While many people might think of Ben Affleck as the A-list actor in massive blockbusters such as “Justice League,” “Armageddon,” “Pearl Harbor,” and “Gigli” (okay, maybe not the last one), he’s also a filmmaker that loves to dabble in features that are much more dramatic and feature somewhat lower stakes, such as “The Town,” “Gone Baby Gone,” and, of course, “Argo.” And it’s that filmmaker side of Affleck that sees the future of the film industry in a different way than his blockbuster acting side. You see, after this pandemic is a thing of the past, the actor-filmmaker thinks the world of adult dramas and mid-budget pictures isn’t going to be as glitzy and glamorous as before.
READ MORE: Russo Brothers’ ‘Cherry’ Lands At Apple In A Deal Reportedly Worth More Than $40 Million
Speaking to EW, Affleck was asked about what the film industry is going to look post-COVID. And while he thinks big budget, tentpole films will be just fine, for now, it’s the “mid-budget” films that are going to be the most affected, including features like the actor’s recent “The Way Back.”
“I don’t know what will be the reality post-COVID,” Affleck explained. “Who knows what the theatrical business will be like? What I think has happened is that people have grown accustomed during this time to watching from home. It benefited ‘The Way Back,’ for sure. It had just come out so I think the ability to see a new movie at home enabled us to get many more viewers than would have come out to a theater to pay money to see a sad movie about an alcoholic dealing with the death of his child. People have now been acculturated to streaming and watching movies at home in ways they weren’t before, which probably accelerated a trend that was already taking place.”
Of course, when you talk about films like “The Way Back,” you can’t help but notice that Affleck typically makes those adult dramas when he steps behind the camera. So, what does he think would happen if he tried to make a film like “The Town” or “Argo” (which won a ton of awards, including Oscars) if they were being made in 2020? Well, unsurprisingly, he sees a potential streaming future for those types of features.
“I think after COVID movies like ‘The Town,’ movies like ‘Argo,’ all the movies I made would effectively end up on streamers,” he said. “There will probably be like 20 to 25 movies a year that are distributed and they’ll all be big IP movies, whether it’s the type of movies that Disney makes like ‘Aladdin’ or ‘Star Wars’ or ‘Avengers,’ something where you can count on the low-end being half a billion dollars worth of business. And I think it’s going to be very, very difficult for dramas and sort of mid-budget movies like [‘The Town’] to get theatrical distribution. … I think that’s for better or worse, and you can draw your own conclusions, but that would be my best guess about the direction of the movie business just based on what I’m seeing now and experiences I’m having trying to get stuff made.”
READ MORE: ‘The Flash’: Filmmakers Unveil New Concept Art But Are Mum On The Future Of The Batmen
If you pay attention to the headlines around the film industry, even in the immediate return to production that we’ve seen in recent weeks, studios are already adapting to this new world, with low-budget films rushing into production because they’re cheap and easy, while those adult dramas are being snatched up by Netflix, Apple, and Amazon, with many festival films going for tens of millions of dollars.
So, clearly, Affleck isn’t saying anything that is a big hot take, but it does make you wonder how he will proceed with his career given the new normal. Will he be content with making Netflix films or fight for theatrical? We shall see.