I've probably said this to you before, but most studios don't care about their brand, don't really have much brand identity, and frequently don't care about releasing what they know is a poor product under their name.
Brands are about trust. Whether it's Mercedes, Aldi or Starbucks. Pick up any random bottle of wine in Aldi and it's at least going to be drinkable. It's not going to taste awful or poison you. It may not be your thing, but you get that, and it won't stop you coming back to Aldi.
If you're going to stick a Sony ident before a film, and the film was clearly badly thrown together garbage, that you later find out tested horribly, you now think Sony are a bunch of rip-off merchants. You aren't going to just throw money at them next time. It's what so many studios don't get. Trying to wrangle a few bucks from first weekend audiences to minimise losses seems like a good idea, but it damages your reputation.
You need people who care about quality. Not just making a franchise film. And maybe it will flop, but it will flop for the right reason, that it wasn't to people's taste. Even people who don't like Tenet don't think that Nolan phoned it in.
This is it. The major players gave up on branding post 1948 (at least you can control the quality of a physical space) and moved to rely on stars solely. But stars are annoying and need paid and taken care of and grown, then skip forward and they discovered superheroes, where actors, directors and writers are replaceable! It works with a younger demographic but cynical iterations of each brand (stars, superheroes, etc) poison the well. And so… The truth is movie marketing has been terrible for a very long time. You shouldn’t be launching 20 new products every year.
I was a personal trainer in another lifetime. My clients were fitness-fluent and motivated. They could do anything, and that's exactly WHY they hired me. To just tell them what to do. Option overload is for real, and high level curation, which you so beautifully illustrate in this piece, is a skillset that's going to get even more valuable.
Lately I've been dreaming about a streaming service defined by disciplined curation and an open rebellion against decision paralysis, the latter of which, of course, directly contributes to the issue of passive consumption. I'm talking ten, maybe twelve slots, perhaps each dedicated to a different genre, that are slowly rotated out for a different film of the same genre as the days go on, curated by people similar to the hypothetical folk you identify here. If you live in a sci-fi bubble, you're guaranteed a great new discovery of your favourite genre every week/week and a half, and the small selection encourages you to expand your viewing horizons with equally-great films, which your comfort genre can even encourage by mixing another genre in with it one week (sci-fi fan watches the sci-fi curation of the week, which happens to be a sci-fi horror -> said fan is convinced to give the horror curation a try).
Something like this could absolutely be designed in service of theatrical-specific cultural health. 28 Years Later is coming out soon? Hey, let's lead up to/promote that release by bringing 28 Days Later into our lineup, and then rotate 28 Weeks Later into its place the week before 28 Years Later drops into theaters. Materialists is coming out soon? Let's get Past Lives in here and specify the connection it has (Celine Song) with this incoming cultural relevancy. New Gerwig? Lady Bird. New Peele? Get Out. Guadagnino's American Psycho adaptation rears its head? Get Mary Harron's 2000 adaptation in the mix. Unearth cinematic pasts so as to catch people up on the specific cultural thread that each new release pulls on. Level the playing field and invite people in.
The twelve slots thing is so smart, Charlotte - I'm so tired of staring at streaming platforms wondering what the hell I'm supposed to watch. But your genre-mixing approach is where this gets really interesting. Using people's existing tastes as a bridge to new territory instead of just... hoping they'll randomly click on something different. I love the theatrical tie-ins too, yes!!
Ugh, the rotation creating urgency again... I miss that feeling. This feels like it could work because it's treating people like they're capable of developing taste instead of just consuming whatever gets shoved in front of them. Someone should absolutely be funding this instead of whatever algorithm currently thinks I want to watch Selling Sunset seventeen times. I do not 😂
I think the marketing cycles for films are too front loaded, you get all the build up to the opening weekend and then some other stuff might trickle in later featuring audience reactions and quotes. I agree that studios could be a better job partnering with creators to keep the conversations going and lean into the hype. Materialists generated so much conversation yet the IG marketing only surfaced positive Letterboxd reviews? They should lean into the broke boy propaganda angle and get the people talking more lol.
I also understand that A24 is juggling promoting multiple movies at a time and have leaned into the Eddington and Sorry Baby cycle of their slate of films, which is another challenge for every brand when you have competing interests. They want all these films to profit yet they get short windows to do so.
Thanks for this, Sophie. "Film Buff" has a delightful new connotation in the context of a cultural gym. It's fun to imagine getting "buff" with film trainers of varying dispositions - some cheerful and encouraging, others challenging and gruff.
Ha, Alex! I can't believe I spent an entire essay on the cultural gym metaphor and completely missed the "film buff" pun. You've just made my whole framework infinitely better.
I'm now picturing the different trainer personalities - the encouraging one who gets genuinely excited when you finally appreciate slow cinema, versus the no-nonsense type who makes you watch three Tarkovsky films in a row and refuses to explain anything until you figure it out yourself.
Thanks for catching that - sometimes the best insights are hiding in plain sight!
WOW! Incredible post. Thank you so much. I've been thinking for a while about new ways to distribute a movie, especially indie micro budget because that's the kind of movie I'm making this year and reaching the right audience with it is definitely a huge anxiety I have. Building community, which is at the core of almost all of your ideas here, is definitely a central part of it. And just reading through your piece once gave me 3-4 other concrete ideas of what I could do to roll it out in a way that intices audiences and builds community/identity around it. Would love to have a further conversation about it!
Eric! This is exactly why I write these essays - hearing that it sparked actual actionable ideas for your project makes all the research worth it. Indie micro-budget is where the most interesting experimentation can happen because you're not beholden to studio bureaucracy. The community-building approach feels especially vital for indie work since you can't rely on massive marketing budgets to create awareness. So glad to hear this was helpful!
Sophie: Thoughtful, insightful, and a little bit wistful— well done. I agree that the whole distribution rush has ruined the anticipation that once was part of the filmgoer experience. I don’t care if a film doesn’t show up on a streamer until six months after its theatrical run. I think the French model is wonderful, but I have no faith in Americans’ ability to revert to a time of patience and deferred pleasure. We’re speeding through life, in a hurry to get on to the next thing. That’s no way to enjoy movies or any other cultural experience. Keep up the good work, reminding us what we’re missing and offering us ways to course correct.
Thank you so much! Your point about Americans and patience cuts right to the heart of why this feels like such an uphill battle. But I'm weirdly quite optimistic still - not because Americans are suddenly going to develop monk-like patience, but because I think we're starting to see cracks in the "faster is better" mentality. Look at how vinyl sales keep growing, or how people are paying premium prices for "slow fashion," or even how younger TikTok users are obsessing over 3-hour video essays. There's definitely an appetite for experiences that unfold at their own pace.
The trick might be reframing delayed gratification not as deprivation, but as anticipation - which is honestly one of the best parts of being excited about something. Maybe we don't need to convert everyone immediately. Start with the people who already miss that feeling, build from there. Sometimes cultural shifts happen faster than we expect - especially when people realize what they've been missing.
A simple start for independent theaters would be just to give a face to their programmers. Just have them introduce and talk about their films and programming on social media, and suddenly your theatre has a human identity. Tim League did it (in a way) with Alamo Drafthouse and soon everyone in cinema knew who he was. And then he founded Neon. And here in Belgium there is one retired film critic and one retired festival programmer who are still the regular guests on TV when they want to discuss film because they were audience-facing 20 years ago, everybody still remembers them, and no voice has replaced them.
Yes Benjamin, this is brilliant. Your Belgium example really drives home how long-lasting this approach can be. Twenty years later, audiences still trust those voices because they built genuine relationships through consistent, public engagement with film culture. That's the kind of cultural authority money can't buy.
What strikes me is how low-lift this actually is to implement. You don't need massive budgets or corporate restructuring - just put your programmer on Instagram talking about why they chose this week's lineup. Let them geek out about discovering some forgotten 70s thriller or explain why they're pairing that new A24 release with a Chantal Akerman retrospective. The beauty is that it makes programming decisions feel intentional rather than random. Instead of "this is what we're showing," it becomes "this is what Sarah thinks you need to see right now, and here's why." Suddenly you've got people following theaters not just for convenience, but because they trust specific tastemakers.
"A24 gets this."
I've probably said this to you before, but most studios don't care about their brand, don't really have much brand identity, and frequently don't care about releasing what they know is a poor product under their name.
Brands are about trust. Whether it's Mercedes, Aldi or Starbucks. Pick up any random bottle of wine in Aldi and it's at least going to be drinkable. It's not going to taste awful or poison you. It may not be your thing, but you get that, and it won't stop you coming back to Aldi.
If you're going to stick a Sony ident before a film, and the film was clearly badly thrown together garbage, that you later find out tested horribly, you now think Sony are a bunch of rip-off merchants. You aren't going to just throw money at them next time. It's what so many studios don't get. Trying to wrangle a few bucks from first weekend audiences to minimise losses seems like a good idea, but it damages your reputation.
You need people who care about quality. Not just making a franchise film. And maybe it will flop, but it will flop for the right reason, that it wasn't to people's taste. Even people who don't like Tenet don't think that Nolan phoned it in.
This is it. The major players gave up on branding post 1948 (at least you can control the quality of a physical space) and moved to rely on stars solely. But stars are annoying and need paid and taken care of and grown, then skip forward and they discovered superheroes, where actors, directors and writers are replaceable! It works with a younger demographic but cynical iterations of each brand (stars, superheroes, etc) poison the well. And so… The truth is movie marketing has been terrible for a very long time. You shouldn’t be launching 20 new products every year.
I was a personal trainer in another lifetime. My clients were fitness-fluent and motivated. They could do anything, and that's exactly WHY they hired me. To just tell them what to do. Option overload is for real, and high level curation, which you so beautifully illustrate in this piece, is a skillset that's going to get even more valuable.
Thank you so so much yet again.
Lately I've been dreaming about a streaming service defined by disciplined curation and an open rebellion against decision paralysis, the latter of which, of course, directly contributes to the issue of passive consumption. I'm talking ten, maybe twelve slots, perhaps each dedicated to a different genre, that are slowly rotated out for a different film of the same genre as the days go on, curated by people similar to the hypothetical folk you identify here. If you live in a sci-fi bubble, you're guaranteed a great new discovery of your favourite genre every week/week and a half, and the small selection encourages you to expand your viewing horizons with equally-great films, which your comfort genre can even encourage by mixing another genre in with it one week (sci-fi fan watches the sci-fi curation of the week, which happens to be a sci-fi horror -> said fan is convinced to give the horror curation a try).
Something like this could absolutely be designed in service of theatrical-specific cultural health. 28 Years Later is coming out soon? Hey, let's lead up to/promote that release by bringing 28 Days Later into our lineup, and then rotate 28 Weeks Later into its place the week before 28 Years Later drops into theaters. Materialists is coming out soon? Let's get Past Lives in here and specify the connection it has (Celine Song) with this incoming cultural relevancy. New Gerwig? Lady Bird. New Peele? Get Out. Guadagnino's American Psycho adaptation rears its head? Get Mary Harron's 2000 adaptation in the mix. Unearth cinematic pasts so as to catch people up on the specific cultural thread that each new release pulls on. Level the playing field and invite people in.
The twelve slots thing is so smart, Charlotte - I'm so tired of staring at streaming platforms wondering what the hell I'm supposed to watch. But your genre-mixing approach is where this gets really interesting. Using people's existing tastes as a bridge to new territory instead of just... hoping they'll randomly click on something different. I love the theatrical tie-ins too, yes!!
Ugh, the rotation creating urgency again... I miss that feeling. This feels like it could work because it's treating people like they're capable of developing taste instead of just consuming whatever gets shoved in front of them. Someone should absolutely be funding this instead of whatever algorithm currently thinks I want to watch Selling Sunset seventeen times. I do not 😂
I think the marketing cycles for films are too front loaded, you get all the build up to the opening weekend and then some other stuff might trickle in later featuring audience reactions and quotes. I agree that studios could be a better job partnering with creators to keep the conversations going and lean into the hype. Materialists generated so much conversation yet the IG marketing only surfaced positive Letterboxd reviews? They should lean into the broke boy propaganda angle and get the people talking more lol.
I also understand that A24 is juggling promoting multiple movies at a time and have leaned into the Eddington and Sorry Baby cycle of their slate of films, which is another challenge for every brand when you have competing interests. They want all these films to profit yet they get short windows to do so.
Thanks for this, Sophie. "Film Buff" has a delightful new connotation in the context of a cultural gym. It's fun to imagine getting "buff" with film trainers of varying dispositions - some cheerful and encouraging, others challenging and gruff.
Ha, Alex! I can't believe I spent an entire essay on the cultural gym metaphor and completely missed the "film buff" pun. You've just made my whole framework infinitely better.
I'm now picturing the different trainer personalities - the encouraging one who gets genuinely excited when you finally appreciate slow cinema, versus the no-nonsense type who makes you watch three Tarkovsky films in a row and refuses to explain anything until you figure it out yourself.
Thanks for catching that - sometimes the best insights are hiding in plain sight!
WOW! Incredible post. Thank you so much. I've been thinking for a while about new ways to distribute a movie, especially indie micro budget because that's the kind of movie I'm making this year and reaching the right audience with it is definitely a huge anxiety I have. Building community, which is at the core of almost all of your ideas here, is definitely a central part of it. And just reading through your piece once gave me 3-4 other concrete ideas of what I could do to roll it out in a way that intices audiences and builds community/identity around it. Would love to have a further conversation about it!
Eric! This is exactly why I write these essays - hearing that it sparked actual actionable ideas for your project makes all the research worth it. Indie micro-budget is where the most interesting experimentation can happen because you're not beholden to studio bureaucracy. The community-building approach feels especially vital for indie work since you can't rely on massive marketing budgets to create awareness. So glad to hear this was helpful!
Sophie: Thoughtful, insightful, and a little bit wistful— well done. I agree that the whole distribution rush has ruined the anticipation that once was part of the filmgoer experience. I don’t care if a film doesn’t show up on a streamer until six months after its theatrical run. I think the French model is wonderful, but I have no faith in Americans’ ability to revert to a time of patience and deferred pleasure. We’re speeding through life, in a hurry to get on to the next thing. That’s no way to enjoy movies or any other cultural experience. Keep up the good work, reminding us what we’re missing and offering us ways to course correct.
Thank you so much! Your point about Americans and patience cuts right to the heart of why this feels like such an uphill battle. But I'm weirdly quite optimistic still - not because Americans are suddenly going to develop monk-like patience, but because I think we're starting to see cracks in the "faster is better" mentality. Look at how vinyl sales keep growing, or how people are paying premium prices for "slow fashion," or even how younger TikTok users are obsessing over 3-hour video essays. There's definitely an appetite for experiences that unfold at their own pace.
The trick might be reframing delayed gratification not as deprivation, but as anticipation - which is honestly one of the best parts of being excited about something. Maybe we don't need to convert everyone immediately. Start with the people who already miss that feeling, build from there. Sometimes cultural shifts happen faster than we expect - especially when people realize what they've been missing.
A simple start for independent theaters would be just to give a face to their programmers. Just have them introduce and talk about their films and programming on social media, and suddenly your theatre has a human identity. Tim League did it (in a way) with Alamo Drafthouse and soon everyone in cinema knew who he was. And then he founded Neon. And here in Belgium there is one retired film critic and one retired festival programmer who are still the regular guests on TV when they want to discuss film because they were audience-facing 20 years ago, everybody still remembers them, and no voice has replaced them.
Yes Benjamin, this is brilliant. Your Belgium example really drives home how long-lasting this approach can be. Twenty years later, audiences still trust those voices because they built genuine relationships through consistent, public engagement with film culture. That's the kind of cultural authority money can't buy.
What strikes me is how low-lift this actually is to implement. You don't need massive budgets or corporate restructuring - just put your programmer on Instagram talking about why they chose this week's lineup. Let them geek out about discovering some forgotten 70s thriller or explain why they're pairing that new A24 release with a Chantal Akerman retrospective. The beauty is that it makes programming decisions feel intentional rather than random. Instead of "this is what we're showing," it becomes "this is what Sarah thinks you need to see right now, and here's why." Suddenly you've got people following theaters not just for convenience, but because they trust specific tastemakers.