Todd Phillips on how to save cinema: Stop showing commercials before movies

"We paid for our tickets," the Joker director noted in his portion of a wider survey of famous directors about preserving the theatrical experience

By William Hughes  |  November 2, 2024 | 4:09pm
Photo: Eric Charbonneau/Warner Bros. via Getty Images
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Todd Phillips on how to save cinema: Stop showing commercials before movies

Todd Phillips might have divided his audience by making a Joker movie where the Joker is a sad, miserable guy who doesn’t actually want to be the Joker anymore, but don’t doubt that the Hangover director is still in touch with his populist roots. Phillips recently participated in an Empire survey of several Hollywood directors about the importance of the theatrical experience, with folks like George Miller, Sofia Coppola, Paul Feig, and more talking about the communal nature of watching movies together, or bemoaning the lost soul of modern cinema, or just speaking out on the constant encroachment of AI. Phillips, though, cuts through all this hoity-toity bullshit and offered a straightforward way to get people to stop defaulting to streaming: “Stop showing commercials before the movies,” Phillips demands. “We’ve paid for our tickets.”

And while we might poke some gentle fun at Phillips for focusing on practicalities over art, it’s not like he’s wrong about the dragged-out, hyper-commercialized nature of many theater chains’ pre-rolls. (On a personal note, when we have pre-bought tickets we no longer show up to our local Cinemark earlier than 15 minutes after the official start time of the movie, so that we only have to watch 10 minutes of pre-show.) Phillips was specifically focusing his comment on the question of how to get audiences to opt for a night out at the movies instead of streaming something, and we’re not sure his basic argument that not making people watch 10 minute of Coke and phone commercials in addition to trailers might not be a better option than more high-minded appeals to art. “We’re excited to be there,” Phillips added. “The commercials tend to take the air out of the room.”

Meanwhile, other directors did put more of a focus on the artsier side of things, including Anora‘s Sean Baker, who noted that, “People are abandoning celluloid. We have filmmakers who, for some reason, are okay with their films going directly to streaming, or are just abandoning film altogether, and saying, ‘Hey, I’ll take a series.’” Or guys like Adam Wingard and Feig, who both acknowledged that streaming helps a lot of movies that wouldn’t get made otherwise get to people somehow. Still, Phillips’ is the argument that sticks with us: You don’t have to tell us you’re selling popcorn in the lobby. We fucking know!

 
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