As media analyst Rich Greenfield told The Hollywood Reporter, the current experiments will generate valuable data for the studios: “Let’s say thought Trolls would be a $600 million film. This will almost certainly speed up industry-wide innovation that allows larger audiences to have access to feature films. When the story is finally written about the effects of coronavirus on Hollywood, one of its biggest impacts may be that it allowed for the experimentation of VOD distribution for tentpole titles.
These releases break the traditional 90-day theatrical window that precedes home entertainment launches, and theaters have no leverage to prevent these early releases since it was the theaters themselves who were forced to shut down during the pandemic. Disney has delayed all of its major upcoming releases, and Sony Pictures chairman Tom Rothman said that their studio is “firmly committed to theatrical exhibition and we support windowing.”īut that hasn’t stopped either of those companies from immediately making available on pay-per-view their films that were already in theatrical release at the time of the shutdown, such as Disney-Pixar’s Onward and Sony’s Bloodshot. That’s because any crack in the dam, like Universal’s Trolls release, threatens to upend the outdated theatrical business model, which is based on the principle of creating artificial scarcity for consumers.įor the most part, the studios are playing nice because the economics of online distribution for Hollywood titles are still unproven, and at this time, almost certainly not as lucrative as the current theatrical-first approach. Theater owners are fighting tooth-and-nail to convince Hollywood studios to delay releasing their films until theaters re-open rather than make them available earlier on a pay-per-view basis. There’s different ways to interpret Fithian’s denunciation of Universal, and from where I’m sitting, it sounds more like desperation than anger. And every other studio has demonstrated true partnership and belief in the theatrical model during this time of crisis for all Americans, and indeed all movie-goers around the world. And Universal told no exhibitor about their plans on Trolls until approximately 20 minutes before their announcement.
Only Universal on Trolls undermined the theatrical model. And every one of those studios called their exhibition partners and talked through their plans for delayed release before they announced them. Ith the exception of Universal, every studio has gone overboard to reassure exhibitors that the theatrical model works for them, and that they look forward to releasing their movies theatrically once the virus is done.
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