Steven Spielberg is the next director to criticise streaming services

In a long and personal interview with the New York Times, Steven Spielberg accuses HBO Max of throwing his friends under the bus by dumping their big-budget projects on the streaming platform. The multiple Oscar winner then refers to Warner Bros. decision to release all of its films on both HBO Max and theatrically at the same time, which he says has now completely changed adult moviegoing habits. He believes that the pandemic gave film companies the opportunity to sell subscriptions but that it is still being exploited and that filmmakers are the big losers:

"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. 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.

"I think older audiences were relieved that they didn't have to step on sticky popcorn. 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."

He cites Baz Luhrmann's Elvis as an example of films that nevertheless gave him some hope for the future. The film attracted many older viewers and showed that there is still hope for this type of film in the cinema. The same goes for the blockbusters that have followed one other over Halloween and he mentions that great films will always have a place in society and that they are best in the cinema.

However, he doesn't close the door completely to streaming, adding that there are indeed films that are simply not as suitable for the cinema. Like his own political drama, The Post. A film that would probably have been better distributed on a streaming platform than in cinemas:

"I made The Post as a political statement about our times by reflecting the Nixon administration, and we thought that was an important reflection for a lot of people to understand what was happening to our country. I don't know if I had been given that script post-pandemic whether I would have preferred to have made that film for Apple or Netflix and gone out to millions of people. Because the film had something to say to millions of people, and we were never going to get those millions of people into enough theaters to make that kind of difference. Things have changed enough to get me to say that to you."

This past weekend Spielberg's partly autobiographical drama, The Fabelmans was released in cinemas in the US and the director is of course hoping that it will attract audiences to cinemas.