Jerry Seinfeld Jokes That Movies Are Over, Talks Directorial Debut

Jerry Seinfeld quipped this week that “the movie business is over” because of a sense of confusion among show business workers.

“Disorientation replaced the movie business,” Seinfeld told GQ. “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 was speaking to the outlet in connection with his film Unfrosted, which releases on Netflix next month. The project marks Seinfeld’s directorial film debut.

“It was totally new to me,” he said of the experience. “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.”

Elaborating on his point, the comedian added he “did not” tell his coworkers that film is over. “But film doesn’t occupy the pinnacle in the social, cultural hierarchy that it did for most of our lives,” he said. “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.”

Unfrosted tells the 1963 story of rivals Kellogg’s and Post — “sworn cereal rivals” — in their “race to create a pastry that will change the face of breakfast forever,” the logline reads. “A wildly imaginative tale of ambition, betrayal, and menacing milkmen — sweetened with artificial ingredients.”

In addition to Seinfeld, the movie also features Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, Hugh Grant, Amy Schumer, Max Greenfield, Christian Slater, Sarah Cooper and Bill Burr.

Unfrosted hits Netflix May 3.