Jerry Seinfeld Says Movie Business Is Over, Studios Don’t Know It

Jerry Seinfeld, who is making his directorial debut with the Netflix movie “Unfrosted,” said in a new interview that studio executives “don’t have any idea that the movie business is over.”

As he told GQ in an interview out Monday, after years on TV, “[Making a movie] was totally new to me. I thought I had done some cool stuff, but it was nothing like the way these people work. They’re so dead serious! They don’t have any idea that the movie business is over. They have no idea.”

When asked what replaced movies, the comedian replied, “Depression? Malaise? I would say confusion. Disorientation replaced the movie business. Everyone I know in show business, every day, is going, ‘What’s going on? How do you do this? What are we supposed to do now?’”

Seinfeld noted that he did not share this insight with the execs at Netflix: “I did not tell them that. But film doesn’t occupy the pinnacle in the social, cultural hierarchy that it did for most of our lives. When a movie came out, if it was good, we all went to see it. We all discussed it. We quoted lines and scenes we liked. Now we’re walking through a fire hose of water, just trying to see.”

So why did he ultimately decide to make a movie about the origin of the Pop-Tart? “Because they wouldn’t put me in ‘Mad Men,’” Seinfeld said of the prestige period series.

“I love office comedies. I love stupid people in suits. And it was COVID. I had nothing to do. So I got talked into it. It wasn’t my idea,” he admitted (The story comes from “Seinfeld” writer Spike Feresten).

Meanwhile, Seinfeld said that though movies may be over, stand-up is still as solid and dependable as ever. “Stand-up is like you’re a cabinetmaker, and everybody needs a guy who’s good with wood,” he said.

The actor elaborated, “The metaphor is that if you have good craft and craftsmanship, you’re kind of impervious to the whims of the industry. Audiences are now flocking to stand-up because it’s something you can’t fake … That’s what people like about stand-up. They can trust it. Everything else is fake.”

“Unfrosted” premieres May 3 on Netflix.