Now back on TV after nearly 40 years, Kurt Russell feels that a streaming show is a bigger risk than a movie because “there are a lot of eyeballs on it” and “when you do a streamer that’s no good it’s gonna be there for as long as you want it to be there.”
Honored at this year’s Monte-Carlo Television Festival with a lifetime achievement Crystal Nymph Award, Russell admits that with TV in general and streaming platforms in particular the stakes are much higher than they were 30-plus decades ago.
Russell is currently headlining two TV shows, namely “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” on Apple TV and “The Madison” on Paramount+ – prior to which his last leading role on television was in “Elvis” back in 1979.
The latter was directed by John Carpenter, with whom the actor also collaborated on “Escape From New York,” “The Thing” and “Big Trouble in Little China” – all of which underperformed on release but are now considered cult classics.
Meeting journalists in Monte-Carlo at a standing-room-only press conference, he says: “With movies back then it was like ‘If you fail at it, so what? Nobody’s gonna probably see it.’ There’s a sense in Hollywood now that doing streamers might be a little less than movies in terms of risk. Not true.”
