“Please name me a single widely distributed,
widely consumed product, that when
somebody came along and offered a better
version, a more convenient version, or a
premium version or a luxury version, that
there wasn’t some group of people that went,
‘Yeah,’” he said.
It was the rise of YouTube and smartphone-
streamed video that prompted Katzenberg’s
interest in the creative and business
opportunities they represented. He also
drew inspiration from contemporary novels
with chapters as brief as a few pages so that,
as one bestselling writer put it, readers with
just a few minutes to spare would still enjoy a
complete experience.
“We’re doing movies the way Dan Brown did
“‘The Da Vinci Code,’” Katzenberg said.
Quibi’s unique selling point is its Turnstyle
technology, developed under Whitman’s
direction, which allows users to switch
between portrait and landscape viewing
and always get a full-screen image minus the
annoying black bar. The patented Turnstyle’s
payoff for creators is how it can enhance
storytelling — for instance, viewers can be
given the option to shift a movie scene to
the character’s perspective by flipping from
horizontal to a vertical display.
“I’m confident we’re going to give people
something they’ve never seen before,”
Katzenberg said. “They will decide if they’re
going to value that enough to want to pay
for it.”