Steven Spielberg wants us back in the theater, says filmmakers were thrown “under the bus” by streamers
The Fabelmans director Steven Spielberg urges the industry to keep fighting for theatrical releases so audiences can keep getting the experience they deserve
Aux News Steven Spielberg
Take it from Steven Spielberg himself: there’s nothing that can replace the theatrical experience. In a new conversation with The New York Times’ chief film critic A.O. Scott, Spielberg takes on the elephant in the industry: the way the moviegoing experience is fundamentally changing thanks to streaming and Hollywood’s franchise frenzy.
“The pandemic created an opportunity for streaming platforms to raise their subscriptions to record-breaking levels and also throw some of my best filmmaker friends under the bus as their movies were unceremoniously not given theatrical releases,” Spielberg explains. “They were paid off and the films were suddenly relegated to, in this case, HBO Max. The case I’m talking about. And then everything started to change.”
Spielberg’s latest film The Fablemans is an autobiographical coming-of-age story, which warmly chronicles Spielberg stand-in Sammy Fableman’s love affair with cinema. His passion for filmmaking blossoms against the backdrop of his Jewish-American family’s suburban life post-World War II; Michelle Williams and Paul Dano star as his parents, Mitzi and Burt Fableman.
The shift from the world in which Spielberg grew up to today’s industry is enormous, especially post-pandemic. But Spielberg remains hopeful that movies “are going to come back.”
“Certainly, there’s no question that the big sequels and movies from Marvel and DC and Pixar and some of the animated movies and horror films still have a place in society,” Spielberg says. “And hopefully comedies come back, because you can’t laugh as hard at home as you can in an audience.”
Spielberg says this fact really resonated with him during the Toronto International Film Festival screening of The Fablemans, which he says his wife urged him to attend.
“I was terrified, but the movie plays to a big audience of 2,000 people, and in the funny parts, it played like a big comedy,” Spielberg recalls.
In Spielberg’s mind, directors in his position must “demand” that streaming services give their films a fair shot at a wide release—not just a four-theater awards circuit.
“When you’re first starting out, and a streaming service gives you a chance to direct your first movie, of course the streaming service is going to call the shot, but I don’t know anybody that wouldn’t like their movies to be shown on a big screen,” Spielberg says. “I don’t know anyone that would say, no, I’d rather it be shown on an iPad or in a living room.”
32 Comments
I don’t know anybody that wouldn’t like their movies to be shown on a big screen1) Everyone you know is very aware that you’re Steven Spielberg. They’re gonna act accordingly.2) It is ultimately not about what you and your director buddies want, it’s about what consumers want. Idk what they want, but I know that the living room is just fine with me 95% of the time.
That’s the part that always bugs me about these sorts of things… “We want this! It’s important to us!” Cool. But as far as I know, there’s no law, statue, ethos, or moral imperative consumers are obligated to give you ‘that’. Release all the movies you want in all the theaters you want. My personal movie theater experience has paled in comparison to my movie watching experience at home for the overwhelming majority of movies I’ve watched. I’ll watch it at home when it comes available.
Yeah, yell at me all you want directors, I’m gonna go watch big Marvel movies in the theater and I’m gonna watch pretty much everything else from my couch, and I’m not gonna feel bad about it.
Pretty much the same, and I only see those Marvel movies in theaters because otherwise they’ll be totally spoiled long before they hit streaming. Big prestige movie from Spielberg? Cool! I’ll see it in five months when I can rent it for ten dollars in the comfort of my own home, watch it on my big fancy tv with a nice sound bar, and pause it when I need to pee.I think part of it is that Spielberg was born in 1946. For all of his youth you could only see movies in theaters, and even when home video became a thing in the late 70s, the average tv screen was 19 inches and square, so watching at home was not the awesome experience it is today.For sure contracts need to be rewritten so the people involved get fair pay for streaming project to avoid things like the Black Widow fiasco(which I think was eventually settled amicably?), but I think the days of most people seeing a movie for the first time in a theater are long gone, and not coming back.
I can see the nostalgia for that. Theaters were much more common though, there was one on the corner of your neighborhood and you could walk to it, etc. I live in a dense part of the city and the closest theater is still like 20-30 minutes of travel away. There used to be 2 theaters on the block in the 1940s-50s. It’s now a commitment, not just in money but in time.
“And hopefully comedies come back, because you can’t laugh as hard at home as you can in an audience.”As if he goes to see comedies with the hoi polloi anyway
The pandemic absolutely killed comedies and the romantic comedy. Horror and Marvel movies now rule.
Small indie filmmaker complains that he can’t get multiplex distribution for his movie. What?Boomers need to shut the fuck up. I’m saying it. Shut up, Boomers. An aside: I contracted COVID-19 for the first time this week. For something that has been described as just the sniffles or just a flu, it sure doesn’t feel minor. It fucking hurts. And I am up to date with boosters and taking paxlovid.
What’s amusing to me is that the hype over movies being released either the same day-and-date on streaming services as movie theaters or exclusively on streaming only exists because movie theaters still lend an air of prestige to a movie (no matter how shitty the movie is). Take away movie theaters, and a movie landing on a streaming service has all the fanfare of handing the quiet employee a birthday card signed by half the office. The main benefit is ostensibly driving up subscriptions, but as Netflix has recently showed, there’s eventually a plateau. I’m pretty sure movie studios are realizing that, and gradually going back to the way things were pre-pandemic.
and Nicole Kidman lends an air of prestige to movie theaters.Take away movie theaters and she’d just be wandering around the Outback. With the dingo. And a sparkly pinstripe outfit probably isn’t the most appropriate in the Outback with the dingo.
As a consumer the prospect of spending 20x grocery store prices for treats, dealing with traffic, parking, sticking to the floor, and loudmouth fellow patrons Vs. enjoying the same content virtually free with a projector and sound-bar and all the snacks I can stomach for cheap in a controlled environment and not having to drive home afterwards isn’t exactly a tough decision. For every collective cheer, screaming “Yibambe!!!” with the crowd in Avengers, there are a dozen movies ruined by teenage assholes on cellphones. Theatres are no longer the best option for watching film.
You should be buying your treats beforehand and sneaking them into the theater like the rest of us!
touche
Not to mention, all of the directors who keep clamoring about “Watching Cinema in the Theater” probably all have really nice screening rooms in their homes and don’t bother going out to see movies in public themselves. Maybe if they went incognito to visit average theaters that most people have access to, they’d see it’s not as magical a time as they seem to think.
good point.
And it’s the studios themselves that are basically squeezing the life out of movie theatres. The onerous terms that a Disney forces on theatres means that the theatre can only make a buck by over-charging for food and drink at the same time they cut back on the workers that make the experience enjoyable by maintaining the venue. More people would see movies in a theatre if ticket prices weren’t forced into double digits of dollars by the exorbitant costs from the studios and film makers themselves.
1000% this… it is easy for people like Spielberg to want us in theaters because he can control his experience much more than we can.I do understand the psychological/group dynamics can add a lot. Some theaters are run well and keep their audio and video systems working well…. but many do not… and many people are grossly inconsiderate in public.Before film makers advocate so strongly for theaters, I think they should go experience them in the real world for the average consumer.I didn’t even mention cost and time… that is a whole other COW.
I’m a lifelong movie theater lover but I quit going to
anything but small art houses and little revival theaters years ago because
of the lack of anything to see. I like popcorn movies too but jesus, enough is
enough already and Spielberg certainly contributed more than his share to
the problem. Give us some real variety, especially with smaller films, and let
them play for at least a couple of weeks (and offer discounted tickets for
the smaller films and cheaper tickets overall on the slower days and
times). Megaplexes, by the way are fucking awful places.I think the theaters and studios share the blame equally. Both
got bloated on and addicted to overpriced tentpole movies at the expensive
of a more diverse mix while also making the expense of going to the movies
ridiculously high . They threw themselves under the bus. The streamers
simply took advantage of the situation.I personally don’t care for streaming but I don’t begrudge
anyone who does prefers it over the theatrical experience. Both can and
should be able to coexist to everyone’s benefit.
All I can think of upon reading this is the meme, “The Future is Now, Old Man”.
Hate to tell you Steven but our home theater Tvs and setups are getting pretty damn close to a movie theater if you take into account room size and capacity.
Sure, blame the streaming companies for wanting profits in their pricey investments. People who wanted their entertainment got it by whichever means they had at their disposal, and streaming was the most popular way for the studios.How about blaming China for unleashing SARS-CoV-2 to the world, Steven? That fucked up everything, and it ain’t over.
I’m with Spielberg. The theatre is way more convenient place to rub your RockHard boner.
Take it from the Swedish Chef himself:
“De flim is okee-dokee.”
Uh oh…here comes the Av Club Squad to tell the director of some of the most important American movies of all time why he is WRONG!
Why should we return to being held ransom by cinemas when we can get a near same experience in our own homes now? Without the overpriced concessions, sticky and smelly floors, people not giving enough arm room, people asking you to get out of the way and the guy sitting in front of you taking up screen real estate with his huge noggin? And having the ability to pause whenever the need arises.
So why exactly should we return to cinemas?
I guess most theaters are total garbage, at least outside of Los Angeles. Here we have plenty of nice clean theaters with plenty of leg room (the one we usually go to has reclining seats and about a yard of legroom between rows), they aren’t smelly or sticky, and the food is actually pretty good (although I usually don’t bother eating there, I like to focus on the movie).
I prefer watching anything in my own home.
Making movies as terrible as The Batman, where the director somehow “wedged” a two-hour movie into a three-hour running time, don’t provide incentive to hit the theaters.
“We also want you back in the theater!”
I mean, sports figured it out. We can watch games at home, but a lot of people still would rather actually go to the games, despite the costs.
Musician here to remind you that nothing, NOTHING can replace the experience of buying music on a physical format of your choice, from a brick ‘n mortar shoppe. Nor the experience of buying a ticket to a venue to experience music in a live communal setting.Is Mr. S. joining Ol’ Man Scorsese in the Yelling At Clouds Club?
I wonder when the last time Steven had been at a regular theater, with regular people in it. I suspect not very recently and I suspect he’d have a totally different opinion if he did.