Let's talk about HBO Max and the alleged 'death of movie theaters'
It's big news, no doubt, but is it really bad news?
It’s Saturday, December 5, and here’s where we are…
Boy, talk about a slow news week. If only something exciting would happen.
Oh, wait, that’s right. Everything just changed.
2020 is going to be remembered for many reasons, most of them terrible, and it will forever be known as the year that demolished the conventional idea of the theatrical window.
I’m going to say something that sounds controversial at first, but bear with me. I am glad to see the destruction of the conventional way of thinking about the theatrical window. I am also confident that this will, in the end, help usher in a different and possibly healthier approach to theatrical exhibition.
Getting to that “in the end” part, though? That’s gonna be a motherfucker, and everyone on every side of the equation needs to buckle up, because it’s going to get way worse before it gets better, and all of this was not only inevitable but necessary because theaters have been bleeding out for years. This is not a sudden death you’re witnessing. This was a long slow lingering illness, and the only way forward is change.
I’m curious to see what the fallout is over the next few weeks from this announcement. I’ve heard that several of the producing partners whose films are part of this 2021 slate were caught off-guard yesterday. There were reports that Legendary was trying to find a streaming home for Godzilla Vs Kong, with Netflix and Apple both in the conversation. Those same reports suggested that Warner was pushing back, urging Legendary to let HBO Max bid on it. Now that’s just one of the many titles that are set for next year, along with Dune, another Legendary co-production, and I’m going to be very curious to see what this means for the future of their partnership.
You can’t use anecdotal evidence to prove anything, but I will say that my impressions of how well this announcement worked at changing the conversation for the beleaguered streaming service are based in part on my dad’s text message yesterday: “Does HBO Max have all of HBO on it, too?”
I called him to find out why he was asking, and sure enough, he is planning to get the service after seeing them announce that they’re moving all of their 2021 films to the home screen. His reasoning is that it costs more than the monthly $14 subscription fee for him to go see any film with my mom, and this way, they can see the films at home in comfort as soon as they open and they don’t feel like they’re missing anything. They’re in their 80s now, and they’re still active. But, yeah, given the chance to go to the movie theater or to watch the same thing at home, they’re probably going to choose the home option. There are many people who would choose that option if it was available…
… and just as many who wouldn’t, and here’s where I think the Warner experiment is actually exciting. Making that choice a binary thing has never really been tried on this scale. I remember when Universal wanted to make Pirates of Penzance a pay-per-view event at home on the same weekend it opened in theaters, and the reaction from theater owners was a major organized cold shoulder that killed the film stone-cold-dead. That was 1983. They were having conversations even then about how any shift in the theatrical window would signal “the death of movie theaters.” Home video created that kind of panic. Cable created that kind of panic. Hell, the advent of television was supposedly the death of movies, too. Mediums don’t die because a new one is invented, though. They may change in terms of cultural impact, but that’s not the same thing as a death, and companies have to be willing to adapt to the world around them if they want to survive. Universal has always quietly been pushing back at the idea of theatrical windows, and it did not surprise me to see how aggressive Universal’s been about the use of VOD during the pandemic. Once again, their game-plan with Trolls: World Tour caused shock waves of anger inside the exhibition community.
Theater owners have to stop pretending like the only advantage they have over the home experience is the specific moment in time they play something. That. Is. Bullshit. The window is the least important thing in terms of the ongoing health of the theatrical experience, and the sooner they get over that, the better everyone will be. It’s fear. It’s holding on to the traditional way of doing things because change is scary, not because change is wrong. Doing what we’ve always done is easier than doing what we should be doing or trying something that might actually be better.
Movie theaters can be more than they are right now, and Fathom Events is not the answer. Theaters need to start thinking about what makes that space special. Hint: it’s the people. Audiences are the magic ingredient that makes a theater experience special, and that’s true whether you’re showing a blockbuster on opening weekend or a beloved classic in a revival run or a live-event that your audience might not otherwise have access to, all of which seem like equally great reasons for people to show up. You have to sell the idea that every single time someone comes to the theater, they’re going to have an experience. You have to remind people how important it is to watch things in that communal environment, and if you’re serious about maintaining a certain chunk of people’s attention, you have to make it worth their while.
I’m amazed how small the thinking has been so far on simulcasts. You want to make the Oscars into an event again? You want to make the Super Bowl something special? Forget about network TV. Go theatrical. Give me an IMAX window onto a live event that I could never afford to see in person and I’ll go. I don’t think network TV will ever be the great unifier again. Instead, this fragmentation of our pop culture should be embraced and encouraged. Lean into it. Program the shit out of a live Oscar viewing party. It won’t be for everyone, but the people who are into it are going to be reeeeeeeeeally into it, and that’s all you need for a single-screening event. Charge a premium price for live events but one that is still dramatically lower than it would be to attend it in person and train audiences to expect a “better than the best seat in the house” experience when they attend.
Even though it wasn’t a PPV event, a great example of what I’m talking about was U2’s concert film U2:3D. Designed for a large-format release, the film’s never been released anywhere since that theatrical run, and I went to see it four times in different screening rooms because I was so fascinated by the way it was shot. I’ve seen U2 live many times, dating all the way back to the Unforgettable Fire tour in the mid-‘80s, and part of the appeal of their live shows is this idea of intimacy. It’s crazy, of course, especially once they started playing arenas, to think that you’re getting anything like a personal experience, but that’s the way that band stages their shows. With U2: 3D, they were able to bring you onto the stage with them, and thanks to the startlingly crystal-clear 3D, it really did feel like you were standing there while they were playing a few feet away. It was something you couldn’t do even if you had the absolute best ticket at one of their shows and for someone like me who is routinely located in the cheap seats, it gives me a look at their performance that I would never otherwise get.
When London opened their theaters up again this fall, I watched Edgar Wright’s Twitter feed and just seethed with jealousy. It sounds like the theaters were programming tons of classic movies and Edgar went to go see everything in some of his favorite giant auditoriums. He couldn’t get enough of it, and I think the theater chain that embraces the idea of dedicating a few screens of their giant multiplex to constantly rotating revival titles when things open back up stands a good chance of luring brand-new audiences to develop a regular habit.
People crave curation, and I think it is a dirty, ridiculous lie that people won’t watch old movies anymore. One of the most disturbing ideas in American culture is that everything constantly has to be bigger, better, newer, or more. It is corrosive and it has killed plenty of businesses that did perfectly well at a certain scale. If movie theaters started treating movies like they are a living breathing history that they’re part of, they could help foster the habit in younger viewers instead of acting like there’s no hope and kids are the problem. Kids are fairly adventurous if you give them options, and if AMC wanted to hire a curator to help them create a kids club where they were constantly showing classic films for family audiences, I truly believe they would see a loyal community grow around those efforts. If the only thing people understand in exhibition is imitation, then more theaters need to look at the example of the Alamo Drafthouse as a curated and programmed experience. Their Weird Wednesdays or their sing-a-long screenings or the way they create themed food programming to go with their films. I know people have grievances with the Drafthouse over a variety of issues, but they remain the current gold standard I’ve seen in the US for the way you can turn the theater back into something special, and the larger chains need to start realizing they can’t just slap three blockbuster titles on 16 screens and expect that to be enough anymore.
One thing we have to stop doing is pretending that the only way you can enjoy a first-run movie if you see it is if you see in a theater. The drama this year surrounding Christopher Nolan’s Tenet was absolutely preposterous, fueled by this desire to make it the lynchpin of the reopening of theaters even though movie theaters in the US had absolutely no business being open at that point. All you have to do is look at the continued problems we have right now in the US to see that we did it wrong and we have yet to get a handle on things. The last thing we should have been doing is trying to force people into movie theaters, but Warner Bros. made their big push and, whether it was fair or not, they laid it off on their star director, insisting that it was all about making sure his film was “seen the way it was intended.”
I think the least interesting thing about a director is the film stock they shoot in or the camera they use. That’s like giving a shit about which word processing software someone used to write a book or a script. Who cares? Those are just elements, tools, the things you’re using to tell the story. The story is what matters. Are you communicating something, whether it’s a feeling or a mood or an idea or an action scene? If so, it’s really up to the viewer to decide how to engage with that thing you’ve made. I love filmmakers who really try to make that theatrical experience special, but there are plenty of films that I’ve seen for the first time at home that worked just as well for me as any theatrical experience I’ve ever had. The movie is the thing, and while it’s fine to discuss our fetishes and our preferences in how we watch things, I think there are some things purists like Nolan need to consider.
It may not seem like a lot of money to someone like Christopher Nolan, but for me to take my girlfriend and my two sons to see any movie in any theater in Los Angeles, it’s a minimum of $60. That’s not including parking or food or a drink or anything else. That’s just for the tickets. And that’s if we’re paying the basic ticket price at a chain theater. Want to go to the Arclight? Or the Alamo Downtown? Or the IMAX in Century City? All of those things cost extra, and it can add up fast. I would love to instill in my children the same kind of theater-going habits I had growing up, but I literally can’t afford it. We’ve made movies into special events in the theater, and for many films, I decided after seeing a press screening (which increasingly do not allow guests) that it would be fine to wait for home, even if my ideal would be to take them to see everything. I am someone who works in this field and who considers movies a priority, and even I have had to carefully pick and choose what we actually see in theaters because it is not a cheap, affordable option at this point.
One of the hardest things for Hollywood to do is step outside of their own bubble and actually think about the people consuming their work and how they are consuming it. There are plenty of studies that have shown fewer and fewer families making moviegoing a regular event more than three times a year, and instead of digging into the “why,” they’ve just kept doing things the same way and blaming it on kids or TV or home video or, yes, the release window.
If you’re a regular reader here, you know how much I revere the theatrical experience. I don’t particularly feel the need to defend my own reverence for movie theaters. I’ve got 20 years of written work that speaks to just how important it is to me. Somehow, though, wanting to see the experience evolve is seen as an attack on the very idea of movie theaters. I want to use this strange and disconcerting moment we’re all living through turn into a net positive. While the whole world is on pause, why not consider what we want from theaters when they come back? Why not ask for the things we want from theaters if we’re going to go back on a regular basis?
I am tired of the studios thinking that the audience works for them. This attitude that it is up to us to “save the movie going experience” is gaslighting of the highest order. If it is safe, people will go to do something they want to do. Hell, as we’ve seen this year, they’ll do it even if it’s not safe as long as it’s legal and available. The burden is on theaters to make it irresistible, and I have faith that they absolutely can do that.
They just can’t do it if they’re afraid or angry or holding on to a broken model simply because it’s the way things were done until now.
So what’s it going to be?
HOW MUCH ART IS ENOUGH?
Okay, I’m going to try one more time to get my head around Letterboxd.
There is a particular itchy-brained film nerd thing that seems to be a big part of fandom for many people, the making of lists, and Letterboxd is a social media site built entirely around that idea. I have always kept lists in my daily life, and I used the site to build out an official list of everything we discussed on ‘80s All Over, but I never managed to build the site into my own daily routine.
Toshi recently signed up for an account, though, and I wanted to be Letterboxd buddies with him so we can share thoughts about the stuff he’s watching at home. It seemed like a good excuse to get my own house in order, and I used the weekly media lists I’ve published here at the newsletter to put together a list of all the films I’ve seen in 2020. I was talking with my friend the other day and he mentioned how many films he’s seen so far this year and how many he hopes to see, and I realized I don’t actually know how many films I see in an average year if you include both new movies and rewatches. I didn’t use the diary function until recently, so I couldn’t include multiple viewings of things, but even so, I ended up with over 800 films on the list. That shocked me. I know I inhale a lot of media, but I don’t look at numbers, and actually seeing that figure was startling.
At first, I joked that it was too many movies, but that started me thinking: is there a limit to how much art you can contain? It’s been on my mind because we’re reaching a point where Toshi is starting to watch movies on his own. I love to show him films, but the truth is that he spends more time not with me than he does with me, and he’s hungry to have these experiences. I remember when I started really digging into watching films alone and those films were just as important to me as the things I was shown by my parents. It is a thrilling time when you get to start following your interests and discovering things and I want to get out of his way. Each one of these movies that he watches right now is one more piece of the puzzle. The more art you ingest, the more capacity you have for it, which runs almost completely counter to the way anything else works.
This week, for example, Toshi watched Duck Soup, Five Easy Pieces, and The Abominable Dr. Phibes, all for the first time, and all of them without any pre-amble. I’ve put together a playlist of hundreds of films that he’s allowed to see, and it’s going to be up to him how he watched them and when, and he’s walking into them without the kind of context I normally give them before a film. It’s one thing when someone tries to give you some idea of who the Marx Brothers were or what Vincent Price was known for, and it’s another thing entirely when you’re just hitting play on something and letting it unfold. Even if he doesn’t like something, the act of watching things outside his comfort zone is going to help him define what he does or doesn’t like.
Every time I started watching a new kind of film, it felt like I leveled up in some way. I remember what it felt like when I finally figured out the pleasures of subtitled movies. I was 12 or 13 and I watched Pather Panchali. For some reason, that experience lit a fire under me. Before that, I understood in a broad, general sense that people living in different places had different experiences than I did, but that film made me feel it on a different level, and for the first time, I could actually imagine what it would have been like to have been born somewhere else, as someone else. Watching silent films or black and white films or “grown-up” films, I felt like I was expanding.
That’s still true now. I feel like one of the most exciting things about the way the media landscape is changing is that different voices are starting to become centered in the mainstream, and in the process, different stories are being told or the same stories are being told in a new way with a new perspective. That’s why I watch films and read books and look at art… to expand who I am. That’s why I work so hard to give my sons good options for media, and plenty of them. They’re at the age where they are still trying to figure out who they are and how the world works, and each of those new movies unlocks a world of new thoughts and ideas for them.
I don’t think there are a set number of films anyone should watch. I don’t think there’s a list you have to work your way through. The whole point of lists should be to help you make sense of the vast amount of media that exists, giving you an entry point depending on your mood or your interests. Right now, at his disposal, Toshi has access to about 26,000 films. I’ve spent a lot of time putting that archive together, and sharing is supposed to be about adding something to someone else’s life. Watching Toshi treat all of this like it’s an adventure that he’s on is a reminder of what it felt like for me when I was starting out on that same adventure.
These days, it’s easy to lose sight of what a privilege it is to be able to continue to live that same adventure, and I love that his own enthusiasm has helped to respark mine.
AND FINALLY…
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Speaking of HBO Max and Christopher Nolan and the new Warner streaming deal, why haven’t they already moved Tenet onto the service?
Forget about the fumbled theatrical release. They were going to save theaters and they didn’t, and whatever. So be it. Once that happened, they should have immediately made the move. Even now, it’s going to DVD, Blu-ray and digital only, and you have to assume part of that is because Warner took a bath on the film. If a movie has to make at least two-and-a-half times its initial investment to be break even (the basic formula thanks to the way Hollywood accounting works), then the $230 million Tenet would need to make almost $600 million to even start to be considered a success, and it hasn’t even come close to that. Warner is looking to recoup every penny they can and I can’t imagine marketing the film for almost a full year of “maybe we’re releasing it soon” was cheap or productive.
You can’t really read anything into the money that Tenet made, though. Nothing is the way it would normally be, and there’s no way of knowing what would have happened if Tenet had been released into a normal marketplace. I finally caught up with the movie a few nights ago, and while I won’t review it yet (I need to finish that Rise of Skywalker piece before I even begin to dig into this thing), I will say this: I am glad I saw it at home first. My ears aren’t as great as they used to be, and I find Nolan’s sound mixes to be maddening. Intentional or not, I think his approach to exposition can be perverse, and in a film that is as exposition-drunk as this one, I was grateful to be able to read the dialogue in certain sequences.
At this point, this one film has been treated as such a rare and precious thing, even as the entire rest of the industry seems to be struggling to accept the way things have changed, and it’s only going to seem weirder once we get some distance from all of this. This movie should not have become the flashpoint over the entire idea of whether or not we should be in theaters. That would have been too much weight for any film to bear, and like everything else in 2020, it adds a complicated layer of tension to any conversation that has nothing to do with the actual movie.
Let’s wrap it up today with my weekly media diary covering the last two weeks. As usual, anything in bold was particularly enjoyed.
THIS WEEK’S BOOKS: Not Since Carrie: 40 Years of Broadway Musical Flops by Ken Mandelbaum; Musical Misfires: Three Decades of Broadway Musical Heartbreak by Mark A. Robinson and Thomas S. Hischak; The Jaws Log by Carl Gottlieb; Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline; Black Hammer: Library Edition Vol. 1 by Jeff Lemire; Black Hammer: Library Edition Vol. 2 by Jeff Lemire; The World of Black Hammer by Jeff Lemire; We Don’t Need Roads: The Making of The Back to the Future Trilogy by Caseen Gaines
THIS WEEK’S COMICS: Sweet Tooth #1 - #23; M.O.D.O.K. Head Games #1; Silver Surfer: Requiem #1-#4; Savage Avengers #15
THIS WEEK’S PODCASTS: Blank Check with Griffin & David - “Cast Away with Nia DaCosta”, “The Polar Express with Joey Sims”; Screen Drafts - “Pixar Super Draft”; Boogie Monster - “Indrid Cold”; High and Mighty with Jon Gabrus - “Golf,” “The 6th Annual Thanksgiving Power Hour”; The Dana Gould Hour - “Hail The Non-Monsters”; MBMBaM #536, #537; How Did This Get Made? - “Cats”, “Minisode 235.5”; The Kingcast - “The Shawshank Redemption with Demi Adejuyigbe”
THIS WEEK’S TV: Teenage Bounty Hunters S1 E7, E8; How To with John Wilson S1 E6; The Flight Attendant S1 E1, E2; Wayne S1 E1; Bewitched S8 E25; Fargo S4 E10, E11; The Voice S19 E10 - E12; Bob’s Burgers S11 E1 - E3; Superstore S6 E4; Animaniacs (2020) S1 E1; Marvel 616 S1 E1; The Mandalorian S2 E2 - E5; The Oprah Conversation S1 E11; Somebody Feed Phil S4 E1; The Reagans S1 E1; Taxi S1 E7, E8, E10 - E12; The Chef Show S1 E15
THIS WEEK’S GAMING: Watch Dogs: Legion
THIS WEEK’S MOVIES: 22 Jump Street; Boss Level; Superintelligence; The Warriors; Soul; Nomadland; The Green Mile; Promising Young Woman; A Very Brady Sequel; Land of the Lost; Mission: Impossible III; Bright Lights Big City; The Philadelphia Story; Pennies From Heaven; My Psychedelic Love Story; Wolfwalkers; The Croods 2: A New Age; Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed; Crazy, Not Insane; Miami Vice; Starsky & Hutch; Baywatch; The Equalizer; One Night In Miami; Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom; Belushi; The Predator; 21 Jump Street; The Usual Suspects; The Talented Mr. Ripley; Dave Chapelle: Unforgiven; Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World; Beyond Skyline; The Donut King; Uncle Frank; Escape To Witch Mountain; High Society; Sound Of Metal; Tenet
Love Letterboxd. It's really helping me focus my movie consumption and fill in so many blind spots.
The one thing that could convince me to go back to theaters (in the After Times) is if there was some way for theaters to facilitate movie fans to interact before or after the movie and discuss it. Maybe have a "party" room set up with a bunch of standing tables so people can congregate. If you make this a regular feature, then a classic movie screening isn't just about the movie, but getting together with other movie aficionados and geeking out.
Since reserved seating, I just go to theater as close to the start of the film itself (skipping the 15 or 20 minutes of trailers) and then leave right after. The only remaining lure of a theater is that the screen is big. So that really just makes it to where only the BIG movies feel worth making the effort. If I'm just going to see a non-tentpole movie, seeing it in the comfort of home is overwhelmingly attractive. So give me some social reason to make the effort to go to a theater. Make it special.
I hope Letterboxd works for you! I have found it incredibly helpful as a writing diary (I have been on again/off again writing since I got a "real" job) and I make it a rule that any movie I watch I have to at least say something, even on rewatch. It also, somehow, helps me decide what to watch, where as previously I would get so bogged down in an endless cycle of trying to decide. I use the watchlist, but I also just sometimes go on tangents based on what other people are logging or reviewing. I am a data nerd, so I get too caught up with the stats features, but everybody has their thing! Between Letterboxd, Blank Check, and the Criterion Channel, my love of movies has returned full force and I am so grateful, especially in this year.