Should You Race Back to Theaters When It’s Safe? Pretty Much Pop: Culture Podcast (#77) on the Big Screen Experience

The pan­dem­ic has kept us out of the movie the­aters, forc­ing new stream­ing prac­tices so that films can be released at all, but as these restric­tions end in 2021, do we want things to go back just to the way they were?

Your hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt reviewed many arti­cles where film­mak­ers fret­ted about the future of cin­e­ma. Even before the pan­dem­ic, con­cerns about falling movie house atten­dance and the increased use of stream­ing have had the indus­try wor­ried about films being viewed in the man­ner their cre­ators intend­ed, or even made at all.

For at least the first half our of this dis­cus­sion, we large­ly ignored all that in favor of mus­ing on our own past the­ater-going habits and expe­ri­ences. What has worked and has­n’t in the shift toward more spec­ta­cle and ameni­ties? What do we like and loathe about being in an audi­ence with oth­ers? Is the the­ater expe­ri­ence essen­tial just for big spe­cial effects films, or does it make any film more effec­tive? How would we improve moviego­ing and home view­ing? We con­sid­er the list of films that were sup­posed to come out this year and were either delayed or moved to stream­ing, like Tenet, Soul, In the Heights, etc.

Here are those arti­cles, in case you’re curi­ous:

• “Every Movie Release Date Affect­ed by the Coro­n­avirus Pan­dem­ic” by Christo­pher Rosen
• “Hollywood’s Obit­u­ary, the Sequel. Now Stream­ing.” by Brooks Barnes
• “On the Future of (Going to the) Movies” by Jor­dan Cruc­chi­o­la
• “The Future of Movie The­aters In the Age of Coro­n­avirus: A Dia­logue” by Brent Lang, et al
• “Stream­ing Is the Future for 2021, but I’m Not Con­vinced It’s the Future of Movies” by Matt Gold­berg
• “Michael Sham­berg On How The The­atri­cal Busi­ness Can Rebound From Covid-19″
• “How Will Movies Sur­vive the Next 10 Years?” by Kyle Buchanan
• “Here’s How Movie The­aters Will Sur­vive the Next 10 Years: Exhibitors Speak Out” by Eric Kohn
• “Christo­pher Nolan Rips HBO Max as “Worst Stream­ing Ser­vice,” Denounces Warn­er Bros.’ Plan” by Kim Mas­ters
• “Pat­ty Jenk­ins, Aaron Sorkin on Warn­er Bros.’ HBO Max Shock­er: ‘We’re All Scared Everything’s Going to Change Now’” by Adam Vary
• “After Warn­er Bros.: The New Long-Term Deal Hol­ly­wood Stu­dios, Movie The­aters and Net­flix Need” by Eric Rosen­baum

Hear more of this pod­cast at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.