Joker: Folie à Deux director Todd Phillips has one solution to improve movie theaters: forgoing showing commercials ahead of a film’s screening.
Speaking to Empire magazine as part of a filmmakers’ poll on what the future of movies and entertainment would look like — from artificial intelligence to streamers vs. theaters and beyond — the multi-Oscar nominee gave an answer slightly different from the rest.
“Stop showing commercials before the movies,” he said. “We’ve paid for our tickets. We’re excited to be there. The commercials tend to take the air out of the room.” Presumably, the filmmaker is referencing the ads that play before the trailers for upcoming features.
In the same interview, Anora helmer Sean Baker lamented filmmakers’ pivots toward streaming and the television world amid an embrace for digital versus analog cinematography. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Freaks and Geeks creator Paul Feig lauded streamers for having “really stepped up” in an ever-shifting industry.
Phillips’ latest endeavor was a box office bomb, made on a circa $200 million budget from Warner Bros. It was critically panned and didn’t hit with commercial audiences either, now standing to lose roughly the amount of money it cost to produce it. Fellow colleague Paul Schrader vocalized his distaste for the film, saying he went shopping while screening it in theaters and deemed it a “really bad musical.” However, another industry vet, Quentin Tarantino, praised the DC flick, calling it a “f— you” to Hollywood and moviegoers.
