Will Netfl ix and its TV on demandrival skill cinema?
Is this the latest movie I see before me – on my TV?
Indeed it was. I watched The Tragedy Of Macbeth – misquoted above – on Apple TV days after it premiered in cinemas.
The movie featured Hollywood heavy-hitters Denzel Washington and Francis McDormand, both eyeing an Oscar as avidly as their titular characters craved the throne of Scotland – though, one would hope, with less bloody ruthlessness.
Don’t Look Up is another big release that would normally not appear on TV for years after hitting the cinemas.
It hilariously sends up the media and politicians reacting to an approaching ‘planet killer’ comet (a metaphor for global warming).
Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Laurence, Meryl Streep and Cate Blanchett star in this major film that had only a limited release in cinemas.
It cost $75m to make but took in only $783,105 in a very restricted US box office run on December 10.
However, producer Netflix wasn’t bothered. It was only released in cinemas to qualify the film for the Oscars, it seems.
Aimed at the Christmas streaming market, Don’t Look Up blazed through it in appropriately meteoric style.
Attracting 111 million viewing hours in its first weekend – the second highest ever on Netflix – it set streaming records and was the second most-watched Netflix film within 28 days of release.
The fact that we’re even talking about ‘viewing hours’ rather than box office takings to assess films shows how far streaming services have come.
And they are not resting on their laurels.
Netflix, Disney+, Amazon and the other streaming services are set to spend more than $230bn on films and other content in 2022, double the total of a decade ago, according to the Ampere Analysis consultancy.
This is more than three times over what US cinema giants spend annually, proving that not only have streaming services arrived – they have blown Hollywood out of the water as spectacularly as one of its trademark special effects explosions.
And if you’re wondering how can they afford such largesse, here’s how: Squid Game cost $21m to make but, within a month of its release, analysts
estimated it was worth over 40 times more than that – an extraordinary $885m!
That’s more than even films in the Star Wars and Pirates Of The Caribbean franchises made over their lifetimes.
Yes, a dystopian drama –in Korean – out-zapped Star Wars.
Squid Game is Netflix’s mostwatched series, topping the viewing charts in 94 countries, amassing 1.65 billion viewing hours.
If released in cinemas, it would have been one of the biggest grossing movies of all time.
However, streaming services do face major challenges – and risks.
The lockdown boom has tailed off as people return to the cinemas.
Streamers, though, are spending big to lure them back. And in the long run, basic economics of scale and convenience favour streaming over cinemas.
Movie theatres are expensive and marketing budgets must be huge so we know a film exists, let alone feel compelled to travel to see it.
Streaming services have a built-in audience of hundreds of millions gagging for a new release on Friday night.