Shots fired.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has never been shy about his sharing his opinions, and this week he attended a Q&A session in his company’s headquarters, when somebody asked what innovations cinema has produced recently. His reply?
“How did distribution innovate in the movie business in the last 30 years? Well, the popcorn tastes better, but that’s about it.”
Mic. Drop.
Hastings has had a bit of a troubled history with cinema chains, who are a little peeved off that his company want to do day-and-date releases of major movies, essentially cutting millions (if not potentially hundreds of millions) of dollars worth of ticket sales.
He has set up a deal with a small 15 theatre chain in America that will allow his company’s releases to be considered for Oscar contention going forward, plus Netflix are dealing in bigger and bigger productions, including the Brad Pitt headlining war comedy War Machine and the Will Smith action sci-fi Bright.
But with the arrival of amazing visual effects, the advent of IMAX and the wide-spread use of 3D, is Hastings just poking fun with his reply, or does he genuinely believe that cinema isn’t medium it once was?
According to Variety, he stated at that same Q&A:
“We are not anti-theater. We just want things to come out at the same time.”
Surely he can see that Netflix is, fundamentally if not purposefully, anti-cinema?
In the same way that Spotify and other streaming services has drastically altered the world of music, the same goes for Netflix. When was the last time you bought a DVD? And if the movies arrive on Netflix at the same time as they arrive in cinemas, how long before people stop buying tickets completely?
Or maybe that’s a broken argument, as cinema-going is more of an experience in itself, one which can’t easily be replicated without a massive TV and state-of-the-art sound system in your house?
Netflix has forever changed the landscape for cinema and TV, but even Hastings admits he doesn’t want to see the end of cinema, and on that point we definitely agree with him.
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