Dune (2020) - Denis Villeneuve

[Loosecannon]

Cinema experience for me is all movie dependent, 95% of what i watch doesn't suffer watching at home on even a modest 4k screen. However certain movies, such as Dune in this thread, I absolutely want to see at the cinema for the initial viewing.

Tickets to my local Showcase are less than a tenner, it's 10 minutes down the motorway with ample parking, the seats are leather recliners, it's kept clean and for the most part, most of the other customers are considerate.

Odeon that's a short 5 minute drive from it by contrast is populated by noisy idiots and is barely tidied up at all through the day, the seats albeit being recently refurbished are rock hard static leather bricks

A perfect post where everything said also applies to me too!

 

[theone8181]

I suspect if you on the back row of the cinema the screen size is not that different (proportionally) to a standard TV. I find the sound in the cinema is often at the point of hurting my ears, although watching some films on TV I think they're designed this way, quiet speech and mega loud explosions.

 

[Lartyconshayo]

It won't be for everyone but projector at home with decent speakers / headphones is very enjoyable. I loved Tenet at home. Dune will be same.

 

[englishpremier]

.................and thats where, despite enjoying his films, I completely disagree with Villeneuve and consider his opinion to be quite Luddite in outlook. If this pandemic has shown us one things it's that tens of thousands of cinema theatres are absolutely not "needed" anymore. I think the times are changing, that small niche cinemas may still survive for real film lovers, but for the big chain cinemas, outside of the few big blockbuster films per year, there's just not enough good quality "normal" films around that people would want to "risk" going to the cinema to see when they could watch it at home, and even the few good ones which seem to have a bit of hype (Coming to America 2 for example) will do better currently by streaming than by cinema sales.

The only "cure" or reversal for this is the complete and utter removal of every single type of lockdown, complete removal of the "fear" of COVID etc and thats just not going to happen anytime soon.

Maybe in 5+ years time society will have adapted to this ongoing pandemic enough that any surviving cinema chains would start to see a profit again but I think that this is the end of the vast majority of them. Hollywood will adapt (see next paragraph). They'll be forced to downsize due to the much lower incomes they receive from streaming but, again after a short while, once they figure out the best way to monetize without cinema showings, they'll be back.

Of course I know I sound a little like Chicken Little but I think TV is the short-term future for Hollywood and I think they know it looking at Disney with the Marvel shows, Star Wars shows etc.

TV series took over films long ago. Cheaper to make, better character and story development and there are more marketing and publicity options. I used to be a huge film fan but the state of cinema has been so poor over the past years, I almost exclusively watch series instead, and maybe only few films a year.

 

[SixTwoSix]

In the wake of Warner Bros. Pictures’ sudden announcement the other week that its entire 2021 film slate would go day-and-date on HBO Max, there were immediate repercussions.

The news sent much of the industry reeling, but soon many started to get angry. One such group was Legendary, the co-financiers and co-producers of Denis Villeneuve’s lavish “Dune” film adaptation which planned a potential legal challenge.

“Rumors have the solution to that breach being to preserve ‘Dune’ as a traditional theatrical to preserve its franchise potential and since its October 1st release date falls well after the estimated late spring date when Covid vaccines should achieve herd immunity.”

https://www.darkhorizons.com/dune-may-skip-hbo-max-after-all/

TV series took over films long ago. Cheaper to make, better character and story development and there are more marketing and publicity options.

I definitely agree with most of what you said, the issue with some shows is that you end up with needless filler episodes when there is no real story to be told. Quite a few potentially great TV shows have been sub-par due to this problem, tied into 40/45 minute runtimes and 10/12 episode runs.

A well made film can be tightly edited down to a few hours of greatness, assuming a good director/writer/editor team of course.

 

[Scam]

then streaming to your home Netflix style is t

I totally agree. I think what people are slowly realising is that the problem with netflix is that they are becoming a sausage factory. More intent on chucking out series and film after film with no guarantee of quality. I'm not saying every theatrical release is 100% quality but there's definitely an element of quantity over quality for netflix.

I agree to an extent about blockbusters being best for the cinema, but actually some indie films have been my best cinema experiences ever. I can't think of any other examples right now but Never Rarely Sometimes Always is a low budget indie shot on 16mm and that was awesome. Wholly captivating, and cinema can do that over home viewing.

 

[Random Guy Esq.]

I like the social element of meeting a few friends and going to the cinema. I mean, they're my friends and all, but I don't want them coming over to watch a movie in my living room. Scroungers.

 

[theone8181]

I like the social element of meeting a few friends and going to the cinema. I mean, they're my friends and all, but I don't want them coming over to watch a movie in my living room. Scroungers.

Just charge them.

 

[Random Guy Esq.]

 

[SixTwoSix]

So with Wonder Woman 1984 being on the usual sites in full 4K high quality within hours of release yesterday, I understand entirely why 'Legendary' are trying to prevent this hitting HBOMax.

 

[Steampunk]

So with Wonder Woman 1984 being on the usual sites in full 4K high quality within hours of release yesterday, I understand entirely why 'Legendary' are trying to prevent this hitting HBOMax.

If cinemas had been open, people would have gone there. In the end, Warner Brothers are bleeding money and Time-Warner are 150 Billion dollars in debt. The loans they have taken out to make films are racking up interest, and making some money is better than making no money and going bust. It's difficult to justify the media companies holding their hands out for public bailouts while they won't release their movies to their own streaming services or the 25 percent of cinemas that are open.

If things go streaming only, we may then see end of the blockbuster movie costing hundred of millions of dollars to make, but that's what's going to happen if cinemas go out of business because the film studios won't release anything at this time and risk reducing their profits.

 

[SixTwoSix]

If cinemas had been open, people would have gone there. In the end, Warner Brothers are bleeding money and Time-Warner are 150 Billion dollars in debt. The loans they have taken out to make films are racking up interest, and making some money is better than making no money and going bust. It's difficult to justify the media companies holding their hands out for public bailouts while they won't release their movies to their own streaming services or the 25 percent of cinemas that are open.

If things go streaming only, we may then see end of the blockbuster movie costing hundred of millions of dollars to make, but that's what's going to happen if cinemas go out of business because the film studios won't release anything at this time and risk reducing their profits.

Agree with all you've said, just feel like we're seeing the death of the blockbuster in slow motion.

While a lot of big budget blockbusters are cookie cutter rubbish, some films lend themselves to that experience and will be sad to see them disappear.

 

[AWPC]

So with Wonder Woman 1984 being on the usual sites in full 4K high quality within hours of release yesterday, I understand entirely why 'Legendary' are trying to prevent this hitting HBOMax.

WB will go bust if WW84 is the type of content they are funding! I can see them trying to grab as much as they can short term to pay the loans & interest back faster but long term they cannot survive no studio can if cinemas are shut as streaming platforms mean people can save a fortune on not paying for rubbish content which previously the slick hype machine would have got some to go pay at the cinema.

Legendary are unlikely to sue WB either they can always buy Dune back from them if they think that's cheaper than losing whatever many millions a limited theatrical release will cost!

Paramount just sold Coming To America 2 exclusively to Amazon for $200m that is the near future streamers buying these movies to at least get some money flowing again.

 

[the shadow]

$125 Million Coming To America 2 exclusively to Amazon

 

[ianh]

$125 Million Coming To America 2 exclusively to Amazon

Just to clear that up, the film cost $60 million but Amazon have just bought the sole distribution rights for $125 million, so it's going to need to make around an estimated $300 million to see any profit - I just don't see it hitting that level TBH. Maybe with a full cinema release pre-COVID but not as a streaming film, no matter how good it is in the end.

 

[DrToffnar]

Any news on the sequels as of yet? I know they where all but greenlit before the HBO Max move, last I heard Villeneuve and Legendary felt pretty betrayed and thought it may impact the production of all subsequent films. Damn shame if that's the case.

Don't know how I feel about it now really. Was fine with the HBO Max move up until I heard about how Villeneuve, Legendary and some others involved felt about it. Doesn't sit comfortably with me at all now.

 

[Bigpig]

Watched the 80's version the other night and now really looking forward to this.

Caught some YouTube channels saying that all reports of the test screenings are coming back very positive. LOTR has been mentioned as an example.

Very strong performance's from a number of the stars with Josh being the weakest. (No fault of his)

 

[danoliver1]

When's this on torrent I mean Hbo max?

 

[Somnambulist]

October I think. Having watched BR2049 at my local iSense screen and then on Netflix some months later, there is absolutely no way I am not watching this on a big screen, it would be a crime to sensory experience.

 

[ianh]

Having watched BR2049 at my local iSense screen and then on Netflix some months later, there is absolutely no way I am not watching this on a big screen, it would be a crime to sensory experience.

Unless the spread of the new rapidly mutating versions of potentially vaccine resistant COVID-19 forces the Government to enter yet more lockdowns and introduce Tier Eleventy-Billion

I'd love to be able to see this on the big screen so what I hope is that, once everything returns to some kind of normal, distributers will re-introduce those big blockbuster films which are given very limited viewing right now, back into what ever cinemas survive at a later date.