Quentin Tarantino Takes a Swing at the Movie Industry
Just last week, super star director Quentin Tarantino took a massive swing at the current state of movies. He’s quoted saying, “What the f— is a movie? Something that plays in a theater for four f—ing weeks? I mean, it was bad enough in ‘97. It was bad enough in 2019, and that was the last f—ing year for movies.” Does Tarantino have a point? Have movies truly gone down hill that much in the last six years?
Obviously since 2019 the world has gone through a lot of changes. It went through an entire global pandemic, and that’s nothing to scoff at. During that time, movie theaters and movie studios had to adjust. Theaters were forced to close as movies were going direct to streaming on platforms like Disney+ and HBO Max. But that takes me back to Tarantino’s point: now it seems like movies are not being shown in theaters for very long.
If there is a movie that underperforms during its first week at the box office, good luck trying to find it during weekend number two. “Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” was released back on December 13, and it wildly underperformed at the box office. During its first weekend, the movie only made $4.7 million. Now there were numerous reasons for this failure, but this happened on a $30 million budget. In no way was this profitable for nearly anyone involved. Because of that ultimate flop, the movie was released digitally on December 27.
There is a serious and fair question to ask about streaming actually destroying the movie theater experience, but Tarantino might be the only major director to not only not have a movie release since the pandemic started, but he’s also the one who is complaining about it the most. Award winning director Christopher Nolan doesn’t like direct to streaming movies either, but Nolan has had two movies released since 2020. “Tenet” was one of the only big movies in 2020 which was released in theaters and directly onto HBO Max, and “Oppenheimer” was released in theaters summer of 2023.
Nolan is a known antagonist of direct to streaming movies, as he ended up leaving Warner Brothers due to his movie, “Tenet,” being released on HBO Max. However, no one sees Nolan outwardly dissing others and the work they do on streaming services. He simply will move on.
While streaming has not decimated movie theaters the way Tarantino thinks it has, it has done a good amount of damage elsewhere…DVDs. DVDs used to be the second backbone of the entertainment industry. Before actors made their money from the box office directly, a large sum of their income came from DVDs. However, with the emergence of Netflix and other similar streaming services that has changed. The studios were unable to make the same amount of movies or of money, and actors' pockets were getting hit as well.
Actor, writer, and producer Matt Damon explains it wonderfully in an interview he had during his appearance on the YouTube show, “Hot Ones.” “When that [DVDs] went away, that changed the type of movies that we could make,” said Damon. He also went on to explain that making movies for $50 million became such a risk, because while he, “loved everyone on the movie,” it was too much of a risk to take.
So, does Tarantino have a point about streaming ruining the movie business? There is a good chance that he might. However, Tarantino has yet to release or even finish writing a new movie since the pandemic began back in 2020. He hasn’t even touched the surface of what the new world of movies looks like and he is constantly bashing it. Tarantino has been very open about only making a total of ten movies during his career, and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” was movie number nine. He was supposed to make a movie called “The Film Critic” starring Brad Pitt, but Tarantino ultimately scrapped the idea.
Tarantino can also come off as very pretentious. While he is a two time Oscar winner for best writing, for “Django Unchained” and “Pulp Fiction,” Tarantino always seems wildly out of touch. He always seems to think that he is better than everyone else around him, especially the common person who maybe cannot afford to go to the movies every week because of the astronomical price. Does this make me less excited for whatever his final movie may be? No. I’ll still go see it, and I am sure it will be a phenomenal movie as it often is with Tarantino. However, when people see his ridiculous comments, it can turn them off from him, no matter how great he can be.
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