Quentin Tarantino Declares 2019 “The Last Year of Movies” and Blasts Streaming Era
Quentin Tarantino isn’t holding back his disdain for the current state of the movie industry. In a recent conversation at the Sundance Film Festival, the acclaimed director declared 2019 “the last f-cking year of movies” and criticized how streaming has transformed theatrical releases into what he calls a “show pony exercise.”
Tarantino said: “Well, what the f-ck is a movie now? What — something that plays in theaters for a token release for four fucking weeks? All right, and by the second week you can watch it on television."
Tarantino, whose last film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood debuted in 2019, sees the shift to streaming as a step down for cinema. He recalled frustrations from earlier in his career but believes the current landscape is even worse.
"I didn't get into all this for diminishing returns. I mean, it was bad enough in '97. It was bad enough in 2019, and that was the last f-cking year of movies. That was a shit deal, as far as I was concerned, the fact that it's gotten drastically worse?
For Tarantino, theatrical releases today feel like little more than a formality. “It’s just a show pony exercise,” he added. “The movie goes out, and in two weeks, it’s on a streaming service. Okay. Theater? You can’t do that. It’s the final frontier.”
Tarantino has recently turned his creative energy toward theater, finding it a more interesting challenge for him, saying: “That’s a big fucking deal pulling [a play] off, and I don’t know if I can. So here we go. That’s a challenge, a genuine challenge.”
Fans of the director are still waiting for his long-promised tenth and final film, but he’s in no rush to jump back into filmmaking. While he briefly flirted with a project titled The Movie Critic and even entertained the idea of an R-rated Star Trek movie, Tarantino has since moved on from both.
For now, it seems Tarantino is more focused on his creative evolution than on working within a system he feels has lost its way.
Via: GamesRadar+
