Is Warner Bros' Shift To Streaming New Movies 'A Great Danger'? (npr.org) 93
Christopher Nolan isn't too happy with Warner Bros' decision to send all 17 of its films slated for release in 2021 to HBO Max on the same day they're released. Nolan, whose blockbuster movies for Warner Bros have made billions, called HBO Max "the worst streaming service," adding that this shift in Hollywood is "a sign of great danger for the people who work in the movie industry." NPR reports: Nolan was asked whether the move to streaming is really about the pandemic or something bigger — Netflix had more 2020 Oscar nominations than any other studio. "There is this idea that that's been sort of put forward a lot, that the pandemic is sort of accelerating a trend that was already happening," he said. "But 2019 was the biggest year ever for movies financially. That doesn't suit the narrative that the tech companies or the big corporations kind of want to put out there right now.
"But the reality is there was enormous success in 2019 and 2018 wasn't bad either. If you're asking where moviegoing is going, I think the long-term health of the movie business depends on people's desire to get together and experience a story together. And I don't see any signs that that's going anywhere anytime soon." Would you agree with Nolan, or do you applaud Warner Bros' embrace of streaming?
"But the reality is there was enormous success in 2019 and 2018 wasn't bad either. If you're asking where moviegoing is going, I think the long-term health of the movie business depends on people's desire to get together and experience a story together. And I don't see any signs that that's going anywhere anytime soon." Would you agree with Nolan, or do you applaud Warner Bros' embrace of streaming?
giving up 99% of an $15 Ticket / person is an lot (Score:2)
giving up 99% of an $15 Ticket / person is an lot vs $15 or less /mo per account and HBO has other non WB stuff as well.
Re:giving up 99% of an $15 Ticket / person is an l (Score:4, Interesting)
Ya, going to the movies is one of the more expensive social events I do with friends. Consequently, it happens less and less.
Streaming, etc. has its own set of problems (cheaper to buy physical media to get more diversity. Of course now much of streaming originals never appear of physical media), but the demise of cheap seats (remember dollar movies) means that entertainment dollar is probably going some place else.
Especially now with the economy in shambles, can you justify ticket prices?
Re: giving up 99% of an $15 Ticket / person is an (Score:3)
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99% of zero is still zero.
The alternative would be for the studios to hold off not releasing any of the films they've made until after the pandemic is over.
Why a danger then? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Why a danger then? (Score:2)
Yea and wtf is there dangerous about it anyways?
Re: Why a danger then? (Score:5, Funny)
Hollywooders get really upset when cocaine withdrawal kicks in.
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Cocaine is not a narcotic, it's only psychologically addictive. There are no withdrawal symptoms other than the user not feeling as good as they do when high.
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huh? (Score:1)
The whole point of streaming is that people don't watch it at a pre-determined time. When you can take it for granted that everyone who cares watches it live (e.g. a sporting event) you can literally tweet what happened as it's happening and nobody will bitch about "spoilers." When it's a movie people are generally assumed to see it the first week if they really care. When it's streaming ... who the fuck knows. That's what he means. And there's a difference between getting 10 tickets with your friends to wa
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If you're watching on a laptop or a TV, "Game of Thrones" level quality is good enough.
Maybe that's a blessing in disguise. Hopefully they will spend some of the money saved on better screenwriters, so we'll see some decent blockbusters again.
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Re:Why a danger then? (Score:4, Informative)
The difference is the producer/studio's profit. If the director/producer/actor gets a percentage cut of the 1st run, its probably way more profit than the streamer's up front payment. They're also counting on social interaction to affect people's perception of the quality of the movie. This is why the Oscars are such an important money making vehicle for movies. But if movie theatres die out, streaming services can't generate the same social media buzz, and there's almost no reason (or interest) in awards shows.
Basically, the whole formula for making money on movies will end up changing, similar to the way mp3 killed the music label slavery model. What's probably got these people's goat is that Warner Bros has unilaterally (and unexpectedly) murdered their profits to be made for calendar year 2021 for the movies they already have in the can that was meant for the movie theatres..
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But if movie theatres die out, streaming services can't generate the same social media buzz
There have been quite a few original content Netflix and Prime films and series that have managed to.
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Streaming services have never generated the phenomenon of the LOST water cooler buzz. (Or even the BattleStar Galactica (reboot) buzz among sci-fi geeks.)
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Media was less fragmented then. I don't think pretty much anything will generate that kind of buzz again. Even shows like game of thrones are watched by a tiny minority of the population.
Why should I care if I have not seen latest XXX show or episode? There is so much content that you will never watch even a tiny fraction of it.
Re:Why a danger then? (Score:5, Interesting)
Bingo. Nolan and the rest had contracts that guaranteed them part of the take from box office - and also from licensing the streaming rights. But WB didn't license the streaming rights (Netflix offered them $$$). WB owns HBO MAX, and the contracts apparently didn't anticipate streaming the movies in house. So the studios, directors, and actors have been utterly pwned.
I think part of the change will be a switch to forcing the streaming services to disclose how many times each property is viewed and paying accordingly, at least for cases like these where the streaming service has an ownership interest in the property.
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The shared for wonderful movies that touch us is part of how "cult classics" formed. Sadly, the experience of the Rocky Horror Picture Show or Casablanca have fallen out of favor as so very _many_ movies are so available. The same issue occurs with books as electronic publishing has grown.
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The difference is if in return for writing, acting in, or directing a movie you agreed to be paid a percentage of the box office, but then the movie studio releases it straight to streaming so there is no box office. So you get paid only a fraction of what was projected. Why does Nolan hate HBO Max? WB turned down hundreds of millions of dollars from Netfllix for streaming rights for these movies. The movie creators would have received a portion of that. Instead WB is streaming it on their own service - so
Cost vs. Benefit (Score:3, Interesting)
Going to the movies isn't just the ticket... it's going to the movie theater, waiting for the film to start, and watching it from start to finish without someone saying "stop the movie, I have to go to the bathroom", and then being able to talk about the film afterwards when you and your friends go hang out.
In other words, movies are an excuse to socialize based on a shared experience that you have to sit through. Great film? You can talk about how awesome it is. Terrible film? You can commiserate about how terrible it was, and how you'll never get those hours back in your life. It's about the stories you swap about that film and other films, and the things they remind you of.
Yeah, if I'm going to watch a film by myself, a really nice tricked out home theater is going to beat most movie experiences, unless I'm showing up to a morning matinee with nobody else there. But I'll bet you that they start F-ing up the streaming experience too, by running ads, putting up pop-ups on your screen, and lowering the bitrate as low as they can get away with. At which point, going to the theater will suddenly look good, even if you're just by yourself.
I will say though, day-and-date streaming will be great for parents with kids who otherwise would have to get a baby sitter in order to get out to watch a movie.
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Going to the movies isn't just the ticket... it's going to the movie theater, waiting for the film to start, and watching it from start to finish without someone saying "stop the movie, I have to go to the bathroom", and then being able to talk about the film afterwards when you and your friends go hang out.
In other words, movies are an excuse to socialize based on a shared experience that you have to sit through.
People don't need to sit in the same place at the same time to later have a discussion about a show.
I've discovered that newer generations don't like to be held hostage for long durations of time, and I have to admit, it's happening to me too.
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Since the pandemic started a bunch of my friends and I have been doing a Friday night drinks and a movie get-together, despite being disbursed across about 2000 miles of the US. The only tricky thing is getting the timezones correct. (The DST shift was funny, because one person is in AZ, which doesn't do DST. That caused a couple weeks of confusion as we all adjusted.)
Sure, it's not the full movie experience, but I've got a nice monitor and decent speakers, my best friends even if they're a thousand miles a
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Going to the movies isn't just the ticket... it's going to the movie theater, waiting for the film to start, and watching it from start to finish without someone saying "stop the movie, I have to go to the bathroom", and then being able to talk about the film afterwards when you and your friends go hang out.
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You left out "Having peoplke talk and comment through out it,' "Lighting up the area when they check a text message," "Getting up and walking in fromnt off you to go to the bathroom..."
Movies need to evolve. many films are simply better on a real big screen, such as Star Wars when theaters weren't 10 tiny screens in one place, or on iMax now. 1917 and Into the Blue are recent exmaples of movies better on a big screen. The theater/pub conceopt seems to be a good option - more of an evening out and the theate
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many films are simply better on a real big screen,
So get closer to the TV.
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many films are simply better on a real big screen,
So get closer to the TV.
I do. I hold my iPhone up to my face. Next time I'll buy a Max instead of a mini.
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In other words, movies are an excuse to socialize based on a shared experience that you have to sit through. Great film? You can talk about how awesome it is. Terrible film? You can commiserate about how terrible it was, and how you'll never get those hours back in your life. It's about the stories you swap about that film and other films, and the things they remind you of.
But people have still been doing that throughout 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic has prevented them from not only going to cinemas but even getting together as a bunch of friends to watch something.
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> movies are an excuse to socialize based on a shared experience that you have to sit through
I can do that at home too where I can drink what I want, not pay jacked up prices for food / drink / snacks, pause / rewind and go to the bathroom without missing anything, turn CC on/off, and adjust the volume control.
> going to the theater will suddenly look good, even if you're just by yourself.
NOPE. See above.
Plus, I never have to worry about catching Covid-19 or Covid-21 while at home.
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I much prefer inviting some friends over (pre-covid) and cooking dinner together, watching the movie and then talking afterwards. I find it to be a much better experience. We can also pause the movie or rewind a part if needed.
Need Content to Take on Disney, NF, and Amazon (Score:2)
A full ten-season Game of Thrones would have served that role for them, but instead season 8 was such a far-reaching, brand-damaging TLJ-scale disaster that WB even had to cancel the GoT spinoff series they've already spent a fortune on.
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Yep, all they had to do is keep it going, and we would still be watching GoT now.
Movies Going the Way of Music? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is terrible, because there is no music left. Without Bob Dylan, what else is there? Clearly the Movie companies see the writing on the wall. The only thing my radio receives anymore is talk radio. Music is gone. RIP Music.
Hah! Who is screaming these things? It's always the same type of dramatic sky is falling BS. The music industry has taken off since democratization. More people can listen to more music. If you can offer a $1 movie, to 7.5 billion people, that changes the economics of it all. I'd be happy to see the Movie industry abruptly disrupted.
--
"The answer is blowin' in the wind" - Bob Dylan
Re: Movies Going the Way of Music? (Score:3)
Well, this was already well-know when "copyright" got first introduced in the UK.
Because while Germany, without it, got the name "land of thinkers and poets" during that time, art got stifled in the UK and we now have a information dark age for the UK for that time. Meaning barely anything survived, due to everyting being locked away by "copyright".
And it always was a *distributors'* privilege. People always forget it. It existed, since its beginning, to fuck with creative people, and give distribitors all
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But I agree with the sentiment. Copyright was invented to protect distributors rather than authors. Between the invention of movable type and copyright, the European market for books was one of abundance and low prices that almost anyone could afford. After copyright was established, publishing volumes plummeted and prices went up
Re: Movies Going the Way of Music? (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting thing about your point on books.... there was a Nova episode this year about paper and books that explained something in a way I had never heard.
During the Roman empire, books were not expensive. Well, not like they were later in the European "dark ages". Later in Europe, before the printing press, books were bespoke items, handcrafted at great expense. They were only available to the wealthy.
But a thousand years earlier, books (scrolls) were relatively cheap, sold at books stores and available from libraries. What happened?
Well, Nova had experts on talking about paper. The papyrus paper that was used in Egypt and Rome was smooth. The writing used was easy and flowed quickly on the slick paper. It made the job of copying a book fast - therefore the product was cheaper.
But with the collapse of parts of the Roman empire, access to papyrus was cut off.
So Europe switched to parchment, made from animal skins. It does not slide easily. Writing became slow, and letters changed to the block form familiar in medieval texts, because that careful printing was dictated by the type of paper used.
This took books out of the hands of any but the wealthy, significantly slowing the spread of information.
But it also had an advantage later. When it came time to invent moveable type, the font was already block and uniform. Hence the Guttenberg bible. Meanwhile, Arabic was developed on papyrus, which is slick and encourages a long, flowing hand. Developing a convincing typeface for this was exceedingly difficult, and printed copies of the Koran failed to catch on. They argue that this explains the Islamic world falling behind Europe.... the lack of a viable printing press business.
Really worth a watch.
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Good analogy! (Score:2)
I quit OTA radio in favor of "uploading" audio to reel-to-reel "servers" and "downloading" mixes to cassette when WNEW FM died as an AOR platform. Music has done just fine since then but delivered much differently.
The industry will exist (though the sooner humans are replaced by CGI indistinguishable from meatbags the sooner an artist can realize their vision precisely at lower expense) without theaters. I quit those too because I despise sharing space with modern theater crowds though of course some venues
Nolan is right (Score:2)
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Whether or not movie theaters or streaming will succeed in the next few years is entirely dependent on what the audience does in that time, not the studios. If they flock to the theaters again post-COVID Nolan will be right. If streaming becomes acceptable to enough people that the theaters are no longer profitable than the industry will be forever changed.
Home "Theater" (Score:5, Insightful)
I will be frank, the movie experience at home is finally better than the theaters. Yes, the screen is smaller, and yes even with Atmos the sound is still not as good. That being said it is ten times more comfortable.
There are no endless stream of trailers, there are no talking kids, except of course if your kids are watching with you; and you can take breaks and not lose any action.
Overall, with increasingly better quality TV and sound systems, and faster Internet connectivity, movie nights will just be "family nights" or "having friends over nights".
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I've been to maybe five movies in the past 20 years. Each time, it gets more unpleasant.
I can deal with the commercials, other people, uncomfortable seats and temperatures, etc. But apparently all of my local theaters feel that "loud" is a good substitute for "quality", and so I've always ended up with ear plugs in my ears.
Why yes, I do typically carry some cheap foam earplugs in my pocket and will ensure I have some any time I go to someplace really loud or with tons of conflicting sounds like a lot of pe
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Maybe (well, yes). But this has been true for me for a VERY long time.
Not that I don't like noise - heck I was shooting earlier today including some machine guns (its good to have friends with deep pockets). It was the terrible quality (ie, hear speaker grills rattling, etc)
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This. I haven't been to a theater in years. The last couple of times I went, they had the sound so loud that it was painful. You're sitting in amongst a bunch of strangers, pay outrageous prices for crappy food and drink, the idiot beside you keeps peeking at their phone and the kid behind you is kicking your seat.
Meanwhile, we use a projector at home that provides the same quality of picture. No surround sound, but top-quality stereo speakers. A comfy sofa, no irritating strangers, a pause button, and home
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Because there's a good chunk of people who cannot have a big TV, or surround sound.
Perhaps you live in an apartment. That rules out any form of sound system - a subwoofer is basically a non-starter unless you're purposely trying to be evicted. You just can't get the bass without also transmitting it through the wall or floor. In a standalone single family house, no big deal - even in dense areas where the houses are 6' apart from each other. As long as theres no shared walls, coupling is very poor and the e
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> You just can't get the bass without also transmitting it through the wall or floor.
You can if you suspend it from the ceiling.
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On one hand I do agree the trailers, people talking, etc are annoying. But on the other hand I never go to a movie during prime times nor the first few weeks.
With digital there is no advantage to see a movie when it first releases. No image quality reduction like you get with film by waiting 3 weeks.
First Sunday showings and weekday matinees not only result in low audience, they are cheaper as well.
Re:Home "Theater" (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder how much this has to do with age. A lot of people speak about social experience but I can't relate at this stage of my life. Not because I'm an anti-social misanthrope but because my friends and I don't really talk about movies. I don't consider watching a film to be a social experience and I bond with my friends and family over other, more active and select, interests.
My wife and I will watch movies together but we prefer the couch (that said - our children are grown up and have moved out). If we want to get out of the house for date night then going to see a movie is pretty low on the list of exciting options.
However, when I was a teenager I probably had nothing legitimately in common with my friends. Most school friends are friends just because you went to he same school and didn't know anyone else. At that point in my life I went to a lot of movies with a lot of people.
Younger kids dating and mingling seems like the ideal audience to go see movies together. The same demographic who go to parties and other group activities. When no one actually knows each other but is trying to, that's when you need to force something to talk about.
As an adult who is well past that sage of life, I don't find the idea of sitting quietly in a public place with my friends and family for 2 hours just so we have something to talk about after to be appealing. The more I think about that, the stranger the concept sounds.
Whether films are in danger of dying or not I guess depends on the modern trend of teens and young adults. Is going to a movie still the best way to find something to socialize about or are there better options now? Is it really streaming services hurting movie theatres or things like online gaming and social media that have replaced them as the go-to options for younger people?
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Yeah, pretty much... If the movie doesn't include 00 agents, Jedi, hobbits, the crew of the USS Enterprise, or at least one Avenger or X-Man; I'm waiting for it to hit Blu-Ray/streaming. Nothing else really calls for the big theater screen and sound system anymore. And even then, it's the Alamo Drafthouse or no-go. It's not the studios. It's the march of technology combined with the non-Alamo chains making the theater experience both so miserable and so ridiculously overpriced that the value proposition
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Correct. Especially with the price of even very large screens rapidly dropping and most streaming services now going to 1080p and even 2160p quality streaming.
Warner Bros doesn't have a lot of choice (Score:3)
With cinemas still shut down in quite a few major markets worldwide (including NYC) and with the restrictions in many other markets severely limiting the number of available seats (and with sp many people even in places like Australia that have done well in eliminating the virus still afraid to go back out to the movies) its impossible for a major blockbuster to get anywhere near the bums-in-seats it would normally get (and that it needs to make money) so they have to find a way to release these films that will get them at least some money back on the cost of production.
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Yes people in Australia are still wary of going to the cinema - but at the same time there is nothing worth going to them for.
We have no virus in the community now but without major releases no-one is going to go. The next Bond film would be a major draw but no sign of it yet so....
2019 wasn't the best (Score:5, Informative)
2018 had a higher actual and adjusted for inflation total box office revenue than 2019. And while 2018 was the highest in absolute numbers, after adjusting for inflation it's #18 out of the last 25 years. 2019 is #22.
The inflation-adjusted peak for the box office was 2002, and it's been slowly declining ever since. 2019 was down 21.5% from that peak.
Which isn't to say that the theater experience isn't valuable in its own right, but it's not everything.
If you want people going back to theaters, you need to lower the costs that people have to pay, and to do that, the largest part of your budget is likely to be going to the studios. So if you want people going back to the movies (after dealing with Covid), you know where to start looking.
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And what started to kill the theaters? The arrival of HDTV, the Blu-ray format and now 1080p/2160p streaming. In fact, HDTV is so good that it's actually better to watch an NFL football game at home than watch it in person.
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Doesn't help that there aren't as many big blockbusters than there were in the 90s/early 2000s. If you don't like superhero films there's no point going these days.
For friends and I, theatre for IMAX worthy movies (Score:2)
Re: For friends and I, theatre for IMAX worthy mov (Score:2)
Yes, IMAX and, not to forget, THX.
Because unless you got an audio engineer set up your speaker system and wall covers at home for tens of thousands of dollars, you ain't gonna have that at home.
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I have only been to 1 true IMAX theater. The experience was incredible, but not something most people could squeeze into a home and still afford to pay the bills.
Most theaters are very good setups for really good sound systems to accompany the visual experience. Again, not something that most people could afford to have in their home and be able to pay the bills.
Most of us that have homes will have a TV and maybe some sort of sound system along with a sofa and some chairs.
Those that have apartments or condo
Why are you still using distributors anyway? (Score:1, Troll)
With a name like Christopher Nolan, it's not like you couldn't act like the Internet has been invented, and use Kickststarter and Patreon to get everyone paid, and have your own website with a BitTorrent link, once everyone's been paid.
And yes, if you did a non-infinite amount of work, the pay should also be non-infinite, and end when you stop working. Want more money? Do more work! Like the rest of us!
You're providing a service. You can't act like you are selling a physical object, just because you are so
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Can I have some of what you're smoking?
'Cos it seems like it's REALLY good.
Re: Why are you still using distributors anyway? (Score:1)
And what exactly is inreasonable aboit this? Got any actual arguments beyond it being beyond your mental box?
It's people like you that are the ONLY reason this isn't already a thing for two decades.
First you block it, then you call me crazy "cause it will never happen".
YOU are the problem.
Oh, and how is this "trolling"?? Stop abusing moderation for your mental problems! It's not even your own interests you ae defending at that point!
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Two questions:
1. What are you smoking?
2. Where can I get some of it?
I’ll miss the theater (Score:1)
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At my home of 3 adults the streaming experience will never top a movie theater. The house isn’t lit well for movies. The room won’t allow for theater-like comfortable chairs for everyone. The screen is smaller. The only theater issues I won’t miss are idiots with their phones and someone kicking the back of my chair.
When the first competitor to Netflix appeared I could see where this was headed. Content would be owned by all sorts of companies and there would be no one-stop-shop to watch what you want. Today there are more streaming services than I’m willing to pay for, and I don’t have much interest in adjusting my streaming subscriptions every few months to get the content someone in the house wants.
In 2020 the public education system exposed the problem of who has or doesn’t have internet access at home. The haves and have-nots. The have-nots might be able to see a few theater movies a year. I have a feeling that gets worse when streaming is the only option.
While screen size and output volume in theatres is greater than in most homes is this also only a consequence of the need to house many people in one room. You simply need a big screen when you have countless of rows and want the last row to see, too. And the volume of course is necessary so everyone can hear even with all the background noise that's being created by the people. People also tend to forget how quickly this can backfire. Just sit in the front row on the far left or right and you'll know what
Freedom of Choice (Score:3)
It's not a danger, but a fear some stupid people have. They've been delaying releases out of fear of dying theatres for ages. They fear giving freedom of choice to viewers and allowing them to decide when and where to watch a movie is a danger to them.
It's patronising really, and only we've been making the best of it in all this time.
Good riddance and *clap* *clap* *clap*.
Be happy and choose for yourself. Maybe you'll even rediscover theatres after the pandemic, who knows?
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Agreed! If the theater-going experience is better enough to justify the cost premium then people will always want to go. If it isn't better than people won't choose it.
Why do either the director's or the studio's get to choose? The buying power of the public should decide.
Right now you couldn't pay me to go to a theater and I most definitely would like to see some new movies in the safety of my own home, thank you very much.
Nah (Score:2)
Not to mention, the movies themselves are pretty poor offerings as well. I haven't seen an actually good movie since "Joker", before that, not much either. Remake after remake, woke offerings with incredibly clumsy politics. And yes, Joker was a really good movie, but damn, it was surely not feelgood.
Ok, so invest in smaller movies. (Score:2)
I love movies, I love good movie theaters. But over the past 20 years movie theaters have become little more than event centers for major epic block buster movies. And that's fine, people love epic block buster movies and people love going to theaters to see them.
But very few people are going to theaters anymore to see lower budget movies, like romantic comedies or artsy films. Those are good movies too, but most people don't watch them anymore because theater ticket prices are too expensive. I'm actually e
Enormous success? (Score:1)
In the can (Score:1)
In the case of the vast majority of Hollywood movies, when they say "it's in the can," they have unfortunately put the movie in the wrong can. Instead of streaming, they should just put them in the right can, file 13.
Evolve, Not Die (Score:2)
This change will be good for consumers and movie studios. It will also be good for small specialty theaters that give you more than an uncomfortable seat and a sticky floor.
The large mall movie theater chains will suffer. Too expensive. Too jam packed.
For the past several years, Iâ(TM)ve only gone to a small local theater that was one of the first to put in big recliners. Movies take an extra week or two to get there, but I donâ(TM)t care.
Oscars? Important?! Does anyone even pay attention to award
I can think of two big problems with streaming... (Score:2)
Much as I like on demand streaming, there are two big problems with streaming compared to 'going to the theatre':
1) Experiential: going to a theater is a social event, where you're immersed in the movie in a dark room with no distractions and a huge beautiful screen, so you really get the most out of the movie. And it's a shared experience where you go with friends, talk about the movie afterwards, etc. And you lose/degrade that experience streaming at home, so it's a lesser experience. And the director's g
Let the theaters die already (Score:2)
What good is the National Association of Theater Owners if all they do is shit the bed?
Computer Programmer vs Computer Programmer (Score:2)
Theaters are dinosaurs (Score:2)
...that should be allowed to die
At one time, they were necessary because of technological limitations. Now, those limitations no longer exist.
I hate going to a theater. Drive through traffic, pay to park, wait in line for a ticket, sit in an uncomfortable chair, be forced to watch endless commercials while waiting for the show to start, be interrupted by someone who needs to get past you, miss part of the show if it becomes necessary to go pee, enduring the annoyance of being in large crowds and having no a
What I would do if there were no more theatres: (Score:2)
If there were no more theatres, and everything was 'streaming' (which I hate anyway)? I just wouldn't bother anymore. I'd wait until they were on Redbox and pay a buck to rent a DVD, because if the whole 'experience' is just basically watching TV, then it's not worth the effort when all movies become 'made for TV' movies -- and that's what they'd all become in
Cry me a river (Score:2)
It's not like these movies will be shown exclusively via streaming services, they will be run concurrent with a theatrical release.
The funny part is the folks pitching a fit about it KNOW that, given a choice, most folks would opt out of the theater experience these days.
They're just pissed off because once we have any say so in the matter, their easy money ticket sales are the only thing in danger here.
Building up Subscriptions (Score:2)
Disney has made a huge profit off of their streaming service
So this makes sense, drive up the subscriptions to HBO Max and take the steady stream of profit that will remain even if they release less than stellar movies. The folks who negotiated big profit sharing for first 2 weeks will be hit this time, but in the future I think they'll change their pay model to adapt.
Late 2021 or in 2022 I think people will be back in the rema
Buggy whip salesman cries about cars. (Score:2)
As much as I value going to the theater to see a movie, since the advent of home movie distribution (first rentals, then ownership), the industry (and all the parasitic businesses under it) has had a limited lifespan.
COVID has just accelerated the industry's free-fall.
And these studios don't have many choices.
1: Go out of business
2: Hope that the economy will open again and then proceed to #1 when that doesn't happen.
3: Modify their business model to cut away the dead wood.
While a streaming service requires
I get Nolan's beef (Score:2)
I hope it happens (Score:2)
I hope that all films are "Zero-day" released to streaming and disk. That way perhaps movie theaters will start playing good movies, regardless of age, and stop pushing whatever trash that happens to have been just released.
cue the violins (Score:1)
Sorry nolan, your gravy train might be coming to an end.
Just stream it, Mr. Bond (Score:1)
Mostly good for audiences, bad for Nolan (Score:2)
Moving to streaming will make it easier for people to see movies. It's especially good for small independent films and midlist films that are finding it hard to find their audience in theaters. It's true that most of us don't have home gear that can match the experience of watching in a high end theater, but it's good enough for most movies and most people.
One class of movies is facing a threat: the big effects-driven spectacles with $200+ million budgets. It's not clear whether streaming can produce enough