At the press conference for their new film “Wolfs,” which will have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, stars George Clooney and Brad Pitt kept things strictly professional in the sense that many of the questions they were asked glossed over the content of the action comedy, focusing instead on their thoughts on its distribution plan through Apple, and how quickly it will be streaming.
“You know, streaming, we need it. Our industry needs this. This is part of what we’re doing, but they also benefit from having films released,” Clooney said. “That’s why Brad and I were working so hard to try and get this released. And we’re figuring it out. We haven’t got it all figured out. This is a revolution in our industry, but we need Apple and Amazon, and they actually need distributors, right? They need to have Sony or Warner Brothers who actually have been doing this for 100 years.”
In addition to the industry needing to figure out how to marry the benefits of streaming and theatrical and find a proper balance, Clooney also believes studios need to start being more upfront about release strategies with the creatives behind the films they’re distributing. Referring to his Olympic sports drama “The Boys in the Boat,” which was released last year, Clooney says he made the film for one studio only to have it change on him at the last second as a result of an acquisition.
“When I did ‘Boys in the Boat,’ we did it for MGM, and then it ended up being for for Amazon, and we didn’t get a foreign release at all, which was a surprise,” Clooney said.
His remarks mirror similar statements made by Doug Liman in regards to his Jake Gyllenhaal-led “Road House” remake. Liman, who also collaborated with Apple TV+ recently on “The Instigators,” said of his falling out with Amazon, “My issue on ‘Road House’ is that we made the movie for MGM to be in theaters, everyone was paid as if it was going to be in theaters, and then Amazon switched it on us and nobody got compensated. Forget about the effect on the industry — 50 million people saw ‘Road House’ — I didn’t get a cent, Jake Gyllenhaal didn’t get a cent, [producer] Joel Silver didn’t get a cent. That’s wrong.”
Adding his two cents, Pitt focused less on the business side of the issue and more on the emotional appeal of seeing a film in a theater. He did, however, acknowledge how streaming allows for a greater diversity of stories to be seen.
“I think we’ll always be romantic about the theatrical experience,” Pitt said. “At the same time, I love this, the existence of the streamers, because we get to see more story. We get to see more talent. It gets more eyes.”
