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Streaming is rapidly destroying any possibity of a movie, even a great one, to have much cultural impact. Movies in theaters are in the public arena. Most of us live within range of theaters, and probably several multiplexes within range — although as theaters continue to get thinned out and urban congestion gets worse, the schlep factor increases.

All of which suits the streamers just fine. They are in the subscription and data harvesting businesses, not the movie business. They want proprietary content that forces the serious viewers — the ones who really want to watch a given movie for whatever reasons — to their platforms. They silo the content and hide it from the majority of potential viewers.

If they were trying to sell tickets and put butts in seats, their marketing approach would be the reverse.

Most of the streamers would be happy to see the theaters disappear. And they are actively sabotaging theatrical exhibition. They bought up the legacy studios not to make more great movies, but to get control of their catalogues of golden oldies.

In addition, streaming destroys any sense of immediacy and urgency. The highly committed active viewers will watch the movie immediately — these are the people that will hustle to see it in the theater if a streamer deigns to give it a perfunctory limited release — but most people will yawn, shrug, and maybe get around to it someday. It’s like picking up a book at Barnes and Noble will good intentions, and then tossing it onto the piles growing in the corners when you get home.

When I die, I could be cremated on a pyre of books I sincerely meant to read when I bought them, but never got around to it. That’s what the streamers are doing to the film industry. And since they have bought most of the legacy studios, they are now destroying their own product.

Which they will be happy to replace with AI generated slop meant to be played as background noise.