Steven Spielberg Throws Major Shade at HBO Max

Director Steven Spielberg is throwing major shade at HBO Max and other streaming services, over the way he views their (mis-)treatment of filmmakers. Spielberg gets frank in a new interview with the New York Times, in which he goes off about how the industry reacted to the COVID Pandemic of 2020 by pushing theatrical releases to streaming, which may have inexorably changed the entire movie industry forever, going forward. 

“The pandemic created an opportunity for streaming platforms to raise their subscriptions to record-breaking levels and also throw some of my best filmmaker friends under the bus as their movies were unceremoniously not given theatrical releases,” Spielberg said in the interview. “They were paid off and the films were suddenly relegated to, in this case, HBO Max. The case I’m talking about. And then everything started to change.”

Indeed, Spielberg is singling out Warner Bros. and its HBO Max streaming service. After the theater industry was shuttered during COVID, Warner Bros. decided to make the bold step of releasing its entire 2021 slate of films simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max. The decision sparked all kinds of backlash from theater chains and certain sectors of filmmakers and fans, who felt that Warner Bros. had broken from a code of solidarity and prioritized pumping-up HBO Max’s lagging subscriber numbers over the collective good of the industry. Since 2021, movies have had a harder time performing at the box office, while the turnaround from theatrical release to streaming release has become shorter than ever – and studios are clearly choosing to avoid theaters altogether and go straight to streaming for second-tier film releases. 

Spielberg understands the appeal of being able to consume movies at home instead of theaters – but cautions that the “magic” of the theatrical experience will be a real substantial loss, if not sustained:

 “I think older audiences were relieved that they didn’t have to step on sticky popcorn,” Spielberg explained. “But I really believe those same older audiences, once they got into the theater, the magic of being in a social situation with a bunch of strangers is a tonic…it’s up to the movies to be good enough to get all the audiences to say that to each other when the lights come back up.”

So as not to be all doom, gloom, and criticism (like many of his contemporaries), Spielberg does end with the hopeful note that there are examples of how the movie theater industry is still climbing back: 

“I found it encouraging that ‘Elvis’ broke $100 million at the domestic box office,” Spielberg said. “A lot of older people went to see that film, and that gave me hope that people were starting to come back to the movies as the pandemic becomes an endemic. I think movies are going to come back. I really do.”

Steven Spielberg’s next film The Fabelmans will be in theaters on Thanksgiving.