Steven Spielberg criticizes streaming services like HBO Max saying they ‘threw my best filmmaker friends under the bus’

Director Steven Spielberg he has strong opinions about streaming services, theaters and where his films could go in the future. In a recent interview with The New York Times, Spielberg said streaming services like HBO Max have been throwing filmmakers “under the bus” by “unceremoniously” downloading high-profile new releases to stream and not in theaters. The director of ET, Jaws, Close encounters of the third kind And TO THE refers to Warner Bros.’ decision to release its entire 2021 movie slate on both HBO Max and in theaters on the same day. Spielberg says such a decision changed cinema-viewing habits for adults.

“The pandemic has created an opportunity for streaming platforms to ramp up their subscriptions to record highs and also throw some of my best filmmaker friends under the bus as their films have not been unceremoniously released in theatres. They paid off and the movies were suddenly relegated to, in this case, HBO Max. The case I’m talking about. And then everything started to change.”

He continued:

“I think older audiences were relieved that they didn’t have to step on sticky popcorn. But I truly believe that those same older audiences, once they get into cinema, the magic of being in a social situation with a group of strangers is a tonic…it’s up to the movies to be good enough to get all the audiences to tell the story. each other when the lights come back on.

One film that gave him hope was the director Baz Luhrmann’S Elvis:

“I found it encouraging that ‘Elvis’ surpassed $100 million at the domestic box office,” Spielberg said. “A lot of older people went to see that film, and it gave me hope that people were starting to go back to the cinema as the pandemic becomes endemic. I think movies will come back. For real.

While the filmmaker remains committed to theatrical releases for the films as a whole, he admits the pandemic has at least led him to more openly consider the value of a potential switch to a streaming-only release in some cases.

“I made ‘The Post’ as a political statement about our times reflecting the Nixon administration, and we thought it was an important reflection for a lot of people to understand what was going on in our country. I don’t know if I was given that post-pandemic script if I would have rather made that movie for Apple or Netflix and gone out to millions of people. Because the movie had something to say to millions of people and we were never going to get those millions of people into enough theaters to make that kind of difference. Things have changed enough for me to tell you.

I also feel that there are some movies that are just as touching on the small screen in your home and I appreciate the option when it’s there. But I think the “older generation” (like my diehard cinephile parents) and the adults who grew up going to the theater (me) are going back to the movies. There’s nothing like the experience of going to the movies, and I don’t think it’s going anywhere.

by Spielberg The Fabelmans opens exclusively in select theaters on November 11 before expanding nationwide on November 23.

via: variety