In 2001, Jean-Claude Van Damme predicted the era of streaming… and he was right! A look back at his surprising vision of the cinema of tomorrow, which has since become that of today.
More than two decades ago, Jean-Claude Van Damme made a surprisingly prescient prediction about the future of cinema and how we consume it today. In 2001, during his appearance on the show Everyone is talking about itthe Belgian actor mentioned a concept that seemed far-fetched at the time: streaming films directly via the telephone.
Faced with Thierry Ardisson and Laurent Baffie, the actor declared: “We are going to distribute the films with the telephone, this will be the first time we have done it.“At the time, the public laughed at this idea, considering it improbable, but Van Damme was far from improvising. He explained that he wanted to explore the possibilities offered by the Internet to promote and distribute films: “I’m going to try to get into the media world online. We’re going to announce a film online, from each country, then we’ll go to the web, and then we’ll do it with the antennas”, he assured, convinced of the digital future, in front of an audience not taking him seriously, as you can see in the video below.
A clear vision of the future
The actor did not just predict the emergence of streaming: he even detailed his model. According to him, this method would make it possible to reach hundreds of millions of spectators, all over the world, for a low price.
“We will be able to reach 250 million viewers. That’s something good for a quality film at $1.99. That way, all the people around the world, people who don’t have money, they press a button, they don’t have to wait 40 hours to download it… […] I can’t wait for satellite, it’s spending too much money, it costs millions of dollars. So we found a system, thanks to the internet”, he explained with confidence.
And Jean-Claude Van Damme didn’t become a billionaire thanks to streaming, he was indeed right. Today, we find him on platforms like Netflix with The Last Mercenary, on Prime Video in the comedy series Jean-Claude Van Johnson as well as in the action film with Michaël Yoon, The Gardener, or even on VOD in another action film, Kill ‘Em All 2, sequel to Kill ‘Em All, all confirming that his vision of the future of cinema was not so far-fetched.
