Leonardo DiCaprio Wonders: Are Movie Theaters Turning Into Jazz-Bar Silos?

Leonardo DiCaprio is looking at movie theaters the way a lot of filmmakers and film fans are: a little worried, a little wistful, and still hoping the lights don’t go out. In a new interview, he laid out where he thinks the theatrical experience is heading, and it’s not exactly rosy.

The theater-vs-streaming tug-of-war

Talking to The Times, DiCaprio — who recently starred in Paul Thomas Anderson’s film One Battle After Another — said the business is shifting at breakneck speed thanks to streaming and new viewing habits. That’s not news to anyone paying attention, but hearing it from one of the biggest movie stars on the planet lands differently.

• He points out that documentaries have mostly vanished from multiplexes.
• Adult dramas now get tiny theatrical windows before everyone waits to catch them on streaming.
• He’s genuinely unsure whether audiences still have the appetite for those mid-budget, non-franchise films in theaters.

"Will cinemas become silos, like jazz bars?"

That line is doing a lot of heavy lifting — it’s pointed, a little sad, and honestly, not far off from how some weeknight screenings feel these days.

Not all doom: he’s still hopeful (with a side of realism)

DiCaprio isn’t writing theaters off. He says he wants to see true visionaries get the chance to make distinctive work that actually plays on the big screen — he’s just not sure whether the system will give them that oxygen going forward.

Where he lands on AI in filmmaking

He’s also raised flags about AI. As he told THR, he sees it as a tool that can help young filmmakers do something we haven’t seen before, but he doesn’t think it can replace the human spark. In his view, if it’s going to be considered real art, it has to start with a person, not a prompt.

And because the present is nothing if not ironic: One Battle After Another is already streaming on Max.