If you ask many people about what the problem with modern film and television is, you’ll usually get some similar answers – a broken distribution model, agenda-driven writing, unoriginality, focusing on lesser-known characters, etc.
Filmmaker Judd Apatow, appearing on a new episode of Dana Carvey and David Spade‘s Superfly podcast (via Deadline), has a different take. The main issue? Sustained intensity.
Specifically Apatow indicates film and TV works have little room for moments in which the audience can breathe or engage with more grounded stories:
“I have a new theory, which is, everything is like in the newspaper business: ‘If it bleeds, it leads’. Everything is doomscrolling because they don’t want you to shut anything off, so they’re obsessed with it being really intense.
That’s why almost everything on the streamers is either about the biggest star in the world or a serial killer. Everything is a thriller, everything is intense.”
A big part of that he indicates comes from the shift to streaming where the metric of ‘completion rate’ has become a factor in projects – resulting in a need to keep people hooked throught an entire film or season:
“It’s all completion rate. ‘We must have them complete it. We cannot put on a film if anyone shuts it off!’ There’s an intensity to everything, whether it’s sexy or exciting or terrifying.
And I think it changes it so you don’t have quieter, subtler, whatever funny, human things because I think they’re afraid people are gonna shut it off or not go [to theaters]. You lose a lot of good stuff when everything is so wired.”
Carvey chimed in claiming projects are “hypersexual” and adding that Nicole Kidman seems to appear in a lot of these prestige psychosexual works: “I love her shows ’cause they’re just sexy thrillers. She’s in a lot, good for her.”
