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National Review
National Review
30 Apr 2025
Michael Brendan Dougherty


NextImg:The Corner: Netflix CEO: Theaters Are Outdated

Ted Sarandos, the CEO of Netflix, proclaimed that his company is saving Hollywood.

“You mentioned the box office being down,” Sarandos said. “What does that say? What is a consumer trying to tell us? That they’d like to watch movies at home, thank you.”

If that’s true, it’s another instance of the internet substituting real-life goods with those that can be sent to a private screen. I think that’s only the smallest factor.

The decline in movie-going is multi-factorial. The biggest issue was the pandemic and the launch of streaming services. These two things together induced the industry to obliterate the theater-exclusive window themselves. The studios began releasing directly to streaming to juice early subscriptions. It wasn’t consumers who demanded this — the executives did.

Secondly, the industry concluded that it just wasn’t worth the manpower and effort to hit singles and doubles anymore. Every theatrical release should be a guaranteed nine-figure-earning behemoth, based on previous IP, often from Marvel Comics or DC. Theater-goers tired of this. Oppenheimer proved there is an audience for big, ambitious films. But the mid-tier films, the ones that used to win Oscars in the 1990s and early 2000s, could still thrive — if they were being made. Sometimes, these movies come back into theaters who don’t have enough fresh content to run, and they make $40 million in a weekend without a single dollar spent on advertising.

I think the message from the consumer is: Make more original films with charming actors.