How did movies get to this not very good place?

Anyone who is working in Hollywood making movies right now is living in an existential crisis.

Just sitting here thinking and wanted to put a bunch of these ideas in one place. We all know the key points of the story so far:

1. Netflix overspent on movies and talent, producing far too many expensive and subpar movies that have been widely forgotten (except for my movie, of course), and in doing so lowered the bar of our expectations for films made for streaming, and, in a deliberate and successful effort, conditioned families to stay home and watch movies for $19 a month instead of going to a movie theater for $19 a ticket.

2. The once robust and profitable category of mid-budget theatrical films in the $20 to $60 million range stopped being produced in favor of fewer big budget branded IP and comic book films. Instead of making a handful of six to ten lower budget films that would find an audience and make large profits relative to the investment, studios decided to make one or two mega-budget films with guaranteed mega-profits. If you weren't into superheroes, there wasn't much for you in theaters, so you'd find your entertainment the easier way, at home on streaming, because that’s where all those mid-budget films end up now.

3. The 2020 pandemic mandated the exodus from theaters (a moment of silence for Arclight Cinemas, please), further strengthening the convenience and value of consuming everything on a tv from your couch. Studios chased Netflix's success, with Warner Bros Discovery and Disney/Pixar releasing would-be theatrical movies straight to their new streaming platforms to attract subscribers, further conditioning families, and especially impressionable children, to enjoy their premiere content at home, and worse, expect it there first.

4. The pandemic also conditioned us to get more of our content from social media. More people started producing content and more people started watching. YouTube, TikTok, IG Reels all take up way more of my time than they used to, and it's not surprising because I enjoy maybe one out of every six things I watch on Netflix or Amazon. The level of entertainment on socials is honestly better, or at least more consistent, most of the time. And the only cost is our time and attention.

5. After the pandemic, when studios should have been recovering by luring audiences back into theaters, there was little content released theatrically. Three shining stars - Top Gun Maverick, and the one-two punch of Barbie and Openheimer - found billion dollar success, but in the surrounding landscape, even before the SAG and WGA strikes began, studios battoned down the hatches and stopped greenlighting new films in anticipation of production stopping. To counter the lack of content, Netflix wisely mined existing international content to keep domestic American viewers satisfied with new things to watch.

6. The SAG and WGA strikes brought everything to a screeching halt from May to November of 2023. The strikes were necessary, in my opinion, but existing productions shut down and nothing new was greenlit. Studios also used this opportunity to clean house of projects they were no longer interested in making, or worse, completely canning whole films for tax write-offs. This would have been a good time for studios to make grand plans and line up their dream slates, but apparently that takes good ideas and those come from good writers. Go figure.

7. So the writers and actors came back and the studios limped back into business, and from all appearances they forgot that they are in the business of making movies. Months have passed and all that planning and lining up the movie dominoes that could have happened didn't. All those dream specs scripts that I expected writers to crank out during the strike haven't landed, either because they weren't written or studios are only interested in making IP that audiences are familiar with. Why take a chance on a new idea when we can have a movie based on a popular toy from the 80s? I'm not being specific here, but believe me when I say there is a planned film for every one of those toys. Every. One.

Remember what this was like? Photo by Krists Luhaers on Unsplash

So here we are. Everything that isn't a potential mega-blockbuster goes straight to streaming. I know, I'm guilty too. I've directed one film for Netflix, and one for Max. All I can say to that is, I want to make movies and directing a film for streaming is way better than not directing anything.

Movie theaters are dying because people have lost the habit and taste for leaving their homes to watch a movie. The above list made sure of that. I make movies for a living and I can't believe how expensive it is to go to the movies. Memberships like AMC Stubs A-List make it much less painful, and I highly recommend it if you can afford it. But I wonder, because it feels a bit like these memberships are similar to the Netflix model of "get as many eyes on the screen no matter how much money you're losing," and I don't know if that's a sustainable business model.

The problem with releasing only a handful of mega-budget films into theaters is they can't all be great. So fewer films equals fewer good films (and bad ones too, I hope) but the law of diminishing returns has made the effort and expense of going to the movies less attractive for what we're getting. It’s a crap shoot and in craps, the odds aren’t in our favor.

If I ran a movie theater chain and wanted audiences to come back, I'd drop tickets to $10. A date for two would cost an even 20 bucks (plus the cost of snack, of course). It makes going to the movies a cheap gamble and if the movie isn't great, no big loss. You just try again next week. Then, I'd double down and drop the prices of concessions so that even more people actually want to go to the movies because they can also afford to buy a popcorn and soda. Just do the Costco model, keep prices down and you'll get rich on volume, volume, volume!

If I ran a studio, I'd bring back those mid-budget films and make a killing. Find scripts that have unique new ideas and points of view, hand them to hungry directors, and cast up-and-coming actors and create some new stars along the way. Then, take the best of that talent and graduate them to the mega-budget movies to minimize the risk of those sucking too. You know where new franchises come from? Original ideas! Who knew!? Just make a bunch of stuff you believe in and some of it will hit and become the next Bridget Jones, or Saw, or John Wick, or The Terminator. Look, I’ve just made billions.

If I ran Netflix or other streamers, I'd focus on fewer, better films instead of burning through money to have more content than anyone else. And for the love of all things holy, don't actively try to destroy the moviegoing experience. We can have both.

I spend a lot of time texting with my colleagues, wondering where this will all go. Most of use are lucky because we are directors or creators, and there will (hopefully) always be a need for our talents, but what will we be making in ten years? Theatrical films? Not if the current trends continue. Streaming films? Probably, but I hope the standards rise once that's the only game in town. VR content, like Apple Vision Pro? Maybe, but we'll have to see. There have been a few interactive things like Google's Spotlight Series, not quite video games, but content you "participate" in by controlling where you're looking, and definitely not live-action yet. Something will come of that once the right people figure it out (give me a call Apple).

What's your take on this and what did I miss? Can movie theaters be saved? What do you think is the future of movies?