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Movie Theaters Haven't Innovated Beyond Popcorn, Says Netflix CEO (variety.com)
Janko Roettgers, reporting for Variety: Asked about his company's relationship with major theater chains, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings didn't pull any punches on Thursday. "How did distribution innovate in the movie business in the last 30 years? Well, the popcorn tastes better, but that's about it," he quipped. "What Netflix wants to do is to unleash film," he said. "It's fundamentally about growing the movie business." [...] On Thursday, Hastings pushed back against the notion that the company aims to bypass theaters. "We are not anti theater," he said. "We just want things to come out at the same time."
While digital changed quite a bit on the backend, how did it actually change the experience of watching a film in the theater?
Sure, we can point to a spec sheet that says the resolution has improved, but did it really change people's experiences? We had IMAX during the analog days, so we weren't lacking for sharp, hi-res images, and even in everyday theaters the resolution was already high enough that most viewers didn't notice when the digital changeover occurred. The speakers we use today are in many cases the same ones in the same configurations we used decades ago. And when was the last time normal people actually cared about colors? I'd wager it was when Technicolor was still new, if even then.
There's less visual noise (e.g. specks, film grain, scan lines, etc.) and less cases of a projectionists forgetting to start the movie on time (thanks to it being easier to automate now), but otherwise I can't think of much else I've noticed that's changed, let alone anything that I actually thought was a problem before.
On the other hand, Netflix has completely changed the way that we as a culture consume media. Binge watching wasn't a thing before they were around. Or how about getting back hours of your day, thanks to Netflix taking 5 hours of broadcast TV and turning it into less than 3.5 hours by stripping out commercials and skipping intro sequences. Packing movies for a trip doesn't involve packing anything extra, thanks to them. These are all things that they helped push into the mainstream.
I didn't even realize how spoiled I was by Netflix until I signed up for Sling TV. Being able to fast forward, rewind, or pause a VOD? Netflix always can, but Sling sometimes can't. Being able to watch anything available without paying extra? Netflix can, but Sling usually can't. Watching something while my wife watches something else? Netflix, yes, Sling, not without paying even more. The list goes on and on (which was why we cancelled our Sling subscription within the trial period), which just went to show us how much Netflix has changed our expectations about how we consume media.
Moreover, as someone who never bought popcorn (or any other concessions) in the theaters, I'm not even enjoying THAT improvement.