Alfred Hitchcock created North by Northwest for an audience. He orchestrated their oohs and aahs, when they would lean forward and when they would sit back. This wasn't about someone on the sofa at home getting distracted by their phone or the doorbell or going to get a drink. The place was full of energy and at the end everyone stood and applauded; just as they did when I saw Slumdog Millionaire at the ArcLight in Los Angeles.
...Can you imagine being on a rollercoaster ride on your own? The majority of the experience is that you are with other people and are thrilled together. That's what makes it exciting. There is nothing better than witnessing a story with other people. It is a collective thing and a confirmative of humanity. I am just desperate that people do go back to cinemas. It's too painful. I don't want this to ever die – and I am definitely not alone.
Steve McQueen, 'I barely breathed': Tilda Swinton, Emma Thompson, Steve McQueen and more on their most memorable moments at the movies, 15 May 2020

I saw The Thin Red Line in a cinema in Toronto in Canada when I was 20. I entered the theatre militantly atheist, depressed and with the belief that working in film was a superficial thing to do with one's life. I left the theatre with a glimpse of what faith meant, having been lifted and carried out of my sadness, and wanting to make my own films one day. In the dark of the cinema, among strangers, I was transformed.
Sarah Polley, 'I barely breathed': Tilda Swinton, Emma Thompson, Steve McQueen and more on their most memorable moments at the movies, 15 May 2020

I'm not writing stories about societies falling apart at the moment, so read into that what you will. If you look at classic dystopian stories, it becomes every man for himself immediately. Actually, in this crisis, what's happened is you're more likely to be sitting indoors watching Tiger King and worrying that your neighbour's OK and asking to see if they need you to bring in a bag of potatoes or whatever. What's actually happening at the moment is much more cohesive and heartening.
... At the moment, if you were trying to write a story about a pandemic sweeping the world and everyone immediately turning on each other, plenty of people would look at that and go: ‘Well, that isn't what's happened.' So there's plenty of room for bleak stories and horror movies – it's just I think you've got to approach it slightly differently.
Charlie Brooker, 'I assumed I would end up stumbling through rubble eating rats. This confirms it', 13 May 2020

We're turning a 5-minute idea into a feature film! But then Jermaine [Clement, co-director of What We Do in the Shadows ] said ‘the world needs stupid shit' and I realized... Who wants to go and see a film that reminds us how terrible the world is?  We need ridiculous movies to remind us that we're the dumbest, clumsiest animals.
Taika Waititi, 'We're in a Very Cool Place Right Now Where Hollywood is Running Out of Ideas': Taika Waititi on Breaking All of the Rules, 12 September 2018

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Well, I spoke with Soderbergh, who's heading this DGA committee to restart production. I have about 85 percent of my film done. I could create a simulated version. He said not to do it, to wait, because a simulated version will never be the same thing. There are a lot of films out there where I don't know if they'll be able to go back. Michael Mann shot for a week in Tokyo. When is he ever going to be able to go back to Tokyo? Will I be able to make a film again over the next year? Have we seen Scorsese's last film? Eastwood's last film? Ridley Scott's last film? My last film? If we can't go back to work for a year, who knows what our health will be like?
Paul Schrader, Paul Schrader Wants Netflix and Amazon to Save the World's Biggest Film Festivals, 7 May 2020  

For Tarantino, Hollywood's golden glow is directly tied to the blonde hair and wide eyes of Sharon Tate. Long cited as the angel of innocence whose brutal murder marked the end of the 1960s era of free love, it's hard to watch Tarantino's feature and ignore the white privilege presented in its depiction of Los Angeles. The Hollywood of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” is one where minority actors and their struggles are erased or just non-existent.
... In comparison to “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” what Ryan Murphy does [ in "Hollywood" ] is craft a fairy tale where the machine is a beating heart. Where moguls care about their stars, where race isn't just an easy, exploitable buzzword to put butts in seats but a true ability to change the world. The characters understand the responsibility film has to change hearts and minds, and it acts on it. There's a bigger role at play. And while the time period is a world we'll never see, it's an acknowledgement not about what we lost, but what we have failed to achieve. The reality is more painful than fiction.
Kristen Lopez, Ryan Murphy's ‘Hollywood' Is a Better Version of the Hollywood Fairy Tale Than ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood', 3 May 2020  

I wanted to do something specifically on three Hollywood icons who had,  I believed, really been treated poorly. That was Rock Hudson and Anna May Wong and Hattie McDaniel. I was very interested in them, even as a kid... [They] were all in the LGBTQ community. Rock was gay and Anna May and Hattie were bisexual. I thought it would be interesting to give them the happy ending that they deserved — to have these fictionalized people, in a revisionist way, usher in a Hollywood that I wish had happened 50 years ago, 60 years ago.
... I related to all of them. Three people who had so much to give and who were denied by the system that opportunity... When I came to town, the men in power could really give a shit about me. I was never mentored. It was the women who were the outsiders who said, 'You have something unusual; I'm going to give you an opportunity.' That role [Avis] was me paying tribute to all of the women who have pushed my stuff through the system.
Ryan Murphy, Why Rewriting Hollywood Is Personal for Ryan Murphy and Janet Mock, 2 May 2020  

The first ‘Hellboy' movie was developed before even X-Men was on film. I remember visiting the ‘Mystery Men' set to try to convince Universal to green light it. It languished for a long time. To my mind, the first ‘Blade' was instrumental in showing how superhero movies could exist at the end of the 20th century. There was a collision of ‘Dark City' and ‘Blade' that somehow, in subtle ways paved the way for ‘The Matrix' to explode into the world. But, still, back then it was a countermovement to try and do superhero films, specially with material that didn't have Marvel numbers.
... What allowed the two [‘Hellboy'] films to exist, it's gone. The Blu-ray DVD performance of the first ‘Hellboy' was massive. So big that Ben Feingold, at Columbia, went full-on on the sequel development. Ben was so impressed by those numbers that he made ‘Hellboy' one of the very first Blu-rays from Columbia Pictures. Far as I can recall, the number for home video surpassed theatrical.
Guillermo del Toro, What Allowed ‘Hellboy' Films to Be Made No Longer Exists, 27 April 2020

Movies have become more about the aesthetic than the story and the content and what the film is trying to say. I find that pretty disappointing and pretty depressing.
Roger Deakins, Why is Roger Deakins Disappointed in Modern Filmmaking?, 9 April 2020

Many of the dangers we face indeed arise from science and technology - but more fundamentally, because we have become powerful without becoming commensurately wise. The world-altering powers that technology has delivered into our hands now require a degree of consideration and foresight that has never before been asked of us.
Carl Sagan

“Wuhan: The Long Night” by Lan Bo