Fall Preview: Is it, maybe, back to normal at the movies?

By JAKE COYLE
AP Film Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — For the first time in three years, the fall movie industrial complex is lurching back into high gear. Festival red carpets are rolled out. Oscar campaigns are primed. Long-awaited blockbusters, like “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and “Avatar: The Way of Water,” are poised for big box office. But after the tumult of the pandemic, can the fall movie season just go back to way it was? Many are hoping it will. After two springtime editions, Academy Awards have returned to a more traditional early March date. The Golden Globes, after near-cancellation, are plotting a comeback. And some movies, too, are trying to recapture a before-times spirit. For others, change is part of the point.