Steven Spielberg‘s latest movie, “The Fabelmans,” is all about the power of film and the theatrical experience. But in a new interview with The New York Times in the leadup to the film’s release, Spielberg argued the magic of moviegoing took a hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Warner Bros. and HBO Max are to blame.
READ MORE: ‘The Fabelmans’ Review: Steven Spielberg Bares His Soul [TIFF]
Variety reports that Spielberg thinks the studio and HBO Max betrayed his fellow filmmakers by their decision to release the entire 2021 Warner Bros. film slate concurrently on the streamer and in theaters. And as a result, moviegoing habits have changed, especially for older adults. “The pandemic created an opportunity for streaming platforms to raise their subscriptions to record-breaking levels and also throw some of my best filmmaker friends under the bus as their movies were unceremoniously not given theatrical releases,” Spielberg said. “They were paid off and the films were suddenly relegated to, in this case, HBO Max. The case I’m talking about. And then everything started to change.”
And for Spielberg, those changes aren’t good. “I think older audiences were relieved that they didn’t have to step on sticky popcorn,” Spielberg continued. “But I really believe those same older audiences, once they got into the theater, the magic of being in a social situation with a bunch of strangers is a tonic… it’s up to the movies to be good enough to get all the audiences to say that to each other when the lights come back up.” Now that the COVID-19 pandemic is over (to a certain extent), Spielberg wants to see older audiences return en masse to theaters. Maybe “The Fabelmans” is a movie that could do that.
Spielberg sees other films ushering adult audiences back to movie theaters too, like Baz Luhrmann‘s “Elvis.” “I found it encouraging that “Elvis” broke $100 million at the domestic box office,” Spielberg said. “A lot of older people went to see that film, and that gave me hope that people were starting to come back to the movies as the pandemic becomes an endemic. I think movies are going to come back. I really do.” And by “movies,” Spielberg means ones that skew toward a more mature audience. While “there’s no question that the big sequels and movies from Marvel and DC and Pixar and some of the animated movies and horror films still have a place in society,” Spielberg wants to see films like prestige dramas return to prominence.
It’s hard to fault Spielberg’s thinking, but compared to the revenues Marvel movies take in, an $151 million domestic gross for “Elvis” isn’t a massive box office number these days. And as everyone knows, movies are all about money these days (and arguably always have been). But expect “The Fabelmans” to fare better than Luhrmann’s film. Plus, it’s not like Spielberg is the only director in Hollywood making prestige dramas anymore. Just a few coming next year are Martin Scorsese‘s “Killers Of The Flower Moon,” Christopher Nolan‘s “Oppenheimer,” and Ari Aster‘s “Disappointment Blvd.,” among others. Those three will almost certainly be both critically and commercially successful.
“The Fabelmans” gets a limited theatrical release tomorrow, November 11, before its wide release on November 23.