Kurt Russell has a clear-eyed view of the streaming landscape after returning to television for the first time in nearly 40 years, and his verdict might surprise those who assume movies carry more risk than TV.
Speaking at the Monte-Carlo Television Festival, where he received a lifetime achievement Crystal Nymph Award, the 75-year-old actor argued that streaming shows are actually a bigger gamble than films.
“With movies back then it was like ‘If you fail at it, so what? Nobody’s gonna probably see it,'” he told journalists at a standing-room-only press conference.
“There’s a sense in Hollywood now that doing streamers might be a little less than movies in terms of risk. Not true.”
The reasoning is simple: “There are a lot of eyeballs on it, and when you do a streamer that’s no good it’s gonna be there for as long as you want it to be there.”
Russell is currently headlining two shows simultaneously, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters on Apple TV and The Madison on Paramount+, his first leading television roles since playing Elvis in the 1979 John Carpenter film of the same name.
The contrast between the two shows’ audiences has caught his attention.
“With the Monarch show it is really dominated by audiences of like 40 and under and Madison is dominated by like 30 and up,” he observed.
The Madison, created by Taylor Sheridan, has been a particularly enjoyable experience.
“It’s really fun to do and Michelle is incredible,” he said of co-star Michelle Pfeiffer, adding that working with Matthew Fox, with whom he previously made Bone Tomahawk, has been equally rewarding.
“It is just a dream experience. It’s just great from top to bottom, which is very rare.”
