Leonardo DiCaprio has expressed concern for the state of cinema, asking if fans still want to go to theatres amid a series of “lightning speed” changes to the film industry.

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In a recent interview with The Sunday Times, the One Battle After Another star questioned if “people still have the appetite” for movie theatres, and wondered if cinemas might “become silos – like jazz bars?”

“It’s changing at a lightning speed,” DiCaprio said of the industry. “We’re looking at a huge transition. First, documentaries disappeared from cinemas. Now, dramas only get finite time and people wait to see it on streamers. I don’t know.”

“I just hope enough people who are real visionaries get opportunities to do unique things in the future that are seen in the cinema,” he added. “But that remains to be seen.”

Encouragingly, recent reports have indicated that Gen Z are going to the cinema more than ever, but physically getting fans into the cinema has long been a struggle for film financiers, now more than ever, given the fast-paced technological advancement seen in recent years.

The Oscar winner has long been vocal about the importance of maintaining artistry and integrity in filmmaking, and, during a recent interview with Time, DiCaprio slammed the use AI in film, saying the technology is incapable of humanity and thus can’t be “authentically” considered art.

“It could be an enhancement tool for a young filmmaker to do something we’ve never seen before,” he considered. “I think anything that is going to be authentically thought of as art has to come from the human being.”

He used AI-generated music as an example of bad implementation. “Otherwise – haven’t you heard these songs that are mashups that are just absolutely brilliant and you go, ‘Oh my God, this is Michael Jackson doing the Weeknd,’ or ‘This is funk from the A Tribe Called Quest song ‘Bonita Applebum,’ done in, you know, a sort of Al Green soul-song voice, and it’s brilliant. And you go, ‘Cool.’

“But then it gets its 15 minutes of fame and it just dissipates into the ether of other internet junk. There’s no anchoring to it. There’s no humanity to it, as brilliant as it is.”

Elsewhere on the music front, DiCaprio spoke to NME about his “incredible” experience after seeing Oasis live last year, alongside his love for Radiohead.