Tell me if this has happened to you lately: you’re watching a movie that has debuted on streaming and you sort of just fall out of interest.
You want to be engaged, but the temptation to just look at your phone or get up to pee is too much. Suddenly, you’re not sure what’s happening on screen, and you’ve lost the plot.
Well, you’re not alone in that feeling.
Not only have I been there, but apparently Josh Brolin has been there, too.
Brolin recently sat down with Collider, where he talked about his upcoming movies and why he thinks Weapons is the antidote for people’s streaming movie woes.
Let’s dive in.
Boring Streaming
Going to see a movie in a theater is special, not just because of the big screen, but because it’s a place where you can concentrate on being entertained. You’re not folding laundry during the show or texting other people; you’re there to be enveloped in awesomeness.
One of my favorite theatrical releases recently has been Zach Cregger’s Weapons. Seeing that with a crowd on opening night was fantastic.
And one of the movie’s stars, Josh Brolin, thinks he knows why it’s fantastic: it’s an awesome movie that gets you out of the house and into a theater to be taken somewhere special. It’s also a movie by a young horror filmmaker that Hollywood has had trouble finding.
The Shocking ‘Weapons’ Ending Explained Credit: New Line Cinema
Brolin said of the film and filmmaker, “You’re looking for great filmmakers, and you’re hoping that there’s another new good filmmaker out there. Right now, with so much content, you’re just watching things on whatever streaming service you’re on, and you’re just going, “Fuck, why is this so boring, man? Why?” And just go to the next thing. It’s all the same shit. And then somebody not only takes the horror genre, but then fucks with it and then does something on the edge of absurdity, and it’s sort of humorous, so it’s keeping you off-[balance] enough for him to have an emotional impact, ultimately.”
There’s a lot ot unpack here, but let me start by saying how happy I am that Hollywood has elevated Zach Cregger, a guy who knows how to speak to an audience and to keep them engaged.
I think at the core of Brolin’s comment, you get what I was talking about earlier: a need to be with an audience engaging in a shared experience without distractions. No matter what, watching something at home comes with the agreement that you can do other things while a film is on; it comes with built-in interruptions
At the movies, we have to sit down and dig in.
Second to all this is that a lot of streamers know that, and make movies with a lot of exposition and less narrative thrills because they want you to view them in a way that allows you to catch up quickly if you spend part of it texting. Streamers are essentially intentionally making “background movies.”
It makes those films seem repetitive, and at their worst, very boring.
The big question for everyone reading this article is that audiences want to be entertained. Take some chances, and freshen up the tropes. Make them pay attention by never being okay with being boring.
The best way to stand out from the pack is to be original.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
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