How WarnerMedia just killed the Hollywood way of doing business
“It’s holy shit time.” So proclaimed one Hollywood manager just minutes after WarnerMedia announced on December 3 that it will be releasing its entire 2021 slate of movies on HBO Max, the company’s fledgling streaming platform. The lineup of films, which includes major tentpole releases such as Suicide Squad 2 , Godzilla vs. Kong , Dune, and The Matrix 4 , will simultaneously be released in theaters. The move marks the most significant milestone yet in the streaming-versus-theatrical debate that has been roiling for years now, growing more agitated and desperate in recent months due to COVID-19, which has all but decimated the theatrical moviegoing business. Yet even as COVID-19 has shuttered movie theaters around the world and caused movie studios to make historically unheard-of decisions—for instance, moving would-be theatrical films such as Hamilton and Mulan over to their streaming services (both of those were released on Disney Plus) or selling off otherwise worthy films to Netflix or another tech giant (such as Enola Holmes and Greyhound, which bowed on Netflix and Apple TV Plus respectively)—studios have nonetheless clung mightily to the belief that when it comes to big-budget films, there is simply no upside in releasing them on streaming. The reason? The box-office revenue for those films is simply too vast to justify a streaming release. This explains why, up until now, studios have been feverishly punting their most valuable gems into 2021 and beyond, praying that by the time their movies are set to debut in theaters, we’ll all be vaccinated and chomping on popcorn in close proximity to other humans again. (With Mulan , which cost a reported $200 million to make, Disney tried to insulate itself by charging subscribers $30 to see the movie during its first month in release.) But WarnerMedia’s move throws down the gauntlet on what has largely been an almost academic debate. One year from now, there will be actual data showing just how much money the company made or lost on its audacious bet. It won’t be a matter of hypotheticals; there will be actual numbers showing how movies like The Matrix 4 fared on streaming, at least in terms of how many new subscribers it attracted to HBO Max in the quarter it was released, if not actual viewing metrics. Nor is this a toe-dipping experiment, as the company has teed up for this Christmas with Wonder Woman 1984 , the first tentpole to be sacrificed to a combined HBO Max and theatrical release, a move prompted by the most recent surge in COVID-19 cases. This is a company going all in. Granted, WarnerMedia is being very clear that this is a one-year thing, driven wholly by the pandemic and (not that its executives are saying this) what was learned from the disastrous rollout of Tenet in theaters back on Labor Day weekend. But putting all of its planned 2021 movies on HBO Max at the same time as debuting them theatrically remains the biggest, most declarative statement yet in terms of the future of streaming. As for the logistics of how this will work, the movies that WarnerMedia is releasing on HBO Max will be made available to subscribers for 31 days Read More …