It’s the refrain we keep repeating: what we watch and how we watch it is changing. Netflix, Amazon and the streaming revolution keeps changing the game for studios, distributors and theater chains who struggle to keep their footing in the marketplace. Some have suggested that as the marketplace continues to evolve, indie movies will all go to streaming platforms or VOD and only blockbusters will play in theaters.
Talking to the Hollywood Reporter back in April, “Captain America: Civil War” co-director Joe Russo echoed that sentiment and said, “I think independent cinema isn’t going to exist anymore.” Russo clarified his comments on the recent KCRW podcast The Business, but didn’t shy away from his original posit.
“My interpretation — and this is from being in a front row seat and seeing where the business is going and trying to be predictive — my guess would be television is the new independent cinema because there is not a significantly financial metric involved in that market,” he said. Translation: movies live and die by their very public budgets and box-office grosses. By contrast, television success is measured by ratings, and premium cable networks, just like streaming outlets, have subscribers as their main metrics of success.
Russo also made the now-familiar argument that with so much content on screens at home, the theatrical experience will change.
“There’s some very compelling storytelling going on in [television] that is independently minded or spirited,” he continued. “I think what you’re going to see with features moving forward, because now everybody has a flatscreen television in their home, everyone has access to an unlimited amount of very good content — that’s fairly cheap content; Netflix is $14.99 a month — to go to the theater and spend $100-$150 dollars after you get the babysitter, you go to dinner, you buy the popcorn, it’s very difficult to get people to leave their houses now when they have so much distracting them in their homes.”
Russo also said more diversions are on the way. “This isn’t even including where VR [Virtual Reality] could go very shortly and how the viewing habits of a younger demographic is being cultivated in a way that is very different than the last 100 years of cinematic habits,” he added. The director went on to say for a younger generation, the average viewing time for a piece of visual narrative is 4 minutes long; a far cry from the two hour movie story length many of us grew up on.
The director then suggested, with blockbusters dominating certain months of the calendar (no indies really dared go up against ‘Batman V. Superman’ or ‘Civil War’), the marketplace becomes even tougher for small films trying to carve out their own space.
“Where the business is going, I think, is large companies are going to be buying the calendar with branded IP,” he explained. “ ‘Star Wars’ now owns Christmas. Marvel owns May and November and potentially August. ‘Deadpool’ in February — now you’re proving that you can make money in any month. It’s really about owning a date which then becomes really difficult for smaller films to find release because these massive movies are occupying the screens, occupying all the attention, all the media.”
“Netflix may become the future of sub-$100 million dollar movies,” Russo added.
The irony of this landscape shift is not lost on Joe Russo, who with his co-director sibling Anthony Russo, spent a decade in television (winning an Emmy for directing “Arrested Development” along the way, and spent a lot of time on “Community”) and directed two very small indie films (“Pieces” and “Welcome To Colinwood”), before making the leap Marvel. Also if you’ve ever wondered how comedy directors in indies and TV broke into blockbusters, this podcast is a must listen.
While Marvel’s been known as an assembly line where some directors have been ground through the mill, the Russos say the environment has changed for the better and the health of the company has been improved ever since Kevin Feige took full leadership of the film division, getting out from under the notoriously frugal Ike Perlmutter. “I think there were years when Kevin was absorbing the pain being inflicted on the company. And I think there was misconceptions in the marketplace of who Kevin is because he was representing everyone in the process.” The brothers went on to praise the studio for its compelling director choices of Ryan Coogler (“Black Panther”) and Taika Waititi (“Thor: Ragnorak”).
The sibling directors also dispelled the notion of Marvel being heavy-handed with its directors. “Our director’s cut of ‘Civil War’ and ‘Winter Solider’ are virtually untouched,” Joe said. “If you don’t have a vision for what you’re doing, yeah sure that can happen there.”
“But if you have a film that you’re committed to and you’re executing, our experience was the exact opposite of [studio interference] at Marvel,” Anthony added.
This is really just the tip of the iceberg. Listen to the engaging full podcast conversation above, plus check out the teaser for the ‘Community’ episode that Feige apparently loved below. “Captain America: Civil War” is now playing everywhere.