Steven Spielberg and George Lucas boldly predict the present of entertainment, then throw in one freaky thing from the future
During a recent talk at USC Film School, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg spoke about the imminent "implosion" of the movie industry, heralded by the difficulty even big-name directors such as themselves have getting movies onto the big screen these days. (For instance, Lincoln nearly ended up as a made-for-TV movie on HBO, while Red Tails was self-financed and had trouble finding a distributor). The directors then spelled out the direction they believe Hollywood is headed in, mostly by predicting things that have already happened.
Such post-dictions include: movie theaters that offer lots of perks and charge a lot of money for tickets; audiences abandoning movie theaters in favor of streaming content on what Lucas calls "Internet television," and the rest of us call "television"; and games you control with your mind—something that not only already exists, it was created with Lucas' involvement. Spielberg also post-dicted an immersive experience for computer games, which were called "virtual reality goggles" back in the ’90s, failed horribly, and have already attempted a comeback.
Still, these post-dictions just serve to confirm that, even at the highest levels of commercial filmmaking, the Hollywood model is breaking down, and filmmakers of all stripes will have to start looking for new ways to get their stories told. The one genuine look forward came from Lucas, who envisioned a dystopian future in which your dreams are controlled by George Lucas. "The next step is to be able to control your dreams," warned the Phantom Menace director." You'll just tap into a different part of your brain… We'll be able to do the dream thing 10, 15 years from now." Lucas intends to use your dreams as a platform for entertainment, but we know it's only a matter of time before he's able to go back and "correct" your dreams, so that the monsters chasing you will be carrying CGI walkie-talkies, and when you realize you've gone to school naked, you'll have this reaction.