Robert Rodriguez says Netflix is "the best place for a family film"
The director's new movie We Can Be Heroes arrives on the streaming platform on Christmas Day.
There's been a lot of debate in recent weeks about the advantages and disadvantages of streaming compared to the cinema, sparked partly by Warner Bros' plans to release its entire 2021 slates simultaneously in cinemas and on HBO Max.
And director Robert Rodriguez, whose new film We Can Be Heroes arrives on Netflix on Christmas Day, has said that while he still loves the experience of going to the cinema, he believes that when it comes to family films, streaming is the perfect place.
Speaking to RadioTimes.com ahead of the release of his new film, he said, "I love going to the theatre with my family and my kids, we still regularly would go to the theatre and it wasn't until this year that we only got to see a few movies.
"But for me, I think this [Netflix] is the best place for a family film."
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He said that one of the main reasons he thinks streaming is the perfect fit is because it allows kids to watch their favourite films over and over again without the need for several trips to the cinema, while it also leads to better figures for how many people have watched.
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"I would make films for kids that were really targeted towards families but mainly the children, you see the children take centre stage," he explained. "And a lot of the time a parent would take their kid to the theatre but the kids want to see it again and again and again, because it just bombards them with this wish fulfilment and empowerment, and the parents can't drive them to the theatre enough times.
"So now they don't have to go to the theatre, you know, it's better for the kids to sit there and be able to just watch it as many times as they want, because that's how it's made, it's made to shoot by really fast where they just want to put it on again.
"And that's just not going to happen when you have to go to the theatre, so that's a lot of box office left on the floor. The box office was never as big for those movies that I made even though they did really well, it was never as big as how many times kids actually saw them on video and on TV so that's why I thought the metrics that Netflix keeps would be able to show us just how popular these movies really are, so I thought that was the best place for family films going forward."
Read more:
- Sharkboy and Lavagirl weren’t originally supposed to be in We Can Be Heroes
- Robert Rodriguez wanted to include the Spy Kids in We Can Be Heroes
We Can Be Heroes is streaming on Netflix from Christmas Day 2020. Looking for something else to watch? Check out our guide to the best series on Netflix and best movies on Netflix, or visit our TV Guide
