Writer/producer/director Sean Baker’s project Anora swept the 97th annual Academy awards, winning five of the coveted accolades, including Best Picture. During his acceptance speech for Best Director, Baker stressed the importance of theater-going and how the era of streaming is pushing out theater attendance, specifically independent theaters. Without theaters, without distribution, many stories are lost. The winner of Best Documentary, No Other Land, a documentary about the occupation of Palestine- has not found an American distributor.
With the rise of streaming services- we lose the experience of sitting in a theater with strangers, uncovering the shared truths that a film elucidates. In a divided America, Baker explains, we avoid participating in and associating ourselves with those that do not share our immediate values. Theaters allow media to be shared, rather than highly individualized- especially as entertainment today is centralized around personalization. Algorithms on social media dictate the majority of entertainment consumed and algorithms on streaming services similarly dictate what media is displayed to users. The oversaturation of media, as well, has led to further isolation.
Because a small amount of corporations have a monopoly on movie theaters across the country, after having priced out independent theaters and showing a wider variety of mainstream films, if a film cannot breach into showings by these distributors they remain virtually unseen. If AMC, Cinemark, or Regal do not pick up a film, it will most likely not be seen in a theater. While some independent theaters remain, smaller towns lack theaters like this.
As convenient and comfortable as it is to stay at home and binge watch your favorite shows and movies, it’s contributing to a future where theater-going is an outdated experience. Independent films and their presence in movie theaters are the foundation of the shared experience that many filmmakers strive to achieve. Recently, shows like Severance and White Lotus have decided to release one episode weekly which allows viewers to converse about their opinions on the characters and plot points. Publicly owned theaters, such as the Ron Robinson Theater in downtown Little Rock, regularly show older movies and allow local filmmakers to present their independent films. Although these partially government-funded theaters help shine a light on independent filmmaking, Baker’s acceptance speech at the Oscars prompts an essential question: Why are the Oscars and mainstream theaters not making more efforts to fund independent films and their role in the film industry?
Huge production companies, like Warner Brothers, Universal, and Disney, spend egregious amounts of money on their projects and similarly shocking marketing budgets for Oscar campaigns. Wicked, which amassed 10 (!) Oscar nominations, had a budget of $320 million, including an estimated $200 million dollar advertising budget. This is a part of the concept of Oscar campaigning pioneered by Harvey Weinstein, in which studios will spend millions of dollars on advertising their film specifically to members of the Academy in order to achieve a nomination and hopefully an Academy win. Wicked follows the trend in recent years of having a larger advertising budget than production budget, spending more on securing a spot on the awards list rather than improving the film itself or financing other projects. The monstrous amounts of money spent on these films pushes out independent filmmakers, even when their projects would require a fraction of the budget of these huge blockbusters. Studios are less likely to finance smaller productions and as a result these stories are not told. Some smaller production companies are dipping into the mainstream, like A24, Blumhouse, and Neon, but they still lack the revenue to finance their films and campaign their films at an equal level to the much larger companies. As a result, smaller production companies and smaller theaters should be supported and preferred by their communities, rather than choosing larger corporations and larger production companies. Without continued support, these independent theaters and projects will die off until the entire film industry is influenced by a handful of corporations, losing independent stories and identity.
