Cinema is dead! It gets proclaimed in many ways and at many times, all over the internet, including at Last Movie Outpost. But is it? Really? Well, the numbers tell one story, but those who work in the industry will, of course, tell another. Like Christopher Nolan.
Facing the double whammy of both the rise of streaming, and a post-pandemic recovery from basically training your audience to stay at home, of course, all the conversation is about the headwinds. A stream of high-profile flops this summer has really not helped. When the window to streaming a movie directly into your home is just 45 days, why the hell would you bother going out to the theater, especially at those ticket prices?
Hoping that his latest, The Odyssey, is not another high-profile casualty or a very weird summer season, Nolan has been out talking to various press outlets ahead of release next week. He is inevitably asked about the health of cinematic distribution. Talking to BBC News, (as reported by Dark Horizons), he said the media has claimed cinema is dying for decades, and it just never comes to pass. He says things just evolve:
“I think there are a lot of different ways to interest people in coming to the movies. This summer you’ve seen movies like ‘Backrooms’ and ‘Obsession’ that are made by young filmmakers connecting with their audience. Our biggest segment of people who come to the movies are young people, and it always has been.”
Backrooms and Obsession have made the leap from YouTube to the big screen, and in the process have turned massive profits.
The more traditional massive cinematic event that is a new Christopher Nolan film, and a major historical epic, The Odyssey rolls out from next Friday, 17th July.
