Jerry Seinfeld declared the film business dead and buried during a recent interview with GQ magazine.
Ironically, the comic and former star of his eponymous hit NBC sitcom made the declaration as he promoted his own upcoming film which will premiere on Netflix in two weeks.
The 69-year-old New Yorker will make his directorial debut on May 3 when “Unfrosted” drops online.
The film features an ensemble cast, including stars such as Seinfeld, Hugh Grant, Christian Slater, Melissa McCarthy, Amy Schumer and Peter Dinklage – just to name a few.
The comedy is about the arms race between Kellogg’s and Post to create a shelf-stable breakfast pastry.
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“Unfrosted” doesn’t look like it takes itself too seriously, which is probably a good thing:
But Seinfeld told GQ on Monday that he no longer considers film a serious medium for storytelling – and he doesn’t think he’s alone.
While the comedian praised the people he worked with while directing his first movie, he ultimately deduced they were each unaware that the clock for them was running out.
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“It was totally new to me,” he said of the filmmaking process. “I thought I had done some cool stuff, but it was nothing like the way these people work.”
Then, he hit the film industry with a harsh observation that is difficult to argue against.
“They’re so dead serious!” he said of people in Hollywood. “They don’t have any idea that the movie business is over. They have no idea.”
Naturally, he was asked to elaborate on the comment and Seinfeld did just that.
“Film doesn’t occupy the pinnacle in the social, cultural hierarchy that it did for most of our lives,” he told GQ. “When a movie came out, if it was good, we all went to see it. We all discussed it. We quoted lines and scenes we liked. Now we’re walking through a fire hose of water, just trying to see.”
Seinfeld then divulged his opinion that modern film is dead or dying wasn’t just an observation but an opinion he reached after speaking with people in the industry.
“Everyone I know in show business, every day, is going, ‘What’s going on? How do you do this? What are we supposed to do now?’” he said.
The death of film as America has known it doesn’t bother Seinfeld, either. He made it clear he always has something to fall back on in the stand-up comedy that first got him noticed in the late 1980s – before NBC gave him the keys to make a show about nothing.
“I’ve done enough stuff that I have my own thing, which is more valuable than it’s ever been,” Seinfeld said. “Stand-up is like you’re a cabinetmaker, and everybody needs a guy who’s good with wood.”
Seinfeld also said he believed people tend to view comedy as more authentic than scripted film.
“Audiences are now flocking to stand-up because it’s something you can’t fake,” he told GQ. “That’s what people like about stand-up. They can trust it. Everything else is fake.”
It’s difficult to argue against the fact that the era of the blockbuster is as dead and gone as Blockbuster Video. Studios rarely put out films anymore that appeal to the masses, as a long list of 2023 flops clearly demonstrates.
As a billionaire, Seinfeld can speak the obvious about his own industry in ways others probably cannot and at almost age 70, he’s already a made man.
What is Hollywood going to do to him, take away his “Seinfeld” royalties?
