Leonardo DiCaprio has expressed concerns about audiences flocking to theatres with the same enthusiasm as in the old days, in the age of multiple options, namely streaming platforms.
"It's changing at lightning speed. We're looking at a huge transition... First, documentaries disappeared from cinemas. Now, dramas only get a finite time, and people wait to see them on streamers. I don't know. Do people still have the appetite? Or will cinemas become silos like jazz bars?" said the One Battle After Another actor in an interview with The Times. "I just hope enough people, who are real visionaries, get opportunities to do unique things in the future that are seen in the cinema. But that remains to be seen."
DiCaprio has good reason to be concerned, especially considering how his latest release did in theatres. One Battle After Another, a Paul Thomas Anderson directorial, grossed only a total of $205 million at the worldwide box office, against an estimated total budget of $130–175 million, despite receiving unanimous positive acclaim. On Saturday, the film was named Best Picture by the National Society of Film Critics. The film has already made it into numerous Top 10 year-end lists.
Meanwhile, DiCaprio is officially working with Michael Mann for the first time, as a lead actor, in the legendary American filmmaker's sequel to his 1995 crime epic Heat. This would mark his second collaboration with Mann, who had produced the actor's The Aviator, directed by Martin Scorsese.
On Heat 2, DiCaprio said this in an interview with Deadline: "This is very much its own movie. We’re still working on it, we’re a ways away from production. It tips its hat to Heat, but it’s an homage, and it picks up the story from there. The book is already out there, so there are no big secrets that I’m divulging. It’s set in the future, and the past, from that pivotal moment in what I think is the great crime noir film of my lifetime. It’s one of those films that just keeps resonating, that we keep talking about, that has been imitated so many times and influenced so many different movies. So, we’re working on it. But it’s certainly exciting, and I think I look at it as its own silo, in a sense. We can’t duplicate what Heat was, so it’s paying homage to that film, but giving it its own unique entity."
