Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

https://www.npr.org/2021/07/08/1014095135/barry-diller-headed-2-hollywood-studios-he-now-says-the-movie-business-is-dead

by danso • 5 years ago

249 479 5 years ago

npr.org

Flatcircle4• 5 years ago

I love how he ends the article by saying, “I’m gonna produce plays on Broadway”

arkitaip• 5 years ago

My understanding is that musicals have the exact problem of being way too commerical and basically adaptations of already, mediocre, work. The difference is that the indie scene is even smaller due to the relative costs of creating musicals.

ghaff5• 5 years ago

There's certainly a fairly steady diet of musicals/plays on Broadway/West End that are adapted from popular films. And, while many are well done, they also just feel utterly unnecessary in most cases. (There are exceptions--Network for example.)

werber• 5 years ago

The "movie business" is far from dead, there's an insane amount of production now and the breadth of those productions is far wider. The only death is the exclusivity of the industry, stories like the movie Tangerine (shot on iphones) or the recent release Zola (based on a twitter feed) are reaching audiences along with a ton of others that never would have seen them. Contrary to that, the highest grossing films of all time are mostly within this century and past decade now. There is more representation and choice in video content now than ever before, even if the movie theater industry might not ever go back to it's heyday. I personally am fine with more tailored content, tv or film, beamed into my home on demand over going to a theater

indigodaddy4• 5 years ago

Also, the Indian movie scene appears to be exploding. Prime knows I’m into Indian movies, and so I’ve noticed a huge uptick in year 2021 Indian movies in my Prime feed. Must be like 5 or 10 new ones added per week. And they look like good quality movies. Indian cinema has really come a long way, and Netflix and Prime are really the catalysts for that and are spurring that industry along.

lapetitejort2• 5 years ago

I've moved from watching movies and TV shows without end to watching limited series/anthology shows. The format hits the sweet spot between watching a self contained story and the anticipation of a TV show. I don't think the format gets the love it deserves, but networks like Disney+ (most of Marvel's recent outings), Netflix (Godless, Russian Doll, Alias Grace, The Queen's Gambit, The Haunting of Hill House), and HBO (The Night Of, Watchmen, The Outsider) certainly understand the benefits and have been amassing a quiet army of content.

indigodaddy4• 5 years ago

Have you caught Mare of Easttown with Kate Winslet on HBO? Tremendous.

QuesnayJr• 5 years ago

I liked every limited run TV show you mentioned that I've seen (Russian Doll, The Queen's Gambit, Watchmen), so I think maybe I should watch the rest.

nebula88042• 5 years ago

or the recent release Zola (based on a twitter feed) are reaching audiences along with a ton of others that never would have seen them.

This is just an anecdote but my local AMC theater in upper NJ is playing Zola and on Saturday night the theater was empty. I was the only one in the room. Are these movies actually making money? It seems like the demand is not really there for anything other than Superhero movies.

jmcgough• 5 years ago

Contrary to that, the highest grossing films of all time are mostly within this century and past decade now

That's only true if you don't adjust for inflation: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/chart/top_lifetime_gross_adjus...

ilamont• 5 years ago

”I used to be in the movie business where you made something really because you cared about it," he said, noting that popular reception mattered more than anything else.

What arrogance.

rajin444• 5 years ago

Really? At least in the US, most movies are either remakes or oscar grabs (which while novel somehow manage to be predictable and dull).

howaboutnope3• 5 years ago

How is that arrogant?

georgeecollins• 5 years ago

I think the OP means that this is a person-- late in a storied career-- saying in effect: "We used to care about art, now they only care about money."

Memory is kind. Barry Diller's Paramount made Orca, Bad News Bears Go to Japan, etc. Art and commerce were always mixed. The arrogance is in being able to convince yourself it was different in the old days without risk of being contradicted.

Still, you have to admire Barry Diller.

dbsmith83• 5 years ago

I think you missed the point. He's saying that now things are made with other purposes in mind (like Amazon Prime). Obviously the people on the ground creating the thing care about it, but at the top things probably look different than they used to.

"The system is not necessarily to please anybody," Diller said, suggesting Prime Video's primary purpose is to get more customers to sign up for Amazon Prime.

MrBuddyCasino• 5 years ago

Also its such horse shit. Surprised someone like him said something like that. Nothing much has come from this "l'art pour l'art" approach, because as it turns out you need to make money from films to keep the industry running, first and foremost. When you have a large industry, ideally locally concentrated, you also have a large talent pool of the best of the best actors, directors, writers etc. Sometimes this then results in art, but usually not.

If you don't have a large talent pool fuelled by financial prosperity, you lack the prerequisites to create works of the highest quality.

howaboutnope3• 5 years ago

Sometimes this then results in art, but usually not.

In other words, nothing much comes from it.

tootie• 5 years ago

He's basically saying he doesn't like it anymore and it's not fun. Not that it's not active or making money.

sharken2• 5 years ago

The business of running movie theatres is what he is talking about and it's certainly changing.

In Denmark the movies Godzilla vs. Kong, Nomadland and Black Widow will not be shown in major cinemas.

The reason is that Warner Bros. and Disney (Marvel) have either shortened the exclusivity period (Warner Bros) or set the streaming premiere at the same day the movie airs in cinemas (Disney).

The core of the issue is that the cinemas have to pay the same amount although the terms are clearly worse.

I can't help but think that the loss in sales of merchandise will take a hit, but i could be wrong and things will continue as they are now.

_trampeltier• 5 years ago

I'm a cinema guy, go to cinema about once a week. But to be honest, nobody misses movies like Godzilla vs. Kong. I think one of the worst movies ever.

iab• 5 years ago

Now now, let’s not be too hasty to make that determination until we’ve seen what fast & furious 9 has to offer

toast0• 5 years ago

If you think Godzilla vs Kong was one of the worst movies ever, I don't think you've watched very many movies.

I'd put The Wickerman (either version), The Fountain, and The Final Countdown (1980, nothing to do with the song, sadly) as easily worse than Godzilla vs Kong, and that's just off the top of my head.

It's certainly not a great movie, but it's well in-line with what you would expect from the title; slightly plausible plot, big monsters fighting in cities, trademark roar. Nowhere near the best movies, but strongly in the middle.

tibbydudeza• 5 years ago

Fast and Furious Marvel

So what other movies are there ???.

OzzyB• 5 years ago

Fast and Furious Marvel - Jack Snyder Cut

k12sosse• 5 years ago

It broke new ground subverting all those expectations!

afavour2• 5 years ago

The actual quote (with my emphasis added):

"The movie business *as before* is finished and will never come back."

And I think that's correct. Superhero blockbusters taking over all box office receipts was one thing, but now those blockbusters are becoming deeply tied to streaming services like Disney+ that's bringing content into people's homes and away from movie theatres.

I won't mourn movie theatres (though I hope places emulate the likes of Alamo Drafthouse and do dinner, drinks and let us make an evening out of watching a movie), but I do worry about things like movie financing. It feels the industry has split in two, either making super-expensive superhero blockbusters or super cheap indie films.

It makes me feel like a grouch to complain about the uber-popular, widely loved thing but this intertwined superhero universe exhausts me. I don't want to have to watch three previous movies and two TV shows to fully enjoy the movie that's in front of me. So I watch a lot more limited series TV instead... and maybe that's just fine?

klodolph• 5 years ago

TV shows have also gotten more prestigious, and so the people who would have been telling their stories as movies may be making TV shows instead. The article compares traditional movies to movies from streaming services, and I just think that’s avoiding the elephant in the room.

The change started happening slowly in the late 1990s, but at this point I’d say that the change has happened and we’re in a golden age of television. In the 1990s, TV was seen as a step down from movies in terms of cultural prestige, but nowadays we have A-list actors starring in TV shows with budgets over $10M per episode. The formats for TV shows have changed, too, and you’re much more likely to see TV shows written as six-episode or eight-episode seasons. They can be much more like a big, long movie, rather than a short TV show.

(Of course, the UK has produced six-episode TV series since forever.)

Still, I recently rewatched a few episodes of Siskel and Ebert, and it made me a bit sad to think about just how many movies were coming out every year during the 1990s, and remember being excited to go to the theater. Rewatching some 1990s movies, there are shots that just don’t have the right impact in typical home theaters.

mbg721• 5 years ago

Roots in the 1970s (and The Thorn Birds afterwards) was notable for being a widely-viewed blockbuster miniseries, so the concept was there; without streaming, it was just hard to get an audience to watch every episode at the right time.

edgyquant4• 5 years ago

I think Breaking Bad really set the stage for TV shows being good film. Whether you like the show or not it had a clear and defined story and ended after 5 seasons where most shows before would just run until their ratings dropped.

res0nat0r• 5 years ago

There are more amazing high budget TV series out now than I have time to keep up with. Many of them are foreign also. It went into overdrive after The Sopranos, so has been going steady for 20+ years.

Anyone complaining "nothing good" anymore just either have terrible taste, or don't know how to do simple searching for new content. Same for movies IMO. There are good films everywhere on almost all the streaming platforms too if you just look for them.

iamacyborg3• 5 years ago

It makes me feel like a grouch to complain about the uber-popular, widely loved thing but this intertwined superhero universe exhausts me. I don't want to have to watch three previous movies and two TV shows to fully enjoy the movie that's in front of me.

They’ve also just become quite formulaic and as a result, boring.

ghaff5• 5 years ago

Reputedly at least in part because of the increased importance of non-English speaking markets, even the better action movies are so dominated by long action sequences that they really detract for me.

And to the parent point, on top of that, I'm now expected to understand at least some of the intricacies of a complex movie/TV universe that I don't really care that deeply about.

handrous7• 5 years ago

I won't mourn movie theatres (though I hope places emulate the likes of Alamo Drafthouse and do dinner, drinks and let us make an evening out of watching a movie), but I do worry about things like movie financing. It feels the industry has split in two, either making super-expensive superhero blockbusters or super cheap indie films.

I'm informed by my cinemaphile friend that exactly this phenomenon has been much remarked upon in the last 15-20 years. Mid-budget films, which used to be very common, are mostly dead, leaving a couple kinds of low-budget film (the startup-model where you put out a ton of cheap movies and hope one is the next Blair Witch—and yes, most of this is horror—and the "indie" film kind) and the mega-budget ones that are basically investment vehicles. So, two kinds of films that exist because those models are the best ROI, and then indie films, and that's about it.

Meanwhile, there are still tons of good films coming out, but most are (broadly) in the "indie" bucket. People who complain that nothing good is made anymore[0] must just be looking at what's advertised heavily, is all I can figure. Dozens of good-to-great movies come out every year, including a whole bunch from the US.

[0] Then there's "it's all remakes now"—but 1) it's not, and 2) Hollywood started churning out tons of remakes about as early in their history as they possibly could, and never stopped.

roymurdock• 5 years ago

Can you recommend some good movies from last/this year? Have been digging into old movies to get my fix recently thinking there wasn't anything good out.

nineplay2• 5 years ago

People who complain that nothing good is made anymore must just be looking at what's advertised heavily

I can't speak for everyone but I think it's hard to find anything 'fun'. The indie films inevitably seem to be deadly serious, whether it's terrible crimes or failing relationships or the inevitably of death. If a viewer wants 'fun' then they're stuck with formulaic superhero blockbusters.

It feels different. Spielberg was fun, Lucas was fun, Hitchcock was fun. Perhaps they were the outliers even during their times, but it seems like all that sense of adventure has been sucked into the big franchises and mangled into these lowest-common-dementor films. The international market wants big explosions and 'clever' comebacks.

mywacaday• 5 years ago

What would have been considered a mid budget film?

majormajor2• 5 years ago

The good news is that an indie film on zero budget from the 90s was much more technologically limited than it is today, so access to fancy cameras matters less than it did then, and it lets talent shine more.

iNane9000• 5 years ago

How do I find these movies? Amazon has some old, mostly low quality movies, but nothing good or recent. They got rid of the criterion collection years ago. Sincere question: How does one even find or acquire films today? I’d love to watch a movie, but literally don’t know how to go about it anymore. Netflix is not an answer as most of their content are not movies and basically spam to me.

munificent3• 5 years ago

Then there's "it's all remakes now"—but 1) it's not,

It really is, if by "remake" you mean all ways of leveraging existing IP. Here are the top ten box office films of 2020:

    * Bad Boys for Life (sequel)
    * Sonic the Hedgehog (videogame)
    * Birds of Prey (comic book)
    * Dolittle (book)
    * The Invisible Man (book)
    * The Call of the Wild (book)
    * Onward (original)
    * The Croods: A New Age (sequel)
    * Tenet (original)
    * Wonder Woman 1984 (sequal, comic book)

Two originals. Now go back 20 years:

    * Mission: Impossible 2 (sequel)
    * Gladiator (book)
    * Cast Away (original)
    * What Women Want (original)
    * Dinosaur (original)
    * How the Grinch Stole Christmas (book)
    * Meet the Parents (remake)
    * The Perfect Storm (book)
    * X-Men (comic book)
    * What Lies Beneath (original)

Four originals. Go back another 10 years:

    * Ghost (original)
    * Home Alone (original)
    * Pretty Woman (original)
    * Dances with Wolves (book)
    * Total Recall (short story)
    * Back to the Future Part III (sequel)
    * Die Hard 2 (sequel)
    * Presumed Innocent (book)
    * Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (comic book)
    * Kindergarten Cop (original)

Five originals. Another ten years to 1980:

    * The Empire Strikes Back (sequel)
    * 9 to 5 (original)
    * Stir Crazy (original)
    * Airplane! (original)
    * Any Which Way You Can (sequel)
    * Private Benjamin (original)
    * Coal Miner's Daughter (original)
    * Smokey and the Bandit II (sequel)
    * The Blue Lagoon (book)
    * The Blues Brothers (SNL sketch)

Five originals again. I'm going by top box-office gross here because I think that's a good proxy for what is successful. You can look at other years, but there is a very clear (but not overwhelming) trend towards movies based on familiar content. It's not clear whether studios are leading audiences or vice versa. Probably some iterative process of both.

There's also a clear trend away from dramas. I think that's because drama (and non-slapstick comedies) tend to rely heavily on specific cultural norms for their effect which makes them translate poorly. There is a very clear trend especially in the last decade or so of Hollywood focusing on movies that will also do well in China in particular.

watwut3• 5 years ago

People who complain that nothing good is made anymore[0] must just be looking at what's advertised heavily, is all I can figure.

That would be me. I am utterly uninterested in superheroes and found movies I seen last years somewhere between boring repetitive and annoying. Tho I liked parazite and some of other international splash making movies. At minimum they used different tropes.

I have no idea where those fun indie movies are nor how to find them. Like, where should I go to be able to find some I might like?

masayune• 5 years ago

how do you find these good, low budget movies? would love to know your discovery process

reaperducer3• 5 years ago

Hollywood started churning out tons of remakes about as early in their history as they possibly could, and never stopped.

Very true. From the 1930's until now, the percentage of Hollywood films that aren't recreations of an earlier film, a book, or a play is vanishingly small.

To be sure, there is still a good number of original films, even big-name ones, but those are very few and far between.

sigzero• 5 years ago

I will mourn movie theaters. Some shows are just 100% better in that environment.

js8• 5 years ago

I won't. I am from Czechia and maybe the culture here was different, but it used to be that movie theaters were somewhat like a normal theater, where you are supposed to be mostly quiet, behave, and not eat and litter during the show.

But modern multiplexes have changed that etiquette, and it's hard for me to stand it. And the advertisements...

dijit• 5 years ago

There’s a cinema in Malmö, Sweden called “Spegeln” (meaning: Mirror in Swedish) which exemplifies the cinema experience for me. I would hate to lose it.

https://www.tripadvisor.se/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g189839-d...

spoonjim• 5 years ago

It feels the industry has split in two, either making super-expensive superhero blockbusters or super cheap indie films.

The great mid-budget content is now in Streaming TV, but if you’re wedded to the feature film format, try watching anything from A24 films.

It makes me feel like a grouch to complain about the uber-popular, widely loved thing but this intertwined superhero universe exhausts me.

I haven’t seen a superhero movie since 1999’s Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Just stop watching them, you won’t become culturally isolated.

ffggvv• 5 years ago

what if i told you that you can just ignore them. just like you probably don’t listen to taylor swift despite her being popular

spywaregorilla3• 5 years ago

It makes me feel like a grouch to complain about the uber-popular, widely loved thing but this intertwined superhero universe exhausts me. I don't want to have to watch three previous movies and two TV shows to fully enjoy the movie that's in front of me. So I watch a lot more limited series TV instead... and maybe that's just fine?

To me, this is like complaining that you don't want to have to read the Fellowship of the Ring to fully enjoy the Return of the King.

sidlls• 5 years ago

Almost nobody expects their "cotton candy" entertainment to require that level of effort regularly. It's fine if a small handful of things based on prior art ("Return of the King") are around; healthy even. When that's all there is, though, that seems like a problem.

JKCalhoun2• 5 years ago

Also quote:

"These streaming services have been making something that they call 'movies,' " he said. "They ain't movies. They are some weird algorithmic process that has created things that last 100 minutes or so."

Funny. That would be my description of the block buster action films since "Raiders of the Lost Ark".

at_a_remove• 5 years ago

I soured on the superhero franchise business due to a combination of factors (the out of character Man of Steel, that first boilerplate Thor film, the ghastly Green Lantern, and finally reading Worm made everything else seem shallow by comparison) and have stepped back to look at it as an industry in a kind of spiral of intolerance to risk.

They want product, they want it on a pipeline, they want guaranteed returns and they do not want to gamble about it. This has been true for a long time but we're seeing a difference of degree here. Movie production is not merely evolving but speciating -- and I think the new species is going to look like a subscription streaming service (with tie-in product) that releases dopamine-tweaking algorithmic product on the kind of tick-tock schedule for which Intel longs.

ping_pong4• 5 years ago

they want guaranteed returns and they do not want to gamble about it

This is how Hollywood is. It's the same as Silicon Valley. They don't want to gamble if they don't have to, they both just want as much money as possible.

elmers-glue• 5 years ago

I don't want to have to watch three previous movies and two TV shows to fully enjoy the movie that's in front of me.

And then you still won't enjoy it, I promise you.

KingMachiavelli• 5 years ago

And I think that's correct. Superhero blockbusters taking over all box office receipts was one thing, but now those blockbusters are becoming deeply tied to streaming services like Disney+ that's bringing content into people's homes and away from movie theatres.

What's interesting is that the industry has repeatedly been broken up due to antitrust & anti-competition issues. It will be interesting to see how things stand in 10-15 years; will consolidation eventually bring government action or do we now accept 3-4 major players as being sufficient competition.

quickthrowman3• 5 years ago

It makes me feel like a grouch to complain about the uber-popular, widely loved thing but this intertwined superhero universe exhausts me.

I feel the same way and here is how I approached it: buy a bunch of DIS stock, don’t watch superhero movies.

elliekelly• 5 years ago

I don't want to have to watch three previous movies and two TV shows to fully enjoy the movie that's in front of me.

I feel like I “missed” the beginning of all the super hero franchises and, even though I’m sure I’d enjoy them, I’m just not interested because getting caught up enough to understand what’s going on in the newer films feels like such a daunting undertaking.

At the start of the pandemic I thought maybe I’d finally watch them all only to find out there isn’t even really an agreed upon order they should be watched!

It’s an odd and (I think) new phenomenon: that someone can lack the prerequisites to watch a movie. Even worse: no one can quite agree on what exactly those prerequisites are.

tshaddox3• 5 years ago

It’s an odd and (I think) new phenomenon: that someone can lack the prerequisites to watch a movie.

There’s nothing new about sequels and movie series. The only difference with Marvel movies might be that they are a lot of films and they tend to be some of the most popular films.

Even worse: no one can quite agree on what exactly those prerequisites are.

Fans might enjoy discussing nuances of different viewing orders, but I think it’s pretty undeniable that you can’t go too wrong watching them in the order they were released.

vincentmarle• 5 years ago

I don't want to have to watch three previous movies and two TV shows to fully enjoy the movie that's in front of me.

I recently started watched Loki on Disney+, 3 episodes in, I still have no idea who Loki is, where he comes from, what his intentions are and what he is capable of...

Same problem with WandaVision. I agree, it's exhausting.

romanhn• 5 years ago

Those shows most definitely assume prior knowledge of the universe. That said, having avoided "superhero movies" for years (due to not being impressed with random one-offs that I watched), I finally bit the bullet and watched the whole set in order with my kids and it made a huge difference, with enormous payoff in Infinity War and Endgame. FWIW, I think both WandaVision and Loki are fantastic.

ping_pong4• 5 years ago

When was the last great comedy movie you've seen in the movie theatres? I posed this question to my buddies and we were genuinely stumped. For me it was probably early 2000s, but nothing in the last 15 years that's for sure.

coolspot• 5 years ago

“Parasite”, right before COVID.

Earlier - “Nice Guys”.

tshaddox3• 5 years ago

When’s the last time your “list of great comedy movies” got a new entry, regardless of whether you saw the new entry in the cinema or even if it was a new film at the time you saw it?

darren_• 5 years ago

What We Do In The Shadows

(disclaimer of bias: NZer)

gamblor956• 5 years ago

Hollywood's biggest film have always been adaptations of existing material. Some of the most regarded films of all time, like the Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, the Godfather, Lawrence of Arabia, and Chinatown, are themselves merely adaptations of books.

chipotle_coyote2• 5 years ago

...though I hope places emulate the likes of Alamo Drafthouse and do dinner, drinks and let us make an evening out of watching a movie...

I have a suspicion that this is the direction surviving movie theatre chains will move toward.

Something that hasn't been remarked on too much but that I think might be significant is that a long-standing antitrust regulation that prevented movie studios (the "Paramount Decree") from owning their own theatre chains was sunsetted in August 2020, which means that starting in August 2022 studios can start running their own theatres again -- and I think that's very likely to happen. Disney won't just tie their blockbusters to Disney+, they'll tie them Disney-owned theatres that provide theme park like experiences. Other studios will join in on this.

It makes me feel like a grouch to complain about the uber-popular, widely loved thing but this intertwined superhero universe exhausts me. I don't want to have to watch three previous movies and two TV shows to fully enjoy the movie that's in front of me.

Despite mostly really enjoying said superhero universe, I've been feeling that recently, too. I can't help but suspect this has a point of diminishing returns; next year we're going to be entering a "phase" of the MCU that's going to build not only on the past twenty-odd movies but now the past Disney+ streaming shows.

sisk• 5 years ago

Sure, the _amount_ of content has grown given the lowered technological barrier for entry and the ease of distribution but content quality isn't some finite resource that is spread out within some limit. If anything, more content means more opportunities for truly great stories to come from corners of the world that might not have previously had that opportunity due to any number of reasons.

Plus, these channels have opened up more categories of film to wider audiences. Big budget, full length films and multi-season tv series aren't the only viable options anymore—some of the most talked about media in my circles over the last couple of years have been limited series. Try dragging a brilliant 8 hour limited series across an entire 23 episode season or trimmed down to a two hour film and it's a completely different story.

Brilliant film makers are still brilliant film makers and the number of studios willing to take a chance and fund them has never been greater. The traditional movie-watching experience is still here, it's just no longer the only option. I don't think declaring the movie business as dead is accurate, it has simply evolved and adapted. But from where I sit, this evolution has just given us more stories and more ways to hear them.

Just because you can distribute a story without a year-long PR blitz doesn't mean you can't tell a good story.

jeffreyrogers• 5 years ago

It's unfortunate, but I think he's probably right. Some movies are just better in theater. The experience of watching Mad Max: Fury Road in theater vs at home is a night and day difference.

iamacyborg3• 5 years ago

Depends on your home setup, a big screen and some big speakers go a long way

yepthatsreality2• 5 years ago

I agree. No sticky floor, no person behind me that decided to take off their giant winter coat when the movie started (instead of previews), no people ruining my immersion because they have to pull out their pocket PC to address their attention deficit, no large groups of people clapping at every character reveal during a film or audibly cheering on the protagonists, no untrusted heavily farted-in seating, no reduced premium of the experience because big corp decided to save a few bucks by cleaning less, no overpriced concessions, no lines.

What I do miss is "going out" to see a movie. Alamo Drafthouse has a good model that entices "going out" but most chains couldn't shift to adapt to a similar model. Auto-managed streaming quality is something I don't really like either, let me buffer my own selection.

jbay8082• 5 years ago

Living in an expensive area like Vancouver, a home theater might not be an option. Most of my friends rent a room in a sharehouse where they're not allowed to have guests, or where the TV is a communal area. Others live in basement suites with noise rules and can watch TV by themselves but not with friends. The theatre is much better for watching a movie with a group, unless you're very wealthy.

croes2• 5 years ago

How big is your screen? I bet cinema screen is bigger.

mihaic• 5 years ago

What I find exhausting is having any systemic criticism of the movie/music industry met with arguments along the lines of: "It was just different, you're merely nostalgic/you have golden age syndrome", and have a hard time answering back with anything except: "It really was better, sometime things do get substantially worse".

While technologically everything has improved, creativity feel like going from the golden age of the greco-roman world to 8th century Europe, where indie bands/movies are like the churches that preserved some measure of past glories. What argument can one make when the burden of proof is to show cultural regression?

scandox• 5 years ago

I find the cure to this frustration is to accept that everything I love is obsolete and that it's OK. As you say there are historical periods we now look back upon and say objectively they took a step backwards in terms of skill and artistry in many areas. But we don't know if this is that period, because maybe the creativity is shifting into something we can't yet observe clearly.

cblconfederate• 5 years ago

It's more like, the spotlight has shifted away from the medium and creative people have left. Old movies, like old books, are by definition more important. Looking at the highest grossing movies of the past 2 decades almost all are based on older stories/franchises, from star wars to marvel , to LOTR, to harry potter (newest one).

spywaregorilla3• 5 years ago

They're wrong, and the reason they believe it is because they're stuck on older mediums. In music, the radio and the record store defined the market. You had a small window so you invested big and mainstream stuff tended to be pretty good. Now music access is decentralized and you can chase a long tail of niche personal tastes. Music is incredibly healthy right now. There's so much great content going in myriad different directions, but you'd think otherwise if you're only listening to the radio which has tripled down on non-differentiating hyper mainstream blandness.

Movies are largely the same with streaming. The movie theater model is rough. Even before streaming the vast majority of movie tickets go unsold, and to many people there's a sort of social group requirement to justify going there. So you get mass appeal as a requirement. But the actual space of film has more richness than ever before. People who say the only films are marvel films just don't know about the other films being released.

Apocryphon8• 5 years ago

I think both you and the GP are conflating the movie and music industries a little too much, but I agree with your points more. Music is indeed going through a renaissance, and tech has very much helped with discoverability of indie artists. Movies I feel are a different medium as they are more capital and resource-constrained. It's more difficult to cultivate a long tail of indie films that can match those of the blockbusters (whereas music quality between major label and indie is far more fungible).

On the other hand, if one was to lower the definition of "movie" to moving pictures entertainment, there is a bonanza of content on YouTube and other video streaming services. But they are not in the same format of traditional movies.

fullshark4• 5 years ago

I'm with you on music, but movies? These streaming services are all making the same type of content, and browsing any streaming service for content just feels like looking at a wall of direct to video films at your local video store from 20 years ago + cable TV shows.

Maybe it's because trying new music is so costless compared to new movies/tv shows and I'm ignorant? Maybe it's because good music can be made for a lot less money? IDK but this hardly feels like the beginning of a golden age of long tail movies.

throwamon• 5 years ago

The plural of medium (in this context) is media.

mywittyname• 5 years ago

What argument can one make when the burden of proof is to show cultural regression?

Maturing industries lose diversity as they trend towards optimization. This is something that is bound to happen regardless of industry. America has far fewer automotive manufactures than it 100 years ago and diversity has suffered; same goes for soda manufactures, etc.

With about any industry, you can gauge how mature it is by the diversity it has achieved. It starts with one or two who demonstrate the viability of the market, then there is an explosion of interest as many people break in, trying different strategies to gain market share, then the few winners consolidate the industry. Sometimes, the big players rest on their laurels and an upstart takes hold, but they are usually acquired by the establishment or their strategy is emulated then they are crushed by the inherent resource imbalance.

The big movie studios know what works and they are going to stick to that. Occasionally a Pixar will come along and disrupt the market, but when that happens, a Disney is going to step in and acquire them and change or adapt their formula to prevent another upstart.

fullshark4• 5 years ago

It's hard to refute, cause it really is true that everyone's most instrumental pop culture experiences happened when they were 10-25 years old. I think one thing that is fascinating is how popular iconography and music/films from 20+ years ago still is. Like I see teenagers wearing t-shirts with NOFX or Van Halen on them, instead of Billie Eilish.

https://www.hottopic.com/tees/music-tees/?cm_sp=LP-_-TeesGri...

Ultimately the post WW2 period was the birth of mass media youth culture, this was a truly revolutionary thing culturally speaking, and everything else has been a series of progressively less meaningful waves as we have 75 years of music/films artfully expressing what it means to be young.

Apocryphon8• 5 years ago

Like I see teenagers wearing t-shirts with NOFX or Van Halen on them, instead of Billie Eilish.

Same as it always was. (SPIN magazine, April 2005):

https://books.google.com/books?id=3ftHVmAonmoC&lpg=PA107&dq=...

A few days after the Orange Bowl, I saw the video for Simpson's "La La." In one segment, she wears a vintage Adam and the Ants T-shirt; later, she wears a Motley Crue shirt. I suppose it's theoretically possible that Ashlee Simpson honestly likes those bands. But within the context of this video, her identification with them does not feel remotely organic; it feels like somebody put a lot of thought into whom Ashlee should align herself with. All young artists do this, but some are less subtle than others. I once saw singer/songwriter Leona Naess perform in Cleveland wearing a ZZ Top T-shirt. "I don't even know who this band is," she said between songs. "I just like this shirt." Naess played Minneapolis on the same tour, but this time she wore an Aerosmith T-shirt. "I don't even know who this band is," she said between songs. "I just like this shirt." Obviously, this was an attempt at cultural positioning: Leona Naess wanted to appear like the kind of girl who (somehow) had never heard of ZZ Top and Aerosmith, just as Ashlee Simpson wants to appear like the kind of girl who's intimately aware of Motley Crue and Adam Ant. Yet both artists failed in their attempts, and that's because even a child could tell they were trying way too hard. And people hate that.

danbolt• 5 years ago

Throughout the COVID-19 restrictions, I've been writing little games that run on the Nintendo 64. I was born in the early 1990s and liked to play video games as a child, so the platform has some nostalgia now that I'm older.

What's surprised me though is the amount of times I've received questions from teenagers about how to make Nintendo 64 games. Given their ages, I would have thought something like the Nintendo DS might have been more interesting to them.

It reminded me of when Nintendo was marketing repackaged 1980s NES games to me as a child. [1] I remember being interested in them partially because of being exposed to nostalgia from others online. Part of me wonders if a bit of institutional momentum can help give a brand more of an edge for some audiences.

[1] https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/Classic_NES_Series

ElViajero• 5 years ago

What argument can one make when the burden of proof is to show cultural regression?

First, you will need to give examples of what kind of movies you find "creative" that were done in the past and there is no current equivalent for that level of creativity.

"Jojo Rabbit", "Parasite", "Blade Runner 2049", "Coco", "Lady Bird", "Arrival", "The Nice Guys", ... that is the past 5 years with one almost missing because the pandemic. Is any of that any good for you?

What do you think that it was so creative in the past and has no comparation today?

karmelapple2• 5 years ago

Thanks for reminding me of The Nice Guys. That was well-done... all of these were.

Still haven't seen Blade Runner 2049 ... which is the only sequel on that list, so I perhaps that's why!

k__• 5 years ago

"I used to be in the movie business where you made something really because you cared about it,"

I had the impression,the movie business was a shit show for at least half a century now.

JKCalhoun2• 5 years ago

Yeah, the big studios for sure. It's like he's describing indie films.

flybrand• 5 years ago

We’ve got a family love of the Fast and Furious movies - we got a big group to go see it yesterday. The movie is awful, it could be my last experience ever in a theatre.

mullingitover2• 5 years ago

We're arguably repeating history, where 100 years ago film was the upstart (but rapidly growing) business and vaudeville was the established incumbent. Film offered far more creative possibilities and were dramatically more immersive than the entertainment it replaced.

Today the film industry is the incumbent - profits have peaked, and the upstart video game business has already eclipsed it. Once again, video games have far more creative possibilities and are dramatically more immersive than the films they're replacing.

outlawBand• 5 years ago

...but there is a huge percentage of the population that doesn't like / play video games.

mullingitover2• 5 years ago

It's true, and yet even with a lot of people not being gamers[1]:

Global videogame revenue is expected to surge 20% to $179.7 billion in 2020, according to IDC data, making the videogame industry a bigger moneymaker than the global movie and North American sports industries combined.

So the fact that there are still lots of people who aren't gamers just means that the video game industry has plenty of room for growth.

[1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/videogames-are-a-bigger-in...

merlincorey• 5 years ago

Plenty of them are willing to watch people play video games, even if they don't want to play them.

metalliqaz2• 5 years ago

the "gaming" industry includes mobile games and things like slot machines, in addition to the big consoles that most people think of.

I think there are more "gamers" than you might think.

Flatcircle4• 5 years ago

Video Games are still priced extremely high, like home video cassettes were in the 80's.

MetaWhirledPeas• 5 years ago

I'm an avid gamer, but video games are in no position to replace films. The mediums are fundamentally different. A film is a story being told. A videogame is a template to explore your own story, some more filled out than others.

If you want to merely argue that video games will win the battle for people's time I could see that. My guess is movies will be like books; maybe not the biggest kid on the block, but eternally popular. You can't say that for vaudeville.

mackrevinack• 5 years ago

a gaming system is much more expensive than a dvd player so i can't ever see it becoming the norm. there's also the problem of having to upgrade your system every 10 or so years and your old games possibly not working on the new system

jollybean• 5 years ago

He's right and it's sad.

One positive note though is that 2 hours is very short - often not long enough to explore a story.

Series formats mean they can take the time they need.

That said, often they end up being filler.

socialist_coder2• 5 years ago

I think "Movies", as we remember them from the decades of yore, will have a resurgence in the near future due to 2 things:

1) The demand for movies outside of what the streaming services are making.

2) Most aspects of movie production go completely digital to bring costs down astronomically.

The easiest way to embrace digital is to just make an animated movie that looks animated with some interesting cool art style / rendering techniques. Maybe the boomer generation doesn't respond well to animation, but Gen X and Millennials are fine with it.

Otherwise, just look at The Mandalorian for an example of what they've been able to do digitally. A huge huge huge Unreal Engine powered screen, instead of your typical green screen. It is linked to the camera so you get proper depth and angles as the camera moves. The lighting is realistic since the screen is actually shooting light onto the actors and props. And the director can see the composition of the shot in real time.

As more aspects of production will go digital like this, costs will go way down. And hopefully we can have our "movies" again =)

Damogran6• 5 years ago

Which will impact the QUANTITY of movies produced, but not necessarily the QUALITY. Granted, there's always been B-movies (and D-list actors), but surfacing interesting storytelling is going to be harder, the more we create.

socialist_coder2• 5 years ago

What I'm saying is that A list people will use these same techniques to make QUALITY movies at a budget that makes it economically viable to release to a smaller streaming audience.

toofy• 5 years ago

Which will impact the QUANTITY of movies produced, but not necessarily the QUALITY.

Absolutely.

We have a signal/noise issue. We need to figure out how to find the signal.

I think one of the issues we really need to come to terms with is our absolute overReliance on algorithmic recommendations when it comes to completely subjective areas like film, music, fashion, food, art, etc… We’re just unable to reduce these things to algorithmic recommendations without the content being… algorithmic.

When discussing this I have to often repeat to people, I’m absolutely not a luddite–I work, live, and breathe-in technology. I firmly believe science and technology are part of the key fundamentals to carry us forward. However, one area where I consistently get much better results is when these things are recommended by other humans. It really is no contest in how much better human curation is when it comes to recommendations.

Obviously untested and obviously just pulling numbers out, but for me, I think algorithmic recommendations are just plain wrong about 95% of the time. Friend’s recommendations are close/spot-on about 75+% of the time. And human curation (from online reviews, real life DJs, critics, etc…) are decent maybe 60+% of the time. Far better results from humans.

I think you’re correct that we’ll have a lot more quantity and we’re going to need human curation in there if we have any hope for the quality to gain footholds, to find the signal in the ever growing noise.

Flatcircle4• 5 years ago

Also just the novelty of it, in a world where it went away for a bit.

If vinyl records can come back, Boutique films in a movie theater and maybe even rental stores can too.

fullshark4• 5 years ago

Blurays / physical media are making a comeback, like Vinyl I think part of it is a collection impulse among the top 1% of fans.

SkyPuncher• 5 years ago

I have a home theater. I love watching high-production quality shows like The Mandalorian on it - but I also like getting out of the house.

okareaman3• 5 years ago

I can understand most of Dillers complains but not this one:

"These streaming services have been making something that they call 'movies,' " he said. "They ain't movies. They are some weird algorithmic process that has created things that last 100 minutes or so."

I'd like to know why he disparages writers and directors who work on streaming movies this way and if it has any validity

grawprog• 5 years ago

Possibly this?

https://blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com/en/the-entertainment-in...

https://tecreview.tec.mx/2021/04/26/en/how-to-make-a-blockbu...

A team of scientists from the Spanish universities of Granada (UGR) and Cádiz (UCA) has designed the first computer system to help screenwriters write movie scripts that will do better at the box office, a model that makes use of artificial intelligence techniques to analyze the most successful clichés or tropes.

okareaman3• 5 years ago

Interesting. I thought something like this was going on. I remember remarking to a friend that I got the feeling from some shows that the screenwriters had help from AI. The plots of some were at the same time more complex but had weird twists the people normally wouldn't think of. I am also not surprised the AI is mining TV Tropes. Now I think Diller is right that there is some "They are some weird algorithmic process" going on, but I rather like it. It's less formulaic.

HellDunkel• 5 years ago

These services have made some truely great movies possible and surely they offer a lot more opportunities for the arts. People like to complain that every netflix production is like the other when in reality they just refuse to make an effort to find the good stuff and take some minor risk of failure along the way.

hn_throwaway_992• 5 years ago

I think this interview that gets at a broader point that I find depressing/scary: that the availability of so much data and analysis has ended up "quantizing" creative endeavors to the point where formulaic output is just much, much easier, and that any truly innovative or "misunderstood" productions become much harder to sustain.

I really see this issue everyone nowadays, from movies, TV and music to things like the Olympics. Two good examples: to fix problems with subjectivity and unfairness (which were definitely problems) both gymnastics and ice skating moved from 'fuzzier' 10.0 or 6.0 scales to a 'code of points' model where every element has a fixed value. The result has been that the types of competitors that can win in this model are only the ones that can do the most impressive spins/turns/jumps etc. I mean, I'd be willing to be that you will never again see a 2x "women's" olympic figure skating champion, because you have these young teenagers doing quads now (who almost always lose this ability as they age and develop), but who retire from the sport before they hit 20. These feats are surely impressive, but they also crowd out other types of competitors.

Apocryphon8• 5 years ago

Optimization is eating the world.

imbnwa• 5 years ago

Premature optimization?

dillondoyle2• 5 years ago

What would the other type of competitor be?

Those sports you mention like figuring skating and gymnastics already have execution scores 'style' if you will built in.

Personally, I have the opposite opinion. I prefer sports that are more quantified on difficulty alone (and the obvious 1st to finish). Looking at execution is one thing, like taking a step is clearly not as skilled as sticking it no debate there. But judging how pretty something is just doesn't seem fair to me nor personally as interesting as throwing hard skills.

Gymnastics in particular grinds me in that they have a lot of silly rules AND they actively decrement leading edge hard skills point value!

hn_throwaway_992• 5 years ago

I mean, I don't totally disagree with you when it comes to sports, but e.g. then they should just get rid of the name "artistic gymnastics", get rid of the silly music, and just call it tumbling. Figure skating is probably more difficult to fix, but even there I'd prefer the simple fix of having "girl's" figure skating (say 18 and under) and women's figure skating separated. The current rulebook makes it nearly impossible to be competitive at a top level once someone develops breasts and hips.

edflsafoiewq• 5 years ago

The reign of quantity and the sign of the times.

SavantIdiot4• 5 years ago

I disagree, slightly.

Cinema during WW2 and the 15 years that followed was almost all cookie-cutter nonsense. For the handful of classics that we can tick off on our fingers today, there were dozens of stinkers.

Instead of computerized algorithms, they had fat walrus-like algorithms wearing well-tailored suits, big waistlines and stubby cigars trying to make the same picture over and over again (Grace Kelly, Liz Taylor, Lauren Bacall, Rita Hayworth, Bridgette Bardot, Veronica Saint, Jane Mansfield vs Marilyn Monroe, Cary Grant vs Rock Hudson, etc.).

There is always money in capturing trends, and there will always be independent cinema. Lynch, Jones, Almodovar, Coppola (both), and new emerging stars will always find benefactors to make outstanding films for every 12 Marvel/DC stinkers modern hollywood craps out.

seanicus• 5 years ago

Yup, the classics always get more attention in retrospect because they're the ones that survive. If all the superhero stuff is depressing remember that from the invention of cinema until New Hollywood in the 70's every third piece of entertainment (if not more) was a western/cowboy movie/show.

getlawgdon• 5 years ago

The average age of the female Olympic gymnast is significantly older than the age requirement of the senior elite international gymnast. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320508493_CHRONOLOG...

mentos• 5 years ago

I have no clue how they're making money on these movies that are going straight to streaming platforms?

With a movie releasing in theatres there was a sense of urgency to see it on the big screen with big sound and big lights.

Being able to stream it whenever you want from home now means you never will.

Not sure if any platforms do it already but they should try to create a sense of scarcity by offering only a limited number of opening weekend tickets that you can reserve.

nmz• 5 years ago

That's how you get piracy.

fullshark4• 5 years ago

It’s all just investments to reach a subscriber base of X with a retention rate of at least Y by certain dates. If you are ahead or behind adjust your capital spend accordingly.

xnx• 5 years ago

And yet a lot of people think that AMC stock is worth 4x what it was last year.

metalliqaz2• 5 years ago

Don't take the naive position that stock prices are (or should be) directly reflective of the value of a company's business. They aren't. Stock prices are defined by what people are willing to pay for them. In the case of AMC, the price is higher because some retail investors are willing to invest in the hope that they will be able to squeeze the shorts.

Fundamentals are great, but as the old saying goes: the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

IAmGraydon4• 5 years ago

Through my work, I have access to Placer.ai, which allows me to track foot traffic to any retail location or chain via visitors' cellphone GPS. Here's AMC's nationwide foot traffic from January 2017 through July 4, 2021.

https://i.imgur.com/s3H7EYj.png

syntaxing2• 5 years ago

Wait, how does Placer.ai work? Like you need to have some sort of AMC app?

IAmGraydon4• 5 years ago

Placer is able to track cell phones that have an app installed that uses their SDK. They currently have their SDK in over 500 mobile apps. The data is anonymized, but it would probably shock people how much information I can get from this system. I just pick a location and I can see how many people walked into that location over any time span in the past 4 years, where they live, how much money they make, where else they like to shop, etc. I work in commercial real estate, BTW. We use this software to analyze retail properties.

roland352• 5 years ago

I took the liberty of overlaying the stock price over the foot traffic :)

https://imgur.com/a/jTkXhtx

david9272• 5 years ago

Of course it looks strange -- the stock price reflects a short squeeze on naked shorts, not value or growth.

BadCookie• 5 years ago

Interesting data. What’s holding me back from going to the theater is that my child is not vaccinated (too young), although I suppose the delta variant is also a small concern. I wonder how much difference it will make when the under 12s can get vaccinated. I’d love to go to the theater again if it felt safe for my whole family, but it doesn’t yet.

hellbannedguy2• 5 years ago

I was just starting to get a bit comfortable in my county. (Marin County)

I just heard an acquaintance is in the ICU with blood clots in his lungs due to Covid. Young fit guy, but didn't get vaccinated.

TrainedMonkey• 5 years ago

Movie industry is largely driven by massive advertisement campaigns. My guess that all of those spikes before 2020 were driven by massive AAA releases with big of ad budgets. Nothing like that happened during 2020. I think it's too early to ring the funeral bell, let's see a few massive releases first.

kbenson11• 5 years ago

If that's true, we might not see it getting back to pre-covid levels for another year or so if it's going to happen. I think most the stuff we've seen over 2020 and now are things that were already in the pipeline or delayed. The lack of new projects during 2020 and early 2021 will likely affect the industry until mid to late 2022 at least, from what I've read that seems accurate.

robryan• 5 years ago

A lot of those massive releases are Disney though and they seem to be going all in on Disney+. There might be the occasionally cultural moments that generate new box office records, but I’d expect say the average box office return of the top 20 for the year to be in decline.

mataug• 5 years ago

Looks kinda similar to the google search trends https://imgur.com/a/bbTjUkf

IAmGraydon4• 5 years ago

Yep. That's because people use Google to get directions to the nearest theater.

endisneigh• 5 years ago

Wow, this is virtually identical. If I were paying for placer I'd stop after seeing that you can get effectively the same data for free, assuming you just need the trend.

post_break2• 5 years ago

For kicks can we see home depot and cabelas? If not no worries.

IAmGraydon4• 5 years ago

Sure. Here's Home Depot: https://i.imgur.com/bqoV3LI.png

Here's Cabela's: https://i.imgur.com/SLsba42.png

BTW, I should note that this is showing weekly visits (and the same is true for the AMC chart). Again, this is Jan 2017 through July 4, 2021.

SavantIdiot4• 5 years ago

Totally OT, but have you tried pathr.ai? Curious about both of them, as they seem similar.

historyloop• 5 years ago

Black Widow is destroying opening expectations in cinemas as we speak.

Barry Diller is clearly disillusioned with the process, this happens a lot with veterans. But there's a constant supply of wide-eyed youngsters to fill-in those positions with new energy.

I'd say it's a bit premature to declare permanent changes. Streaming will play a stronger role over time, but none of this is new or unexpected. And cinemas will continue to thrive.

throwaway57522• 5 years ago

It seems like the current movie business is mostly just a parasite on the back of 50 year old content (Marvel Silver age, Star Wars universe, Disney catalogs, Netflix 3rd party licensed content, et al.)

The long tail of good content is very long. I wouldn't be surprised if Casablanca still generates annual royalties in excess of it's entire original cost, 80 years later. A great movie is a piece of artwork and like the Mona Lisa centuries later, has a timeless aspect to it.

I don't disagree with Diller per se. In fact, "They ain't movies. They are some weird algorithmic process that has created things that last 100 minutes or so." is one of the best descriptions of modern film I've ever seen.

May it is just because of the limits of the article length, but I think it's far more about short form content and limits of human attention. I'd rather watch several 10-20 minute videos from niche Youtube creators in a week than one two hour movie most of the time, and I can't do both.

In that sense, Katzenberg /Quibli were probably onto something. You have to remember Diller created the anonymous content conglomerate of IAC and is commenting on Quibli from that perspective. He admits himself, at the end, that he's working on backing Broadway productions so he's not satisfied with the content landscape, either. Maybe someone will figure out what it means to make something that squares good content with the time/format demands of a modern viewer.

TL;DR: I'm sick of Fast & Furious and Marvel franchise spin offs. Feels like someone made the film analogue of discovering that kids like candy and will preferentially take it over healthier food when offered.

Apocryphon8• 5 years ago

I believe that you ain't seen nothing yet. Superhero comic films are king but like, say, zombie media in the 2000s, it is a mammoth fad that will eventually be overthrown by another one. Once Hollywood finally figures out how to make a good video game movie adaptation, expect the true licensing deluge to begin. Marvel and DC are but two companies. Imagine the amount of IP adaptations that an entire industry will yield.

throwaway57522• 5 years ago

I watched Captain Lou Albano play Mario in the 80s.

Resident Evil? Pokemon? Mortal Kombat? It's already here. I actually don't care, as long as they are good. Not all MCU is bad (and I might even say little/none of it is bad).

Maybe a different comparison: a lot of movies now feel like processed food. Consistent and made-to-please, but limits to how great it can be. It is not ideal to live only on processed food.

Animats• 5 years ago

Barry Diller is just having a "get off my lawn" moment.

It's like Bob Lutz saying the car business is over, which he did a few years back.

Some things have changed. The difference between "movies" and "TV" has narrowed considerably. Production values for TV are up, and there's not the big distinction between "film work" and "TV work" that there used to be. After all, today "film" is just 2K or 4K video projection.

Another thing that's changed is a few huge franchises sucking up the attention supply. This seems to reflect the Disney mindset of getting a franchise going and milking it for half a century or more. (A Mickey Mouse live-action movie is scheduled for 2022. Really.)

master_yoda_1• 5 years ago

Totally agree on this "They ain't movies. They are some weird algorithmic process that has created things that last 100 minutes or so." look at "The Tomorrow War"

croes2• 5 years ago

"The Tomorrow War" is not an Amazon movie, they only bought the distribution rights. It's a Paramount Pictures film.

moomin• 5 years ago

I mean, I don’t disagree with him, but he dates back to the birth of the blockbuster, which was the 70s version of “algorithmic things that last 100 minutes”.

The movie industry has had seismic shifts every couple of decades and has been shrinking since the 1950s.

cwp• 5 years ago

I hate this kind of article. It's an opinion from a knowledgeable person, but it offers no insight at all. The only difference between what Diller said and my uninformed curmudgeonly grumpy opinion is that he used to run a studio.

jtwaleson5• 5 years ago

Ok, here's my problem with the movie theatre industry. There's 100+ years of fantastic historical content and we're not doing anything with it. 99% of what's shown in theaters is new releases. I understand we don't want to "go stale" as a society and that movie producers also need to make a living, but the balance is just way off.

I would pay good money to see "the good the bad and the ugly" with my kids in a couple of years. If you compare movie theatres to classical music we seem to play only 10% new content at concert halls, the rest are the 100+ year old classics.

GormanFletcher2• 5 years ago

Before everything shut down last year, my local theaters played a showing of a classic film each month, often Hitchcock. The few I went to had plenty of attendees.

Another local theater took the lockdown as an opportunity to do outdoor socially-distanced showings of previous blockbusters, like The Dark Knight. Plenty of attendees there, too.

I'd be happy to have more showings like that.

jtwaleson5• 5 years ago

Interesting! Where is this? In Amsterdam I know one theater that's showing old films and that's the 1% I was talking about ;)

blooalien3• 5 years ago

We have a neat theater in the town I live in called "Brewvies" (it's a pub/theater) that on weekends often shows classic old cinema matinees for free. There's also a group that shows "classic" movies in the parks for free, too. Much fun!

MivLives• 5 years ago

The smaller independent theaters near me tend to do more of this sort of thing. The one near me is doing an entire month of a Samurai movies. Also Month Python and the Holy Grail, and War of the Worlds (2005). All their first run movies tend to be independent ones.

Not saying that chains shouldn't rerun old movies, just saying those types of theaters do exist. It's the only way I can truely get a movie theater experience for things made before I was born.

whoooooo123• 5 years ago

London is full of independent cinemas that show a fun mix of new releases and older films. Plus they're usually much nicer theatres than the big chains like Odeon and Vue, and the tickets are usually cheaper too.

albatross13• 5 years ago

an entire month of samurai movies

Man, that is awesome. When my wife and I first started dating, our date nights consisted of going and seeing all of the harry potter movies as they were being re-shown in a local theater. We bought the expensive seats and this theater served food/beer with the movie, which made it that much more fun. I wish more theaters would adapt their business model do to stuff like this- I'd LOVE to see the LOTR trilogy (extended) in theaters again.

cbanek• 5 years ago

Totally agree here. Especially since a lot of the newer projectors and movies I think are digital formats. There's a local art theater here that is excellent that does a lot of older movies and movie marathons. But I think also getting the rights can be a trick too.

I just want to say being able to see Wrath of Khan in a theater was really worth it!

jack2222• 5 years ago

You're completely right and obviously many many people would want to go and see something like the good the bad and the ugly in theatres - probably enough to fill the theatre for a showing or two - but the problem is how would they know it's on? A lot of people look up what movies are on that week, but most people are aware that the big movies are ok a the moment because they're marketed and obviously that marketing costs money. What studio or theatre chain is going to spend millions (or even thousands) on marketing a 30+ year old movie that might take in a couple of hundred k at the box office.

There's a reason cinemas don't play old movies and it's not because they think there's no one who wants to see them, sadly the logistics of it are too costly (in all sorts of ways beyond just base line finances too).

enchiridion• 5 years ago

I'm not too sure about that. I'm also trying to decide if a movie is worth seeing when watching an ad. Clearly the classics are worth seeing, so they would just need to let people know. Is that enough to make up the difference? I'm not sure...

karmelapple2• 5 years ago

Event calendars in cities I’ve lived in typically have “special midnight movie” or “classic film screening” events listed, alongside things like “art in the park” or “July 4th fireworks.” I think event calendars like that can be pretty big drivers of traffic, and they should be relatively easy to setup almost anywhere.

Meetup.com could even be used to get the word out, though use of that might be limited in many places.

kbenson11• 5 years ago

Often movie theaters run special programs for periods of the year (or continuously), where they take a showing or two a week on a less busy night, and dedicate it to a series of movies they advertise through fliers. Since it's all planned out in advance for a few months, it's easy to see what's coming whenever you're at that theater. For example, they might to a horror themed series of movies, and you get Nightmare on Elm Street, Hellraiser, Halloween, etc, each their own week and advertised together on a flier or poster months in advance with the date of each.

malloryerik• 5 years ago

How about crowd sourcing, Groupon-style?

For example the audience would vote with their ticket purchases, which would kick in once a threshold had been met (50% of seats filled, etc.).

The cinema itself could market its web/mobile app instead of individual films, or actually both at once.

rmah2• 5 years ago

What you want is done in many cities across America. And probably across the world. Both by businesses and by the municipalities themselves. Typically, movie theaters that show "classics" tend to exist in larger cities, of course. Because smaller towns cannot support them economically. But many small towns also show classic movies, often for free, on a regular basis. Just look for it.

fshbbdssbbgdd2• 5 years ago

Movie theaters have a financial incentive to show old films if audiences are interested in watching, because the theaters get to keep a larger cut of the box office revenue compared to new releases. If the theaters aren’t showing old movies, I don’t think it’s because of a lack of imagination on their part.

twoodfin• 5 years ago

As I understand it, though, studios won’t release many of their more valuable library titles for theatrical exhibition at any price, presumably to marginally enhance their cachet on streaming services.

blhack• 5 years ago

Alamo draft house does this as a core part of their business model. They even usually give you souvenirs and have a themed menu around it.

jelling• 5 years ago

Every top comment on HN is someone with an unprofitable use case complaining that no one serves them. Change my mind.

kbenson11• 5 years ago

There are theaters that are dedicated to playing older movies, and they apparently turn enough profit to subsist in some locations. I think that makes this a top comment on HN with a profitable use case complaining that there's not enough around.

Also, I would watch the shit out of the Good the Bad and the Ugly in a theater. Same with original Star Wars (which I think happened during extra trilogy releases occasionally), The Matrix, the Princess Bride, and anything in that vein which either has a cult following, is a different/better experience to watch in a theater, or both.

frainfreeze• 5 years ago

Don't confuse profitable with making millions based on hype.

joe_the_user• 5 years ago

GP isn't planing a business, they're wishing for a different reality. That reality could be realized in a number of ways - a nonprofit sponsoring art films is one example.

The Pacific Film Archive[1] is example of such a non-profit. With sufficient interest we could have considerably more of these things.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Art_Museum_and_Pacifi...

renewiltord2• 5 years ago

Interestingly, SF's Fort Mason Drive-in during the pandemic was all old movies https://www.eventbrite.com/o/fort-mason-center-for-arts-amp-...

I think I watched like Monsters Inc there. That's two decades old haha!

smcl• 5 years ago

The case this person has suggested is something that exists where I am - classic films are reshown in two cinemas in my city. One (before covid, I’d need to check if they restarted) also did a cool event each month where you’d show up with no idea what you were about to see, you’d pay what you like on the way out, no charge if you leave within 15 minutes. It was only ever an older film whenever I went

a5seo• 5 years ago

The problem is content owners still think of theaters as part of their fiefdom.

They’ll let you, the consumer, watch TGTB&TU in your house for next to $0 but if a theater wants to show it, there’s a $200 minimum fee (or 60% of ticket sales whichever is higher) plus another $150 to ship a hard drive with the content and one-time key.

You either have to find a lot of people who want to watch TGTB&TU at the same time and location or the studio needs to lower the costs of back catalog content to exhibitors and quit with the whole driving shipping bullshit.

matthewmcg• 5 years ago

Or someone with a “novel” idea for a business that already exists, e.g. revival or reparatory cinemas.

quickthrower23• 5 years ago

The way to make this work first off is the cinema on a quiet day offers the chance to rent a smaller theatre and play one of a preselected back catalog of movies.

Then people will do it as a party experience kind of thing. They could just ask for a minimum of 10 customers, which might be a better turn out than the quiet days.

Then extend it by offering a “ride share” where you let the cinema sell more tickets to strangers and as they sell you might get vouchers towards foods and drink thrown in. Why would anyone do this? Pick YOUR film and maybe get free drinks sounds great.

Democratising the film festival ;-)

TOGoS• 5 years ago

Maybe because many of the nice things we would like to have are not profitable, and the insistence that profit is all that matters[1] is the reason we can't have nice things.

[1] to be clear: I'm referring to the insistence by those who have the gobs of money/stocks to decide what we can have, not by the average HN commenter.

ecdavis• 5 years ago

Every premium cinema near me makes plenty of money showing old movies. Here's one example: https://www.ritzcinemas.com.au/events/cult-classics

imranq• 5 years ago

You could also say that 99% of the internet is stale and that we are typically consuming content created over the last few days. Maybe we need some all purpose content curation system that gets us the movies, articles, books that would be most relevant to us regardless of when they were created.

stragio• 5 years ago

In Europe this is different though. In Amsterdam we have 10+ cinemas showing a lot of classics too, unlimited for 20 euros a month in amazing theatres. I rarely go to these large cinemas anymore.

jtwaleson5• 5 years ago

I'm actually based in Utrecht ;) Looking at all the comments here it seems there's possibly lots of old films being shown (depending on your geo) but awareness is very low. I've certainly never seem tv ads or posters that advertise old films. Maybe it's something that smaller cinemas tend to do, as you say, but the 10+ screens megaplexes do a LOT more volume. I will definitely look at some of the smaller cinemas to see what they show nowadays.

fragbait65• 5 years ago

I agree, especially since a portion of the "new" movies are regurgitation of old classics anyway and more often than not weaker than the original movies.

thrower123• 5 years ago

Blame copyright. It's the main reason we can't have nice things.

20 or 30 years ought to be more than enough time before a film lapses into public domain.

mcshicks• 5 years ago

I have a friend works for American cinematheque. If you live in the Los Angeles area this is what you are looking for. Not just old movies but q&a with people involved in the film making. https://americancinematheque.com/

snowwrestler• 5 years ago

I can think of at least 4 big movie theaters in DC that did this.

The Uptown used to do revivals between big releases. I saw Blade Runner, Ben Hur, 2001, and other classics there. They did not make money on those and had to convert to 100% current releases. I think it is now closed.

The Air & Space IMAX theater used to do “Sci Fi Sundays” where they played a classic science fiction movie on Sunday evenings as the last showing.

The Avalon is in one of the richest neighborhoods on DC/MD border. When it went bankrupt all the neighbors pooled their money and started a nonprofit to keep it open.

The AFI has a theater in a MD suburb, which shows all sorts of revivals and classics year round.

In every one of these theaters I am always shocked to see how few people a classic pulls in. Went to see Blade Runner “Final Cut” at AFI on a huge screen and there were like 40 people. 2001 in a 70mm print was about half full. Inception or Interstellar in IMAX (the real one, 70 ft tall screen) was less than half full.

A small takeaway is that, with so much historical catalog, the audience is very finely chopped up. Only a relatively small % of people love each old movie enough to rally to the theater at a specific night and time.

The big takeaway is how crucial strong marketing is for theater attendance. Undoubtedly there were many available casual fans who simply did not know about these showings. Mass marketing is hard and expensive.

lastofthemojito• 5 years ago

I used to live pretty close to the AFI in Silver Spring and while I thought their selection of older movies was pretty great, I didn't end up going terribly often. I think it's linked to the fact that for most people (certainly me), going to the movies is a social occasion (I don't think I've ever gone to a movie theater by myself - I know people do, but I suspect that's a fairly small minority).

Anyhow, marketing does it's job - lots of people have some awareness of new movies coming out, and they're curious about that thing that they've heard about but haven't seen. It just seems tougher to drum up interest to go see Officespace or Edward Scissorhands or Seven Samurai or whatever - "I just saw that on TV", "Seen it a million times", "Never heard of it", etc.

dogorman2• 5 years ago

In every one of these theaters I am always shocked to see how few people a classic pulls in. Went to see Blade Runner “Final Cut” at AFI on a huge screen and there were like 40 people. 2001 in a 70mm print was about half full. Inception or Interstellar in IMAX (the real one, 70 ft tall screen) was less than half full.

Maybe you chose bad examples.. but all of these movies are movies I like quite a lot and I would not have gone to see any of them in the theater. Why? Because I've seen all of them a dozen times already and I'm sure I'm not alone. If they want to pull in more people, they should probably pick movies people haven't already watched repeatedly to the point of fatigue.

erikpukinskis• 5 years ago

Comparing individual theaters doing a handful of showings to AMC running 10 showings a day of a film with ads all over YouTube and a McDonalds tie-in is not a fair comparison.

A fair comparison would be a re-release with advertising, a press tour, collabs with social media personalities, and a nationwide multi-week run.

People see movies because their brother in Florida said it was fun, or because they have seen the trailer four times. What on earth would compel someone to look up the schedule of random showings at their local theater?

dredmorbius2• 5 years ago

There are repertory cinemas. One that at least some HN readers might be familiar with is the Stanford Theatre, on University Avenue in Palo Alto, which shows almost exclusively black-and-white films from the golden age of Hollywood.

As with so much else, it's been closed due to COVID-19, but looks to be reopening.

The 2019--2020 season featured films from 80 years prior: 1939--1940.

https://stanfordtheatre.org/

https://stanfordtheatre.org/calendars/1939.html

3finmunchousen• 5 years ago

I'd be curious to see if this approach could work with targeted marketing instead of mass marketing.

If the criterion collection promoted a rotating wide theatrical rerelease with it's streaming service I think you might have something. Include 4 tickets to the chosen criterion film a month with the streaming subscription as a kind of moviepass lite.

twic• 5 years ago

I think this model works for classical music and opera because there just aren't that many works worth performing. How many operas are there that are still performed? 80% of performances are probably of the top twenty operas, certainly under a hundred. 99% of performances are covered by maybe a few hundred.

How many good old films are there? An order of magnitude more than that! So what do you put on? Whatever you choose, you won't attract a significant chunk of fans, the way you can attract a significant chunk of opera fans by putting on The Magic Flute.

There are probably a lot more film fans than opera fans. But opera fans are probably willing to spend a lot more per event than film fans.

beardyw• 5 years ago

How many operas are there that are still performed?

I hate opera but I googled it and got:

"According to Operabase* there were 2662 different operas performed over the last 5 years." (2017)

As to other classical music, I suspect very many times more.

I know opera fans and they would only go to see The Magic Flute again if there was a special reason.

jdavis7032• 5 years ago

There’s a “hipster” movie theater near me that does this. It seems to be moderately successful, but by no means a runaway success. I just don’t think the demand is there for this to be a widespread business.

brundolf• 5 years ago

Alamo Drafthouse does this kind of thing constantly. Not just showings of old movies (where "old" can mean anything from 80 to 5 years), but themed movie parties with props and costumes and special food and drinks. They'll do a theme for the month and curate a set of movies around it, showing a trailer for the collection before regular movies. They'll have the original directors or stars come in for screenings and they'll do Q&A afterward.

Combined with the overall experience (which is hands and feet above that of Cinemark or AMC), Alamo feels like the only theater company that still gets it.

neaanopri• 5 years ago

I think it's the alcohol :)

ibejoeb• 5 years ago

There are plenty that do this. Some do this exclusively, like the New Beverly Cinema. I suppose you're suggesting that the national brands should offer this rather than specialty houses. That could be pretty cool, but they need to step it up a bit.

It needs to be more demand-driven and offer up tons of titles. I'd love to be able to pick a title and see it in a theater. I want the experience where I can select a film from a vast library and just go see it. Maybe I could post about it to get other confirmed bookings, and then if it hits a threshold, it gets played. There are significant legal complications for licensing, surely, and there are practical technical challenges around distribution and DRM.

Additionally, the theaters need to sell drinks and offer entertaining environments in more of a mixed way. Arclight had a fair amount of success with its concept, offering cafe, bar, and restaurant experiences.

hellbannedguy2• 5 years ago

I too have seen theaters that offered great old movies, but only a few people showed up.

I for one would be happy if I never saw another action movie, or superhero flick.

I get why the studios are making them. They can be seen around the world. The movies are simple so dialogue, script, and plot, don't matter much.

Plus--there's another whole fortune to be made on licensing products.

As to why people don't go to the theater, I guess it's a generational thing?

I loved going to a dinner, and a movie, on a friday night with my high school, and college, girlfriend.

Today 20 somethings have Netflix and chill. If I had Netflix and chill years ago, I would have probally gone that route too.

SavantIdiot4• 5 years ago

Fortunately I have a DVD/VHS* store rental near me that has 100,000+ titles, so as longs as the DVDs don't break, this will be an option for me.

I don't understand why DVD stores don't make a comeback, because they aren't subject to the crazy streaming licenses.

Or am I really that "unhip"?

* Yes, you can actually rent a VHS player too

scentoni• 5 years ago

https://stanfordtheatre.org is a repertory cinema (though currently closed due to covid) that has themed schedules (one month Hitchcock, another month Satyajit Ray, etc).

vietvu• 5 years ago

Same with me but I can see that not many people are like that so it's not profitable.

technofiend• 5 years ago

Despite the fact I share your tastes I think things have simply changed. In the 80s I had a choice of theatres to go see funky underground and classic movies. I remember one place played Rocky Horror, Liquid Sky and Heavy Metal every weekend for years. I saw Rocky Horror in three different Houston theatres and sincerely regret not seeing it in at least one or two more, which tells you how many places we had playing non-mainstream movies.

The River Oaks Theatre played so many different movies they had to publish a monthly calendar because it was often a new movie every night. In fact they had a bar in the same parking lot (Marfreless) that was movie nerd hangout downstairs and make out spot upstairs.

Fast forward to today and most of those theatres are gone. The nameless theatre in a strip mall on Gessner is gone as is the Landmark Greenway, The Alabama Theatre was turned into a Bookstop and is now a Trader Joe's. The Bellaire Theatre was squeezed to death by Whole Foods dominating their parking lot. Even a recent entrant with Angelika downtown which became the Sundance theatre ended up flipping to an AMC. The one to last the longest, River Oaks Theatre was shuttered after Covid 19 put them a year behind on rent and their landlord refused to renew the lease without an agreement to pay the back rent.

River Oaks had already sold to Landmark just to survive and Landmark let the lease lapse which tells you all you need to know about the margins they were operating under. It just isn't profitable enough to sustain a theatre any more. Marfreless is still alive and well.

People have a surplus of choices and immediate, online gratification available 24/7. No need to plan with friends, arrange a baby sitter or slog through traffic to sit in a theatre. Although I agree that many movies are undoubtedly best viewed on a big screen with a good soundsystem, it appears we're in the minority and there just aren't enough of us to keep places profitable.

ehnto• 5 years ago

Theatres in my city do this, it is fantastic. I paid normal prices to go watch Heat on the big screen in 2021 and it was worth every penny.

As someone who really didn't watch movies until recently, I have missed a lot of them. So being able to watch some of the iconic movies of yesterday in the theatre has been great.

jtwaleson5• 5 years ago

Ok, I crunched some numbers today. It turns out that in The Netherlands, 98.9% of screenings are from 2019,2020,2021. There are quite some cinemas showing old films, but it's only 1.1%. I based this on data from https://www.filmladder.nl.

curation• 5 years ago

I'm GenX and in my youth in Toronto I'd only go to the Fox and The bloor movie theater and they only played old things. I have not been to a theater in years after walking out of 10 movies in a row for so boring/silly.

BeFlatXIII• 5 years ago

This is why the argument that rampant piracy will kill creative industries has no sway for me. There already exists multiple lifetimes or movies to watch, books to read, and music to hear. Why should I be concerned that it was all made before the piracy apocalypse? Realistically, government propaganda and eccentric multi-millionaires will continue produce mid-budget films with good production value and the starving artists and no-budget passion projects will also continue their productions unabated.

onelastjob• 5 years ago

Before streaming, a movie studio actually had to convince an audience to leave their houses and buy a ticket to make money from a movie. This meant the studio had to pour a lot of money into marketing for each movie. The cost to market a movie could be up $30M to $50M range for a blockbuster movie. For a mid-budget drama like Meet Joe Black or A River Runs Through It, you could be looking at a marketing budget that matches the production budget ($30M production + $30M marketing). These big marketing costs for every movie meant that the quality of those movies needed to be pretty high to justify the marketing costs. Streamers don’t have to convince people to go out and buy a ticket for every movie they release. They just have to keep the existing subscribers paying and get more people signing up. So the marketing cost per title goes way down. This takes some pressure off to make quality content because the risk per title is lower. Also quality movies on streamers don’t necessarily get the marketing and fanfare they would have before streaming.

alisonkisk3• 5 years ago

It takes off the pressure to make popular content. Quality content can be unpopular, niche, wonderful content. Popular content needs to be tolerable by as many people as possible, which means taking fewer risks on high-quality slightly controversial or intellectual or unfamiliar material.

blooalien3• 5 years ago

Quality content can be unpopular, niche, wonderful content.

I was about to say this exact thing. I've seen some amazing content on various streaming services that would have simply not even existed in prior decades. Even some of the "big boys" of media have been able to produce some shockingly good content these days thanks to the lowered risks and costs of available outlet channels for their more "experimental" media offerings.

agumonkey2• 5 years ago

It's funny, I keep seeing this era the same way. There used to be such a different structure behind things. Everything was more expensive but we went to grab them because they were so superb. Also it imposed some kind of order.. those who managed to fabricate large things in front of the random nature of workgroups, social trends and audience desires got to grab the hero / fame status (for better or worse).

Today, available means flattens the whole landscape, you can indeed do everything at a fraction of the cost but so the goal vanished because there's nothing of greatness now ? (and many groups are in the "availability is key for .. whatever" .. I find the idea too naive)

This weird tension, or contrast, is interesting.

foolfoolz• 5 years ago

think of it as “leveling the playing field” in which it over time asymptotically approaches shit

wodenokoto• 5 years ago

Those numbers seems incredibly low for a blockbuster.

I see the google info box saying the average movie marketing spend matches your quote, but they are talking about productions averaging only 60 millions in costs.

Blockbusters like transformers or large marvel movies are much more expensive to produce and market.

Hollywood reports sets the marketing costs of summer blockbusters at 200 million worldwide - in 2014!

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/200-mill...

MeinBlutIstBlau2• 5 years ago

I think this is why I've been struggling with finding good films to watch nowadays. Shows are doing great but movies have been suffering. Take the movie "Nobody" for instance. How the hell that movie got the ratings it did I will never know. Not only is it not good, but it was nothing what it was marketed as.

My solution to this is to watch actual films that are made with artistic intent or to see certain things that are submitted into festivals instead of just the main films shown to everyone. It's helped tremendously but it becomes a chore quick when there are a lot of "artsy" movies that tell the exact same story you've seen a million times.

rmah2• 5 years ago

Isn't it said that there are only seven actual stories? That every story is a variation of those seven plots with different names, places, times, etc?

SavantIdiot4• 5 years ago

Before streaming, a movie studio actually had to convince an audience to leave their houses and buy a ticket to make money from a movie.

I disagree. The masses that buy millions of tickets every week to watch the latest opening do so because that is a primary form of entertainment. Most people are that boring and will watch whatever is at the movies that week. I don't think they are going because they really like movies, because come on... but I could be just gatekeeping.

Excluding blockbusters that rack up hundreds of millions in opening week, most people will go see whatever is playing and not thing too much about it.

nathias• 5 years ago

popular culture was always intolerable, you're just old enough to notice

johnohara• 5 years ago

The Allen and Co. Sun Valley Conference is winding down.

The pandemic forced a lot of reaction to, realignment of, and reflection on, all of the current paradigms. But nobody was able to meet last year and many conversations that needed to happen were left hanging in abeyance.

As the many attendees represent organizations that pull heavy carts as it is, there is no doubt an eagerness to get the wheels turning again. The sooner the better. But they have also had a year to completely evaluate what was causing them to be so laden prior to February 1st, 2020.

This year's conference will be remembered as a watershed moment. Great food and real-world golf scores notwithstanding.

mdoms• 5 years ago

What's ruining cinema is the utter dreck that most people are gagging to watch. I look at my local cinema today and every single movie, save for The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard, is either lazy nostalgia bait, generic marvel film #4715, yet another sequel to a summer blockbuster franchise or a kid's movie. And you people just eat this garbage up.

okareaman3• 5 years ago

I don't work in the movie industry, but it seems to me the superhero and fast and furious type movies are designed to appeal to young people in America, China, India and Europe. A movie like that offers an incredibly large potential audience.

Three films I watched recently that might have a hard time getting made today are Broken Flowers by Jim Jarmusch starring Bill Murray, After Hours by Martin Scorsese and The Muse by Albert Brooks. I know Martin Scorsese and others have been complaining about the death of cinema, but I don't understand why the two types of movies can't coexist on streaming media. The audience for the latter type is nowhere near as big as the former, but it's not nothing. The world still wants thought provoking art.

wolverine8762• 5 years ago

Barry: Call me. I'll show you where you can find great art in movies, an order of magnitude more than what was available before.

I'm a big believer in data and not personal anecdotes, but if I can do it, Barry can (and you can). I never imagined so much incredible art existed on video as what I've seen in the last 5+ years on streaming. The standard for what I will watch has risen dramatically - I don't have to compromise; I don't have the time and energy to see everything incredible thing I want to.

I rarely go to movie theaters because what is available on streaming is so much better, it's not a close call. Partly that's due to the availability of old stuff - what is the chance that the movie in this theater this weekend is at the level of the best movies in history? What is the chance that it's close enough to be worth the extra money and time for the better video and audio?

But the new quality stuff has exploded in volume too, and yes some is structured episodically (i.e., like TV) but why should the director be restricted in form? And I have access to new stuff from all over the world, from small to large productions. And I can take a risk on something new and change my mind, which isn't really practical at the movie theater.

I live in cinephile heaven. I'm not sure where Barry is?

Y_Y3• 5 years ago

Where's the data? Let's have some references to all this high quality stuff.

hughrr4• 5 years ago

Well The Expanse quite frankly teabags to death 20 years of science fiction moves. I can't watch anything else now.

crooked-v3• 5 years ago

One also can't forget the power of survivorship bias. 'Old [thing] was better' tends to go along with most of the the low-quality instances of [thing] being lost and forgotten about because nobody cares about them.

ctdonath2• 5 years ago

The local cinemas have at most a dozen movies available at any one time, maybe one of which is interesting. One viewing requires $10-50 in assorted expenses.

For $10-50 monthly, I have available approximately every movie ever made - and I don’t have to leave this chair.

That is, at any given moment, one good movie vs all movies ever. Data sufficient.

lastthrow5432• 5 years ago

From the same commenter:

https://pastebin.com/S3Px6RA6

Enjoy!

lostlogin2• 5 years ago

I rarely go to movie theaters because what is available on streaming is so much better, it's not a close call.

Better seats, better sound (for me this means not being deafened), better food, better drinks, better price (and no dick moves to get a few more $), no parking issues, less annoying lights/sounds etc from other patrons. I also haven’t seen a theatre with a wood burner.

It misses is the feeling of it being an occasion, but as a plus it also misses any Covid anxiety.

I completely agree with you.

hughrr4• 5 years ago

The real killer of the streaming for is that there is a pause button. I missed out a whole 5 minutes of Avengers Endgame thanks to my bladder.

sleavey• 5 years ago

No adverts.

zarq• 5 years ago

Subtitles!

ftio• 5 years ago

The open-mouthed chewing, soda slurping, and bag rustling is unbearable for me. It completely takes me out of the film, particularly during quiet scenes.

anigbrowl3• 5 years ago

There is indeed lots of great art about at all levels, but what Diller is complaining about is the business of balancing mediocre productions that ae sure to be popular and make money with stuff that almost certainly won't be popular in the short term but deserves to be financed and produced so people can catch up to it later (which might be decades).

Diller worked in a business where studios banked on a combination of taste and business skill. What we have now is algorithmically curated entertainment product. That's why it's so easy to and amusing to make up imaginary Netflix categories like 'comedic survival-horror' or 'superficially profound movies you can quote at dinner parties while chasing a promotion.'

I agree with you in one way, but in another you're having your existing tastes affirmed within safe boundaries, and StreamCorp's goal is to be better at doing that than your friends or circumstances. You'll get lots of great viewing material that meets your aesthetic preferences, but not anything that really surprises or shakes you; you won't ever have a movie experience that causes you to walk around for 3 hours in the rain because you changed.

wolverine8762• 5 years ago

in another you're having your existing tastes affirmed within safe boundaries, and StreamCorp's goal is to be better at doing that than your friends or circumstances. You'll get lots of great viewing material that meets your aesthetic preferences, but not anything that really surprises or shakes you; you won't ever have a movie experience that causes you to walk around for 3 hours in the rain because you changed.

That doesn't describe what I watch at all. It may be what many people see, but I'm saying that there is another way for Diller and them, and that I've witnessed it.

Also, people have been saying that 'it's not like the old days, when we weren't so focused on money' probably for Diller's entire career. I've heard it for my entire life. I think today it's particularly misplaced now, when there is more availability and outlets for artistry in film than ever before. And also, some of it is funded by FAANG.

torben-friis• 5 years ago

Perhaps it's a bit off topic, but do you mind sharing some recommendations?

I'm always in the lookup for new stuff, but the one thing I think has become worse for me is finding sources of recommendations. The age of old forums is gone and mainstream sites like IMDb are very hit or miss for me.

I'll take both movies/shows, and the places where you discover them :)

lastthrow5432• 5 years ago

From the same commenter:

https://pastebin.com/S3Px6RA6

Enjoy!

MisterBastahrd• 5 years ago

Trying to shoehorn a meaningful story into 1.5 hours is not great for storytelling. The production costs for 8 hours of streaming television isn't that much different from 2 hours of movie filming when filming for the same genre in the same manner.

Try to get 1.5 hours of meaningful story out of the recent Netflix production of Shadow and Bone, or any of the Game of Thrones books, without sacrificing major parts of the story (that weren't already being sacrificed in their expanded versions).

hujun• 5 years ago

movie theaters should become smaller, a place with many smaller rooms, a room for only ten people with top video/audio equipments, with good drink, food; make it more like going to a party with friends

sammalloy• 5 years ago

Just as the rise of the internet changed the way people read and pay attention to information, so too did the advent of streaming change the way audiences engage with entertainment.

I can barely sit still through anything that's more than an hour long now, and I can't imagine how I used to sit through entire films back in the day.

I've also noticed that I prefer the series arc format over the superficial cinematic, one and done story, making standard film releases less entertaining for me.

sida• 5 years ago

As a quick tangent, has anyone tried watching movies in VR?

If you haven’t, try it. I have been watching stuff in my oculus quest 2 and it is pretty darn awesome. I think this is the future, most definitely.

Oculus quest 2 still is not perfect. But I cannot imagine going to the theater with a few more generations of VR. (Oculus quest 5 maybe???)

moralestapia• 5 years ago

Ugh, I love watching movies on my 2D screen while talking to other people and having some snacks.

I can't imagine myself (EVER!) changing that experience to one that isolates me and requires me to have a crappy headset squeezing my temples for two hours or so.

Just, no. NOOOOO!

BTCOG• 5 years ago

Good deal. Maybe they'll have to go back to the drawing board and quit making spinoffs of remakes, of remakes. And these lame duck "superhero" movies. Puke.

sanj• 5 years ago

I spent a while in London and the cinema theater experience there was worth going out:

- couches

- beer

- good food

Sure it was expensive, but it was a far far cry from my experience in the US.

rglover• 5 years ago

Studios should create "backlot" theaters where you can come to the set, do Q&A/photos with actors/crew, and see the movie (or, similar to kickstarter, see the dailies/weeklies in progress) with regular screenings and events.

Charge a premium for it, minimal cost to operate, and fans would love it. Would revitalize the role of the actor while generating a unique revenue stream. If multiple studios did it, you could have a meta business around doing "backlot screening" tours.

specialist2• 5 years ago

That interview was rough.

TLDR: The studio and distributor's chokehold on movies is dead.

Hallelujah, good riddance, piss off.

For some historical perspective, 99% had a nice episode about movie theaters. The Megaplex! https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-megaplex/

TLDR: The movie theater biz has always been in flux, now is no different.

PS- After the dust settles, I'm sure new gatekeepers will arise. Same as it ever was.

clouddrover• 5 years ago

The studio's chokehold on movies is dead.

No, the reality is studios are consolidating control over their content. For example, Disney controls distribution and access more than ever before with their Disney+ streaming service. Disney produces the content and directly distributes it to the end user:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney%2B

https://www.disneyplus.com

specialist2• 5 years ago

No, the reality is studios are consolidating control over their content.

Ya, it sure seems like everyone's pulling their own content in tighter.

I couldn't quickly find out how many movies, shows, etc are published every year. If anything, it seems like the entertainment industry is in a free-for-all. I'm almost curious how it shakes out.

Can we agree that the prior theatrical distribution system, so near and dear to Barry Diller's heart, got mooted?

birdyrooster• 5 years ago

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid would be excellent in theatres

madrox• 5 years ago

Ed Catmull once pointed out that the movie industry is actually quite cooperative and wants everyone to succeed. The more successful someone else's movie was last week tends to positively influence whether the audience will come back to theaters to see your movie the following week. It occurs to me that this idea is gone from streaming movies. In fact, you're more at odds with your competitors than ever, since you'll basically be competing for the same subscription dollars in the minds of your audience. I'm very interested in what that will mean in the future.

jimbob45• 5 years ago

Oh go fuck yourself, Diller. This happens every 30 years and movie executives act like the sky is falling because they’ve gotten greedy and forgotten that movies should be vehicles to share human experiences and not vehicles to make money. It’s your own fault that you didn’t pay attention to Katzenberg’s warnings 30 years ago.

https://www.wnd.com/2017/06/see-what-1991-disney-memo-predic...

aaron695• 5 years ago

Misses China. The figures are there for anyone to see. They are probably a bigger force that streaming.

He's wrong Quibi was a bad idea, but he's right with to say they didn't build to iterate -

"It was a bad idea that had no testing ground other than a big-scale investment," Diller said. "Otherwise, it would have slithered around for a while. But it was such a big-scale thing that it lived and died in a millisecond."

xanaxagoras• 5 years ago

I can count the number of times I've been to a theater in the last 10 years on one hand. I ended up seeing The Lorax in theaters when it came out for some work thing. I was there to be entertained, I didn't like being lectured at.

Things are much, much worse now.

You all do what you want, I'm more than happy with old movies.

TrispusAttucks• 5 years ago

This shouldn't be surprising.

The Internet geographically decentralizes everything. Movies and theaters are no different.

- movies

- music

- retail

- dating

- groceries

- work/office

- government paper work

- etc.

That is the progress of a society evolving.

All the incessant coming and going and driving and flying. Good riddance. Stay home. Plant a garden. Watch new movies. Save the planet.

Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

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