Digital Rocks: How Hollywood Killed Celluloid
By Will Tavlin
Page 1 of 6
By Will Tavlin
Page 1 of 6
HOLLYWOOD IS TO THE CINEMA what the United States is to the world. Its power is outsize. India, China, Nigeria, Russia — among many other countries — each release more movies annually than the five-member studio syndicate based in Los Angeles. But no other film sector carries more influence, generates more money for its investors, plays on as many screens, or dictates with such vainglory its vision for a world order. Also like the United States: when Hollywood drops a bomb, the world pays attention.
On December 3, 2020, WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar announced that all of Warner Bros.’s 2021 titles would be sent to theaters and to HBO Max, WarnerMedia’s streaming service, simultaneously. To theater owners, this was a declaration of war. For decades, the Hollywood studios had gradually condensed the theatrical window — the block of time in which theaters had exclusive exhibition rights — in order to take advantage of the lucrative home video market. But to unilaterally do away with it for a year of new releases was unprecedented.
A narrative soon emerged. Journalists, talking heads, and Twitter users all agreed that the twin phenomena of Covid-19 and advancements in home theater technologies had made Warner’s decision inevitable. “Theater owners,” the tech journalist Kara Swisher argued in the New York Times, “[have] not yet grasped the depth of the digital revolution, which has only accelerated during the pandemic.” Warner Bros., Swisher wrote, had “finally shattered Hollywood’s way of doing business, perhaps for all time.”
But Kilar had not ushered in the film industry’s digital revolution. That revolution had long been underway, and it had little to do with streaming services. The story began in 2002, when executives from the largest Hollywood studios met to discuss their latest concern: digital prosumer technologies. Cheap digital cameras and home computers were everywhere, and the studios were worried. Their business model — which depended on maintaining a viselike grip on the distribution of their films — produced dizzying profits for their shareholders. Digital technologies could threaten all that. This was the year after Napster brought record companies to their knees. Who knew what chaos might unfold? The studios formed a little-known joint corporation, Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI), to research the matter.
Eventually DCI scrubbed celluloid film almost entirely from the film industry, ushering in the most significant technological shift since the introduction of sound. The digital revolution transformed nearly every aspect of filmmaking for Hollywood and independent filmmakers alike. Netflix’s rise from a fringe DVD rental service to dominant streamer — in whose steps studios like Warner Bros. are now desperate to follow — was just one of many outcomes that unfolded in DCI’s wake: archiving film assets became prohibitively expensive; independent theaters withered; thousands of projectionists lost their jobs.
This revolution was invisible, and it was designed to be that way. Its success depended on audiences never noticing at all.
On December 3, 2020, WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar announced that all of Warner Bros.’s 2021 titles would be sent to theaters and to HBO Max, WarnerMedia’s streaming service, simultaneously. To theater owners, this was a declaration of war. For decades, the Hollywood studios had gradually condensed the theatrical window — the block of time in which theaters had exclusive exhibition rights — in order to take advantage of the lucrative home video market. But to unilaterally do away with it for a year of new releases was unprecedented.
A narrative soon emerged. Journalists, talking heads, and Twitter users all agreed that the twin phenomena of Covid-19 and advancements in home theater technologies had made Warner’s decision inevitable. “Theater owners,” the tech journalist Kara Swisher argued in the New York Times, “[have] not yet grasped the depth of the digital revolution, which has only accelerated during the pandemic.” Warner Bros., Swisher wrote, had “finally shattered Hollywood’s way of doing business, perhaps for all time.”
But Kilar had not ushered in the film industry’s digital revolution. That revolution had long been underway, and it had little to do with streaming services. The story began in 2002, when executives from the largest Hollywood studios met to discuss their latest concern: digital prosumer technologies. Cheap digital cameras and home computers were everywhere, and the studios were worried. Their business model — which depended on maintaining a viselike grip on the distribution of their films — produced dizzying profits for their shareholders. Digital technologies could threaten all that. This was the year after Napster brought record companies to their knees. Who knew what chaos might unfold? The studios formed a little-known joint corporation, Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI), to research the matter.
Eventually DCI scrubbed celluloid film almost entirely from the film industry, ushering in the most significant technological shift since the introduction of sound. The digital revolution transformed nearly every aspect of filmmaking for Hollywood and independent filmmakers alike. Netflix’s rise from a fringe DVD rental service to dominant streamer — in whose steps studios like Warner Bros. are now desperate to follow — was just one of many outcomes that unfolded in DCI’s wake: archiving film assets became prohibitively expensive; independent theaters withered; thousands of projectionists lost their jobs.
This revolution was invisible, and it was designed to be that way. Its success depended on audiences never noticing at all.
Comment