Across the board, with compelling stories, they work. And we’ve seen many, many examples of that throughout the course of this summer.”

Of course, simply adding more chapters to a franchise doesn’t necessarily guarantee success (see: “Furiosa”). But this summer’s sequels have been “solid,” leading to some level of reassurance for the industry.

“When these things are hitting, and when the box office is flowing, it just helps everything about the business,” Gross said. “It helps everyone relax.”

While original and nonfranchise films didn’t lead the box office this year, they certainly gave it a boost.

Surprise breakout hits such as Neon’s masterfully marketed horror flick “Longlegs (the indie studio’s biggest movie to date) and Sony’s adaptation of the bestselling Colleen Hoover novel “It Ends With Us” weren’t nearly as lucrative as the likes of “Deadpool” or “Inside Out 2.” But they played an important role, exceeding expectations and keeping the popcorn lines moving.repeats “flowing” from quote.

“Every dollar counts in the summer, and those … films added significantly to the bottom line,” Dergarabedian said. “Every $20 million times five … is $100 million. So it all adds up to what turned out to be a pretty magnificent summer.”

Emelyn Stuart, owner of Stuart Cinema and Cafe in Brooklyn, N.Y., said summer business has been “amazing” compared to the previous year. Her theater has only one screen, which means she has just one chance at a time to pick a winner.

Last year, some of her choices included “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” as well as the DC Comics superhero film “The Flash,” which grossed just $271 million worldwide amid a controversy surrounding its star, Ezra Miller.

This year, she chose “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” “Despicable Me 4,” “Deadpool & Wolverine” and “A Quiet Place: Day One.” The variety of available films led to a winning combination, she said.

For the fall, she’s planning to add a second screen to expand her options — particularly for attracting family audiences.

“With ‘Wicked’ coming, with ‘Beetlejuice,’ with ‘Joker,’ I think we’re going to end the year strong,” she said.

After an eight-year effort, a major pirated movie and TV series streaming operation based in Vietnam has been shut down, according to a global antipiracy group.

Hanoi-based Fmovies and its associated sites drew nearly 374 million monthly visits, with more than 6.7 billion visits alone between January 2023 and this June. With hundreds of online domains, it was the largest pirate streaming operation in the world, according to the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, an antipiracy group that worked in collaboration with the Hanoi police to shut down Fmovies.

“The Fmovies takedown is honestly a global turning point for us,” said Charlie Rivkin, chair of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment and chairman and chief executive of the Motion Picture Assn. trade group, which shares resources and expertise with the alliance. “It should send a signal to other piracy operators around the world that they’re going to face justice for violating copyright laws. We’re going to find them. We’re going to take them down.”

Representatives for Fmovies could not be reached for comment.

After launching in 2016, Fmovies was quickly met with legal action. Filipino media company ABS-CBN sued the site just months after its debut, alleging copyright infringement. A California court ordered the operation to pay $218,000 in damages and shut down, but it continued operating.

In August, the site was taken down by Vietnamese authorities.

Two Vietnamese men were identified as the operators of Fmovies, and a Vietnamese court has agreed to pursue the legal case against them. The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment did not disclose the men’s names or other details of the operation.

“The Vietnamese movie industry is at a pivotal stage of development, transitioning from a state-subsidized production model to a rapidly growing phase driven by private-sector involvement,” Ngo Phuong Lan, chair of the Vietnam Film Development Assn., said in a statement. “Intellectual property rights protection is a crucial element for our industry’s success.”

Composed of major studios and media companies such as Paramount Global, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros. Discovery and Netflix, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment has shut down several high-traffic piracy operations around the world in the last year.

In December, the group shut down more than 600 piracy sites in Latin America, including more than 320 in Peru. One month earlier, the coalition shut down an operation in Egypt with 65 domains that counted 29 million monthly visits.

Copyright theft remains a major headache for the entertainment industry. The unauthorized release of a movie before its theatrical debut can decrease box office revenue by as much as 20%.

And with box office sales not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels, and studios shedding jobs due to massive overspending on streaming efforts, those revenue declines can be key, Rivkin said. Earlier this year, he estimated that, on average, piracy costs the movie theater business more than $1 billion per year.

“Piracy is an existential threat to our business,” Rivkin said. “It’s in everybody’s best interest to curb piracy; for the theaters, for the creatives, for our studios.”