OK, so this is technically something that's started in 2015, but it'll be next year where it goes from being a remarkable oddity to accepted occurrence. I speak, of course, of Netflix's bold move into the arena of film distribution. We've already had their first movie, Cary Fukunaga's phenomenal Beasts Of No Nation, and their second, Adam Sandler's The Ridiculous Six (no doubt a tonal opposite to the West African war drama) hits in the coming weeks, but like their foray into in-house TV, things are going to ramp up quickly. 2016 will see the likes of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon II: The Green Legend, Pee-Wee's Big Holiday and Brad Pitt's War Machine released almost exclusively through the service. There's six films announced thus far, although expect that number to grow with subsequent acquisitions. By the end of next year, a movie's main form of distribution (there'll likely be a few, select theatrical releases to fulfil awards-related requirements) being an online streaming service will be somewhat commonplace. And that is massive. Like, redefining over a century of cinema massive. Home video certainly shifted things, creating both competition for cinemas and a new revenue stream for distributors, but this is an entirely new form of distribution and marks the start of a new era not only of movie consumption, but movie-making. With cinemas cut out almost completely and the audience of a once-niche movie expanded masisvely (Beasts Of No Nation was viewed 3 million times in its first few weeks, which translates to a sizeable box office equivalent) there's a lot of creative opportunities here. As a strong cinema advocator, the circumventing by way of streaming isn't the most palatable of ideas, but with such potential quality films on the cards, I'd be lying if I wasn't excited. New New Hollywood, anyone?
