Fear and loathing in Hollywood at streamers’ stranglehold

Hollywood stars and top directors are getting increasingly anxious about the hold streaming giants Netflix and Amazon are exerting over cinema. Several expressed unease at the dominance streamers established during the pandemic at the Venice film festival — the first major industry gathering since the coronavirus struck. With many cinemas still closed and studios wary of releasing movies with social distancing in force, the two big US giants have virtually had the film-going public to themselves.

Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett, who is chairing the jury at Venice, said cinema needed support and warned it could be tricky “moving from a monoculture of streaming over the last six months to how we open cinemas. “I think it will be a very important conversation to have. It’s a global issue,” said the actress, who admitted spending lockdown watching animated movies by the Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki with her family.

Legendary Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, who has argued for the regulation of all-powerful tech firms, painted a grim future where towns and cities could lose their cultural hearts, with cinemas and theaters going dark.

“The platforms have had an essential role in this period, but it’s nevertheless also negative and reason for concern,” he told reporters. He pleaded for a return to shared experience, saying cinemas and theaters were the antidote to the “forced reclusion and imprisonment.”