Steven Spielberg at the Cannes Film Festival. May 2013 (Georges Biard)Can’t imagine shelling out $25 to see “Iron Man” in the theater? Soon you may not have a choice, says Steven Spielberg.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, the famed director predicts price variances at movie theaters, where “you’re gonna have to pay $25 for the next ‘Iron Man,’ you’re probably only going to have to pay $7 to see ‘Lincoln.’”
Spielberg introduced this theory on Wednesday in a speech at the University of Southern California. He links it to an “implosion” in the film industry brought on by the flopping of a handful of big budget movies. He shared the stage with George Lucas, who says he believes that Hollywood will soon look more like Broadway, putting out fewer films that stay in theaters for longer periods of time.
This made Spielberg dig up a memory from way back in 1982 when “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” stayed on the big screen for a year and four months. Even for a someone like Spielberg, who went on to amass after that hit, making movies is still an uphill battle these days. Lincoln, he says, almost ended up on HBO. He had to co-own his studio, he claims, in order to get Lincoln into theaters.
Not that Spielberg has anything against television—or video games, for that matter. He is currently working on the TV show version fo the Xbox 360 game “Halo.” Sounds interesting, but we’ll stick with his “Lincoln”-type material thank you very much (especially if it costs under $10).
