Monday, December 07, 2020
Steven Soderbergh on Whether Movie Theaters Can Survive Beyond 2021
collider.com: In recent years, Steven Soderbergh has established a footprint in the streaming world. Having directed or executive produced content which has gone to Netflix, Quibi, and soon HBO Max (with his new movie Let Them All Talk), Soderbergh has shown a willingness to embrace the growing world of streaming in a noticeable way. With this in mind, it seems natural that Soderbergh might be asked to weigh in on the recent announcement from HBO Max regarding the decision to release Warner Bros.' 2021 slate — including big tentpoles Godzilla vs. Kong, Dune, and The Matrix 4 — on the streaming platform the same day as their theatrical release. Does Soderbergh, a creative with experience working with streamers, have any strong opinions about sending potentially huge blockbusters to HBO Max at the risk of impacting attendance in movie theaters?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
The author of the article framed Steven Soderbergh’s response as something that would be surprising and honestly I am not surprised. The question asked of Soderbergh was did he think that releasing movies in theatres and on streaming sites help contribute to the demise of movie theatres. He said no, which makes sense because I’m honestly not sure of what states right now have open movie theatres but Soderbergh is right in saying that he is just reacting to the economic demand. Until there mass vaccination and even maybe not, people aren’t going to return to Movie Theatres according to several industry surveys out now. This is a smart economic decision as people aren’t going to feel safe necessarily being trapped in a movie theatre – some people won’t like to have to be masked for so long in public while others won’t like worrying about catching covid-19. I think releasing movies straight to streaming until well into 2021 is smart and even after this pandemic. Soderbergh does talk about the importance and power of movies breaking box office records. This would be an industry reason for keeping movie theatres but is there an actual market demand. Soderbergh thinks yes. I think probably a lot more people will even post mass vaccination avoid enclosed spaces for long periods o time like a movie theatre.
Post a Comment