Where this was said
Streaming vs. Theatrical: The Audience Never Cared
At 52:33 · chapter starts 52:00
Jason opens the streaming conversation by asking whether Tom finds the lack of opening-weekend pressure liberating. Tom's answer cuts through the industry noise: movies are binary — zero or one, they work or they don't — and no amount of streaming distribution or marketing changes that fundamental truth. The audience doesn't care where they see it. Only the business cares. He then draws a historical parallel: in 1980, when Bosom Buddies was filming, a VHS player cost $4,000. The neighborhood video shoppe was just emerging, with VHS on one wall and Betamax on the other. Kids started waking up on Saturday mornings and putting in Dumbo without waking their parents. This was the first streaming revolution, just slower. Sean reveals Tom told him years ago that the business is always changing and fighting it is pointless. Gary Goetzman's line: sitting at home watching something on your TV 'is not that bad.'
Hanks dismisses the idea that streaming removes pressure from filmmakers. Movies are binary — zero or one, they work or they don't — and no marketing, interview, or distribution strategy changes that fundamental truth. The audience doesn't care where they see it; the business does.
That Thing You Do, set in 1964, was Tom Hanks's first feature film as director and also marked the beginning of his production company Playtone.
In 1980, a VHS player cost $4,000 and only the very wealthy had one. Within two years, the price dropped enough to trigger mass adoption. Hanks argues the current streaming transition is no different — the audience never cared where they watched; only the industry did.
When Tom Hanks was filming Bosom Buddies around 1980, a VHS player cost approximately $4,000, making home video an extreme luxury.
