Straight-to-streaming: will the coronavirus pandemic change the film industry for good?
- As the pandemic keeps cinemas closed and films go online, what does it mean for art-house cinema and the theatres that show it?
- Universal’s decision to bypass cinemas and release Trolls World Tour online has outraged US theatre owners
A spectre is haunting cinemas around the world. Looming over theatre owners is not only the coronavirus pandemic but something unleashed with it – that wild and uncontrollable beast called streaming. Its popularity has surged as cinephiles and casual cinema-goers alike, subject to state-sanctioned lockdowns, find themselves resorting to watching films at home.
The debate about the merits and pitfalls of making content available online has been raging for years among film industry executives and filmmakers with the rise of streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and – perhaps a harbinger of how even the major studios are acknowledging the turning tide – Disney’s own video-on-demand (VOD) service, Disney+. But the global shutdown of cinemas is accelerating this seemingly inevitable leap into the virtual unknown.
Universal’s decision to make Trolls World Tour available for streaming on Friday marked the first time a tent-pole release will skip cinemas (which are likely to remain closed) and go straight to online. In doing so, the studio has shattered the long-running industry model in which films – or, at least, money-spinning blockbusters – are shown only in cinemas for a “window” of a few months to a year before becoming available on VOD services.
Obviously, American cinema owners are not pleased. In an interview with trade magazine The Hollywood Reporter, the head of the National Association of Theatre Owners, John Fithian, raged against Universal’s decision to allow Trolls World Tour to land on digital first. He went as far as accusing the studio of “lying to consumers” by promoting the film as being released simultaneously on VOD and in cinemas, since they would be closed on Friday.
Watching from afar, one can’t help but feel a sense of déjà vu: there was a similar squabble in China in late January, when the Chinese production outfit Huanxi Media cancelled plans for the cinema release of its Lunar New Year blockbuster comedy, Lost in Russia, in the face of the coronavirus outbreak.
Junking its agreements with cinemas – which would eventually be closed by a government decree, that still remains in place in parts of the country – Huanxi elected to allow free streaming of the film on its own platform as well as the immensely popular online portal TikTok. The latter is owned by ByteDance, with whom Huanxi has signed a deal to develop content and – surprise! – an online movie channel.
Unsurprisingly, mainland cinema operators were outraged, with some calling for a boycott and others lodging an official complaint against the Huanxi-ByteDance deal with the China Film Administration. Not that it mattered. Perhaps sensing that Xu Zheng’s feel-good family comedy – about a row and reconciliation between a middle-aged man and his mother on a train journey across Siberia – was helping to mollify an angst-ridden populace, the authorities did not intervene.
The model has since been replicated, with Wong Jing making his Enter the Fat Dragon available (for a small fee) on the iQiyi platform on February 1. Originally slated for release on February 21, Yu Miao’s The Winners – starring comedian Da Peng as a bank clerk who turns a mock hold-up into a real heist – debuted on ByteDance’s streaming services on March 20.
Chinese cinema operators would likely empathise with their American counterparts and Fithian’s warning that “exhibitors won’t forget” what Universal did with Trolls World Tour. More significant, however, is whether the consumers, having experienced the ease of watching first-run features in the comfort of their own homes, will be willing to revert to cinemas once the pandemic is over. Or will this become a new normal for producers and consumers alike, upending the status quo altogether?
Some analysts have already predicted the emergence of a new model, with tent-pole blockbusters – testosterone-fuelled, effects-driven “event films” – slowly returning to big screens while smaller, more intimate titles are moved to small-screen runs on VOD services. This is a simplistic and scary premise: imagine a world in which the films of auteurs – say Pedro Costa or Kelly Reichardt – are banished from cinemas and you are probably halfway there.
While the majors will probably rebound from the pandemic by reallocating resources and restructuring strategies, art-house cinema will face a much tougher struggle.
Ironically, their problems might be partly a result of the benevolence of the artists and non-mainstream festival programmers. Inspired by a call from artist and lecturer Kate Lain, who compiled a list of links to experimental films for her students to watch during the coronavirus lockdown, a spreadsheet titled “Cabin Fever” has grown into a massive resource of experimental works freely accessible online. This will allow people to watch films they wouldn’t typically choose in normal circumstances.
But how will this generosity play out after the pandemic passes? Will these new converts (or experienced cinephiles, for that matter) continue to support experimental filmmakers and festivals through donations or pay-per-views? Or will they simply clamour for more free content without acknowledging the costs incurred in making and curating the work?
The genie is out of the bottle – and nobody is sure whether it can be put back when this is all over.
