8 Ways The Internet Has Completely Changed Movies
The internet has become such a major part of all facets of modern life, it’s hard to remember a time when movies and the world wide web didn’t go hand in hand. However, not all of us are millennials (*spit*) and can recall exactly what the film industry was like before websites, social media and streaming came along. Here’s exactly how the internet changed the movies forever…
The internet can change movies – but not always for the best
It might shock you to learn that ‘Snakes on a Plane’ turns 10 this year. If you’re one of those young people we’re always hearing about and you’ve never heard of it, then we don’t blame you, because it is a uniquely awful and inconsequential film. The only reason ‘Snakes On A Plane’ is notable is because the movie’s title and concept were so unintentionally hilarious, the internet picked up on it when it was announced. Blogs were dedicated to it. Fan art was created. Lines were written. And Lionsgate noticed. In fact, not only did they condone the fun, they ordered five extra days of shooting to bump the rating up to ‘R’ and to shoehorn in nods and winks to online fans, including the infamous (fan-created) line: “I have had it with these motherf***ing snakes on this motherf***ing plane!” In short, they became convinced of the film’s brilliance because the internet told them so. When it made half of its expected box office, execs learned a valuable lesson: just because the internet thinks something is funny, doesn’t mean they’re willing to pay for it.
The internet can get a movie made…
The script for ‘Deadpool’ had been floating around Hollywood for almost as long as there had been superhero movies, but no one was willing to take a punt on what was deemed to be a tricky property. An R-rated superhero movie with a pansexual starring character no one has ever heard of… and Ryan Reynolds wants to play the lead? You’ve just seen ‘Green Lantern’ and this script lands on your desk: what do you do? Even though Reynolds – already a three-time superhero movie veteran – raised the project’s profile a little, it wasn’t until the CG proof of concept showreel leaked in July 2014 that ‘Deadpool’ finally became viable in the eyes of Hollywood. The action-packed, foul-mouthed, three-minute clip set the internet ablaze – two short months later, Fox gave the movie a release date. That was no coincidence said Reynolds, when asked who leaked the footage: “I would have, if I had known it would have caused that! Now, we get to make the movie!”
… But it can break them, too
The power of the internet cannot be underestimated: a groundswell of online support can take a project off the shelf and get it into production. Conversely, anger the internet, and it will railroad your movie out of town before it’s even had a sniff of a cinematic release. It’s impossible to talk about the new ‘Ghostbusters’ reboot without commenting on the fanboy ire it has received: a hateful online campaign, rooted in sexism and misogyny and orchestrated from a series of parents’ basements, has tried to smear the movie – which had the gall to recast the Ghostbusters as women – at every possible turn. The trailer was rated as the most disliked in YouTube’s history; the IMDB rating is still taking a tumble. The internet can be toxic if you don’t treat it right. It’s not just fanboys and trolls causing trouble, either: the official Nina Simone Twitter account publicly blasted the controversial Zoe Saldana-led biopic and now the movie has an unshakeable reputation as a dud.
Online piracy is a threat
Time was, piracy involved circulating dodgy home video tapes of dubious quality, where the vertical hold of ‘Die Hard 2’ would be all over the place and the credits would stop halfway through to show an old episode of ‘Eastenders’. The internet changed all that: thanks to the phenomenon of torrenting, hastened by the rise of file-sharing networks like Napster, a movie that hasn’t even reached cinemas can be downloaded in mere minutes. It’s debatable how much piracy genuinely affects movie studios: in March 2009, a full month before its theatrical release, a workprint of ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’ leaked onto the web, but it went on to make £279 million worldwide; ‘The Expendables 3’ on the other hand, leaked online three weeks before release, but was downloaded 2 million times and its opening weekend didn’t even make half what ‘The Expendables 2’ managed. Online piracy isn’t going anywhere any time soon, and neither are those secret agent dudes lurking in your local cinema, spying on you with infra-red telescopes.
The internet demands more marketing
The internet is everywhere. It’s on your phone. It’s on your watch. It’s on your lap. It’s on your TV. For a movie to truly succeed in the 21stcentury, it has to have all marketing bases covered, and that means blanket online advertising. Posters, which used to appear at bus stops and on cinema walls, now debut online, except now they come in character sets, and all eight have been disseminated and drip-fed to different websites. The Facebook trailer is different to the Instagram teaser is different to the online exclusive. Trailers used to be designed to pique your interest with slow reveals; now they’re designed from the ground-up to catch your attention as soon as possible to rise above the noise of social media feeds. These days they even come with mini-highlight reels before the trailer starts properly, teasing you with the best bits in case you scroll past it; sometimes they feature subtitles in case you have your Facebook videos set to auto-mute. Movie marketing has to work 100% harder to get noticed online. Get used to those trailer teasers.
Feedback is instant
It’s quaint to think there was a time where studios were worried about the popularity of texting: it was thought that disgruntled moviegoers would text their friends immediately after a disappointing movie, urging them not to see it. Well, the internet makes that problem exponentially worse: now, social media means anyone can share their thoughts on a movie in an instant, sometimes before the credits have even stopped rolling. What’s more, websites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic.com keep an online consensus of review scores from fans and critics alike. Floating film fans can literally wait until they’re in line at the cinema to Google the week’s new releases and see what’s good. The age of waiting for that movie you fancied to be reviewed in your favourite film mag or newspaper is over: now everyone has an opinion and they can’t wait to share it with you.
No surprises
You can’t turn the internet off. The internet never sleeps. The audience is always watching, and so they must be sated. Ever since the web made a journalist of everyone with a WordPress account, the desire for movie information has sky-rocketed; online outlets outdo themselves to be the first to provide a scoop, whether it’s in the form of set photos, casting information or even just the title. Inevitably, this means it’s increasingly difficult to see movies fresh in the cinemas: chances are you already knew about the twist after it was leaked, or you’d seen the big climactic reveal in set pictures taken by a paparazzi. How many of us knew for certain that Benedict Cumberbatch was playing Khan in ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ before the totally ineffective reveal? How many of us knew about Han Solo’s fate in ‘The Force Awakens’, even though we wished we didn’t? Only ‘Iron Man 3”s Mandarin switcharoo came as a genuine surprise, because audiences didn’t know to look for a twist. Even so, you can guarantee that spoilers were all over the web 0.1 seconds after that first screening. Spoilers gonna spoil and trolls gonna troll.
Streaming is the death of cinema
Ah yes. Streaming. The act of watching a movie via your internet connection, without having to visit a cinema or even pop down the local Blockbusters (for younger readers, Blockbusters is sort of like a mausoleum for videotapes). Streaming may very well kill off cinema for good. Netflix is already making a dent in Hollywood’s coffers; last year they released their first original movie, ‘Beasts Of No Nation’, which was a genuine Oscar contender (for a while), and it won’t be the last. If you’re a big multimedia conglomerate, chances are you’re elbowing in on the streaming business too: Amazon, Disney, Sony and others all have their own direct-to-consumer offerings, which are starting to shape how movies are bought, distributed and even made. Streaming is the future and cinemas are the past, of that there is no doubt – cinemas will always have a place in society, but they’ll never flourish like they used to as long as the internet is able to deliver the same high quality movies at a fraction of the price and for a fraction of the effort.
Read more:
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Why Roald Dahl HATED The Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory Film
The Weird, Disturbing Life Of Ghostbusters II Actor Wilhelm Von Homburg
