Ben Affleck Isn't Wrong

Ben Affleck had something to say about the future of moviegoing and the truth is: he isn’t wrong.

I wrote about Affleck’s comments this evening. The way I see it, the streamers are the big winners. Netflix already has the future Knives Out films and Red Notice is the start of a franchise. In another era, this films wouldn’t be seen as a streaming release. No, they’d be the type to play movie theaters for at least three months. But how audiences watch movies is changing. The sooner we collectively realize this, we can leave the discourse behind.

I look at this era in time as being another change similar to the 1949 Paramount Consent Decree. The only difference is that instead of distributors being forced to sell their chains, they’re cutting out the middle by placing content directly on their own streaming service. Disney, Paramount, Universal, and Warner Bros. all have their own streamers. Sony has deals in place with both Netflix and Disney+. Lionsgate still licenses their films. Netflix used to be the place to get DVDs in the mail but they’ve become a distributor in their own right while still licensing other titles for a period of time.