Do people still have an appetite to attend movie theaters? That’s a question Leonardo DiCaprio is pondering.
In a Saturday interview with The Times, the One Battle After Another star discussed the shifting film landscape, which he noted is “changing at a lightning speed.” He further pointed out the modern demand of streaming and how it has impacted the moviegoing experience.
“We’re looking at a huge transition. First, documentaries disappeared from cinemas. Now, dramas only get finite time and people wait to see it on streamers. I don’t know,” DiCaprio said. “Do people still have the appetite? Or will cinemas become silos — like jazz bars?”
Despite much change in the film industry, the Oscar winner added that he hopes filmmakers will continue to bring projects onto the silver screen. “I just hope enough people, who are real visionaries, get opportunities to do unique things in the future that are seen in the cinema,” he said. “But that remains to be seen.”
DiCaprio recently shared his opinion on artificial intelligence, arguing that it could be used as an “enhancement tool for a young filmmaker to do something we’ve never seen before.” However, the actor still noted AI’s absence of humanity.
“I think anything that is going to be authentically thought of as art has to come from the human being,” he explained. “Otherwise — haven’t you heard these songs that are mashups that are just absolutely brilliant and you go, ‘Oh my God, this is Michael Jackson doing the Weeknd,’ or ‘This is funk from the A Tribe Called Quest song “Bonita Applebum,” done in, you know, a sort of Al Green soul-song voice, and it’s brilliant.’ And you go, ‘Cool.’ But then it gets its 15 minutes of fame and it just dissipates into the ether of other internet junk. There’s no anchoring to it. There’s no humanity to it, as brilliant as it is.”
