Can The Movies Survive The Next Twenty Years?
The theatrical movie experience has proved remarkably resistant to online disruption so far. For most of the last 10 years, the cost to launch a groundbreaking, potentially thrilling internet TV show has decreased — though that may well be changing — whereas the total cost to make, market, and distribute a theatrical release has decidedly not.
Furthermore, movie theaters, face new direct-to-streaming-services competition with far more range. Even in the arena of “movies” as we know them, this competition seems exponentially more intense every year.
It seems that the entertainment industry is finally aware of the change. Some striking quotes from that NYT piece: “This is the biggest shift in the content business in the history of Hollywood” — Jason Blum. “For a long time, people have been saying the business is changing, but that’s undeniable now” — JJ Abrams.“I don’t feel particularly optimistic about the traditional theatrical experience” — Jordan Horowitz, producer of La La Land. “There’s a lot more work, but it’s a lot harder to make money on anything.” — Elizabeth Banks. .
We can see a lot of young filmmakers get opportunities at Netflix and Amazon that they haven’t gotten through the studio system. So I’m very, very happy about the new shape our industry is taking” —
If streaming services are allowing more and more people to create scripted entertainment of every kind, on every budget, then their success is no bad thing.
But I can envision a future in which a Hollywood Movie is no longer the alpha king of cultural experiences — where, instead, shared worlds spread across many entertainment form-factors, including lower-cost ones, made by a diverse crowd of contributors, take prime position in our collective mindshare. In that future, theatrical releases become a relatively niche market compared to streaming.
In such future the theatrical business model will change, too, and rightly so. I’m still baffled why I couldn’t see the last season of Game of Thrones in any nearby theatre, for instance. But there will be far more kinds of entertainment to choose from, undercutting the century-long dominance of “three acts in two hours,” from far more kinds of people. Even to a hardcore cinemaphile like me, the more I think about such a future, the more it seems better to me than the status quo.
I don’t think movies are going to die. I think there will long be people like me, who so prefer the immersive experience of a theater to the in-passing one of streaming at home that we’re willing to pay for it.
Thanks
Navatej Kumar
Founder&CEO
Crafter,Inc.
