CinemaCon 2019 is off to a roaring start this week in Las Vegas. Highlights so far have included well-received footage from Joker that’s drawing comparisons to Taxi Driver, as well as a first look at It 2 that looks “scary as hell.” The event is full of panels, all within the customary gathering of U.S. theater owners who meet with movie studio reps, so there’s a lot of meeting-and-greeting and swagging involved. And this year, Dame Helen Mirren decided to air her feelings on the streaming service that’s both fueling Hollywood projects and annoying old-school institutions like Steven Spielberg.
The Hobbs & Shaw actress (what a lovely world we live in) was officially on hand to promote The Good Liar, and Mirren let her thoughts on streaming be known. “I love Netflix … but f*ck Netflix,” she declared, via Variety. “There is nothing like sitting in the cinema, the lights go down, the incredible moment of excitement.” It’s not too shocking to see Mirren express animosity for the streaming juggernaut at a gathering of theater owners, and indeed, Variety reports that her words were “met with thunderous applause.”
The Good Liar is a Warner Bros. thriller in which Mirren stars as a wealthy widow, and Ian McKellan plays a con artist who receives more than he bargained for in their coupling. The movie will arrive in theaters in November, and it sounds pulpy enough to find an audience, though we obviously won’t know how the project fares for quite some time. Meanwhile, Netflix will keep on cranking out its own A-list titles — recent and immensely popular examples include Bird Box (with Sandra Bullock and John Malkovich) and Triple Frontier (with Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, and Charlie Hunnam) — while bypassing the box-office. The streaming wars officially include theaters, and spats like these should provide plenty of popcorn for years to come.
(Via Variety)
