What's up with all of the 21:9 ratio "cinemascope" TV shows lately?

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EvaUnit02
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What's up with all of the 21:9 ratio "cinemascope" TV shows lately?

Post by EvaUnit02 »

What's up with all of the 21:9 ratio "cinemascope" TV shows lately? I watched The Boys recently and that was in an ultra-wide aspect ratio, now I'm watching Wandavision and it's the same story there. Are they trying to make their TV shows look more "cinematic"? Are they trying sell people on buying 21:9 displays like recent flagship smartphones?

I found a few blogs discussing the trend.
https://archive.vn/Y5TK9
https://archive.vn/WHQFp
https://archive.vn/uwdTA
At least from the TV production angle, it seems likely that they want to make shows seem "more cinematic".
Discovery Executive Producer Alex Kurtzman, who worked with J.J. Abrams on the recent rebooted Star Trek movies, has said that he specifically pushed for that aspect ratio because he’s in love with the anamorphic frame, and because he wanted to give people who were paying a premium rate for the show more of their money’s worth.
It somehow does two things: it broadens the scale, making everything bigger, but it also somehow increases the intimacy. I don’t know why, it’s just the magic quality of anamorphic filming. But it has allowed us to shoot, essentially, a film now, and to eliminate the line between television and movies.
That’s really fun for us, so you’ll see it feel a lot more like a movie this season.
One likely side effect if ultra-wide TV shows do become the norm is that ultra-wide monitors will probably become more mainstream, so you'll likely see more PC games natively supporting ultra-wide. (At least from Western developers. Expect to still have to have hack ultra-wide support into half-arsed PC ports of Japanese games for many years to come.) Also there'll probably be more budget friendly ultra-wide monitors available.
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Shingster
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Re: What's up with all of the 21:9 ratio "cinemascope" TV shows lately?

Post by Shingster »

It's just a decision to make shows look more cinematic, don't think there's any more thinking behind it than that, although there have been some uses of 2.35:1 that are just completely baffling, like certain documentaries in that ratio (I'm struggling to recall which ones because I watch a damn lot, but I've seen them!).

Personally I think the proliferation of the "Univisium" 2:1 aspect ratio on Netflix to be more overt and baffling. Something like Stranger Things for instance tapping into 80s nostalgia really should be shown in 2.35:1 because that's what most of the 80s films it's inspired by were shot. 2:1 just screams contamporary filming to me.
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