Why Does Jerry Seinfeld Think the Movie Business is Over?

Jerry Seinfeld is one of the most important and influential comedians to ever live. He helped create argueably the greatest sitcom of all time with Larry David, Seinfeld, and has left an indelible mark on the entertainment industry as a whole.

Now, he's branching out into feature films with Unfrosted, a Pop-Tart movie that debuts on Netflix.

Unfrosted | Official Trailer | Netflixwww.youtube.com

Seinfeld recently sat down with GQ to talk about his career and in the interview, he had a lot to say about Hollywood.

When asked about choosing filmmaking later in his career, Seinfeld said, “It was totally new to me. I thought I had done some cool stuff, but it was nothing like the way these people work. They’re so dead serious! They don’t have any idea that the movie business is over. They have no idea.”

After being pushed to elaborate on the part about movies being over, Seinfeld replied, “Film doesn’t occupy the pinnacle in the social, cultural hierarchy that it did for most of our lives. 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.”

I thought this was an interesting quote. I do think, in some sense, the movie business of old is over. and I totally get the firehose metaphor. In the past, our entertainment came from voices and TV.

Everyone went to see the big movies and watched the big TV shows, and they talked about them at the water cooler.

That still happens, to some degree, but with the advent of the iPhone and social media, we've become absorbed in so many other things now.

We're constantly sprayed in the face with entertainment. Whether that's sharing reels or memes or just tweeting and posting.

But I also think that movies like last year's Barbie and Oppenheimer still proved that cinema can dominate culture. In fact, movies have to be much more impactful now to break through all of that.

Let me know what you think in the comments.