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was not one of the big studios, but the streaming service Amazon.

But blockbusters have a design flaw: their marketing costs are enormous — opening a movie typically costs anywhere from $20m — and they spend less and less time in cinemas. To take a recent example, ticket sales for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice dropped by an astonishing 68.4 per cent on its second weekend

“What you’re going to end up with is fewer theatres,” George Lucas said during a panel at the University of Southern California in 2013. “Bigger theatres, with a lot of nice things. Going to the movies is going to cost you 50 bucks, maybe 100.”

He argued that a film will come out in cinemas for 17 days — three weekends — which is where 98 per cent of films make 95 per cent of their revenues anyway. On the 18th day, the film will be available everywhere and you will pay for the size: a movie screen will be $15, a 75-inch TV will be $4, a smartphone will be $1.99.

“Fifty per cent of Americans did not step into a movie theatre last year, and of the 50 per cent that did go into a theatre, 95 per cent of them went to one or two films,”

Arguably, it’s more visual than television. It has our full attention: each frame must pull its weight in terms of narrative and spectacle. That is why it is a director’s medium: it envelops us. TV comes to us, into our homes, casual, familiar, favouring habit-forming episodic narratives. That is why it is a writer’s medium. The big screen glamorises — its stars are the stuff of myth; the small screen is more like a member of the family

And something like The Avengers, it’s too much fun laughing with the audience. These things are communal experiences.

But then many film-makers would argue that movies should be consumed differently from music: a song is a song wherever you play it, whereas films were built for the big screen.

“I don’t think that experience is going to die,” says Obst, “although I do worry that eventually we will all be inside on our huge computer screens, watching all of the different types of entertainment together

Nothing breaks the spell of the movie more instantly than the pause button.

"Given that so many of today's moviegoers are passionate about preserving the purity of watching movies undisturbed in our theatres, there is no specific timeframe as to when we might introduce such a test, if ever,"