Willem Dafoe thinks it’s harder for audiences to watch “challenging” films on streaming services compared to in a movie theater.
Speaking with The Guardian, Dafoe spoke on how streaming services’ rise has led to more people watching “something stupid” at home rather than going out to the theater to see something a bit more challenging.
“The kind of attention that people give at home isn’t the same,” Dafoe said. “More difficult movies, more challenging movies can not do as well, when you don’t have an audience that’s really paying attention. That’s a big thing. I miss the social thing of where movies fit in the world. You go see a movie, you go out to dinner, you talk about it later, and that spreads out. People now go home, they say, ‘Hey, honey, let’s watch something stupid tonight,’ and they flip through and they watch five minutes of 10 movies, and they say, forget it, let’s go to bed. Where’s that discourse found?”
Willem Dafoe on Hollywood studios: ‘They aren’t making movies the same way they used to’
He added about the way that major Hollywood studios currently operate, “They aren’t making movies the same way they used to. They’re being financed by toy companies and other entities, and they become the vehicle to make the movies, because they know how to do that. Streaming, they’re becoming like a monopoly, they have the means of production and distribution. And so it’s very complicated.”
Dafoe has starred in a wide range of big-budget blockbusters (including 2002’s Spider-Man, 2012’s John Carter, and 2018’s Aquaman) and smaller, independent films like 2018’s At Eternity’s Gate and 2020’s Siberia.
Following his recent 2023 performances in movies such as Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, he’s now set to star in Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice 2, which releases in September 2024, and Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu remake, which comes out on December 25, 2024.
