‘They just don’t make movies like they used to’ is a statement that has been thrown around a lot when it comes to recent offerings from Hollywood. There seems to be something that is missing from the big budget, focus tested, nostalgia fuel that seems to dominate every big weekend of the year, with nothing to show for its big budget except for hollow spectacle.
Matt Damon, speaking to The Hot Ones, had an insider’s take on why films don’t have the same feel that they did back then, given that the actor has about 30 years of experience in the industry. Damon’s inside knowledge was able to shed light on why films nowadays take fewer risks and focus on appealing to a wider audience rather than making more personal stories.
It all has to do with the advent of streaming and the decline in DVD sales, explains Matt Damon
Matt Damon, speaking on The Hot Ones, revealed why it is a bigger risk for films to cater to a more niche taste. The actor spoke about how DVD sales were a huge part of a film’s revenue. There were other factors that contributed to a film’s revenue and budget, with the former taking a significant hit with the advent of streaming. He said:
The DVD was a huge part of our business, our revenue stream. And technology has just made that obsolete.
And so, the movies that we used to make, you afford to not make all of your money, when it played in the there, because you knew you had the DVD coming behind the release, and six months later, you would get a whole other chunk, which would be like reopening the movie almost. And when that went away, it changed the type of movies that we could make.
As streaming and other sorts of subscription models have taken off, it has become more and more important that films make back their revenue during their theatrical run, which means that the film will have to work with a larger audience in mind, as it will not have half the time to make double the amount that it usually does.
More personal films are a bigger gamble for film studios now
Damon talked about how a studio exec broke down the model for him, saying,
It was a $25 million movie, I will have to put that much in print and advertising to market it. We call it P and A, so I have to put that much in, so now I am at $50 million. I have to split everything i get with the exhibitor, so I would have to make a $100 million before I got into profit.
Now, given that this is the case, the film’s plot will have to cater to a wider audience even if it’s a small film.
This makes the ‘personal touch’ of the film that much less important, as the main focus of the film then becomes to cater to as wide an audience as possible to draw in the most amount of people to the theatres, which creates a need for more generalized stories than personal ones.
