Ben Affleck is well aware of how the film industry is changing, and how movie theaters and streaming will end up coexisting in the coming years.
Talking about the future of the film industry always leads us to the recurring “fight” between screening rooms and streaming services. The pandemic has accelerated a situation in which many productions find more audiences in streaming than in conventional theaters.
While many filmmakers resist facing this change in a more adaptive way, others, like Ben affleck, are fully aware that the world of cinema is changing, and that they must change with it.
Talking with Entertainment Weekly for the premiere of his new movie, The Tender Bar, available on Amazon Prime Video, Affleck has talked about the changes that the industry has been going through for about a decade.
The actor, director, screenwriter and producer has extolled the role that streaming is playing in giving projection to more personal cinema, while the films with the best box office performance are those belonging to franchises or animated films.
Affleck gives the example of Argo, his award-winning 2012 film: “Argo would not be released in theaters currently, it would be a limited series on some streaming service“.
However, Ben Affleck highlights the quality of many original productions on streaming platforms, such as Succession or Mare of Easttown, and in terms of movies, tapes like Roma.
The actor points out that he was fully aware of how the film industry was turning when The Last Showdown tanked at the box office, but it turned out to be a success on streaming.
“There you have it, there’s the audience“, commented Affleck, while pointing out that only about 40 films would be released in theaters in the future, all focused on young audiences and in the format of massive events belonging to franchises, sequels or animated films.
Do you agree with Ben Affleck’s approach to the future of the film industry and theaters? Does auteur cinema have its new patron on streaming platforms?
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