Steve McQueen Says Current Era Of Peak TV Is "Just Bad": "There's So Much Money And So Little Ideas"

Film and TV fans, step on up! We’re about to take a trip on the Hot Take Express with none other than “12 Years a Slave” filmmaker Steve McQueen.

McQueen has never been the type of director to shy away from speaking his mind, and this time, the “Widows” helmer has a new target in his sights — television. That’s right, while filmmakers, producers, and actors are flocking to TV in record numbers, McQueen lays down the law about why he’s “not so keen” on TV and why he’s only interested in cinema in a new interview with IndieWire.

“TV had its moment. It’s fodder now, isn’t it? It’s fodder. […] There was a moment in the ’90s or early 2000s when it was amazing. And now it’s just, ‘Get stuff done. We need stuff.’ I don’t know what’s happening now, but obviously the quality has gone down a little bit. There’s more of it, but less quality,” explains McQueen.

He adds, “I don’t like TV. […] There was some great stuff, [but] it’s just bad [now].”

Clearly, many would say that the filmmaker is in the minority with that opinion. While he’s definitely right about the sheer quantity of TV series that hit streaming services and networks, McQueen’s thoughts on the quality of said content are debatable. We are in the era of Peak TV, right?

We also should keep in mind that the Oscar-nominated director has had a brief stint in the world of TV. Back in 2014, McQueen signed on with HBO to create a series titled “Codes of Conduct.” However, after the limited series was picked up in 2015, the show was unceremoniously canceled before it premiered after HBO seemingly got cold feet. Many have tied that series’ cancelation to the end of “Vinyl,” which was an incredibly costly failure at the network.

And McQueen says his unsuccessful foray into the world of TV was before the current era of more, more, more that seems to be the mindset of every major network and streaming service. So, don’t expect McQueen to make that mistake again, as he explains, “I would never do it now. There’s too much! You can’t see the books from the trees. You need a situation where there’s a little bit of curating going on.”

So, what is the filmmaker’s big gripe about the current state of TV? Well, simply, the quality isn’t that great, thanks to a lack of ideas. And to prove that point, he decides to share another hot take — Netflix’s hit series “Ozark” is trash.

“When you get ‘Breaking Bad,’ it’s amazing, but then you get ‘Ozark,’ which is a rip-off of that. […] It’s unfortunate, right now, there’s so much money, and so little ideas. The problem is when you have no money, you’ve got to think,” he says.

Ultimately, McQueen just says he prefers the medium of film and what it can provide. “Writing is one thing, [but] I don’t think TV does what cinema can do. I just don’t think that that’s possible,” he said. “This is not to sort of say one is better than the other, but I know what I prefer. I prefer cinema. Silence is a very, very big factor. Scope is another factor, which is more familiar to me, as far as being a human being is concerned. We don’t talk all the time. We think a lot as well.”

Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Apple, HBO, Showtime, you guys can just erase Steve McQueen from your address book. Unless you’re giving him a film, the director has no time to talk about serialized content. Just move along.