See it on the biggest screen possible
Movies are at a fork in the road in many respects. In terms of production, marketing, and perception, the movie industry and movie-going public characterizes their relationship to the art in new and jarring terms. The Golden Age of Television seemingly signaled the death of cinema, yet the quality of movies being released in the past few years is stronger than ever. Theater visits are dropping, but innovation like MoviePass and the numbers it's putting up signal there is an appetite for the experience. If anything, with movie's singular ability to shape conversation (re: Black Panther), the time is more ripe than ever to hear new voices, see new creations, and enjoy the wonder of cinema.
I can't litigate the fate of the entire movie industry and what tectonic shifts may push it in which direction, so I'll focus on what I believe Netflix has done to one specific part of the industry - notably, the trailers. Specifically one part. See below:
It's very subtle. It actually has nothing to do with the trailer. I'm speaking of the non-diegetic line of "See It On the Biggest Screen Possible." This is nothing extraordinarily new. The term "rental movie" still carries water in my household. We see Ready Player One in the theaters and maybe rent Bridge of Spies and The Post so we can nod off as Tom Hanks plays different historical versions of Tom Hanks. The interesting thing about this promotional line is not its novelty but its relevance to the current debate as more and more movies get snatched up by Netflix and drowned within the sea of Adam Sandler movies and cooking shows. What is the point of going to the theater and how will marketing convince consumers to still buy tickets and see movies on the biggest screens possible?
Ready Player One's director, Steven Spielberg, recently weighed in on the topic, saying he didn't believe that Netflix movies should qualify for the Oscars. "Once you commit to a television format, you’re a TV movie,” he told ITV News. “You certainly, if it’s a good show, deserve an Emmy, but not an Oscar. I don’t believe films that are just given token qualifications in a couple of theaters for less than a week should qualify for the Academy Award nomination.” Whether you shrug off his comments as an old curmudgeon placing too much value on award shows and traditional metrics or ascribe to his worldview, there is some insight in the distinction of home vs. out of home viewing. Blurring boundaries in viewing habits shake the by-the-books categories the public and industry hold dear.
This distinction brings me back to the idea of marketers including a directive to see their film on the big screen rather than streamed at home. Though Ready Player One certainly brought conversation to mind, it was the release of Annihilation that truly made me realize the way we push films was undergoing a parallel shift to the one happening in their distribution. Annihilation, brainchild of sci-fi wunderkind Alex Garland, baffled audiences and critics not only for its meta- third act and haunting scenery, but for the way in which is was produced, promoted, and eventually released. Paramount, the studio that produced and released it, realized during production that they would have trouble marketing and distributing the high-minded science-fiction flick and recouping the $40m they spent to produce it, and decided to pawn it off to Netflix for global release after a two week release in theaters. The decision sparked numerous think-pieces but more importantly to this discussion, it brought out the critics and fans, imploring audiences to see it on the biggest screen possible with the best sound system your local theater could afford.
The movie does play particularly well on big screen, as the translucent world of the Shimmer dazzles and confounds as viewers try to piece together the mystery that the characters face, and eventually try to solve the questions the film poses. That being said, I can't recall a film that was promoted so much amongst its fanbase and beyond by imploring people to "see it on the biggest screen possible."
Two instances don't create a trend, but as Netflix swallows up low-budget indies and tries to carve its way into major blockbusters (if you can call Bright that), the push by auteurs, critics, and passionate fans to see movies as they were intended will only grow stronger. Marketers will always want people to go to the theater, but the outright urging in trailers and clips may increase as Netflix's net widens. Going to the cinema has long been reserved for the large, tentpole films (true well before Marvel), but even as film holds steady against the rising tide and we are now blessed with some of the most ingenious and moving content to ever grace the screen, it may not be long before the entire marketing push behind a movie is whether or not it is worth experience on the big screen.