Movies by Martin Scorsese are almost always pictured on the big screen, but the legendary director's latest film, The Irishman, has instead been picked up by Netflix, and consigned to a limited release in theaters. Starting in November, the crime epic will appear in select theaters for a 26-day run, far less than the typical 72 day period. Major theater chains AMC, Cinemark, Regal and Cineplex will not show the movie in their venues after failing to reach a deal with Netflix for a longer run.
Scorsese, for his part, seems to have made another critical hit. The Irishman is a staggering 3 1/2 hour saga taking place over multiple decades, and tells the story of organized crime's relationship to the government and the American labor movements during the 20th century. It's an ambitious movie, with Scorsese's frequent compatriots and friends, Al Pacino and Robert de Niro, starring. In spite of its intimidating run time, the film has a 97% critical score on Rotten Tomatoes, and is unsurprisingly being considered as a possible Oscar contender.
None of this, of course, means that The Irishman can't or shouldn't be a Netflix exclusive. But the limited release pushed by the streaming company is "a disgrace" according to John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners, who told The New York Times, “It’s a very big disappointment that Netflix and the leading theater owners couldn’t figure out a way to put a significant movie from Martin Scorsese on a lot of screens.” The last Netflix film to make its way to the silver screen was 2018's Roma, directed by Alfonso Cuaron, which played in just 250 U.S. theaters. As with that movie, the company took a chance on a slow-paced, high concept piece that studios like Paramount - Scorsese's partner on films like The Wolf of Wall Street - had rejected.
In defense of Netflix, concessions were made in the selection of specific theaters: two famous venues in New York and Los Angeles, the Belasco Theater and Grauman's Egyptian Theater respectively, are playing The Irishman, as are six other theaters in those cities before a (slightly) wider release on November 8th. According to Netflix's own representatives, the company's goal isn't to eliminate theaters or establish an "all-or-nothing" model. At the same time, though, Scorsese's film will be available to stream on Netflix from November 27, and many moviegoers may choose to simply wait a few weeks rather than making a trip to the theater.
What does all of this mean for the future of movies? Netflix isn't doing anything completely new with this release, but taking one of the most acclaimed directors in Hollywood and failing to arrange a decent theatrical release for his latest movie is perhaps a powerful symbol of the changing media landscape. While there is broad disagreement on the future of movie theaters, theater chains themselves have been trying to stop their bleeding attendance levels for years now, offering everything from in-house dining to "4D" presentations in an effort to provide an experience you can't get at home. But if films like The Irishman continue to all but skip the big screen entirely, the theaters will no longer have a monopoly on artistic cinema, and that loss may hurt them more than anything.
Source: The New York Times
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