Are They Nuts Or Are They On To Something? A Note To The Granddaughters

A Note To The Granddaughters

When I first read this story, I thought "they" were nuts.

The "they" being Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.

The Hollywood Reporter is reporting:

Steven Spielberg on Wednesday predicted an "implosion" in the film industry is inevitable, whereby a half dozen or so $250 million movies flop at the box office and alter the industry forever. What comes next -- or even before then -- will be price variances at movie theaters, where "you're gonna have to pay $25 for the next Iron Man, you're probably only going to have to pay $7 to see Lincoln." He also said that Lincoln came "this close" to being an HBO movie instead of a theatrical release.

George Lucas agreed that massive changes are afoot, including film exhibition morphing somewhat into a Broadway play model, whereby fewer movies are released, they stay in theaters for a year and ticket prices are much higher. His prediction prompted Spielberg to recall that his 1982 film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial stayed in theaters for a year and four months.

I don't go to movies any more. I stopped going some years ago. I last recall going to movies when we lived on the north side of San Antonio (Texas) near a multiplex. When we moved nearer downtown to San Antonio, I quit going. I don't miss the movie-going experience at all any more. My wife is a huge movie-goer and gets really upset when I refuse to go with her; she ends up going with a friend. Just for her, I did see Lincoln at the theater, but that was the only movie in five (?) years.

The other day I did buy Tarantino's new movie, out on DVD. At my new apartment in Dallas area I do not yet have cable television and I don't miss it a bit. I am really enjoying classics, old movies, and new movies on the computer. Before the year is out, I told my wife I plan to put some serious money into some large Apple monitors (yes, plural) just for DVDs and streaming.

Earlier this week I watched the Apple WWDC life, streaming, on my little laptop, and it was awesome. It was as clear and as reliable as television (by the way, Apple's streaming was only available on the Safari browser I believe (I could be wrong on that, but I was unable to access the streaming WWDC keynote speech on Firefox, my preferred browser).

I can generally watch NASCAR on the computer browser when I can't find a sports bar.

But I digress. Wow, I have digressed.

Back to Spielberg. I would love to do a poll on his prediction (that movies like Iron Man will play in theaters for a year-and-a-half, like Broadway shows, and will be priced at $25 or more, like Broadway shows. But the likelihood of this happening won't be here for at least a decade, and thus sort of makes a poll pointless.

When I first read the story, as noted above, I thought "they" were nuts. But while watching CNBC waiting to pick up the granddaughters, I caught a teaser that CNBC was going to report this story "after the break." I didn't see CNBC's report but it got me to thinking.

It's counter-intuitive, but I think Spielberg is on to something. I think he's correct. It's very counter-intuitive. Two clues: a) it's "back to the future; and, b) think Hugh Hefner.

(And with Hugh Hefner, it has nothing to do with what first came to your mind. Nothing. At. All.)