The last five years have been transformative for cinema, between the impact of COVID, the streaming revolution, and the rise of AI technology. Which is exactly why Empire decided to poll an array of top filmmakers in Hollywood – and beyond – on what exactly is going on in the industry, and what it all means for the movies. The result is a major new article – available to read in full in our Mickey 17 issue (order here).
One of the hottest topics is the encroachment of AI, with the industry still figuring out how it could, should – or should not – be used in moviemaking. “It is not creative,” says Gina Prince-Bythewood, director of The Woman King. “It just takes from others’ creativity.” Sofia Coppola – director of Priscilla and Lost In Translation – questions its capabilities beyond creating mere imagery: “It can be helpful, but I think you need a heart and soul to make art.” Reinaldo Marcus Green, director of Bob Marley: One Love and King Richard, sees its arrival as inevitable. “AI isn’t new,” he points out. “As is the premise of Moneyball, it’s adapt or die.” Jeremy Saulnier, director of Rebel Ridge, prefers to keep it real. “Film sets are electric because they are inhabited by living, breathing people with experience and ideas that, from time to time, are able to catch lightning in a bottle,” he says. “Fuck all that fake shit because, you know — for me? The action is the juice.”
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga filmmaker George Miller considers the state of the entire ecosystem to be “Darwinian”, but thinks there’ll always be a need for the big-screen experience. “We are hard-wired to gather in the sharing of stories,” he tells Empire. “I believe cinemas are, for the most part, doing everything they can…” Daniel Scheinert, of Everything Everywhere All At Once’s Oscar-winning director duo Daniels, wants to “encourage community” and “make theatres celebratory, social spaces that do more than shuffle you in and out and charge lots for popcorn,” he says. “I LOVE when folks dress up for Barbie, or dance at RRR, or sit and chat for hours over a beer after seeing (and reading about) It Ends With Us, or scream at the screen about how heartbreak feels so fucking good in a place like this.”
With streaming continuing to impact the Hollywood business model, Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire’s Adam Wingard sees it as “both” a blessing and a curse. “I’ve contributed to either side,” he says, “and I’ll always be in favour of the cinemas by a long shot, both as a filmmaker and fan. However, I can’t deny the great opportunities that streaming provides. […] If we released The Guest now, with streaming culture as it is, I believe it would be a much bigger deal.” Bridesmaids director Paul Feig – whose 2024 film Jackpot! was released on Prime Video – sees streaming as “a blessing for filmmakers who simply want to get their movies made,” he says. “We’d all love to be making theatrical films with big releases but with the studios cutting back on their output, the streamers have really stepped up to let us tell our stories with real budgets.”
According to Todd Phillips, director of Joker and Joker: Folie À Deux, the cinema experience needs to adapt to combat the desire to simply stream films at home. “Stop showing commercials before the movies,” he says. “We’ve paid for our tickets. We’re excited to be there. The commercials tend to take the air out of the room.” Sean Baker, whose Anora won the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year, is concerned about cinema as a whole losing its identity. “People are abandoning celluloid,” he says. “We have filmmakers who, for some reason, are okay with their films going directly to streaming, or are just abandoning film altogether, and saying, ‘Hey, I’ll take a series.’ It’s very frustrating for me, for somebody who’s finally broken in after all these years of trying, to see the art form that I love starting to drift away.”
Contributors to Empire’s poll also shouted out the films that have blown them away in recent years. For Till director Chinonye Chukwu, that’s Jacques Audiard’s crime musical Emilia Pérez, about a mobster undergoing her gender transition; Jurassic World’s Colin Trevorrow hailed Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse (“There were huge ideas in the second film that knocked me sideways”); Bend It Like Beckham’s Gurinder Chadha chose road-trip documentary Will & Harper; Jeff Nichols, who this year released The Bikeriders, picked Godzilla Minus One (“I found it completely immersive.”); while Daniel Scheinert picked ultra lo-fi comedy Hundreds Of Beavers (“That movie is the key to making theatres fun, and is the future of cinema, and blew me away”).
Evolving, collapsing, rebuilding – whatever the future of cinema is, there is hope in the next generation of filmmakers. “The future of cinema are the voices that have been excluded from cinema,” says Prince-Bythewood. “That is where you will find fresh, unique stories about characters and worlds we have not yet seen.” It’s not time for the end credits just yet.
Read Empire’s epic 12-page feature on the Future Of Cinema in the Mickey 17 issue, on sale Thursday 24 October. Pre-order a copy online here.