The Projector #90: Actually, We Are Going Back to the Movies (Patreon)

by Keith Phipps

I think there’s a pretty simple response to the bad take getting passed around like spoiled milk yesterday, and it’s this: Black Widow opened to $80 million this weekend and did fine on Premiere Access streaming as well. (It must have done fine, given that Disney doesn’t usually disclose numbers.) I also don’t think there’s better response than this tweet from Criterion’s Ashley Clark.

There are reasons to be worried about the theatrical experience, sure, and plenty of them. But that poorly argued op-ed didn’t really lay out any of them. I like big blockbusters just fine, but I don’t know how seriously we should take a writer who only returned to theaters, and then reluctantly, because of F9. It might be a case of someone who’s covered tech innovation and disruption to the point that they’ve become blind to the possibility that the old ways of doing things have endured because they work. And, honestly, I think the biggest threat to movie theaters is that they’ve become synonymous with blockbusters. Every other sort of movie can be watched at home, but if you want to see the Fast/Furious crew blast into space you have to make the trip the nearest multiplex.

I do worry about movie theaters. There are institutions I’d never thought I’d see endangered, like record stores, or made all but extinct, like video stores, and technological disruption has everything to do with the problems both have encountered. But I think if we treat every opinion handed down as true, particularly one that seems to have been dashed off in 10 minutes with little care taken to back up a personal instinct with facts, it might become a kind of fait accompli. Have you heard the bad news? Movie theaters are dead.

The Black Widow numbers suggest otherwise. I hope they’re indicative of a turning tide, but I don’t know if we’ll know for sure until there’s a Covid-19 vaccine for kids under 12 — I’m still hesitant to bring mine back to theaters — and arthouses have been opened long enough to see if their patrons haven’t gotten out of the habit. (Anecdotally, it doesn’t seem as if they have.)

You know, I didn’t even want to respond to that op-ed, but the problem with social media — well, a problem with social media — is that these awful opinions get bounced around and amplified until it almost seems like you’re required to respond to them. And maybe this newsletter is part of the problem. If so, I apologize. I’ll make it up by going to the movies this week.

If you want worries about another aspect of contemporary filmgoing, check out our latest episode on streaming services. It began as a bonus episode for you, dear Patreon supporters, but we ended up dropping it in the main feed because it went so long and covered so much ground (and we had a scheduling emergency).

For better takes, you could also read any of these articles.

• At Vulture, E. Alex Jung talked to the great Jennifer Coolidge.

• For GQ, Keith Phipps talked to Christian Slater about playing good guys and getting older.

• At Polygon, Faefyx Collington discussed Luca, Pixar, and queer representation.