Warner Bros. cancels the cinema window period. The worst sufferers are not the cinemas, but the actors who want to get ahead.

After holding on for a year, the American film studio Warner Bros. finally succumbed to reality.

Recently, Warner announced that all movies originally scheduled to be released in North America in 2021 will cancel the theatrical window period and will be released on its own HBO Max streaming platform on the day of the theater release. Although Warner emphasized that this is only a stopgap measure for 2021 and does not represent subsequent policies, the stock prices of major North American cinema operators are still in the red.

It is undeniable that Warner’s move was accidental due to the impact of the epidemic, but Warner had long been motivated to fully implement film streaming. Announcing this news at the end of the year was nothing more than changing the theater’s "suspended death sentence" to "death sentence."

We need cinema, but not that much

Over the past two decades, wherever the Internet has been, from newspapers to television, the traditional media industry has been in mourning. The main reason for this is not the immediacy of the Internet, but the fact that the Internet has reorganized information channels, effectively decentralizing them and allowing more voices to be expressed.

Before 2010, television was the undisputed king of mass information distribution platforms, but with the rise of smartphones, the influence of television has been declining at a visible rate. Data shows that as of mid-2018, there were 234 million cable TV users nationwide, a decline for five consecutive years, and by 2020, the number had further fallen to 140 million. In two years, 100 million users have left cable TV.

On the mobile Internet, the information distribution business driven by smartphones is booming, with the average monthly usage time per person being 144.8 hours, a year-on-year increase of 12.9%.

Users had no hesitation in migrating from large-screen TVs to small-screen mobile phones.

The most fundamental reason why smartphones can shake up the huge foundation of cable TV is, as mentioned above, that they have achieved the decentralization of information, and the speed and breadth of information flow have been incomparably improved.

Considering it from the perspective of "making stars", when centralization becomes a thousand faces for a thousand people, everyone will actively build their own information cocoon under the impetus of machine algorithms. Facing the rolling tide of the Internet, television is no longer able to keep up, and the medium of cinema is even more outdated - in the past ten years, which star you are familiar with has walked out of the big screen of the cinema?

In the 1990s, according to the celebrity rankings compiled by Jessicahk, top-ranked stars such as Chow Yun-fat, Jackie Chan, and Stephen Chow all became household names thanks to movies.

According to the latest Baidu search celebrity rankings, which of the top-ranked celebrities, such as Yu Menglong, Xiao Zhan, and Yang Chaoyue, did not become the darling of the times through variety shows or talent shows? Although these celebrities also dabble in movies, they are all gilded works after becoming famous. The famous screenwriter Wang Hailin said, "Now I dare not write more than two lines, because the actors can't remember them at all." But at the same time, the cinema is the best stage for these internet celebrities to prove themselves. If they want to continue to be popular after their youth, they will definitely not be able to rely on tricks such as playing cute, hyping up CP, and making their skirts and tops one inch shorter. Without some real skills that have been certified by the audience, the rabbit's tail will definitely not grow long.

Therefore, internet celebrities need the big stage of movies, even though they can't remember their lines at all.

Do actors need to memorize their lines? Now it seems that the audience doesn’t care. Without Yang Chaoyue, an outstanding talent from Shanghai, there will be other outstanding young people rushing to the stage. They are all products of the assembly line. The audience really doesn’t care whether the stars can be popular for five minutes or five years. It’s enough to satisfy the current mood. Anyway, there are so many Internet celebrities. It is precisely because of this that a large number of unprofessional Internet celebrities have taken over the big stage that should belong to professional actors. Isn’t it all because of the audience’s indulgence?

Audiences no longer care about the professionalism of actors, as long as they are popular; capital no longer favors cinema channels, as long as they can make money, then where should cinemas, which are closely related to this and the big screen, which has some requirements for actors' acting skills, go?

Americans have already given the answer to this question - it doesn't matter, let the online video streaming run first. As for the needs of stars and actors, let's obey the will of capital first.

Streaming will soon replace movie theaters

Not only in the United States, but also in China, the power of streaming media to overthrow traditional cinemas began to surge long before the epidemic. In the first half of 2019, although the number of screenings nationwide increased by 8 million year-on-year, the number of moviegoers fell by 100 million, and the year-on-year attendance rate also hit a six-year low of only 10.52%.

Where did these 100 million viewers go? The answer is streaming.

Chyxx data shows that the scale of China's OTT users has increased by about 50% year-on-year for two consecutive years in 2018 and 2019. Allied Market Research predicts that by 2026, the global video streaming market will reach US$149.34 billion.

From the perspective of revenue, we can feel the huge advantages of streaming media over theater movies.

In 2019, the Chinese movie box office reached 64.266 billion yuan, which seems to be a very good number. However, Fang Li, the producer of "A Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix", said: "More than 90% of Chinese movies lose money."

According to statistics, the top ten films in China's box office rankings in 2019 took 44% of the total box office, and the number of films screened in China in 2019 was as high as 1,263. This shows that the statement that most movies lose money is not groundless.

Since streaming media can be paid for a long time and is not restricted by physical scenes, it can give more films opportunities and bring good profits.

Let's take the hastily launched "Mulan" as an example. According to 7 Park Data, 29% of US Disney+ users subscribed to "Mulan" within just 12 days of its launch. In other words, Disney directly earned $260 million in revenue. Since Disney no longer has to split revenue with theaters, "Mulan" was able to recover its costs immediately without having to consider theater scheduling and other factors.

In contrast, Tenet, which was released at the same time as Mulan but chose the cinema model, only earned $356 million at the box office, causing Warner to lose everything. This must be the "last straw" that prompted Warner to transform. Once Warner tastes the sweetness of the "straw", will it choose to go back and share the joys and sorrows with its brothers in the cinema?

Cinema, the abandoned child of the times

Of course, everything has its pros and cons. Although the tide of the times has determined that streaming media will deal a fatal blow to theaters, special theater blockbusters have also determined that movie theaters will not be completely swept into the dustbin of history.

Take IMAX movies as an example. Both the picture quality and the sound quality are specially customized. The best viewing experience can only be enjoyed in a theater that costs $1 million. In this regard, when promoting "Tenet", Nolan insisted that only theaters are the best way to watch "Tenet".

As mentioned above, the external manifestation of the decline of the cinema’s discourse power is the disappearance of the ability to “create stars”. Unfortunately, in the context of the transfer of movies from cinemas to streaming media, the discourse power of stars will also decline and disappear simultaneously.

More than ten years ago, the American TV series "Prison Break" unexpectedly became a hit on the Chinese Internet. Due to the huge success of the early broadcasts, many actors began to renegotiate their contracts with the investors, and these actors all got the same ending without exception - the screenwriter wants you to die in the third watch, so who dares to keep you until the fifth watch.

On the broader streaming channels, the ability of investors and platforms to quickly create stars means that actors can only return to their basic functions. Due to the industrialization of the plot, there are no irreplaceable roles. Even if you are the male or female lead, in the face of the constantly iterating plot, the actor is just a tool without much say.

A previous survey by China Economic Net showed that in the traditional film model, stars often take 40% to 50% of the production costs because the film is centered on content and stars. However, in the streaming model, the film begins to be script-centered, and the audience prefers ups and downs of the plot, so the various privileges of actors have become the first to be deprived.

George R.R. Martin, the author of Game of Thrones' original novel, A Song of Ice and Fire, once revealed in an interview that some actors in Game of Thrones believed that their roles were indispensable after reading the novel, and therefore repeatedly asked the producers for a pay raise. However, the producers did not give in, and simply made the characters of the actors who asked for a pay raise die in the show.

Warner's full shift to streaming media is certainly due to the accidental background of objective environment, but from a big perspective, the rise of streaming media is actually inevitable. Similar to the innovation of other industries where "the new generation pushes the old generation forward", as the voice of streaming media gradually increases, all industry rules will be rewritten, and the first ones to fall on the beach will be those movie theaters and internet celebrities who have opened their mouths wide.

Since movies are an industrialized industry, they should be strictly regulated by industrial standards. This time, Warner is ahead of the rest of the world. It is foreseeable that the Chinese film market will also quickly move towards streaming media, and everything will be regulated and measurable.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.