SAM FEARS FOR FUTURE OF CINEMA
SOMETIMES, when film people are banging the publicity drum and giving one interview after another, they reach a point where they just let it all out. British movie-maker Sam Mendes — director of 1917, Skyfall and now Empire Of Light, starring Olivia Colman — has got to that place.
Mendes dropped quite a bombshell when he said of his latest film — plus Oscar front-runners The Fabelmans, Babylon, Armageddon Time and Bardo — ‘No one has gone to see them! Cinema is clearly in trouble.’
The director explained his remarks, saying: ‘Even though people talk about attendance going up to almost pre-Covid levels across the year, the attendance is for 20 or 25 movies, not for 200 movies. It’s for a very small number of big movies.
‘And the smaller movies? People are feeling, well, we can stay at home and see that on our streaming service in three or four weeks’ time, or even straight away, in the case of a Netflix movie, or a movie for Apple.’
And then there’s the matter of price . . . ‘something which is really obvious, which people don’t talk about very much’.
He warmed to his theme: ‘If you go to a restaurant, there is a difference in the kind of ingredients you get when you pay more money.
‘If you want a cheap meal, the food adjusts itself — but it’s cheap. In other words, there’s a price differential. If you go to the theatre to see a big show, it costs you $200.
‘If you go to the fringe, it costs you $20, right?
‘But every movie costs the same amount of money to see.
‘If Avatar costs £10 and Empire Of Light costs £ 10, and you’re a teenager, you’re going to go and see Avatar. It’s obvious. And until there’s some acknowledgement of the differential between the big and the small movies, you’re gonna get steamrolled by the big films.’
Mendes knows of what he speaks. ‘I’ve made a Bond movie; I made 1917 — which is an event movie but non-franchise; and I make a small movie like this.
‘And this movie is ten times harder to publicise. And it’s criticised ten times more than a Bond movie, because people are hoping it’s going to make a case for the cinema, not just itself, but it has to be a masterpiece to get people out to see it.
‘ In a world where Spielberg’s movie, and Damien Chazelle’s movie, and Alejandro Inarritu’s movie, James Gray’s movie, this movie . . . no one has gone to see them . . . all I can say is: it’s clearly in trouble!
‘ Many of those movies were brilliantly reviewed. You know, The Fabelmans is one of the best reviewed movies of the year. It’s taken $15 million at the U.S. box office. It’s nearly finished its theatrical run. What hope is there for anyone?’