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Posted by Harold Hallikainen (Member # 5405) on 02-19-2019, 09:36 AM:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/18/18229794/steven-spielberg-streaming-theatrical-films-netflix-roma

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

Netflix isn’t making ‘TV movies’ anymore
By Chaim Gartenberg@cgartenberg Feb 18, 2019, 4:54pm EST

Over the weekend, in a speech at the Cinema Audio Society’s CAS Awards, director Steven Spielberg reminded listeners yet again that he’s specifically dedicated to a theater-based cinematic experience as “a firm believer that movie theaters need to be around forever.” Accepting the Filmmaker Award at the event, Spielberg said, “I hope all of us really continue to believe that the greatest contributions we can make as filmmakers is to give audiences the motion picture theatrical experience.”

Spielberg’s comments may seem innocuous — there’s nothing controversial about a director who’s largely made his name on big, expensive Hollywood blockbusters stating that he likes big-screen movies and wants to see the format last — but his comments have been taken as a pointed slight against streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. And they come at a contentious time in the industry, as perceived streaming upstarts challenge big studios for audiences and official recognition. Netflix’s first run at an Oscar for Best Picture, with its original film Roma, has prompted a renewed debate about the relative place of theatrical releases versus streaming releases.

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Check out Steven Spielberg’s partial speech at the CAS Awards the other night. What do you think? https://t.co/zRIFlfYPbo pic.twitter.com/KqQINONwt0

— Marc Malkin (@marcmalkin) February 18, 2019
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In the face of that debate over what makes a release qualify as a movie, Spielberg seems to be on the side that feels that streaming-service releases shouldn’t be eligible at big awards shows because, regardless of length or storytelling mode, they’re primarily intended for a home viewing platform. “Once you commit to a television format, you’re a TV movie,” Spielberg told ITV News in an interview last year. “You certainly, if it’s a good show, deserve an Emmy, but not an Oscar. I don’t believe films that are just given token qualifications in a couple of theaters for less than a week should qualify for the Academy Award nomination.”

Spielberg echoed a similar thought at the CAS Awards, emphasizing that, for all the high-quality content streaming services are producing and regardless of the quality of people’s home theater setups, “there’s nothing like going to a big dark theater with people you’ve never met before, and having the experience wash over you.”

It does seem strange that Spielberg would be so against the idea of outlets like Netflix and HBO funding personal, non-commercial films like Roma, though, given that he’s expressed urgent concerns over the current studio model and how it’s more focused on big-budget blockbusters that leverage popular franchises at the expense of smaller films.

Back in 2013, Spielberg discussed his fears for “a whole bunch of really interesting, deeply personal — and even maybe historical — projects that may get lost in the shuffle” in today’s Hollywood, as studios focus on big event films with potential billion-dollar paydays. Spielberg predicted an “implosion where three or four or maybe even half a dozen of these mega-budgeted movies are going to go crashing into the ground.” At that same event, filmmaker George Lucas worried that increasing film costs and suffering studios would drive up theater ticket prices: “Going to the movies is going to cost you 50 bucks, maybe 100. Maybe 150.”

But while Spielberg is concerned about the future of theaters, he also seems to be objecting to recognition for the alternative channels that are enabling small- to mid-scale movies. In the same ITV interview where he lamented that a Netflix-style “TV movie” shouldn’t be nominated for an Academy Award, he also noted, “A lot of studios would rather make branded, tent-pole, guaranteed box office hits… than take chances on smaller films. And those smaller films that studios used to make routinely are now going to Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix.”

These two concerns — that studios are shutting out small movies and that streaming services might be getting too much recognition for small movies — appear antithetical. But Spielberg’s argument seems to emphasis categorization above all else: it seems that, no matter how worthwhile a film may be (and as he noted in his CAS speech, streaming services’ “TV” films do feature some of the top work in the industry right now), “TV movies” undermine theaters, even if those films spend some time there first. That seems like a strangely backward philosophy that puts presentation above content.

But he authentically seems to mean it not as a swipe against the streaming industry, but as an expression of anxiety for theaters. Currently, the numbers do show some cause for concern. The Motion Picture Association of America’s annual box office numbers show box office takes as comparatively equitable over the last 20 years, despite steadily rising ticket prices. But it seems highly unlikely that industry recognition for a film like Roma would really have any effect on people’s willingness to head to the cineplex for the latest Godzilla remake or superhero film. It may simply fall on concerned, respected industry leaders like Spielberg to come up with creative solutions to the problems they see as dominating the industry. If Spielberg doesn’t like big studios focusing on big films and big paydays or small streamers earning attention for daring personal projects, what does he want to see happen in the industry?

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HH Comment - The idea of restricting Oscars to "theatrical" movies reminds me of the idea mentioned at https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2018/09/11/broadcast-networks-need-their-own-emmy-awards/#2f04c61717e4 of broadcast television getting its own Emmy award because almost all the exsiting Emmy's are going to non-broadcast programmers like CATV and streaming networks.

Harold

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-19-2019, 12:40 PM:

I drives me crazy that theatrical run of "Roma" is being considered a successful run. It's in so few theaters (in big cities) and it's nominated for Best Picture, and Netflix is spending a billion dollars flogging it it all over the place...NO WONDER shows are selling well.

But they'll use those sold-out screenings to say "See... streaming doesn't hurt theatrical AT ALL."

Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 02-19-2019, 01:48 PM:

Well if Uncle Speilie (as a late colleague of mine called him) is so concerned, then he needs to try to pound some sense into the studios to quit putting out unoriginal, derivative, brainless movies and get some REAL stories going again. THAT is why films like "Roma" are doing well because they are willing to break away from the Hollywood studio's cesspool.

Just as the studio's monopoly on theatre ownership was broken up (and it seemed to have been very beneficial) maybe it is time for the "Big Studio" concept to go away as well. Just looking at the endless list of "producers" and "executive producers" on the latest blockbuster (as well as so many "production assistants", etc.) shows how bloated the overhead on a studio film really is.

Or he can do as Lucas did when he started with SW ep. 4, put up his own money and start making quality films again.

Oh, and Lucas is right...movie admissions are going to get out of hand (they are pretty bad already) so I see it quite possible for admissions to get over or close to the century mark for a couple on a date.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 02-19-2019, 02:11 PM:

quote: Tony Bandiera Jr
maybe it is time for the "Big Studio" concept to go away as well. Just looking at the endless list of "producers" and "executive producers" on the latest blockbuster (as well as so many "production assistants", etc.) shows how bloated the overhead on a studio film really is.

Or as it was known 25 years ago "Dogma 95" [Wink]

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 02-19-2019, 02:57 PM:

I think very rough times are ahead for the entire entertainment industry.

The bean counters think selling movies is no different than selling shares of stock in tech companies. As they keep screwing around with the foundation of the business model it becomes more likely they'll implode the entire structure. They just keep pushing and pushing, trying to turn movies into TV as they work on cutting commercial theaters out of the food chain. They foolishly think the movies will still be movies without the theaters and the movie industry will go on without a problem.

The greed and myopia of these money people know no bounds. Rhetorical question: do you know why streaming is so popular these days? It's cheap and it's SIMPLE! That financial equation doesn't seem to compute at all in the heads of these douche bags. I say this because the movie studios and other people involved in the equation have begun the process of ruining the streaming platform. Both the mainstream press and entertainment press insist that "streaming is the future." Um, it won't be if every studio breaks off to launch its own streaming service. Just like no one likes paying $100-$200 for cable, no one will like paying that much for a bunch of different, fractured services.

I pretty much expect Disney to set a new high water mark on per month pricing (I'm guessing around $20 per month) when they launch their own streaming service. Netflix and Amazon have both increased their pricing in recent months. Some financial experts insist Netflix needs to raise prices at least a few dollars higher per subscriber to offset its astonishing cash burn. All these different audio-video streaming services (Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Apple, Sirius|XM, etc) may seem cheap by themselves. The bill adds up fast when you subscribe to half a dozen or more different services. We probably know this won't end with Disney launching its own service. I'm sure Warner Bros, Paramount and Universal won't be far behind. Both Amazon and Netflix are trying to flex their muscles as movie studios themselves. So they're not going to go away. But the whole streaming situation is going to turn into one giant, over-priced mess.

Some movie fans might try turning back to physical media. But the movie industry is doing its best to ruin that as a platform. Samsung's announcement that it is getting out of the Blu-ray player business is pretty troubling.

It's obvious people have been cutting the cord in droves because traditional cable & satellite TV is too fucking expensive. Too many of the channels are loaded with garbage. Only a handful of cable network have any quality programming at all. The rest of it is endless repeats of reality-TV garbage, stuff like some Brit chewing out the kitchen help or a lady popping giant cyst zits on a patient's back. That kind of shit is supposed to be worth a bill of $100 or more per month!? If it wasn't for live sports programming and 24-hour "news" outlets of anger porn the cable TV industry would be in crisis mode.

Netflix grew very popular because it was a cheap and convenient alternative to cable. For awhile it seemed like a very simple one stop shop. As prices rise and all the good content gets spread across a dozen different competing streaming services the convenience and value will be gone.

quote: Tony Bandiera Jr
Well if Uncle Speilie (as a late colleague of mine called him) is so concerned, then he needs to try to pound some sense into the studios to quit putting out unoriginal, derivative, brainless movies and get some REAL stories going again. THAT is why films like "Roma" are doing well because they are willing to break away from the Hollywood studio's cesspool.

The big studios are definitely screwing themselves in the long term with all the Save The Cat! movies made by clip art templates. Even if you watch a big studio movie that doesn't have a number in its title you still feel like you saw the same movie 1000 times before.

The most entertaining movie I've seen recently was Free Solo. Cynthia and I watched that on our local "IMAX" screen a couple weeks ago. I knew the guy successfully became the first person to free climb the front face of El Capitan. But watching him do it (on a huge screen no less) was still scary as all hell.

I think movie theaters and traditional movies as we know them are both dying a death of a thousand cuts. The studios forced a flawed model of digital projection down the throats of theater operators. Then film began dying off in the movie productions themselves. The changes to cinematography and projection have greatly blurred the lines between movies and TV. Big budget movies and ordinary TV shows are using the same camera systems, same post production tools and create mostly HDTV resolution products virtually indistinguishable from each other. The only physical difference is the production budget. The TV shows, especially the series-based shows, have much more creative freedom with how they can handle the plot and characters. Too often those shows seem more fresh, unpredictable and entertaining.

quote: Tony Bandiera Jr
Just as the studio's monopoly on theatre ownership was broken up (and it seemed to have been very beneficial) maybe it is time for the "Big Studio" concept to go away as well. Just looking at the endless list of "producers" and "executive producers" on the latest blockbuster (as well as so many "production assistants", etc.) shows how bloated the overhead on a studio film really is.

I am 100% certain if movie theaters get eliminated and everything goes to streaming we will see the concept of the big budget 2 hour feature movie completely disappear. No studio or production company is going to blow $200 million on the production of 2 hour movie made only for TV. And they're not going to spend another $100 promoting it either.

I think all this hype movies like Roma are currently getting is building up a lot of false hope in proponents of streaming. Have any of these people objectively looked at what is given by far the most prominence on streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video? It sure isn't movies. The big thing is Series TV. You have to hunt through the shitty user interfaces of these streaming apps to find actual movies under the piles upon piles of TV shows. Both Netflix and Amazon are blowing lots of money on their own original 2 hour movies, but they're blowing even more on TV series productions. There is a lot more types of content to watch on those streaming service outlets than just movies.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 02-19-2019, 04:50 PM:

quote: Martin McCaffery
Or as it was known 25 years ago "Dogma 95"

We have an unlimited amount of amateur porn readily available to stream any minute of the day, publicly available on the Internet nowadays. [Wink]

quote: Bobby Henderson
I pretty much expect Disney to set a new high water mark on per month pricing (I'm guessing around $20 per month) when they launch their own streaming service.

There were rumors about a tiered service that starts at $10 and ends at infinity and beyond... On average, the $20 ballpark figure for access to anything meaningful (that pleases both kids and parents) seems to be sound. Also, Disney still considers themselves to be a premium brand.

quote: Bobby Henderson
Netflix grew very popular because it was a cheap and convenient alternative to cable. For awhile it seemed like a very simple one stop shop. As prices rise and all the good content gets spread across a dozen different competing streaming services the convenience and value will be gone.

Netflix used to be your mail-order Blockbuster video-rental service. They built their success on top of the content of others. Availability of a broad range of this content has been key, also for their earlier streaming efforts.

But Netflix is increasingly positioning themselves as a content brand and it looks like they're more or less successful in doing so. The amount of content available in the average service area actually considerably decreased in the last year. The money they don't pay for licensing, will most likely be put into their own productions.

As long as they can supply the big mass of binge-watching bottom-feeders with mostly mediocre in-house productions and some cheaply licensed content their position will probably be mostly secure.

quote: Bobby Henderson
The big studios are definitely screwing themselves in the long term with all the Save The Cat! movies made by clip art templates. Even if you watch a big studio movie that doesn't have a number in its title you still feel like you saw the same movie 1000 times before.

It's a negative feedback loop they've set up for themselves. I guess both Spielberg and Lucas do have a point.

We're at a point where the average tent-pole Hollywood production has simply become too expensive. If you're spending $100M+ on the production of a movie alone, nobody is going to take any big risks anymore.

Maybe Hollywood itself needs a proper reboot. Maybe they should consider the Silicon Valley approach: Take more risks, fund more innovative ideas. Most of them will die a more or less slow death, but a few of them are sufficiently genius and wildly successful to easily pay for all the failures.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-19-2019, 08:21 PM:

quote: Marcel Birgelen
There were rumors about a tiered service that starts at $10 and ends at infinity and beyond... On average, the $20 ballpark figure for access to anything meaningful (that pleases both kids and parents) seems to be sound.

I've heard that they will have two tiers - $10 and $20 (or, probably $19.99). The cheap one will have new "flop" movies, classic Star Wars (to draw people in) and lesser Marvel stuff, and the expensive one will have the stuff people actually want to see, including the classic animated movies.

I expect the cheap one will have an ad for the expensive one at the head of every single show.

quote: Marcel Birgelen
Also, Disney still considers themselves to be a premium brand.

Why should they not? They're the only studio making movies that consistently stick to the wall these days.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 02-19-2019, 10:00 PM:

quote: Tony Bandiera Jr
then he needs to try to pound some sense into the studios to quit putting out unoriginal, derivative, brainless movies and get some REAL stories going again.

I think this argument is rather tired. There are plenty of high quality movies released every year. The problem is audiences have voted with their money over and over again to see the big blockbusters rather than the smaller high quality movies.

No matter how good it is, or how wide it's released, a movie like Roma is never going to be a big box office hit. And since Netflix doesn't publish any statistics on their movies, we don't actually know that it's a hit on their service. In fact, they haven't even published box office numbers so we don't know how much success it is actually enjoying in theatres. Even if it is selling out showings in a major metro area, this tells us nothing because it takes such a small percent of the population to sell out a 200-300 seat auditorium in a metro area with millions of people. Especially when you consider film lovers are likely to travel 100 miles or more to drive to where they can see it on the big screen.

I do think it's great that the overall quality of "made for TV" has drastically improved in recent years. Everyone who enjoys quality entertainment should be grateful for more quality content. However, I agree that a movie should not be eligible for the Oscars unless it has a true theatrical release. I would even suggest expanding the definition so that eligibility requires a wide release prior to the end of the year. One thing that hurts theatres is the feast or famine cycle. During the feast periods there is so much content that many movies don't get the screen time they deserve. And the famine periods just give people a reason to stay home since there isn't anything good playing. Give is a 12 month calendar where quality movies are released every month, and every week.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 02-19-2019, 11:09 PM:

quote: Justin Hamaker
I think this argument is rather tired. There are plenty of high quality movies released every year. The problem is audiences have voted with their money over and over again to see the big blockbusters rather than the smaller high quality movies.

Justin, I would be on your side with this response, but most movie-going markets are extremely far from equal. In the small market where I live 99% of the time viewers only get to see the limited amount of usually derivative content the major studios are willing to provide. They see very very little in the way of indie, art-house or foreign movies. The choice for our vote is often Shit Flavor 1 versus Shit Flavor 2. Add a few more numbers, but it's usually still a bunch of derivative shit.

In a small market you have to be Johnny on the Spot to catch a unique movie that manages to get booked there. Our local paper is on life support; movie studios and theater chains do not buy any movie-specific ads anymore. These days the movies section is a postage stamp ad of the theater with its phone number. That's all you get for "local movie marketing." No movie studio is buying small market specific TV spots for specific movies. In the end a real fan of the movies has to keep an eye out for what's good that manages to show up at the local multiplex. Recently Free Solo had a 7 day run on our local Lie-MAX screen. I went out of my way to check out that movie. Spectacular documentary (but nightmare scary). Alex Honnold, the guy who free-climbed the 3000' front face of El Capitan seems insane for doing what he did. The show was amazing. Sadly the Oscar-nominated documentary played to a mostly empty auditorium. And that's kind of sad. Our local Lie-Max screen is not too shabby (around 550 seats, an honestly huge screen and decently powerful sound system).

quote: Justin Hamaker
However, I agree that a movie should not be eligible for the Oscars unless it has a true theatrical release. I would even suggest expanding the definition so that eligibility requires a wide release prior to the end of the year. One thing that hurts theatres is the feast or famine cycle. During the feast periods there is so much content that many movies don't get the screen time they deserve.

One thing that might cure that problem is if modern multiplex theaters were allowed to play a greater variety of content on each screen rather than letting a single big studio movie hog that auditorium for a week (or multiple weeks) all to itself. Since we no longer have to concern ourselves with physical film prints any modern multiplex should be able to show literally dozens of movies to the public in just one day. The big studios hold a pseudo monopoly on those screens, letting some tired sequel play to a nearly empty auditorium most of the week when the theater could make more creative use of that digital projector, showing multiple movies or other types of programs on each of its d-cinema screens. Since movie theaters are stuck with the cost burdens of buying, maintaining and replacing these projector systems it would only be fair for them to be able to schedule a wider variety of programming on those projection systems.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 02-20-2019, 12:16 AM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
One thing that might cure that problem is if modern multiplex theaters were allowed to play a greater variety of content on each screen rather than letting a single big studio movie hog that auditorium for a week

I would be 100% onboard with this idea, however the studios are extremely selfish, often to their own harm. As a small market theatre, we are regularly looking for opportunities to do split screen so that we can either bring in a smaller movie or to keep something on screen another week or two. However, the studios often play this game where they want the screen clean, even if it means the alternative is losing the screen all together. We get this from the big studios, and we get this from the small studios.

We also run into the issue with a lot of limited releases where we can't get a date far enough in advance. As a result we are forced to book something from one of the major studios to ensure our screen is not dark.

I thought this issue would get better once we were done with our VPF deal, but so far it's not. Although we now know for certain the studios were making decisions on whether we got a movie based on whether they would have to pay a VPF.

Posted by Dave Bird (Member # 490) on 02-20-2019, 05:37 PM:

Oh, absolutely to these last couple posts! I'm but a flyspeck with moderate experience in this biz, but it would seem to me that when they banned the studios from owning theatres, exhibitors were still able to play 2 or 3 different programs a week and likely show different films on the same screen each night. At lower or flat fees to boot. We're able to be a little more creative, since we're ok to show double-features outdoors, but we still pass on a number of great titles every year as 3 week runs are too much. It's too bad, I'm certain that we'd make the studios more with a little flexibility. Just as I'm certain smaller towns would draw customers who haven't paid to see a movie in years. Every other business has figured out where every nickel can be had, not sure why not this one.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-20-2019, 07:53 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
Since we no longer have to concern ourselves with physical film prints any modern multiplex should be able to show literally dozens of movies to the public in just one day. The big studios hold a pseudo monopoly on those screens, letting some tired sequel play to a nearly empty auditorium most of the week when the theater could make more creative use of that digital projector, showing multiple movies or other types of programs on each of its d-cinema screens.

Exactly! I've told our booker over and over (and also various studio reps at conventions) that we would love to play a different brand-new movie every single week, if only the studios would get off the damn two/three/four week commitments for small theaters. Right now we're playing "Lego 2" (a weak title, but a new one) and it should have come off after one week. We could have brought in a different movie, and probably done 10x what we've done on week 2 of Lego.

Overall we could probably double our grosses if it wasn't for over-long studio playtime requirements.

Ditto with splitting the screen....we've had a grand total of about 12 people to late Lego shows. We could have put some R-rated title in there and had ten times the people. But no.

NATO was supposedly making some headway with this issue a few years ago -- it used to be that a small operator like us could never get a movie on the break. At least that's changed. But they will probably never come off the long playtimes, from what I'm told.

Maybe they will, though, when the Netflix-style "three week window" becomes the norm.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 02-20-2019, 09:42 PM:

Maybe it's time for independent theater owners to unite and address this issue collectively? Especially with Disney now owning "half" of the studios, those practices are a form of monopolistic power abuse. And it doesn't look like NATO is taking the issue seriously.

Exhibitors should be allowed to show their customers, what they want to see, as long as they pay their fair share of licensing fees.

Where the availability of physical media was a good counter-argument in the past, that has been long gone since Hollywood themselves forced a hard transition to digital distribution. They themselves advertised this greater flexibility of content availability as a motivating factor for theaters to switch to digital.

quote: Mike Blakesley
Why should they not? They're the only studio making movies that consistently stick to the wall these days.

That alone doesn't make you premium. [Wink]

While the "Disney brand" itself is still mostly a premium brand with premium pricing for anything offered under that brand, the Walt Disney Company itself is nowadays such a behemoth, they can't just cater to the top of the market anymore.

Also, what I'm getting from people around me is that the constant barrage of super-hero movies is actually diluting their perception of quality. Although they're marketed under the Marvel brand, almost anybody seems to be aware they're mostly Disney productions.

The same happened to some extend to the Star Wars franchise, especially after they decided it was a good move to release a new Star Wars movie in less than half a year after the last one. Besides Solo being a somewhat lackluster attempt at a prequel movie in itself, those short release cycles made a lot of people question their intentions, whereby quantity seemed to be more important than quality... especially since The Last Jedi wasn't entirely well-received among many Star Wars fans either.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 02-21-2019, 12:25 AM:

I still remember the 1980's when the "Mouse House" was struggling pretty badly. Disney was pretty much forced into launching sister studios like Touchstone Pictures and Hollywood Pictures -just so they could release adult-oriented movies without involving the actual Disney name in the matter.

No movie studio is immune from hitting hard times. MGM was once the most powerful studio in the business. Now what is it? Pretty much a footnote in movie history.

These bean counters are trying to mess with the basic mechanisms of the machinery all in the vain to make a fast buck. But if they're looking to totally "break the wheel" of establishment and upend all these historically sound conventions of business they're going to have to be careful that fucking wheel doesn't run them over and splatter their guts all over the place as it goes bouncing destructively, unpredictably down that hill.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-21-2019, 12:48 AM:

quote: Marcel Birgelen
The same happened to some extend to the Star Wars franchise, especially after they decided it was a good move to release a new Star Wars movie in less than half a year after the last one. Besides Solo being a somewhat lackluster attempt at a prequel movie in itself, those short release cycles made a lot of people question their intentions, whereby quantity seemed to be more important than quality... especially since The Last Jedi wasn't entirely well-received among many Star Wars fans either.

I agree with this. I always felt like they were rushing things too much, although everybody I talked to loved "Rogue One." They had a mis-step with "Solo" which I didn't really understand, becauuse it was a good movie. It was just bad timing. With "The Last Jedi," I think the biggest problem with that was, there was this huge buildup to the return of Luke Skywalker and then he just wasn't like the Luke we all knew and loved.

So they have a chance, coming up, to repair the damage. Maybe grouchy, sullen Luke will turn out to have been a bad dream.

There is already at least one TV show in development for their streaming service. If Episode IX and that TV show aren't successful, then they've got a problem.

I personally wish they'd leave Star Wars in the theatrical realm and not muck things up with TV shows, but hey they need content. In my perfect world, Episode IX would come out and then there wouldn't be a peep out of the Star Wars universe for at least five or seven years.

I also wish they'd cut it out with strip-mining their back catalog, although the movies HAVE been good and they HAVE delivered, mostly. I'm a little worried about "Dumbo," but I'm really jacked for"Toy Story 4" and "The Lion King," and "Frozen 2" will be pretty much a license to print money.

If they keep up their current pace with catalog-related stuff, they're going to run out of "A" titles pretty fast, so hopefully they've got a lot of good writers and idea people working on some new stuff.

Posted by Dave Bird (Member # 490) on 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.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 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.

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 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.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 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.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 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.

Posted by Martin Brooks (Member # 1269) on 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.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 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.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 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.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 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.

Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 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.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 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.

Posted by Tyler Purcell (Member # 9213) on 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.