In the post-Covid era, movie theaters are back in the game, stronger than before. Cinema cameras are being invented to create for the big canvas, as opposed to inferior platforms like Netflix and other streaming services. These platforms are being failed to deliver even a portion of the immersiveness and total experience like theaters do. Netflix has a good ride thanks to Covid, but this ride is over. Here are our two cents.
8K is a buzzword, and that’s all
So you got a state-of-the-art home theater system in your living room which includes sophisticated speakers, an advanced amplifier, and an 8K TV. This will not be even close to granting you the same experience like a movie theater. Although 8K offers 16 times the resolution of HD, premium content consumers are not impressed. In fact, only 1M 8K TVs were sold globally in 2021. Furthermore, there’s a prediction that 72M households worldwide will have 8K sets in 2025, which is a tiny fraction of the 1.7 billion homes with TV sets in the world. Moreover, real 8K content offering is extremely limited and implemented mainly in Japan and China for sports consumption. Although 8K cameras spring up like mushrooms, filmmakers utilize them for 4K content. There’re many advantages of shooting in 8K, but it all comes to better delivery of 4K and below. 8K is here to serve the 4K and 2K resolutions. Most of cases, 8K constitutes a buzzword and no more.
Home theater≠Movie theater
With all the respect for Netflix Image Capture requirements, the heavily compressed imagery will not satisfy dedicated moviegoers, which their bread and butter is a movie theater. During the pandemic, those movie theaters were buried and many have thought that they will be replaced by streaming services. However, acclaimed filmmakers love the big screen as for them, it’s the only platform that deserves to show their hard work.
Top Gun: Maverick – Massive buzz even after 3 years
Top Gun: Maverick is scheduled to be released in theaters in May 2022. It was originally scheduled to be released by Paramount Pictures in July 2019. In August 2018, it was delayed to June 2020 to allow the production to work out all the complex flight sequences. In April 2020, it was delayed to July 2021 due to the ongoing Covid. Then it was delayed again to November 2022, and once more, this time to May 2022. Netflix and Apple TV+ attempted to purchase the distribution rights to the film, but Paramount refused to sell them because they understood its box-office potential. And now, you can not ignore the buzz around it. Now, let’s suppose that Top Gun: Maverick was released on Netflix/HBO or whatsoever –the buzz was diminished. Watching all those sophisticated filmmaking techniques on your home TV was equal to the castration of the movie. Paramount has made a smart choice.
Christopher Nolan should have done the same with Tenet —waiting until the pandemic is over. As for WW84, it was a mistake to release the movie on HBO+. They should have waited as well. I remember the audience’s excitement during the WW84 screening when theaters reopened. The crowd was clapping and cheering at the end of the movie. Shooting on real IMAX cameras, and then releasing the film to HBO+ doesn’t seem smart.
Michael Bay: Netflix vs. movie theater
Michael Bays’ 6 Underground was released by Netflix in December 2019. With a budget of $150 million, the film is one of the most expensive Netflix originals ever made. Netflix announced plans for a sequel, though due to the film’s mixed reviews and the studio’s disappointment in the film’s lack of creativity, the sequel was officially canceled. it was failed. Personally, I love Michael Bay’s films, but his cinematographic energy and madness belong to the big screen. Honestly, I stopped watching 6 Underground in the middle of it. It was boring. However, ‘Ambulance’ which was screened in theaters felt like an extraordinary experience. Who knows? 6 Underground might have been saved if it was screened in a movie theater.
Avatar: The Way of Water
Avatar 2 (The Way of Water) was aimed for a 2014 release. However, underwater filmmaking technology was premature back then. Hence, the preliminary shooting for the film started in Manhattan Beach, California, in August 2017, followed by principal photography simultaneously with Avatar 3 in New Zealand in September 2017. The filming concluded in September 2020. The film’s theatrical release has been subject to eight delays, with the latest occurring on December 2022, with the following three sequels to be released, respectively, on December 2024, December 2026, and December 2028. All of these tremendous efforts by the Avatar director James Cameron have been aiming at movie theaters. Would Cameron have invested all this for Netflix? Absolutely not!
Wrapping up
This ‘op-ed’ article is a counter-strike for all those wise guys that said that movie theaters are dead and long live Netflix (and other streaming services). Well, after the media hype of the ‘pandemic; has faded, movie theaters are back in the game again stronger than ever. Netflix will continue to exist as an alternative to ‘killing time’ and not for ‘movie time’.
This article is not good, complete nonesense and comparing apple to oranges. Streaming is about convenience and theater about experience thats why HBO MAX day and date was and hope is so good. You saw Dune at home as a preview and then you went to IMAX. And second, Avatar could be released day and date and it would probably not loose a single cent because people would want to experience that 3D on IMAX regardless. Dune made the top a Villanueve movie could probably make yet it was day and date on USA, (rememmber Blade Runner 2049 flopped) Dune had more or less 30 days of exclusivity internationally.
2nd, Theaters are freaking worse than lazy and thats why they fear loosing the theatical window. If all theaters were IMAX, Alamo Drafthouse standard all movies could premiere day and date and people would still go to theaters, maybe even more because they directly compare home and cinema. But no, they have sometimes, bad digital projection, no good masking, confuse wich dcp to play if 3D or 2D. Even IMAX has become worse than lazy. IMAX is no longer truly synonymous with biggest screen, thats a shame. IMAX biggest screen now is reportedly smaller in area than when IMAX sydney was IMAX 70mm max. When IMAX was a smaller company it had bigger screens. How is that possible? . When IMAX went laser it was though they would go even bigger than before, not smaller. They better make a 2 km high 1.43 IMAX to prove they have not lost it. Theaters need to be better thats why day and date is good, it force them to do it. This article is way past high horse opinion.
Streaming is important, is convenience. Day and date is important. Is comparision and test of movies. Bunch of nonesense atricle that of yours…
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