In one of his promotional interviews for Ready Player One, Hollywood director Steven Spielberg has raised eye-brows by terming the films on streaming services likeNetflix and Amazon as "TV Movies" as opposed to being just movies and also adding that streaming services these days is what Television was in the earlier days; "they pull people away from movie theatres." Spielberg's response was to the question that quizzed him his take on the streaming services and the challenges movies faced because of them these days. He said,
"It (Streaming Service) is a challenge to cinema that way the Televisions were in the 1950s that pulled people away from movie theatres. Everyone wanted to stay at home because it was more fun to stay at home and watch a comedy...The challenge today is Studios just want to invest in branded, tent-pole, guaranteed box office hits from their inventory of branded successful movies than take chances on smaller films."
Spielberg's statement may have been with respect to movies in Hollywood but the sudden emergence of same streaming services in India, especially Tamil Nadu, the trend of big banners investing in successful sequels (rather than new films) and smaller films making it to Amazon Prime, Sun DTH, etc within 30 days of release thus decreasing the footfalls in theatres, leaves us wondering if that is where our domestic films are headed too.