Current Events > Are there any films that have already been seen for the last time?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Two caveats:

1) Obviously not counting lost films, and

2) Only talking about mainstream commercial releases, not tiny indies, arthouse projects, or student films that only had a print or two made or from the start had an audience topped out in the dozens.

We're talking mainstream Hollywood productions, or the equivalent internationally.

My oldest daughter recently became obsessed with the idea of lost films, and by correlation discarded and forgotten films. She told me this morning that she wants to watch a movie and be the last person to watch it, not by any other print being destroyed or the like, but from her being the last person with an inclination to ever see it again.

And that left me thinking.... have there been movies that have honestly been dropped to the footnotes of history, never to be seen again by any other human despite theoretically being available for public consumption?

An interesting thought, as I have no idea. I'd be inclined to say that there have to be existing movies already that nobody else would ever watch, but that's a pretty definitive and massive bar to take.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zyzzyx_Road
Six people paid to see it. Two of those people got refunds.

That seems too notable of a failure though, so I'd imagine that a small number of people still watch it every given year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fantastic_Four_(unreleased_film%29
It's readily available online, but it's a film you only watch once, to shitpost about it on the internet.

Interesting but impossible question.

If it is known at all, it's bound to be watched, at the very least by a YouTuber trying to make a vid of it. Probably have to go back decades to maybe find one.

PiOverlord posted...

Interesting but impossible question.

If it is known at all, it's bound to be watched, at the very least by a YouTuber trying to make a vid of it. Probably have to go back decades to maybe find one.

Even then, if you happen to stumble upon a movie that hasn't been watched by anyone in decades, the mere mention of it will cause some people to go and watch it.
So yeah, impossible question, especially if you don't count lost films.

Probably, but how would you possibly verify that?

Tagging this since I'm intrigued

Yeah, that's the thing.... it'd be impossible to know. Even if you're the first person to watch a movie in decades, there might be someone else that watches decades more in the future, or you watching it starts a conversation that leads to someone else watching.

And I fully wasn't expecting a movie to be listed as a definitive answer. It's inherently a thought experiment more than anything else.

There will always exist some kind of interest for all kind of movies, which makes it impossible to achieve.
And if she ever mentions it, it will spark an interest in seeing it.

It wouldn't be some recognized flop. Almost every bad movie has some kind of legacy that guarantees someone will watch it at some point. It would be some mediocre and forgotten about movie that is caught up in some kind of distribution rights red tape that keeps it from being streamed anywhere, preventing most people from even stumbling onto it.

"Mainstream Hollywood" would kind of disqualify most movies you're searching for.

There's literally tens of thousands of movies that a vast majority of people have never heard of, but I can't imagine any of them have gotten to the point where NO ONE at least has a copy of it in their video archive.

I had a stroke reading topic.

Every film has been seen for the last time, until the next time.

LordMarshal posted...

I had a stroke reading topic.

You're welcome.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Every film has been seen for the last time, until the next time.

2deep4me