Steven Spielberg Slams Streaming Services Like HBO Max, Saying They "Threw My Best Filmmaker Friends Under the Bus"

Director Steven Spielberg has strong opinions about streaming services, movie theaters, and where his own films may land in the future. In a recent interview with The New York Times, Spielberg said that streaming services like HBO Max have thrown filmmakers “under the bus” by “unceremoniously” dumping high profile new releases on streaming and not in theaters. The director of E.T., Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and A.I. is referring to Warner Bros.’ decision to release all of its 2021 film slate both on HBO Max and in theaters on the same day. Spielberg says such a decision changed moviegoing habits for adults.

“The pandemic created an opportunity for streaming platforms to raise their subscriptions to record-breaking levels and also throw some of my best filmmaker friends under the bus as their movies were unceremoniously not given theatrical releases. They were paid off and the films were suddenly relegated to, in this case, HBO Max. The case I’m talking about. And then everything started to change.”

He continued:

“I think older audiences were relieved that they didn’t have to step on sticky popcorn. But I really believe those same older audiences, once they got into the theater, the magic of being in a social situation with a bunch of strangers is a tonic… it’s up to the movies to be good enough to get all the audiences to say that to each other when the lights come back up.

One film that gave him hope was director Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis:

“I found it encouraging that ‘Elvis’ broke $100 million at the domestic box office. A lot of older people went to see that film, and that gave me hope that people were starting to come back to the movies as the pandemic becomes an endemic. I think movies are going to come back. I really do.”

While the director remains committed to theatrical releases for films as a whole, he does admit that the pandemic has at least gotten him to more openly consider the value of a potential move towards a streaming-only release in certain cases.

“I made ‘The Post’ as a political statement about our times by reflecting the Nixon administration, and we thought that was an important reflection for a lot of people to understand what was happening to our country. I don’t know if I had been given that script post-pandemic whether I would have preferred to have made that film for Apple or Netflix and gone out to millions of people. Because the film had something to say to millions of people, and we were never going to get those millions of people into enough theaters to make that kind of difference. Things have changed enough to get me to say that to you.”

I also feel that there are some films that are just as poignant on the small screen in your home, and I appreciate the option when it’s there. But I think the “older generation” (like my die-hard cinephile parents), and the adults they raised going to the theatre (me) are getting back to theatres. There’s nothing like the movie-going experience, and I don’t think it’s going anywhere.

Spielberg’s The Fabelmans opens exclusively in select movie theaters on November 11th before expanding nationwide on November 23rd.

via: Variety