30 september 2019
Cinema in Times to Come
By Samit Basuindiapicturewe’ve reached the age of entertainment
saturation. The sheer amount of fiction
being released daily means you’ll never
have the sense of being caught up again.
The book, whose demise everyone has
been predicting for a decade, is doing
fine between digital and print. Films,
another medium that’s supposedly
under threat, is going to survive too—but
in the process, it’s going to have to evolve.
The most fundamental divide is one
we’re already seeing in action—theatres versus streaming. As we go for-
ward, the convenience of watching films
at home on large and powerful TVs will
induce more people to stay away from
the theatre experience with its attendant
woes: traffic, overpriced food and incon-
siderate audience interruptions. Studios
are already biased towards releasing big-
budget spectacles in theatres, relegating
dramas, romcoms, thrillers and other
movie genres to streaming. The mega-
movie experience will be even larger,THE FUTURE OF
MoviesSpecialists will be replaced by software;
the individual will be foregrounded