I've written about this before back in 2019 (in a piece no longer on the internet), how once exclusive streaming only movies start living on their platforms, they are basically just gone. As opposed to movies that get a healthy cable run and how those movies can live forever. Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas is on probably right now as I'm typing this. Casino probably is, too. I have seen both of these movies in the last two weeks. I have not watched The Irishman since it premiered at the New York Film Festival in 2019 even though I could watch it right now. I just won't. But if it just happened to be on TBS or TNT as I turn on the television, I would watch it.
We have more access to films than we ever have had before. But this isn’t about access. It’s about movies that play so often on cable they become a communal reference point. Our society is in desperate need of communal reference points. When I watch a movie that's on cable I feel like I'm watching it with other people, even if I'm by myself. I think this is important.
I was actually shocked to see Air on TNT. I just assumed it was forever locked on Prime. (Though, apparently it also aired on ABC in 2024.)
I asked someone who would have knowledge about this film why this streaming film in particular is now playing on basic cable. Though this person did not have the specific details for this one film, this person did know that this sort of agreement would have been, "baked into the initial deal, that the movie would retain rights to be licensed to cable providers at a certain point … just like they had a deal for it to go into theaters."
So, this would be my advice to any filmmakers making movies for streamers right now…
If you follow the movie business at all, you are probably aware of the tug of war between directors and the streaming studios over theatrical. High profile directors are drawn to streamers for the freedom, money, and the fact streamers are still making movies that a lot of directors want to make, while the more traditional studios are not as much. But a lot of directors, understandably, still want their theatrical release because its prestigious, it's probably why they started making movies, and it qualifies them for Academy Awards,¹ even though this isn't why streamers exist.
¹It's true streamers do like to win Academy Awards, but their perfect situation is usually just the minimum qualifying run in a private theater. Most big name directors want a long run in the big chain movie theaters. This creates friction.
But seeing Air on TNT got me thinking more about this. What's more important for the legacy and longevity of a movie? A theatrical run or a heavy rotation on basic cable? If I'm the director of a streaming movie, would I give up my fight for my movie to play in movie theaters if I were promised a healthy basic cable run? Honestly, I think I would.
In my prior piece, when I wrote about this back in 2019 when I was at Uproxx (that, again, is no longer online) I wrote this:
It’s weird so much time is spent arguing about the theatrical release of movies – or, in other words, any particular movie’s infancy. Movies have a long life, and any given film’s theatrical window is just a fraction of how that film will be consumed for the rest of eternity. Okay, so here’s an example: let’s go back 20 years and pick Notting Hill. People love Notting Hill! Notting Hill was in theaters From May 28th, 1999 until October 7th, 1999 – so just over 130 days. Notting Hill has now existed for public consumption for just over 7350 days. So, this grand argument about a movie’s theatrical release accounts for 1.8 percent of Notting Hill’s entire lifespan. (And in 1999 movies stayed in theaters for a much longer duration than they do now.) For that other 98.2 percent of the time we’ve been watching Notting Hill, we’ve watched it either on many different incarnations of home video, or, most likely, when it just happens to be on cable.
My point is, the overwhelming majority of a movie's lifespan is not in theaters. Eventually it will leave theaters and that's that. But basic cable could be forever. Just ask The Shawshank Redemption, or the aforementioned Goodfellas and Casino. And now my numbers for Notting Hill are dated, so I will update them. Notting Hill has now been available for public consumption for 9937 days. Notting Hill's time in theaters accounts for just 1.3 percent of its lifespan.
For a movie's place in culture, its post-theatrical life is more important than its theatrical run. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is setting box office records. A lot of money can be made on theatrical runs, obviously, that's why they happen. But if after Brand New Day finishes its theatrical run, if it were just locked away somewhere, it would have no footprint in a very short amount of time. The Shawshank Redemption was a box office bomb, yet has a huge cultural footprint today. Cocoon was the fifth highest grossing film of 1985, yet is almost impossible to watch today and has no cultural relevancy whatsoever.
It's weird we can even see this within a franchise itself: the original Knives Out is on cable all the time. It's still everywhere. But its also terrific sequels, Glass Onion and Wake Up Dead Man, just aren't around anymore. To the point I do wonder if the basic cable omnipresence of the first Knives Out just does all the heavy lifting to keep the entire series on everyone's mind? That the fact the first movie is still on cable reminds people to go seek the other two out? (I need some advance metrics on all this.)
In my 2019 piece I also used this example:
I love The Big Sick. I was thinking about The Big Sick the other day and wondering why I hadn’t seen it since its 2017 Sundance debut. And then I remembered, oh right, it’s owned by Amazon. If The Big Sick were owned by a traditional studio, it would be playing on TBS on a neverending loop. I’d get home after being out, turn on the television, see that The Big Sick happens to be on, and get sucked in every time. And, yes, I know I can turn on Amazon, but I’m just not going to do that. Plus, the point is, even if I did, it’s not a communal event. It would just be me. If it were on TBS, thousands of people would all be watching The Big Sick at that moment.
