What 3 Movies in 2018 said about the future of Movies and Entertainment.
I love the movies. I could even call myself a cinephile but don’t worry, this post is not a lengthy review of any movie. Instead, this is about 3 movies that released at the end of the 2018 and what they could mean to the future of entertainment and movies.
Movies will increasingly go direct to SVOD
The first movie was Alfonso Cuarón’s critically acclaimed film “Roma” — an intimate, black-and-white, Spanish-language feature about a middle-class Mexican family and their live-in nanny. This movie is a true arthouse film with no action sequences, no blockbuster ingredients. A kind of prestige movie that would do limited screenings at select theatres, Instead, it was distributed by Netflix. It did get a theatrical release before it got on to Netflix (only for Oscar consideration) however the real message that Netflix was sending out was to film-makers (and audiences).
It is telling filmmakers that Netflix is eager to lure auteurs who want their movies to be shown on a big screen and get awards recognition. It is telling them that they can bypass major studios and come directly to Netflix and get instant access to large global audiences. With these prestige movies, Netflix also hopes to attract and retain high-revenue subscribers who are usually drawn to this sort of cinema.
We will see more of these ‘SVOD-first’ distribution deals in the coming year with the advent of Disney’s and other media giants entering the streaming business. The Sandra Bullock starrer direct to Netflix movie ‘Birdbox’ which released at the time of writing this post has also become a major success for Netflix.
Stars will become “virtualised”
The 2nd movie that released at the end of the year was the mouth-fully titled ‘Spiderman: Into the Spider-verse’. This was the polar opposite of Roma- an out and out big budget Marvel spectacle.
What stood out for me and subconsciously for audiences was the willingness of disbelief that we were all watching animated characters onscreen emote and “act”. There were many animated movies that did this, you may say. However, this time it felt different. The animation (which Sony Pictures is trying to patent) has attempted to push beyond the Pixar Animation house style which so many studios are vigorously emulating. The human animated characters felt “real” and it didn’t matter to the audience that we were not watching real actors onscreen- we were all invested in the main protagonist.
Why can’t we have Virtual actors? Well, the thing is, we do. In Japan, of course. You can read more about virtual celebs named Hatsune Miku here and about Kizuna AIhere.
Virtual celebs/actors managed and IP-owned by studios could become a lucrative option to real stars. They can be replicated anywhere and at anytime- with no celebrity tantrums to fear, no egos to massage. These online avatars can now have online presences across virtual spaces that we all inhabit- YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Fortnite etc.
However, the future lies somewhere between fully virtual actors and real human actors who will be “virtualised”. The virtual likenesses of Actors, Singers beyond the grave could be owned and used perpetually. With CGI tech improvements, the quality of likenesses are getting to the point where human actors in movies may become superfluous — in the Star Wars-based “Rogue One” movie, actor Peter Cushing, who died 24 years ago, was recreated from scratch. The same film used CGI to portray a young Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia; after Fisher’s death in 2016.
The practice of digitally resurrecting the dead — sure to be a growth business when virtual and augmented reality really take off — may turn “Rest in Peace” to “Rest in Pixels.”
Artists and entertainers need to get serious about virtualising themselves.
You will be in control
No Entertainment thinkpiece is complete without a mention of the surprise drop of Netflix’s groundbreaking Interactive movie’Black Mirror- Bandersnatch’. The viewer is now an active participant in the movie who decides the path that the movie should take (within some pre-ordained choices, of course).
Imagine the possibilities. People complain about the endings of movies all the time, but allow the viewer to change the story, and they get what they want every time. Imagine if viewers had the ability to change their favourite movies? You could save Jack, and let him and Rose live happily ever after (#NeverForget). If you like your movies with happy endings, then you follow the happy ending path; if you like your movies tragic, then you follow the tragic path; if you like your movies ambiguous, then you follow that path. Everything could be decided by you! With Netflix’s recommendation engine knowing every nuance of your entertainment tastes, instead of creating content it thinks you’ll like, it’ll produce content it knows you’ll like, because it knows you and what you like to see.
The seemingly inconsequential choice at the beginning of the movie where the viewer is asked to choose the protagonist’s breakfast cereal option- Sugar Puffs OR Frosties offers amazing possibilities of in-movie programmatic product placement. The TV ad played within the Movie changes based on the choice of breakfast made. AMAZING!
The only drawback I see is that movies are usually ‘leanback’ experiences. This sort of interactive cinema needs the viewer’s mindspace- it taxes the gray cell a bit. But hey, if you can engage mainstream TV users to vote of their favorite reality singer idols, you can get them to make quick choices for their favorite movie character. Also, Millennials consider highly intense, deep-choice laden games like Red Dead Redemption, Fortnite and PUBG as casual entertainment- this format of movies may just be up their alley.
We will see an upswing of releases in this interactive format as marketing differentiation and hype-cycle management this year across SVOD services. The success of the format rests on creators.
Exciting Times ahead for story-tellers to experiment with this format.
Maybe some of the above will come to pass, maybe none of it will. As a Tech and movie geek, I sure hope we see some of this in 2019 and beyond.
This post was originally published on my LinkedIn on January 5, 2019.
