Stop Putting Films Straight to Streaming

Sincerely, a cinema lover

When I was a kid, I used to go to the cinema with my parents or grandparents, sometimes my aunt would jump in to take me and my sister to see whatever animated film just had its release, or a friend’s parent would take us – a group of 6 or 8 or 10 year olds – to a theatre for a weekend hangout. By the time I was in high school, I admittedly had other hobbies and interests and cinema trips were rare. In university, my love for film started to grow back but I was young, friendless, and too ridden with anxiety to go to the cinema alone which meant several years of only experiencing film on my small laptop screen in tiny dorm rooms. I grew out of that eventually and by the time I was out of graduate school, solo cinema trips became a routine. Now, I go to the cinema about once a week, year round. I’m currently at roughly 70 cinema outings for the year, though over 30 of those were during film festivals which skews the numbers a bit but ultimately leaves me with a once per week average outside of festivals. 

Fun fact: Finding Nemo (2003) was the first feature film I ever saw in theatres!

In the last few years of frequent solo cinema trips, I’ve learned many things. I’ve learned that many people go to the cinemas alone. This might not be the case for Friday or Saturday evenings but as a matinee enjoyer, I often find myself in the cinema surrounded by only other solo visitors. During TIFF, about a month ago, I made conversation with a number of individuals I met in lines or at screenings who all shared one sentiment – going to the movies alone is the best. Nineteen year old me might see it as loser behaviour – and frankly, maybe it is, and who cares – but watching a movie is a solo activity anyway, it’s not like I would be conversing with anyone during a film if I brought a friend so the in-theatre experience would ultimately be the same whether someone I know is sitting next to me or not. 

But as much as it is a solo activity, cinema taught me so much about community. I don’t want to be talking with anyone during the screening, sure, but seeing a film with an audience changes everything. 

A part of why I love film festivals so much is the audience. Yes, I love seeing 30 films over 10 days, and I love getting to see red carpets and enjoy Q&As with filmmakers and actors, but ultimately, festivals are such a unique opportunity to see dozens of films in packed theatres. The recent TIFF gave me that for many films I’d normally probably see on a Saturday at 11 a.m. with no more than 15 other people in the theatre. I got to see The Substance with a crowd, Friendship with a Midnight Madness audience was a riot, the laughter and the sniffles in a packed Roy Thomson Hall for We Live in Time only added to the emotionality of the film, and maybe one of my favourite experiences of this year’s TIFF – Babygirl with a press and industry audience at 8:45 in the morning. The laughter, the gasps, the complete silence. You don’t get that at a regular screening and you most certainly don’t get that at home. 

My favourite cinema outing of this year – and frankly, maybe ever – was the advanced screening for The Idea of You that I attended on April 23rd. I must note that the screening was exactly 24 hours after I saw Challengers at an early screening, in IMAX, in a full theatre, so I was certainly coming into it on a high. But nevertheless, the atmosphere absolutely changed everything for me. If you’ve heard of the film or if you look it up on Letterboxd now, you’ll think I’m insane when I tell you I came out of the screening and immediately gave it five stars and a like. But hear me out. 

The Idea of You is a Prime Video romcom that Amazon put straight to streaming with the exception of a handful of festivals and advanced screenings it played at in March and April. It’s a film based on the book of the same name – which I admittedly haven’t read but have only heard bad things about – and it stars Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine in the leading roles with Hathaway playing a 40 year old single mom and Galitzine her 24 year old boy band singer love interest. Anne Hathaway also produced the film and many people have pointed out she made this film only to make out with a hot, younger guy, and frankly, I would be inclined to agree that that is very likely the case. Good for her. All this is to say that, by all means, this film screams ‘streaming film.’ But I’ve seen it in a theatre and I disagree. 

Nicholas Galitzine and Anne Hathaway at the world premiere of The Idea of You (2024)

Picture this. It’s a Tuesday evening, a little after 6 p.m., and the TIFF Lightbox is packed. As you walk in from King Street, the lobby is already bustling with crowds, and by the time you climb up to concessions on the second floor, there is a line stretching down the ramp. If you’ve only been to this small Toronto theatre during TIFF, this is familiar. But as a Toronto resident,¹ this is not a sight that I’m used to. The excitement was palpable during all 20 minutes I waited in line for my popcorn. Again, something that never happens at the Lightbox. I am used to walking in and just ordering. Something else was unusual, too. The audience was overwhelmingly made up of young women in roughly their mid-twenties. As a 25 year old woman who frequently goes to the cinema, I can with 100% confidence say that this is not a demographic I am used to seeing in theatres on a regular basis. Inside the theatre, I sat next to three ladies in their 70s, maybe even 80s, and when the film ended, during the Q&A with the director, one of them wondered out loud why this film wouldn’t be getting a theatrical release. I wondered the same. Watching this film in a packed theatre was an experience like no other. Giggles and laughter, hollering and even applause in a particular moment when Nicholas Galitzine walks into a scene shirtless. I would say ‘you don’t get that in your living room’ but truthfully, I would clap for a shirtless Nicholas Galitzine wherever I was watching the film. What you don’t get at home, though, is the collective joy that I felt in that theatre. You can argue as much as you want that the film isn’t perfect, that the story is cliche, that some lines are outright cringe, and – objectively – you might be right, but to me, and anyone else in that room on the evening of April 23rd, The Idea of You was the perfect film. 

This experience also affirmed for me just how many audiences don’t go to theatres but would go if a wider range of genres and films got theatrical releases. So many romantic comedies go straight to streaming these days. I know for a fact that a good percentage of the young women from my The Idea of You screening would come out to see more films in the genre if they were made available to be seen in theatres. Anyone But You proved that. The three older ladies I sat next to? When I came out of the theatre, I immediately texted my mom saying that grandma and grandma’s best friend would love this film. But they are in their early 80s and they don’t watch films on Prime Video, they go to the pictures. My grandmother is not going to see Megalopolis or Dune in a theatre but she would go see a romantic comedy. 

The Idea of You did well on streaming. In fact, a quick Google search will tell you it did exceptionally well on Prime Video. But as much as some might claim it’s a streaming film – Amazon executives included – I disagree. It might be a streaming film but a theatre audience turns it into an experience. 

Many of the early audiences shared my sentiment

I am not naive, I understand the business decisions that go into buying and film distribution, and I understand why some films end up without a theatrical release. At the same time, though, it is apparent that more and more films are going straight to streaming and that many audiences are getting alienated from theatres. Beyond the aforementioned romcoms, I’m noticing a decline in animated films in theatres, only a handful coming to mind when I try to think which children’s films had theatrical releases in my local cinemas this year, and isn’t that sad? There is a generation of children growing up now that barely have a chance to go to cinema, an entire generation that might never learn what it is like to see a film with an audience. Same goes for young adult films. My generation had Twilight and The Hunger Games, even the later instalments of Harry Potter, but I’m blanking now on any recent theatrical releases specifically targeting teenagers. I can’t help but wonder whether a lack of those young adult releases now is already tied to the fact that the current 13 or 17 year olds didn’t grow up with theatrical releases so they’re not in a habit of going to the theatres and films targeting them would be automatic box office flops. 

None of this is to say that streaming is inherently bad – in fact, I would argue the opposite – but I don’t think streaming should be used as a substitute for theatres. It’s a great alternative, a better alternative even, to television but the experience cannot and should not be interchangeable with theatrical releases. Cinema is more than just film. If the last few years of moviegoing taught me anything, it’s that cinema is about community just as much as it is about film. And that is the one thing you will never get in your living room. 

1. A former Toronto resident as of October 1st!