Steven Spielberg: Streamers Like HBO Max ‘Threw My Best Filmmaker Friends Under the Bus’

[Jay 37,287]

https://variety.com/2022/film/news/steven-spielberg-slams-streaming-hbo-max-mistreating-directors-1235428362/

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/09/movies/steven-spielberg-the-fabelmans.html

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I think older audiences were relieved that they didn’t have to step on sticky popcorn.

 

Or, you know, they were trying to reduce their risk of catching COVID and dying... 

 

I admire the man but Spielberg really lives in a bubble on some issues. There's a multitude of reasons people have abandoned cinemas and sticky popcorn on the floor isn't high on that list.

[mstrox 6,647]

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I agree with Spielberg 100% on all counts

[mstrox 6,647]

I love going to theaters but my preference is an empty theater - something I had plenty of opportunity to do when running projection and managing a theater.  Outside of maybe silly comedies, I’ll never understand the “communal” thing Spielberg talks about.

 

If anything, this article shows a little bit of softening for Spielberg - seems like he thinks streaming may have been a better venue for The Post, given its intent at least.

 

Assuming the friend Spielberg thinks got done dirty is Zemeckis with The Witches?  Don’t think Villeneuve or Nolan run in his circle.

[publicist 4,643]

So according to Spielberg, our best hope for cinema rests on movies about pop-star legends? Because that's obviously the only USP movies like 'Elvis' or 'Bohemian Rhapsody' have. That's some limitation there!

 

As for 'The Post', it's the kind of movie you need neither cinemas nor streaming platforms for. Just try reading again.

[Muad'Dib 1,801]

Quote

I had a lot of time on my hands. I used to get in my car and drive for hours — all around Los Angeles, up Pacific Coast Highway, over to Calabasas, over near Twentynine Palms. And that gave me more time to think about what was happening in the world.

 

Uuuhh... maybe you should've stayed at home, Steven? 

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48 minutes ago, mstrox said:

Outside of maybe silly comedies, I’ll never understand the “communal” thing Spielberg talks about.

 

Agreed, a social thing to do with friends but you're there for their company. Everyone else is just an irritant I have no choice but to share the space with, no different to catching a bus or a plane. 

 

This idealised, rose-tinted experience of going to the movies might have existed when Spielberg was a kid but it's not really a reflection of the modern "cinemagoing experience", at least not for me. People playing on their phones, farting, talking loudly, rustling chip packets or walking in front of you after the film started... these all break the immersion Spielberg is referring to. 

 

And as a film music buff who loves staying for the end credits and hearing the score, nothing ruins that 7 minutes of enjoyment faster than hundreds of people all loitering around the cinema chatting and laughing. 

[A24 4,326]

He has become a dinosaur.

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

He's right that theaters are still the best way to experience a movie, despite his shaky reasoning for why people avoided it in the year 2020 and 2021 specifically.  

 

I hate how so many supposed cinephiles downplay the significance of the theatrical experience while propping up streaming as this convenient, utopian ideal.  

 

1 hour ago, crumbs said:

People playing on their phones, farting

Sorry about that

[Jay 37,287]

I wish I could go see The Fabelmans in theaters this weekend.  But it's only playing in LA & NYC

 

By the time it opens wide around me, I'll be unable to see it until we're back from Milan, by which point if it wasn't popular enough, it won't even be playing any more!

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I'll be seeing it the day after Thanksgiving.  Nice thing about a lot of family being in town for Thanksgiving, it's easy to set up childcare for us to go to the movies!

[Richard Penna 3,670]

1 hour ago, Not Mr. Big said:

I hate how so many supposed cinephiles downplay the significance of the theatrical experience while propping up streaming as this convenient, utopian ideal.  

 

It's not utopian, but convenient and cheaper? Hell yeah.

 

----

 

I don't really see SS's justification for a film going to streaming as throwing a director 'under a bus'. Cinemas here in the UK are having a hell of a time with declining audiences generally and a lot of people I know use Netflix, etc, to watch stuff instead of going to the cinema tons. The current climate isn't conducive to drawing audiences to expensive seats with overpriced popcorn - maybe SS should think about economic matters before complaining.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

10 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

I don't really see SS's justification for a film going to streaming as throwing a director 'under a bus'.

 

This is specifically about Warner Bros in 2020/21.  They announced all these movies were going to streaming day and date without even consulting with the filmmakers.  Sure, it's a business but that is absolutely throwing them under the bus and treating your talent like shit is bad business.

 

Also, the cinema is Spielberg's entire life.  Cut him some slack before you get all self-righteous, geez.

[Docteur Qui 1,544]

I think it's a bit rich for Spielberg to get on his high horse about the death of the movie cinema. The blockbuster trend that he and his contemporaries gave us has led to a state wherein the only thing any cinema will run at any given time is a Marvel or Star War. Companies like Disney are essentially blackmailing cinemas to screen their tentpole films at every available showing with the threat of blacklisting them if they don't comply. I get that Spielberg himself isn't responsible for this, but it's pretty tone-deaf blaming streamers for killing cinema when the reality is that there's far more variety and good quality material to watch at home, plus you can eat food that doesn't cost a second mortgage and your firstborn child.