What Brad Bird Learned From Steve Jobs on Improving the Moviegoing Experience

TheGrill 2020: ”The Incredibles“ director joined ”Training Day“ filmmaker Antoine Fuqua for a discussion on the future of the big screen

While writer-director Brad Bird was working on “The Incredibles” at Pixar, he spent a lot of time with studio co-founder Steve Jobs, and he believes some of the things he learned from the late Apple mogul are lessons that movie theater owners should take to heart with moviegoing in crisis.

“We were talking about merchandising and he said, ‘Fewer things, better things,’ and he was dead on,” Bird said Tuesday during a panel on the future of theatrical movies at TheWrap’s virtual edition of TheGrill. “The studios’ focus has always been about the number of screens and not the quality of screens. On opening day, it’s possible to see a $300 million movie on the terrible, Coke-stained five-foot screen with 10 seats, and you should not be able to see a big movie on its opening in those kinds of conditions.”

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Jeremy Fuster

Box Office Reporter • jeremy.fuster@thewrap.com • Twitter: @jeremyfuster