Seth Rogen occupies an interesting place in Hollywood. For the most part, he’s made a name for himself enough that he can get a TV show or comedy film financed and distributed with relative ease. He purposefully keeps the budgets reasonable and has a built-in audience who will go see whatever he produces. All that to say, there are filmmakers out there panicking about the death of cinema and the theatrical experience, and Rogen just doesn’t understand why.
Speaking to Variety, Seth Rogen talked about his view about the impending death of the theatrical experience. That is to say, he doesn’t believe that cinemas are going to shutter and everything will be streaming or TikToks. Rogen believes that there will always be a place for cinemas because other forms of art are still in demand.
“Paintings are still around. People still go to museums!” said Rogen. “There’s things flashier or more ‘interesting’ than oil on canvas, but people still flock from all over the world, enough to keep museums open. Not a ton of people have to like movies to keep movies going. It’s always been a very small percentage of the population that actually goes and sees movies.”
Even further, Rogen believes that people actually enjoy going to see films and the proof is in the box office pudding, so to speak.
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“I think people still like movies,” he said. “Last year, lots of movies did very well. I think if movies were going to go away, they would have a long time ago.”
Obviously, there is probably a middle ground between some filmmakers saying the death of cinemas is happening now and Rogen’s more laissez-faire attitude. But you have to admit that Rogen isn’t completely wrong or delusional. There are plenty of films that prove people are excited to see in theaters. Rogen also has the benefit that he is able to make projects for both TV and film, so he isn’t completely dependent on the state of cinema.
Rogen is currently making the rounds to promote the awards chances of his series, such as “Platonic,” and other things like “Invincible” and “The Boys.”