Richard Linklater Speaks on the Current State of Filmmaking: ‘Gone With the Algorithm’

School of Rock and Boyhood director Richard Linklater feels the current state of American filmmaking is “gone with the algorithm.”

In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Linklater was asked about the current state of indie filmmaking and where American cinema is headed following the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It feels like it’s gone with the wind — or gone with the algorithm,” Linklater answered. “Sometimes I’ll talk to some of my contemporaries who I came up with during the 1990s, and we’ll go, ‘Oh my God, we could never get that done today.’ So, on the one hand, selfishly, you think, ‘I guess I was born at the right time. I was able to participate in what always feels like the last good era for filmmaking.’ And then you hope for a better day. But, man, the way distribution has fallen off. Sadly, it’s mostly just the audience. Is there a new generation that really values cinema anymore? That’s the dark thought.”

He continued, “With a changing culture and changing technology, it’s hard to see cinema slipping back into the prominence it once held. I think we could feel it coming on when they started calling films “content” — but that’s what happens when you let tech people take over your industry. It’s hard to imagine indie cinema in particular having the cultural relevance that it did. It’s hard to imagine the whole culture is going to be on the same page about anything, much less filmmaking. We can be self-absorbed and say it’s just about cinema, but it’s really all of our modern cultural life.”

Richard Linklater’s latest is co-written by Glen Powell

The Linklater-directed Hit Man, which does not yet have an official wide release date but premiered at the 80th Venice Film Festival, is co-written and stars Top Gun: Maverick’s Glen Powell. Based on a Texas Monthly article by Skip Hollandsworth, the film follows an undercover cop posing as a hitman who gets caught up in a plot involving a woman in need.

Linklater, meanwhile, is also working on Merrily We Roll Along, a musical based on the 1981 play by Stephen Sondheim (which was based on a 1934 play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart) being filmed over the course of 20 years. It’s currently expected to be released around 2039.