Dune (Denis Villeneuve, October 1, 2021) Movie • Page 20

I truly do feel for him and anyone else involved in the artistic creation of these WB movies, but let's not act like movie theater chains are some bastion of artistic integrity. They're also greedy corporations.

I fucking love movies, I just don't have the reverence for "the cinema" all these filmmakers talk about. Fuck sitting in a theater with a bunch of obnoxious dipshits, getting distracted by their chewing, talking and their cell phones. Fuck sitting shoulder to shoulder with some stranger who hasn't showered in a week. Half the time the auditorium has an issue with the sound or picture. I would choose to watch it on my TV with my good headphones in the privacy of my home almost 100% of the time.

 

Even though I don't really feel as strongly about the cinema as he does, Denis' comments make me feel really good about how Dune will turn out. I hope they're able to make the second movie at the very least.

 

Yeah I'm behind Denis 100%. Seeing big event films like Dune for the first time at home is just not the same. It's a cheapened experience, and it isn't what the artist intended either. We're losing a lot more than we're gaining with the death of the theater experience.

 

The theatrical experience is just a fraction of it.

The movie industry is based on making $$$$ on budgets of $$$. When people are paying $$ for $$$ movies, the budget for films will drop, the scale and scope will drop.

Right now, the only thing which delivers the monies which movies like Dune, The Avengers, James Bond, etc. need to be made (especially given how many of those are made with companies like Legendary footing the bill) is millions of people dropping ~$15 a piece to see it in the theater.

Thus far, the economics don't make sense.

Throwing it all into streaming -- which has thus far proven itself to be a money losing proposition -- doesn't improve this, and also fucks up all sorts of agreements between the studios and the creatives, financiers, etc. involved.

WarnerMedia is taking the Silicon Valley "MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS" mentality and forgetting that they're breaking things along the way.

(And I say this as an HBO Max subscriber who was excited for this announcement...prior to knowing how they knew pretty much the same time we did.)

 

Yeah I think besides being bad business in general and a terrible thing for cinema the worst part about this was how they just cut out everyone involved with these films from the decision process and didn’t even give them a courtesy call.

This probably would have been a much smoother process if they had gone about it the right way. Filmmakers wouldn’t be happy but the studio has leverage anyways, but by blindsiding them they opened themselves up to so much more criticism.

 

people are blaming WB and rightfully so but Nolan deserves some of the blame too

 

i can’t imagine Nolan supports this decision

 

no, but it’s largely his fault because of the whining he did for three months this summer that ultimately ended up being a total failure

i get he’s probably the first person alongside denis to fight for the theater experience. he did quite literally that this year. and it was a massive failure, and now WB is going the complete opposite direction

 

WB is still the studio though, they made the decision to release Tenet in theaters when it wasn’t safe to do so, not Nolan. He may have advocated for it but ultimately the decision rested with them. They’re adults, they don’t get to be absolved of any part of a decision that was their sole authority to make.

 

sure. WB is absolutely to blame, as i said. he holds a notable sway within the studio though. just saying i don’t think he’s entirely blameless either, even if he might (probably does) agree with denis’ point

i would say the same if dune was scheduled for this summer and tenet for the winter and denis pushed for dune to get a theatrical release

 

Yeah idk I mean I understand he has sway there but I still don’t think it’s enough to give him part of the blame for this. WB has final say and if they didn’t think they would have made enough money they wouldn’t have gone forward with releasing it no matter what Nolan said. His sway only goes so far. Not as far as concerns over the bottom line.

Nolan was obviously wrong to push for it to come out, though.

 

I’d rather watch a movie at a theater than at home like 95% of the time.

 

Blaming Nolan or Warner Brothers omits the real culprit, which is a government that completely mismanaged the pandemic response to the point where we are losing a 9/11 worth of people every day after almost a year of knowledge about the disease and its spread.

 

true

 

This is the appropriate take. Also the government doing nothing at all to help out the arts in general. I can't even explain the amount of historic venues/theatres/music halls that have closed here in Dallas since the pandemic began due to no financial support and the inability to continue with their business.

 

That is what is so frustrating. They won't bail businesses or people out but then at the same time try to blame people for putting themselves at risk.

 

Yep, 100% this. While I personally do believe giving people the option to watch safely from home for the time being is probably the right move, I completely understand the filmmakers who are livid right now... and the real issue is much bigger than either WB or them. It’s just a sad state of affairs that didn’t have to play out the way it has. Even small music venues near me are closing left and right... it’s sad.

 

where do you live where this is your theater experience lol. I can count the number of truly bad theater experiences in my life on one hand

 

I've probably had one bad cinema experience in my life, and I've seen a ton of films in my 34 years

 

Some chains are a lot worse than others, in my experience. That's why I love Alamo Drafthouse. They will throw your ass out for the slightest indiscretion, so people tend to behave. But some of the bigger chains I've been to, people act like shit heads during movies.

 

Yeah I def have my go to theaters where I know the crowds are better.

 

I can probably count the good experiences I've had on one hand, and those are the showings where I was the only one there. and having worked at movie theaters for 5 years, I honestly don't think there was a single day where somebody didn't have to complain about somebody being on their phone/talking in an auditorium, or a technical issue with the sound or picture. We weren't allowed to kick people out, at best I was allowed to go in and tell them to put their phone away or shut the fuck up.

I hope small, independent/arthouse theaters can survive this...but the theater industry killed itself with these huge coorporate chains prioritizing profit over a good experience. Even without the pandemic, I would prefer to watch at home. I would've paid a premium to watch it day of release

 

I can really only think of three distracting cinema experiences that I've had in the last decade:

1) Nightcrawler - The man sitting next to me kept saying "oh no, no you can't do that" every time Jake Gyllenhaal was doing something morally wrong
2) Widows - when a phone kept going off at the beginning of the movie and the boomer next to me kept looking at me like it was mine because I was the youngest person within her line of vision (spoiler alert, the phone belonged to her husband)
3) Uncut Gems - the college kid next to me fell asleep and started snoring. I have no idea how you could fall asleep during that anxiety attack of a movie. I think he was drunk or coming off an all-nighter.

Still, that's three out of well over 100. There have always been more distractions at home.

 

All I know is that i’ll be seeing this in theaters as much as I rationally can. I fucked up and Bladrunner wasn’t really on my radar when it dropped so I never saw that in theaters. Will be trying to rectify that mistake by seeing Dune as much as possible.

edit: I guess technically there’s a chance the movie ends up being shit which would mean i probably wouldn’t go see it a bunch

 

lol obviously the real problem with this situation and many others is the US government's handling of the pandemic, nobody will dispute that, but that's not what the conversation was about. The point with the WB situation is that any movie that a filmmaker intended to be seen on the big screen should just...not be released until it's safe. It's a very simple answer. No home streaming debuts and no theaters during an out of control pandemic.