Steven Spielberg: Streamers like HBO Max 'threw my best filmmaker friends under the bus'

Steven Spielberg said in a new interview with that streaming services like HBO Max threw filmmakers 'under the bus' by 'unceremoniously' dumping new high-profile releases on streaming and not in theaters. The Oscar-winning actor is referring to Warner Bros.' decision to release its entire slate of 2021 films at once on HBO Max and in theaters the same day. For Spielberg, such a decision changed adult movie habits.

"The pandemic has created an opportunity for streaming platforms to increase their subscriptions to record highs and also throwing some of my best filmmaker friends under the bus because their movies weren't unceremoniously released theatrically," Spielberg said. "They got paid and the movies were suddenly relegated, in this case, to HBO Max. The case I'm talking about. And then everything started to change."

"I think the older audience was relieved not to have to step on popcorn sticky,” Spielberg continued. "But I really believe that those same older audiences, once they get into the theater, the magic of being in a social situation with a group of strangers is a tonic...it's up to the movies to be good enough to make all audiences say to each other when the lights come back on.

Spielberg cited Baz Luhrmann's "Elvis" as a film that gave him hope for the future of adult-biased films at the box office. The director said "there's no doubt that the big sequels and the movies from Marvel and DC and Pixar and some of the animated movies and the horror movies still have a place in society" given their returns to the box office. "Elvis," grossing $151 million domestically, proved adult fare still had a fighting chance.

"I found it encouraging that 'Elvis' broke $100 million at the box office national," Spielberg said. . “A lot of older people went to see this movie, and it gave me hope that people were starting to come back to the movies as the pandemic became rampant. I think the movies will come back. Really."

While the pandemic hasn't completely changed Spielberg's commitment to acting, he has admitted that it had at least gotten him to more openly consider the value of a potential move to a streaming-only version.

"I made 'The Post' as a political statement about our times by mirroring the administration Nixon, and we thought that was an important thought for a lot of people to understand what was happening to our country," Spielberg said. "I don't know if I was given that script after the pandemic if I would have rather made that movie for Apple or Netflix and released it to millions of people because the movie had something to say to millions of people, and we were never going to get those millions of people into enough theaters to make that kind of difference. Things have changed enough for me to tell you."

Spielberg's latest directorial effort, "The Fabelmans," opens exclusively in select theaters on November 11 before nationwide expansion on November 23.

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