Cheap digital cameras and home computers were everywhere, and the studios were worried. The story began in 2002, when executives from the largest Hollywood studios met to discuss their latest concern: digital prosumer technologies. That revolution had long been underway, and it had little to do with streaming services. “Theater owners,” the tech journalist Kara Swisher argued in the New York Times, “ not yet grasped the depth of the digital revolution, which has only accelerated during the pandemic.” Warner Bros., Swisher wrote, had “finally shattered Hollywood’s way of doing business, perhaps for all time.”īut Kilar had not ushered in the film industry’s digital revolution. Journalists, talking heads, and Twitter users all agreed that the twin phenomena of Covid-19 and advancements in home theater technologies had made Warner’s decision inevitable. But to unilaterally do away with it for a year of new releases was unprecedented.Ī narrative soon emerged. For decades, the Hollywood studios had gradually condensed the theatrical window - the block of time in which theaters had exclusive exhibition rights - in order to take advantage of the lucrative home video market. ![]() To theater owners, this was a declaration of war. On December 3, 2020, WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar announced that all of Warner Bros.’s 2021 titles would be sent to theaters and to HBO Max, WarnerMedia’s streaming service, simultaneously. Also like the United States: when Hollywood drops a bomb, the world pays attention. But no other film sector carries more influence, generates more money for its investors, plays on as many screens, or dictates with such vainglory its vision for a world order. ![]() ![]() ![]() India, China, Nigeria, Russia - among many other countries - each release more movies annually than the five-member studio syndicate based in Los Angeles. H ollywood is to the cinema what the United States is to the world.
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