Martin Scorsese Teams With TV Makers to Upgrade Movies at Home

(Bloomberg) -- Hollywood’s biggest filmmakers have struck a deal to make watching movies at home more like they intended -- even as they fight to keep the cinemas relevant.

Directors including Martin Scorsese, Patty Jenkins and Ryan Coogler on Tuesday revealed a new Filmmaker Mode for upcoming TVs from LG Electronics Inc., Panasonic Corp. and Vizio Inc. that eliminates technical features that have frustrated the industry.

The new mode gets rid of features like motion smoothing that are added to movies when they’re adapted to smaller screens. The features make a movie look different than it does in theaters, especially on today’s larger TVs, and that has been a source of frustration for directors and others.

While some of the changes may only matter to cinephiles, the initiative highlights the growing importance of home viewing, especially as giants like Apple Inc. and Walt Disney Co. focus more on video streaming.

“There is this recognition that the home-viewing experience is increasingly important,” said Michael Zink, a Warner Bros. executive and chairman of the UHD Alliance, which led the initiative. Scorsese said in a statement that classic movies are more often seen in homes than theaters.

Today’s televisions have settings that automatically raise the brightness of the screen and speed up frame rates to better render sports or gaming. But those changes alter what filmmakers want viewers to see in their movies.

The Filmmaker Mode can be accessed via a remote or automatically activated by the television based on embedded data. Coogler, the director of “Black Panther” and “Creed,” said it’s important to improve home viewing because “that’s where cinema is watched and rewatched and experienced by families.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Anousha Sakoui in los angeles at asakoui@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net, Rob Golum

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