Article: "Big-budget TV threatening cinema?

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Paul MacLean
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Article: "Big-budget TV threatening cinema?

#1 Post by Paul MacLean »

Here's a brief but interesting article, which spotlights how television continues to provide the kind of "grown-up" fare which missing from cinema these days -- and how the increasing production quality of TV dramas is luring more viewers away from movie-going...

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-a ... w_facebook

Is big-budget television threatening cinema?
By Luke Jones

BBC Radio 4's Broadcasting House
19 March 2017

Sitting in a trailer on the set, the producer of Netflix's The Crown declines to tell me how much it all costs. But a member of the crew later chortles that they "spent £750,000 yesterday".

It looks like a film, costs as much as a film and, according to executive producer Andy Harries, is "filling a big gap in the market". But one of the leading film producers in the UK, whose work includes Bridget Jones and Love Actually, says super-TV has made his job more difficult.

Andy Harries says he is creating a "viewing experience that is somewhere beyond top-end television and much nearer to big-budget feature films".

It is filling a gap in the market, he says, created by "traditional Hollywood's" focus on the teenage market. "The kind of dramas we make for Netflix and for Amazon are filling a big gap in the market; people who used to go to the cinema but don't much nowadays."

"Cinema watching in the traditional way is definitely in decline. Television is growing partly because of the physical quality of televisions these days. Plus the combination of programmes made with proper production values so you can have a proper experience at home."

At Elstree studios, where the series is being filmed, the backlot is littered with slices of Downing Street and Buckingham Palace. The Oscar-nominated director of the series, Stephen Daldry, says it is "bigger than a film set".

But in a rare display of thrift, I watch Ghana Airways steps being spun around to show American Airlines branding on the other side.

Is this a threat to cinema? Is the talent rushing to work for the small screen instead?
Tim Bevan, co-founder of Working Title, the UK's largest film production company, says his job has been made more difficult.

He says Netflix and Amazon have arrived in the marketplace "aggressively". They are commissioning dramas "that actors, directors and writers are finding very attractive", he says.

His films have been "squeezed by the availability of acting talent" because of these series.
"The area of film business that Working Title works in, which is the quality medium budget movie, has certainly been impacted by this. Because they're telling similar stories but also it's become competitive", Bevan says.

He also notes that almost every critically acclaimed screenwriter has a television series in the works. But for Matt Smith, who plays Prince Philip in The Crown, it's not about size. "The scale of it doesn't matter. It's always about the quality of the writing."

These programmes are "attracting a better quality of people than before because of the time and the format that you can tell a story in television. It is enticing for people who are auteurs," Smith says. "If you could make Doctor Who for £10m an episode or £20m or £50m will it make it any better? For me it's not any different."

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AndyDursin
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Re: Article: "Big-budget TV threatening cinema?

#2 Post by AndyDursin »

So true that not only has Amazon and Netflix's original programming come at an opportune time for those services, but also that they specifically are going after the adult audience that has vacated the multiplex (and with good reason for the most part). Fascinating how that has coincided with the studios' increasing reliance on foreign-friendly blockbuster tentpoles.

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Paul MacLean
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Re: Article: "Big-budget TV threatening cinema?

#3 Post by Paul MacLean »

And Martin Scorsese's next film will bypass theatres altogether and play on Netflix...

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/02/martin ... 201785853/

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AndyDursin
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Re: Article: "Big-budget TV threatening cinema?

#4 Post by AndyDursin »

Probably no surprise after SILENCE bombed. Deservedly too...

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