Last summer, we were treated to a fun moviegoing experience when Oppenheimer and Barbie both opened up on the same weekend. If you’re a movie buff like we are here at GeekTyrant, you may have gone to the theater twice that weekend to see both movies.
These two films were particularly fun to see at the movies because Oppenheimer was such a large scale picture that was best viewed on the biggest screen, and Barbie was an event film that had fans showing up in costume. It was like a party at the theater, and it helped boost the experience of going to the movies, making it feel like pre-pandemic days.
But Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos is convinced that those two films would have been just as big if they’d been released on the streamer. Sarandos recently told The New York Times:
“Both of those movies would be great for Netflix. They definitely would have enjoyed just as big an audience on Netflix. And so I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that certain kinds of movies do or don’t work. There’s no reason to believe that the movie itself is better in any size of screen for all people. My son’s an editor. He is 28 years old, and he watched Lawrence of Arabia on his phone. But it is just an interesting thing. At every new development of technology, there’s wins for the audience.”
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with watching movies on your TV at home, or on a smaller device if that’s what you want to do.
But I think these movies were so good for the culture of movie theatres, and they created an opportunity for people to go out and be together and see movies in a setting that everyone was talking about.
There are enough films being made that it seems like filmmakers should be able to make the decision about where their films can be viewed. I like that films end up streaming to give us a second chance at home, but if filmmakers want to give fans a chance to view them in the theatres first, I like having that option as well.
