Netflix Is Not Just Feeding Serialized Binge-Watching
https://play.ht/articles/873b7daac1f3
It’s Also Stealing the Scene in Traditional Film Theatrical Viewing
Currently, Netflix is likely the dominant, most widely-used digital streaming service. Now thoroughly embedded in modern culture, characters from TV shows (such as those which can be found on Netflix) mention the company in referencing the act of binge watching. A marathon of playing half a dozen episodes of your favorite program is made quite easy with the service the company offers — as long as they stream your favorite program.
Through the streaming service, which has now also teamed up with the T Mobile network provider, numerous films and series have become available. Netflix also produces original content, explicit to its streaming platform.
Rather recently, however, Netflix is now starting to threaten traditional film screening in the theatrical sense. Streaming has already begun to show us that if integrated in a certain way, it can actually become harmful to one’s social wellbeing. Digital streaming in the smartphone era has allowed individual viewers access to entertainment while remaining in personal solitude. It is true that not all people take advantage of Netflix and other streaming this way, but some do.
A depressing turn of events to many who have been anticipating the film’s release, Andy Serkis’ Mowgli, which for a long time was scheduled for release on October 19 of this year, has been acquired from Warner Bros. by Netflix. This news hit the world of entertainment in late July. Mowgli, yet another Jungle Book movie adaptation, will now be released sometime next year by the streaming service.
Netflix has also announced confidently yet vaguely that Mowgli will get some theatrical releases. Despite this, Dave McNary of Variety points out that there is legitimate concern for merely a brief theatrical release for Serkis’ new big picture. McNary recalled the short theater time Netflix permitted the 2017 film Mudbound and the fact that its theatrical release so that it could compete in the Academy Awards. If you want to see Mowgli on the big screen, I would get to the theater as soon as it is available.
The film industry is a unique art field for a number of reasons. But one of these is the fact that not much of cinematographers’ work is released or published posthumously. A novelist, even after death, can regularly have works published and attributed to him. British literary genius J.R.R. Tolkien is one such example. In the market of film, the artistic medium calls for work to be done by a set deadline. That’s not necessarily the usual case for strictly literary works.
Because of this, not too many posthumous films are produced. However, entertainment big man Orson Welles (1915–1985), who had gotten his start in radio, and his legacy have gone against the mainstream current of the industry. This work of historical significance is none other than The Other Side of the Wind, a work in progress as early as 1970 but which never saw completion in Welles’ own lifetime. (This was due in part to financial difficulties.)
The Other Side of the Wind is about a film director looking to make a comeback; the character shows a number of similarities to Welles’ own attributes and history. This is another movie Netflix has obtained the rights for. The R-rated film was released via Netflix streaming on November 2. Once again, the film is going to be shown in a select number of theaters.
The bottom line is that Netflix currently sits as king of the digital streaming services. It simply has plenty of purchasing power to buy out films that are certain to draw large audiences, such as Andy Serkis’ Mowgli and Orson Welles’ Other Side of the Wind. This capability can make or break traditional movie theater viewing as a community. The atmosphere of the theater is at risk of becoming yet more antiquated.
