When it comes to how well be watching movies — or, at least, watching serious dramas for adults — in the future, here are two stark and timely contradictory facts:
1. Last week, as the Toronto International Film Festival drew to a close, a deal that had been in the rumor stage for a while was finally announced: “Bad Education,” a tense and enthralling Long Island white-collar-crime noir, starring Hugh Jackman in a head-turning performance (and Allison Janney in a memorable follow-up to her Oscar-winning turn in “I, Tonya”), was sold for a whopping $17 million — the kind of deal that makes headlines out of Sundance, and that in Toronto may stand out even more, since TIFF, with so many major films coming into the festival already having distributors, is less of a high-profile market. That said, the “Bad Education” deal, juicy as it sounds, was not (in all likelihood) for theatrical release. The film was sold to HBO, which means that it will probably be shown only on HBO. It will likely be a contender not for the Oscars but for the Emmys. That makes it sound like a game-changer, a cutting-edge example — or maybe you could call it a casualty — of the shifting sands of movie distribution.
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2. If the “Bad Education” deal can be read as a symbolic sign that in the streaming/why-should-I-bother-going-out-when-I-have-my-big-screen-TV? era, serious dramas for adults at the megaplex could be going the way of the dodo bird, heres what actually happened at the megaplex this weekend. In the third frame of September, the number-one movie in America, coming in with a rock-em sock-em $31 million gross that outstripped “Rambo: Last Blood” and the Brad Pitt space opera “Ad Astra,” is “Downton Abbey,” a four-years-after-the-fact adaptation of the stiff-upper-lip TV series. Thats called serious-drama-for-adults power.
Speaking of which, the other major hit of the early fall is “Hustlers,” the J. Lo-led true-life tale of New York strippers turning the lap-dance tables on the Wall Street players who treat them as fleshpot utensils. The fact that “Hustlers” has such a sensationalized subject hardly guaranteed that it would be a success. “Striptease” and “Showgirls” were infamous bombs, and the film career of Jennifer Lopez, as terrific an actress as she is, has been on a slow slide ever since “Monster-in-Law” (2005). “Hustlers” is a serious drama that has succeeded on the strength of its reviews, its awards chatter, and the way it taps into an up-to-the-minute mood of womens economic aggrievement.
So which of those scenarios is the harbinger of the future? They both are. Thats the way movies have always worked, their success (or failure) sending out mixed signals that the industry reads however it wants to. In this case, though, its important to clarify that neither scenario is happening in a vacuum.
“Bad Education” is a hard movie to sum up in a sentence (its a true-life tale about a school-system budget scandal, and hidden sexuality), but the fact that a drama this brilliantly executed, and with this kind of pedigree, will probably never see the inside of a movie theater feels like a symptom of the choppy waters of the indie world in 2019. Theres a shadow story behind the deal — the fact that in the previous eight months, too many of those highly touted Sundance movies failed to perform.
I personally think too much expectation was placed on the shoulders of “Late Night,” a movie that never struck me as much of a crowd-pleaser. I was one of the few people at Sundance who didnt like it, but the fact that it was bought for $13 million and talked about as “the new Big Sick'” wasnt a great sign. The movie didnt have that kind of romantic hook at its center — and frankly (though this is always subjective), given the smart-mouth star moxie that Emma Thompson brought to it, the picture wasnt funny enough. Even a good movie can disappoint at the box office, but the relative failure of “Late Night” seemed to nudge the entire indie world off course. Too many Sundance films after that (“Brittany Runs a Marathon,” “David Crosby: Remember My Name,” “Luce”) never found their audience. Even the rousing Bruce Springsteen-fueled drama “Blinded by the Light” couldnt start a fire without a spark.
Yet it wasnt all gloom and doom. “The Farewell” has been a triumph, and for good reason. Its a transporting movie, one that announced the arrival of Awkwafina as a major dramatic actress. “The Farewell,” which has already outstripped the success of the 2018 Sundance breakout “Eighth Grade,” is a sign that a Sundance film can still connect in a major way. (And theres one more superb Sundance movie to come: “The Report,” a U.S.-torture-policy whistleblower drama of gripping resonance, starring Adam Driver, who is having quite a year.)
So based on all that, what does the future look like?
It looks like a future in which well surely see more deals like the one struck for “Bad Education.” We appear to be in the thick of the streaming era, but the truth is that were just in the opening seconds of it. Once the streaming arms of Disney, Apple, and others are up and running, with Netflix suddenly looking like a big fish in a pool with many other big fish, those services are going to need prestige product to feed them. Theyll creatOriginal Article
