Apple Rolls Back Its Big Plans to Release Movies in Theaters (bloomberg.com) 35
An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple is rethinking its movie strategy after the disappointing box office performance of several big-budget films, including Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon, Napoleon, Argylle and Fly Me to the Moon. Apple canceled plans to release Wolfs -- an action comedy starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt -- in thousands of theaters globally. Instead, the picture made its debut in a limited number of venues before it became available on the Apple TV+ streaming service on Sept. 27. Apple plans to use a similar approach with the next few titles on its calendar, including the World War II drama Blitz. Apple, which previously had intended to spend about $1 billion annually on blockbusters for cinemas, won't return to the big screen with a wide, global theatrical release until June with F1 -- a film starring Pitt as a former Formula One driver who returns to racing to mentor a rising star.
[...] Apple is pulling back from theaters at the same time Netflix Inc. and Amazon are reworking their movie strategies. Earlier this year, Netflix hired producer Dan Lin to oversee its film studio, which had spent billions of dollars a year to produce more films than any other company in Hollywood. Yet Netflix struggled to control the quality and cost of its slate, which in some years approached 50 movies. For every hit, such as Bird Box, there were several misses. Lin's predecessor Scott Stuber also clashed with management over its strategy for movie theaters. Stuber wanted to release movies such as Scorsese's The Irishman and the Knives Out sequel Glass Onion widely in cinemas, but he couldn't persuade Netflix co-Chief Executive Officer Ted Sarandos. Lin aims to make fewer movies and develop more projects in-house to keep costs down. He has considered scrapping several of the more expensive projects in development at Netflix.
[...] Apple is pulling back from theaters at the same time Netflix Inc. and Amazon are reworking their movie strategies. Earlier this year, Netflix hired producer Dan Lin to oversee its film studio, which had spent billions of dollars a year to produce more films than any other company in Hollywood. Yet Netflix struggled to control the quality and cost of its slate, which in some years approached 50 movies. For every hit, such as Bird Box, there were several misses. Lin's predecessor Scott Stuber also clashed with management over its strategy for movie theaters. Stuber wanted to release movies such as Scorsese's The Irishman and the Knives Out sequel Glass Onion widely in cinemas, but he couldn't persuade Netflix co-Chief Executive Officer Ted Sarandos. Lin aims to make fewer movies and develop more projects in-house to keep costs down. He has considered scrapping several of the more expensive projects in development at Netflix.
Napoleon wasn't great (Score:3)
I'm immersed in Napoleonic history and I thought it was poorly constructed to create a love story about a guy who was about nothing but the grasp of naked power in the interest of conquest and order, one of the great captains of history ala Caesar or Genghis Khan. Maybe that was supposed to make the film accessible to wome, but the net effect was to turn what could have been a ripping yarn into a snooze fest.
Re:Napoleon wasn't great (Score:4)
This. This is why Hollywood and TV are having a decline -- the pandering.
It doesn't matter what studio, they're all doing it. When they forget to do it, they end up with a hit most of the time.
The boxoffice will eventually force a correction back to good storytelling. If the shareholders don't accelerate that change back to profitability first.
Re:Napoleon wasn't great (Score:4, Interesting)
This. This is why Hollywood and TV are having a decline -- the pandering.
This needs to be at +5 insightful.
For some deranged reason, Hollywood decided that the people that actually go to movies were to be disregarded, and that the ticket forward to un-imagined success was to create movies that checked the boxes of the "Blue Haired Twitter Crew.
Then after hiring Directors and writers that had the demands of the BHTC, and that these writers were hired on the basis of their political reliability, and the ability to actually write an engaging screenplay was not relevant, and that somehow subverting expectations was a good substitute for ability, The results were underwhelming.
Then they capped it off with actively fighting with anyone that dared to disagree with their product as poor.
Indeed, while not a "movie per se, Disney and it's minions attempeted to stom on those who don't write positive things about their products when its Lesbian Space Witch production "The Acolyte" failed, and Disney and the BHTC tried to have two channels "The Critical Drinker and Nerdrotic removed from Youtube. Youtube said "no we will not", and much reeeeeeing ensued.
A movie can be savaged by critics, and still do well. Adam Sandler has done okay, despit their hatred for him. Make a good movie and people will watch it. And attacking the fans who used to go to your movies is a bold move, but it doesn't work very well.
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Not even the director's cut? Are there any good Napoleon movies?
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Not really, no. Not a bad list of such movies. [vulture.com] The subject really needs a good treatment. I was hoping this would be it, but he attempted to use the Gladiator/Kingdom of Heaven formula on Napoleon and it just didn't work.
Movies Theaters need more then 0.01% of the gate (Score:2)
Movies Theaters need more then 0.01% of the gate.
as people steak food in to not pay.
$5 for pop
$6.50 for popcorn
$9 for light beer
$10-$12 for real beer
$5 for an candy bar
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as people steak food in to not pay.
Wait... you mean they're eating the concession staff? Why didn't JD warn us?!
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Why didn't JD warn us?!
Dude is a cannibal. He's more worried about your pets than your kids.
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It'll never happen, and theaters have made their profit from concessions since at least the 50's, maybe even pre-war.
Disney, I hear, takes the biggest cut of all the studios when you book their movies.
Re: Movies Theaters need more then 0.01% of the ga (Score:2)
That's just Disney period. They take the biggest cut of your cable bill even if you don't watch their shit. And I'm not talking about PC crap like Snow Brown, I mean the ABC crap dramas that somehow get a big budget even though nobody watches them, and ESPN being priced like a premium channel even though it still has ads and you have to pay for it anyways even if you never watch it.
Fortunately cable is a dying medium, and movie theaters seem to be going that way as well. Ideally that eventually forces them
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Yeah. It's too easy to sneak your own food in [iwastesomuchtime.com].
Great so theyll lower the monthly sub cost right? (Score:2)
With cutting back on production of bad movies and bringing it also in house, will Netflix will pass along these savings to their subscribers.
Anyone? Anyone?
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i feel like you anti-dei-freaks dont actually like movies and video games
Well, your feelings on the matter disagree with the obvious facts. There is quite a large audience of people who like movies and/or video games, who always have, and who do not like the way in which inclusivity has been pushed into them.
The irony is most of these audiences are fine with inclusive messages. They just aren't fine with the specifics of how they have been pushed. It's not enough to have a story with inclusive themes.
Good (Score:2)
Agree (Score:2)
The movie theater experience is not very pleasant. Poor sound quality has been a major issue in the past couple movies I have seen at a theater. The last one was Dune 2, and some of the dialogue was barely comprehensible due to sound balancing issues.
I haven't been to a theater since, and presently I don't plan on going back at all. Someday my friends might drag me out to one, and I can then see if things have improved. But I have my doubts.
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The movie theater experience is not very pleasant. Poor sound quality has been a major issue in the past couple movies I have seen at a theater. The last one was Dune 2, and some of the dialogue was barely comprehensible due to sound balancing issues.
Probably how they intended it to sound. The days of being able to understand the people speaking in TV shows and movies seem to be in the past, I'm afraid. Maybe the sound engineers are just trying to keep people from noticing how bad the dialog is in most TV shows and movies?
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No wonder I thought Hundreds of Beavers [wikipedia.org] had such great dialog.
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And don't forget about all of the extremely dark action scenes where almost nothing is visible and the camera cuts are so fast that you can never tell what is actually happening.
It seems like this is 95% of movies these days, no lie. I don't understand how I'm supposed to watch and follow something when I literally can't see what the fuck is going on from scene to another.
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Are you talking about seeing movies in theaters or at home? If it's the latter, I'd recommend entirely disabling HDR on your TV. I spent a few days tweaking TV settings to try to make these scenes watchable and that was the only change that made a significant difference. I'm not an expert at all on this topic, but my best guess is that most TV panels actually aren't good enough to properly do HDR, so they end up looking super dark with it enabled.
I've seen a variety of suggestions for fixing video on home TVs, including turning off "motion smoothing", which did make a difference.
I'll see what difference HDR makes, although honestly I haven't used my actual TV in a long, long time- almost everything I watch comes to me through a tablet or a monitor. The tablet doesn't have any decent video tweaks (and it's also prehistoric) but I'm pretty sure my monitor can be tweaked.
Thank you for the HDR suggestion; I'll give it a try and see how it looks.
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The "projectionist" could be sitting in an office hundreds of miles away. They can't tell what's wrong when something goes wrong. The big computer connected to the projector is just a receptacle for dumping shipped hard drives, and only if the theater doesn't have a fast enough internet connection. All the scheduling is handled elsewhere. If you're lucky, tech support in the Philippines can remote in and solve any issues you have. But there could be issues for days because nobody tells anyone. It's ba
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Yes, that's how it works (Score:2)
"For every hit, such as Bird Box, there were several misses."
Yes, that's how the world works.
Did they really expect to churn out nothing but huge, smash hits every single time? Because that's NOT how the world works.
Quality of films (Score:2)
Do people still go to theaters? (Score:2)
Go to a theater: big screen, painfully loud, sit in a crowd, people fiddling on their phones and talking during the movie, snacks and drinks stupidly expensive.
Stay at home: big screen, sound level under your control, no crowd, no distracting people, snacks and drinks from your own kitchen.
Why does anyone go to a theater? I haven't been for more than 10 years, and cannot imagine ever wanting to go again. It's just unpleasant.
Re: Do people still go to theaters? (Score:1)
Dying business model (Score:2)
Movie theaters are the next skating rink and newspaper combined. A dying business model that will meet its demise in the next decade. Apple sees this writing on the wall; why would they want to lock in contracts to pay for a declining market? There was a spike post-pandemic, but 2024 is below 2019 ticket sales.
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Stats: https://www.the-numbers.com/ma... [the-numbers.com]