Ridley Scott thinks that the tv series are beginning to pose a problem at the cinema

Cinema 28 May, 2018

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Already the glorious time of HBO in the early 2000s, it was quickly realized that the tv, when she had to be given the means, could do as well as the film, if not better. An observation that is further strengthened in recent years.

It should be understood that if a few blockbusters slamming the billion dollars of profits in the theatres, the cinema still has the knees that tremble in the last few years. In fact, it does not go two months without one of us predicts his death, that shields up against the streaming services to Netflix, while the projects on the small screen multiply at speed large V.

A redistribution of the cards already in the germs for a number of years but which seems to be accelerating at this point, then, that Netflix is buying more and more films for exclusive distribution on its platform, as every big studio is launching its own streaming service, the video market is getting grumpy and that there is less space in the rooms for the projects more original or more complicated.

Ridley Scott

An evolution of the market that will not have escaped Ridley Scott, whose production company, Scott Free, with many projects, including television. Then he has put quite a slap there are some weeks with The Terror, the director-producer is back, the micro Indiewire, about her experience for the small screen :

“I really enjoyed it. I love the speed that this entails. I like to work fast. I will clearly continue and make a series. Probably just a driver but, you know, once you have started, you want to do it all. And I think that the whole is a hell of a challenge if you mount a limited series. Six episodes, it is still feasible. But 10, it starts to become a lot.”

And it is true that the quality of the series, short or long, are constantly increasing, to the point that a lot of them compete without problems with cinema films, when they are not in the end simply of better quality. And when one has the quality directly in the home, you no longer really need to get out to go look for it elsewhere, in a cinema, for example :

The Terror, one of the shocks of 2018, produced by Ridley Scott

“There is so much originality, innovations, and surprises coming out of the tv. This is a big problem for the film industry.”

A sentence pithy but not really false, which recalls that, in effect, risk-taking, being much lower at the cinema currently, the disinterest of the public can be felt. And at the time of all connected, it is a mistake that could do a lot of damage. However, Ridley Scott himself does not choose a camp in particular, it passes from one to the other at the discretion of the projects and opportunities.

“For me, the most important thing is the change. It must be in a constant state of change. In my work, I try not to repeat myself. So I am constantly trying to do different things.”

And this might be a solution to see this period as one of constant change rather than as the end of an era. Perhaps the solution would be to make these two media are complementary instead of continuing to put them in constant opposition. Perhaps, too, the cinema as we knew him is alive and well in the process of bursting. It is too early to say.