‘The DVD was a big part of our business’
If you’ve ever wondered why you scroll for hours on Netflix before landing on something you’ve watched dozens of times, then Matt Damon has summed up the reason brilliantly.
Appearing on the First We Feast show earlier this month, as part of their dedicated celeb spot called Hot Ones, the 51-year-old Hollywood veteran spoke to the sheer amount of entertainment out there.
“So I think a scenario a lot of viewers can relate to is sitting on the couch on a Friday night, going through the streaming services, cycling through the movies and thinking to themselves, ‘There aren’t any movies for me anymore’,” questioned host Sean Evans.
He then asked Damon what “macro Hollywood conditions are behind that sentiment?”
In Damon’s words: “The DVD was a big part of our business, our revenue stream, and technology has just made that obsolete.
“And so, the movies that we used to make, you could afford not to make all of your money when it played in the theatre, because you knew you had the DVD coming.”
He compared the DVD release to “reopening the movie.”
“When that went away, that changed the type of movie we could make,” he added.
The award-winning actor then continued to reference one of his own movies, 2013’s Behind the Candelabra. A studio executive explained to him at the time that as a $25m movie, Damon would need to put that amount into print and advertising.
He explained: “I have to split everything with the exhibitor, the movie theatres, so I would have to make $100 million before I got into profit.
Damon’s point was that at the height of DVD purchasing, there was less pressure for a film to perform well in theatres. Movies could be made that appeal to a smaller audience, but since the death of the DVD, making such films is a huge risk.
After the clip surfaced on Twitter, many agreed with the Saving Private Ryan actor.
“So this is why they stopped making all those original rom-coms and family movies,” wrote Matt Ramos.
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