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Comment by darth_avocado | Hacker News Reader

Matt Damon talked about this somewhere. The risk aversion stems from the move away from DVD sales. Historically a lot of low and mid budget movies relied on DVD sales to recoup costs even if theater releases didn’t get you as much money as you expected. With the safety net gone, studios don’t want to take the risk. They make big budget movies with massive marketing budgets that rely on known IP and established fan bases to guarantee income. This also ensures that the story itself is average because you want an average fan to like it.

I think calculus somewhere has changed that is allowing these small/mid sized movies to be made again.

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This is from the interview on Hot Ones (released August 5, 2021): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaXma6K9mzo&t=816s

> Sean Evans:

> I think a scenario lots of viewers can relate to is sitting on the couch on a Friday night, going through the streaming services, cycling through the movies and thinking to themselves "they're not making movies for me anymore". As somebody who's been intimately involved in movie making for 30 years, what are the macro Hollywood conditions behind that sentiment?

> Matt Damon:

> Well, so what happened was the DVD was a huge part of our business - of our revenue stream - and technology has just made that obsolete. And so, the movies that that we used to make: you could afford to not make all of your money when it played in the theater because you knew you had the DVD coming behind the release and 6 months later you'd get a whole other chunk - it would be like reopening the movie almost.

> And when that went away, that changed the type of movies that we could make. I did this movie "Behind the Candelabra" and I talked to a studio executive who explained: it was a $25 million movie. I would have to put that much into print and advertising to market it - what we call P&A - so now I'm in $50 million. I have to split everything I get with the exhibitor, the people who own the movie theaters, so I would have to make $100 million before I got into profit. The idea of making $100 million on a story about this love affair between these two people... Yeah, love everyone in the movie, but that's suddenly a massive gamble in a way that it wasn't in the 1990s when they were making all those kind of movies - the kind of movies that I loved and the kind of movies that were my bread and butter.

I thought Behind the Candelabra was a direct to HBO release.

Edit: yes, it was direct to HBO. So maybe Damon was just using it as an example because he knew the production cost off the top of his head.

This would be congruent with Damon's retelling of how a studio exec walked him through how the math of a traditional theatrical release wouldn't work out for the movie.

I guess another way to interpret what he was trying to say could also be:

"the kind of movies that I loved and the kind of movies that were my bread and butter (are no longer affordable if I was to do a cinema release)"

So maybe Behind the Candelabra was direct to HBO precisely because of the economics he was pointing out?

But there must be residual revenue over time from the streaming services, I guess it's just a lot lower on average?

Same thing happened with music and CDs vs streaming

Why bands tour so much more now...only way to make $

It’s because nobody has made Steam for Movies. Let me have a movie collection that I can buy movies $1-$5 per movie and never lose it and I promise you I will buy a lot more movies. Just like people buy hundreds of steam games

The iTunes movie store launched 20 years ago. It’s far from perfect but it is essentially steam for movies. Sadly it’s been de-emphasised over time. But it is still there and was pretty good for a while.

The iTunes movie store is not friendly outside of the Apple ecosystem. Making the entire idea not really affordable since you need a expensive electronic device to utilize it sanely. Might as well find another way to get to it at that point.

MSRP of an Apple TV device is $129. The iPhone's market share in the U.S. is already over 60%. But neither matters because the Apple TV app is available on basically everything and can be used to buy movies.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/119890

But if you use the app you’re only streaming from Apple servers. That Apple server copy can be revoked at any time. And 60% is not 100%, my point stands you need an expensive device just to purchase and watch it. Probably multiple expensive devices if you want to actually watch it on your TV. When can I download my movie onto my Linux laptop and play it through an HDMI cable?

A "Steam for Movies" service (as expressed in an ancestor comment) is basically that, though. One doesn't own their Steam games.

But you can run Steam on Linux. You don't have to worry about whether they're going to discontinue the cheap Steam Box you were relying on. And they have built up credibility from decades of not pulling the rug, in a way that Apple hasn't and probably can't.

Apple has been running the iTunes Store without "pulling the rug" for about as many years as Steam has existed.

Hell, they ditched DRM on music in that time period too and will sell you lossless ALAC as well as MP4 audio. (They obviously weren't able to talk Hollywood into that.) Steam is DRM that ensures the capability to pull rugs.

> Apple has been running the iTunes Store without "pulling the rug" for about as many years as Steam has existed.

Maybe. It's not been a very prominent line of business for them, and even then I can recall a couple of significant dramas over that time - didn't they merge two different kinds of libraries and cause confusion? The unremovable U2 album is also a cause for concern, not because an extra album is bad but because it implies they see the contents of your library as up to them rather than you. Most of all, they went out of their way to break music being sold by Real for iPods, which hardly suggests a company committed to interoperability and open platforms.

> Hell, they ditched DRM on music in that time period too and will sell you lossless ALAC as well as MP4 audio. (They obviously weren't able to talk Hollywood into that.) Steam is DRM that ensures the capability to pull rugs.

Not "obvious" at all, and precisely the point at issue. I'm happy to buy music from Apple, but movies require another level of trust that they haven't reached yet. I will grudgingly, cautiously buy games from Steam when they're not available on itch/GoG, and maybe that's unfair, but Apple have never sent me the message that they want or care about me (a non-Apple hardware user) as a customer of their movies.

> The unremovable U2 album is also a cause for concern

Open the settings and uncheck "automatically download purchased music that isn't on the device".

Fixed.

> movies require another level of trust

When Apple paid the studios extra to alliw them to upgrade previously purchased 480p movies to HD, I'd say they earned it.

> But you can run Steam on Linux

And how many people run linux that this is even relevant?

> Despite astronomical price hike, the Steam Deck has sold out again in North America

> May 28, 2026

https://mastersingaming.com/2026/05/28/despite-astronomical-...

Not to mention reading this on Linux with Steam in the background.

The number of people doing it is irrelevant because the larger point was being able to download the movie on any platform. Steam on Linux is just a good example of supporting almost all platforms to distribute media.

You can download a copy of the installers and game files on steam. Steam allows you to install on any hard drive or device that runs Steam. Streaming apps download and store data in drm encrypted formats and by and large do not allow you to keep copies of that data for your own use.

You're moving goalposts and ignoring what I wrote. An Apple TV box is not expensive and you can use even cheaper streaming devices to buy and watch instead.

I buy/rent films on my phone, and play them through the Apple TV Roku app. (Roku sucks for its own reasons, but most TV platforms have Apple TV apps.)

No you’re ignoring the criteria for why someone would want Steam for Movies. It’s not for the pleasant thought that they can stream movies from Apple and download it when they want through specific hardware. People back up their games from Steam and actually do own a copy of the installer and game files. That is a huge difference.

The DRM in Steam is not one of ownership. It’s one of needing a Steam account to buy and access those installer and game files.

“You can just stream your movies from proprietary device through apple tv app” isnt Steam for Movies in the spirit of the idea. What you have described is no different than having a streaming only subscription where you dont own the files and can’t access a copy of it offline. However you are correct that if you don’t care then you probably never wanted to own a copy of the files in the first place.

That's not what your original message was about and please don't invent quotes that are not what I wrote or anything like what I wrote. You wrote:

> The iTunes movie store is not friendly outside of the Apple ecosystem. Making the entire idea not really affordable since you need a expensive electronic device to utilize it sanely. Might as well find another way to get to it at that point.

I pointed out that buying a movie from Apple does not require an expensive device and does not require buying any hardware from the Apple ecosystem.

You ignored the facts and kept going on about having to buy expensive Apple hardware, which it isn't and you don't.

You moved the goalposts by requiring not only that purchases not require hardware that's expensive or from Apple, you added that it must not be revocable or streamed and must work on Linux.

I am not advocating for the iTunes store or any other source for buying media, I lost interest in owning TV or movies long ago, I was just providing factual information about what doing so requires.

No I’m not arguing about the specifics of the Apple ecosystem, you are. And you’re still ignoring what a Steam for Movies would be. That’s the conversation, not “iTunes Movie store can stream movies”.

And I am providing factual information on what a Steam for movies is.

Also when I write things in “quotes”, does not mean someone is quoting you or inventing things you said. Quotes have many uses and contexts. Perhaps if you cannot stay on topic or focus on the criteria of what is being discussed and dont understand how quotes work, this forum is not for you.

Steam for Movies and how iTunes store does not fit that description is exactly what my original message was about. Please stop pretending otherwise.

> When can I download my movie onto my Linux laptop and play it through an HDMI cable?

Probably because the Linux market is too small to support an iTunes for Linux.

By my understanding, the Linux market prefers free, open source, community effort. So essentially the real question is: why aren't you making movies yourself and sharing them free with your Linux peers?

> So essentially the real question is: why aren't you making movies yourself and sharing them free with your Linux peers?

This is always the dumbest style of argument.

P1: Healthcare sucks!

P2: Oh yeah? Why aren't you a doctor?

Be serious. It's perfectly fine to criticize things and the answer is extremely rarely change your life and become a domain expert in something else to meet some kind of "oh yeah, be the solution" nonsense by somebody that often themselves refuses to get off the couch for anything meaningful.

And yet, Steam is on Linux.

If the Linux market is large enough for steam to support it, then it should be big enough for a movie store to support.

Valve made the Linux market work by bloody persistence, because Gabe Newell saw the Microsoft Store as a threat to turn Windows into a walled garden (which would have hurt Steam a lot). It's not the Linux user base as such which attracted Valve.

But it's really beside the point, since supporting games on an OS is a hell of a lot harder than supporting video. You're right that movie stores have no excuse - except the control argument, working the other way than it did for Valve.

I actually have made movies and they are all available to download online for free. Not the gotcha you think. And also totally unrelated to the idea of Steam for Movies.

Steam games with DRM can be revoked as well.

We've also seen Apple upgrade 480p movies purchased in the past to HD which is an improvement compared to buying physical media.

It’s not even friendly inside the Apple ecosystem.

You can buy at several places that interop with each other—iTunes and Amazon are the two biggest. They don’t have literally every movie, but they have most that most people want to watch. https://moviesanywhere.com/participants

Cost ranges from $5-30. Fewer dirt cheap sales than Steam, but the standard price point at launch is lower, in exchange.

(Having to explain “buying movies” makes me feel old!)

Unlike with steam, things can appear disappear from your iTunes library if you move countries. At least music can.

Same issue with movies, true.

As someone already mentioned. Steam for movies already exists (iTunes, also Amazon’s offering). The problem seems to be that hardly anyone wants to actually own a movie anymore. There are places where the ownership model seems to still be thriving (books), but for video and audio, ownership (vs. streaming or renting) is largely dead.

No, streaming services like iTunes and Amazon are absolutely not "Steam for movies". Those services take active steps to restrict access to my purchased content.

I can't watch my Amazon purchases in HD because I run Linux. I get downgraded garbage 480p instead.

I can't watch any of this while on an airplane because I'm not allowed to download it.

And I don't own any Apple hardware so iTunes is a bit of a nonstarter.

In contrast, Steam lets me play offline and bends over backwards to get games to run (e.g. Proton and many other compatibility tools). And my Steam Deck doesn't earn me any extra special privileges over anything else.

People are saying that you can buy movies online, but I think they're missing the key point of putting lots of movies on massive discounts and promoting the movies that are currently discounted. Like sure you can buy basically any movie on Amazon or Apple's store or wherever, but I know that wherever I go, it's going to cost $4 to rent a movie, except every once in a while when it's on sale and I get it for $3, and buying it is going to be some higher amount that is almost certainly not worth it. When steam has sales, I might browse and buy quite a few games that I'm not gonna play right away. Or I buy things in bundles because it just seems like such a good deal. If movies were usually $10 to buy, but the Amazon store had a very visible section of movies that were $5 or less, but for a limited time, I'd be way more likely to buy multiple movies that I'm not intending to watch right now.

Games industry has an oversupply problem that is the root cause of flash sales. I thought about mentioning that in my answer.

I just opened the Apple TV app on my phone and "$4.99 Essential Movies" is listed prominently just under the top charts and new releases. I'm not trying to be rude, but this whole thread has people just speculating on stuff with limited self-awareness. The reason you aren't building a big film library is probably because you aren't that passionate about films, it isn't because no one is providing you a list of cheap movies. It's all there already, you just had to open the app.

You might be right. I think the other thing is that there are a ton of free things for me to watch on various streaming platforms.

>I think the other thing is that there are a ton of free things for me to watch on various streaming platforms.

Yes, I think it's just people today have more options for entertainment. There are lots of people in this thread trying to rationalize their declining interest in movies as the failing of someone else with "there's no Steam for movies", "they don't make good original movies anymore", or "they don't hire talented people anymore" but that stuff is all happening and has been for a while. People just found other stuff to do with their time so they aren't seeking movies out as much anymore, but it's all out there if you put in a little effort to find it.

Steam had John Wick on it at one point

That description befits GOG a lot more than Steam. You can absolutely lose you Steam games, both practically and legally. Practically because of DRM, and legally because you only recieve a non-transferable, revocable license.

The problem for Hollywood is it's art, and when you create an assembly line that produces safe art, it's not going to be very good. The calculus is changing because so many of those "safe" films have been bombing recently.

AAA video game makers are having the same problem.

> Matt Damon talked about this somewhere. The risk aversion stems from the move away from DVD sales.

DVDs and even video tape are relatively recent.

Hollywood was a lot less risk averse before DVDs and video tape. Heck, Hollywood was less risk averse before TV became mainstream.

When Hollywood didnt have to compete so much for spectacle with television and could afford to have a cheaper B movie on every roll as a value add.

There was a lot more competition in the industry back then, before decades of consolidation. And less entertainment options competing for customers' attention.

>DVDs and even video tape are relatively recent.

Yeah and it was a different business model before then with a lot more people going to theatres

I think this explanation is incomplete. There were still plenty of mid-size movies after the DVD era that still had profitable theatrical releases. The prototypical example to me is Baby Driver.

Pre-Covid there was simply not enough major weekends to release a big movie. They end up competing with each other.

Sure, Baby Driver made $300m on a $40m budget. But for pure profit maximization you are better off making a billion dollars on a $500m budget.

But if you make 10 $40m movies and 2 of them make $300m you've spent less for more revenue and a lot more profit, and that's assuming the other 8 make exactly $0

But again, there are a limited number of money-making weekends in a year, and you're competing with other movies those weekends.

If you have only 4-5 good chances to make money in a year, you're going to maximize revenue over profitability.

>Sure, Baby Driver made $300m on a $40m budget. But for pure profit maximization you are better off making a billion dollars on a $500m budget.

Lol no you're not. $1B off a 500M production budget would be a disaster bordering on a flop. You've not taking marketing into account. You've not taking having to split earnings with theaters into account. Baby Driver is the more desired outcome 10/10.

The calculus has changed because people don't give a flying fuck about celebrities on golden thrones these days, especially since your average YouTuber is more popular. The cost of celebrities in movie spins is fucking massive.

Hollywood has also completely failed to cultivate a new generation of celebrities. God, we had a few years of nothing but Pedro Pascal to the point we have memes inside memes.

And the cost of production has gone way down, you don't need a specialized studio to put in CGI these days when some guys Blender can do better.

So Hollywood is busy being in a downward spiral eating itself while so much room has opened for "indie" to eat their lunch and dinner.

I would like to know what the difference between DVD sales and 'rent whatever you want' from Prime is. That seems even more profitable.

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