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Topic: Steven Spielberg is worried what the success of streaming means for theatrical films

Dave Bird
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 777
From: Perth, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Jun 2000

posted 02-21-2019 08:31 AM

You know Mike, even if one was able to more or less "dump" those mediocre films in week 2 to play as a late show or even a 5pm or something silly in order to move in the new title at 7pm, I think they'd soon see more sales to be had. We can't outdoors, though we do occasionally do some silly things like dumping the "kids" film to play 2nd during the second week to bring in a new film, sometimes we'll flip/flop during the week. Any of it is worth a try.

We're also excited about Toy Story 4 and Lion King. Hoping they won't require 3 wks. We often come back around and play these types of films again for holiday Triple-Features (and again, MORE than make up any perceived "losses" the studio perceives from a missed 3rd week). Frozen 2 is killing me, we tried to make it to Grinch last year, which would have done well for us if the weather held (and I will swear to you winters are getting longer, not shorter based on our yearly routine). But a November 22 open plus almost certain 3-week run won't fly. Certainly I can recall years with decent weather before Christmas, but the last few it's been well below freezing by middle of November.

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Justin Hamaker
Film God

Posts: 2253
From: Lakeport, CA USA
Registered: Jan 2004

posted 02-21-2019 07:20 PM

As has been discussed before, I think Disney is leaving a lot of easy money on the table by not licensing their movies for things like summer kids series. Even if they just made 2-3 titles available each year, they could probably make an easy $2-$3 million by licensing those shows for $500 each (or something reasonable). Since they already have DCPs for all of their recent titles over the last 10+ years, all they would need to do is drop a few titles on hard drives. Easy money.

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Mitchell Dvoskin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1869
From: West Milford, NJ, USA
Registered: Jan 2001

posted 03-06-2019 03:07 PM

As much as I support seeing films in a motion picture theatre, as I assume most of us here do, if the Academy goes along with Spielberg's idea of disqualifying streaming films, the Academy would just be hastening their irrelevance in the eyes of independent film makers and the general public at large. If they actually decide to eliminating streaming, they should require their members to actually go out to a public showing in a theatre in order to vote. Judging a movie from a screener, or a closed showing with only fellow industry professionals is not acceptable to judge a film.

Theatres are not going away anytime soon, but sticking their heads in the mud and pretending that other forms of distribution are not legitimate would be like the village blacksmith pretending that only horses are legitimate means of transportation. We all know how that worked out for them.

Times change with each generation, and if the Academy members want their opinions to matter, they must keep up with the times.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 03-06-2019 04:18 PM

So now Steven Spielberg wants movies produced by streaming services disqualified from Oscar consideration. There are very obvious flaws in that.

First, Amazon has one of the more popular streaming video services. Unlike Netflix, Amazon has actually released some of its movies in theaters and honored the traditional theatrical window, at least what's left of it. It would be a bunch of crap to bar Amazon's movies from Oscar consideration when they've already been booking movies in theaters.

Next, many of the movies up for Academy Awards, other awards and receiving lots of critical acclaim often play in very few theaters. Whether they're independent movies, art house, foreign or whatever, those movies rarely ever get outside of theaters in the biggest cities. And these movies are playing to a select crowd of people in those big cities. That leaves everyone else stuck with watching those kinds of movies for the first time on TV. Previously most viewers would only have access to those movies at video rental stores. Some of them might wind up on cable. Now many of these acclaimed "indie" movies are winding up on streaming services. And that's where many viewers are seeing those movies for the first time.

With so many of these movies having their main point of exposure be through streaming services it does sound like a bit of hypocrisy for the AMPAS to bar movies from Netflix or Amazon from Oscar consideration but still do business as usual with all the other movie companies whose movies are now getting their biggest audiences via streaming.

And then there's all the technical issues with the kind of "movie print" given to commercial theaters versus what's available in the home. 30 years ago there was a tremendous sound/image quality difference. Not anymore. Watching a movie for the first time on a big UHD resolution OLED TV is actually pretty damn nice.

I'm all for preserving the theatrical release window, and would be in favor of increasing it back to something like at least a 6 month time frame. We're now down to as little as 6-8 weeks for some major studio releases. I'm all for requiring companies like Netflix to have movies up for Oscar consideration to at least have some kind of exclusive theatrical run -similar to what Amazon has already been doing. But barring movies from streaming services from Oscar consideration flat out is just silly.

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Justin Hamaker
Film God

Posts: 2253
From: Lakeport, CA USA
Registered: Jan 2004

posted 03-06-2019 07:14 PM

Bobby, I disagree with you about most of the films not being available to see in theatres. This may hold for the foreign language films and documentaries, but not for feature films. My theatre in in a small market, but we usually play all of the Best Picture nominees unless there is something really obscure. We also have played most of the movies up for any major awards. This year the only Best Picture film we didn't play was Roma.

The issue is almost always about the movie not being available to play rather than us being unwilling to play it. The studios are the primarily responsible party.

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Martin Brooks
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 900
From: Forest Hills, NY, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 03-06-2019 11:12 PM

I think it's actually quite simple. The producer of a film should have to decide whether they want to submit the film for an Emmy or an Oscar. Both organizations should have a rule that if a "film" is submitted to one, it can't be submitted to the other.

There's no question that the largest market is the home market. In 2018, total North American box-office gross was $11.89 billion. Total home entertainment spending was $23.8 billion. "Digital" constituted 75% of home revenues and physical was 25%.

Digital: Subscription streaming 55.5% of total revenues, Electronic Sell Through 10.6%, VOD 9%.

Physical: DVD/Blu 17.3% of total revenues, Kiosk 4.7%, DVD/Blu subscriptions 1.5%, Brick & Mortar Retail 1.4%.

But having said that, IMO, the theatrical run still gives a movie its legitimacy and without it, everything is essentially going to be "direct to video". So if the studios kill the theaters, IMO, they'll take down the entire industry. I also think with the ever-increasing number of streaming services, few will be profitable and that's going to be a problem as well. Consumers are only going to subscribe to so many.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 03-07-2019 01:21 PM

quote: Justin Hamaker
Bobby, I disagree with you about most of the films not being available to see in theatres. This may hold for the foreign language films and documentaries, but not for feature films. My theatre in in a small market, but we usually play all of the Best Picture nominees unless there is something really obscure. We also have played most of the movies up for any major awards. This year the only Best Picture film we didn't play was Roma.

In markets like mine out here in "fly-over" country it's typically McDonald's goes to the movies. The big chains control most of the first run theaters and they prefer booking only mainstream releases. Independent theater operators are in the minority, but their screen counts are usually so low they're obligated to play the big studio movies 99% of the time.

Some of the big chain theaters might book some of these more artsy-fartsy movies right after they're nominated for a bunch of Oscars or win major awards. But usually that only happens if the movie is still in theatrical release. Many independent, art house and foreign movies are released throughout the year. The only way I'm going to see any of those kinds of movies in a theater is if I drive clear down to Dallas to see it at an Alamo Drafthouse location or some other place willing to play that kind of content. Supposedly an Alamo Drafthouse location is being built on Oklahoma City's north side. OKC is still a pretty big city.

quote: Martin Brooks
But having said that, IMO, the theatrical run still gives a movie its legitimacy and without it, everything is essentially going to be "direct to video". So if the studios kill the theaters, IMO, they'll take down the entire industry. I also think with the ever-increasing number of streaming services, few will be profitable and that's going to be a problem as well. Consumers are only going to subscribe to so many.

Streaming platforms are going to be facing some serious headwinds. Just how many of these streaming services can the market support? Consumers have flocked to services like Netflix primarily out of the motivation to save money. People have been cutting the cord on cable TV and satellite to [b]save money[/i]. It's bullshit to have a pay TV bill topping $100-$150 or more per month, especially when so much of what's broadcast is garbage. We already have Netflix, Amazon and Hulu as the major streaming players. Disney is going to launch its own service. Warner Bros plans to do the same thing. Both will likely pull their content from Netflix and Amazon. I think Universal & Comcast are looking at doing a streaming service. If a consumer is subscribing to 3-4 or more of these services his pay TV bill will creep back toward that $100 per month mark.

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Justin Hamaker
Film God

Posts: 2253
From: Lakeport, CA USA
Registered: Jan 2004

posted 03-07-2019 06:25 PM

quote: Bobby Henderson
Streaming platforms are going to be facing some serious headwinds. Just how many of these streaming services can the market support? Consumers have flocked to services like Netflix primarily out of the motivation to save money.

I think Disney's streaming service is going to hoover up a large share of the market. When they pull all of their content from Netflix, it's going to drastically reduce the value of that service - especially at the $15 a month price (or whatever it is right now).

This is another reason why I think it's foolish for Netflix to forego movie theatres. They are cutting out a potential revenue stream. Besides the box office revenue for their movies, there is the intangible factor of using the movie theatre to draw people to their platform.

Before digital cinema I would be much more understanding about the desire not to spend the money. But given the relatively low cost of distribution now, I don't see it costing that much more to at least do a 3 week theatrical release. The ad campaign would be much more expensive either since theatrical to streaming would essentially be back to back.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 03-07-2019 08:06 PM

I think I have the standard Netflix streaming plan. Recently I received a notice the monthly fee was going up to $12.99. That's still less than the $14.99 per month HBO wants. Netflix could make more money off some of their own movies if they played in theaters. Of course it's another matter getting movie theaters to play those movies, especially the big chain multiplex theaters.

Just to repeat what I've said before: I'm fairly certain Disney will charge upwards of $20 per month for its service, if not even more. They'll charge enough that families wanting to subscribe might end up dropping one or more other streaming service subscriptions to offset that higher price.

The loss of Disney movies and other Disney-owned content will hurt Netflix. But the question is how much? When scanning through Netflix' arguably crappy user interface it's easy to see a strong emphasis on TV series. That's the main thing that pops up on each row (with Netflix' own content given more visibility). I can totally miss a movie Netflix might be carrying at the time unless I see some mention of it elsewhere on another website.

The thing that will hurt Netflix badly: if all the major movie studios launch their own separate streaming services and port all their movie and TV content there. Netflix is spending quite a bit of money producing its own TV shows and movies, but it has to license a lot of content from other studios to make a Netflix subscription seem worth it.

These major movie studios could be in the same predicament. Can they get by offering only their content or will they have to license movies and TV shows from other sources? Disney has a lot of content, but are they going to make everything in their vault available to watch? They'll have to offer at least a pretty good amount of content to keep from appearing stingy and greedy. Warner Bros has a tough decision to make regarding HBO. Will they do something that ultimately cannibalizes the HBO Now service?

quote: Justin Hamaker
Before digital cinema I would be much more understanding about the desire not to spend the money. But given the relatively low cost of distribution now, I don't see it costing that much more to at least do a 3 week theatrical release. The ad campaign would be much more expensive either since theatrical to streaming would essentially be back to back.

I think advertising movies has become really tricky lately. Newspapers and TV doesn't work like they did 20 years ago. It's more difficult to get the word out about a new movie. Smaller movie studios have an even harder time. In order for a short theatrical release to work the movie studio has to succeed at getting the word out about the movie in a very short time.

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Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1400
From: Davie, FL, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 03-07-2019 10:30 PM

quote:
There's no question that the largest market is the home market. In 2018, total North American box-office gross was $11.89 billion. Total home entertainment spending was $23.8 billion. "Digital" constituted 75% of home revenues and physical was 25%.

Digital: Subscription streaming 55.5% of total revenues, Electronic Sell Through 10.6%, VOD 9%.

Are those home entertainment numbers movies only or is that total of movies/TV/PPV events etc? I assume the latter. Subscription streaming is going to be a high percentage of TV shows.

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Marcel Birgelen
Film God

Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012

posted 03-08-2019 05:49 AM

quote: Bobby Henderson
I think I have the standard Netflix streaming plan. Recently I received a notice the monthly fee was going up to $12.99. That's still less than the $14.99 per month HBO wants. Netflix could make more money off some of their own movies if they played in theaters. Of course it's another matter getting movie theaters to play those movies, especially the big chain multiplex theaters.

If Netflix would adhere to the release window (yes, a very big if), I don't really see any reason for the exhibition industry to complain and not to sign onto it. In fact, I think it could be a mutual win.

Netflix is pouring an awful lot of their cash into their production efforts and I think there is some real money to be made in giving them a proper "grand release".

If the Academy Awards up their ante in regards to what accounts as a valid entry, this might act as yet another motivator.

The Oscars might not be very highly regarded among real movie buffs, but they still attract broad, international attention and give some "credibility" to both nominees and winners.

Some of the Netflix productions receive pretty decent reviews, yet I struggle to accept them as a fully-featured release. As long as they're a direct-to-streaming release, they'll never get rid of the Disney direct-to-video feeling for me.

Also, it's almost impossible to watch Netflix productions on a big screen. My flat screen might be way big, but a movie that leaves a good impression on TV, will leave a great impression on the big screen. There is still nothing to replace the REAL cinema experience, even if the popcorn at home is better than at the local movie shack.

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Tyler Purcell
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 180
From: Van Nuys, CA
Registered: Dec 2015

posted 03-18-2019 01:56 AM

I work in the industry as a filmmaker and I'm heavily involved in the distributors and know quite a bit about current day and the direction things are going.

Here is the problem, the major theater chains in the US are owned by the Chinese, some the Wanda group, some different conglomerates with Asian backers. The Asian market is the largest theatrical market today, they're building new theaters like American's eat hot dogs and hamburgers. So they completely dictate what the studio's produce and that's why we have this unoriginal crappy content. Some of my clients are people who pitch ideas to the studio's and I've been in those meetings many times with the top executives. They could care less about art or anything associated with it, they only care about what will make the theater's happy. Every year, they're looking for something different and they try to predict what's going to sell and they're usually right.

The future is quite a quandary because part of me feels the slowdown in China is going to effect that market pretty heavily. I also feel the US market, even though ticket sales are down, is pretty flatlined and consistent. It's just, marketing movies here is very expensive, which is why you don't see $10 Million dollar movies anymore, because it costs $50 million to market them, so why not spend $50M on the movie and $50M on advertising? The only thing that's going to change in the US market, is the increase in ticket cost, which is already hurting sales.

Streaming services are a big problem because as we've learned, day and date releases don't work. You need some impetus for people to visit the theater. With streaming, you don't really need to advertise, you just put a new release on the front page and put a bunch of fake reviews on it to show it has 5 stars and people will watch. The problem is the adoption rate of streaming services is stagnated a bit. They can't own the licenses for content in perpetuity, so the library is pretty limited. Amazon and iTunes solved this problem by offering "rentals" on movies, still more expensive the Red Box.

So when you look at the big picture, I don't see anything changing anytime soon. It would take the complete shutdown of the Asian market and a very heavy reduction on advertising costs here in the US, for any studio to take major risks like they have in the past. Furthermore, I don't feel any of the current streaming options as long-term viable. There are too many large productions done internally that have been complete failures on the platform according to insiders I know at Netflix and Amazon. They are starting to get scared about runaway productions and spending so much on content. When they back down a bit, things will change again. Netflix is in deep financial trouble, they keep a rosy outlook, but it's not looking good. I feel they will be stagnant for a few more years. I think it will be another 5 years for us to actually see the path of distribution. The next recession is among us, so it will be a huge test to see if theatrical can stick around as it stands today.

Spielberg's problem is that he simply wants parity for all filmmakers so they're given the opportunity to have their movie seen in the theaters, no matter who makes it. I agree with this sentiment and I don't know why there is such a pushback from other filmmakers about this.

Just my .02 cents.

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