Studios will continue to stream movies in 2021

In Hollywood these days, the only certainty is that nothing is certain.

Already, the coronavirus pandemic has been responsible for some shocking developments in the film world: “Tenet” keeps its release date, “Wonder Woman 1984” debuts on HBO Max and “Mulan” avoids US theaters for Disney Plus , to name a few.

As the New Year approaches, one thing is clear: don’t expect the uproar to end in 2020.

Release date delays, or the prospect of sending studio movies to streaming services, may seem obvious or expected at this point in the pandemic. Yet mainstream Hollywood actors are still struggling to navigate a new landscape of film distribution, the contours of which are traced, smeared and redrawn on the fly.

While most of the big movies have transferred in the summer of 2021 or beyond, there are still some high profile movies on deck for the first few months of the New Year. But industry experts admit it’s unrealistic to assume that the coronavirus crisis will improve significantly by January, even with promising potential vaccines having concluded clinical trials. California set to receive new stay-at-home orders as COVID-19 cases hit record high in state, and other parts of the country could follow suit if the situation worsens during the holidays.

This means people aren’t coming back to the movies anytime soon. As a result, leaders have the unenviable job of making massive decisions, most of which are rooted in finances, which can have lingering reverberations. The way each studio adapts remains unique to each company, but everything points to a future with unpredictable movements looming. In recent weeks, studio heads across Hollywood have been forced to take another look at drafts or near-finished versions of upcoming releases through a singular new lens: Does that justify a traditional theatrical release?

To answer this question, we must first ask ourselves what constitutes a traditional theatrical release these days. Over 60% of US theaters are closed, making it difficult for studios to justify keeping movies on the big screen without a calculated plan B.

Warner Bros. ‘ contingency plan is considering sending several films to HBO Max, to the “Wonder Woman 1984”. With the sequel to “Wonder Woman,” Warners plans to keep the Gal Gadot-led superhero adventure on the big screen for the standard theatrical window (usually around three months), with the major caveat that it will be available on. the HBO Max subscription streaming service for the first 31 days after release. After the one-month mark, “Wonder Woman 1984” will be retired from HBO Max and will only be available to view in theaters until it reaches the traditional home entertainment setting.

Many believe the move, a shocking break with industry protocol, is unique. But insiders suggest that may not be the case. According to sources familiar with the discussions, “Judas and the Black Messiah,” a biographical drama starring Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield; Denzel Washington’s crime thriller “The Little Things”; and the remake of “Tom and Jerry” could all see an HBO Max / theatrical fate hybrid similar to “Wonder Woman 1984”. The studio also considered taking the same path with “Mortal Kombat, a popular video game adaptation, but expect to delay the movie’s theatrical debut instead.”

So far, theaters haven’t backed down to Warner Bros. ‘decision to open “Wonder Woman 1984” day and date – that is, on HBO Max the same day it hits theaters. It is unclear how cinema operators will react to studios making similar moves. But months after the onset of a global health crisis that decimated their business, film operators would be ill advised to turn down any film that could sell tickets.

Warner Bros. isn’t the only studio to prioritize streaming. Disney, the studio that moved “Mulan,” “Soul,” and “Artemis Fowl” from Pixar to Disney Plus, also considered the possibility of altering plans for upcoming titles to increase its subscription streaming service. Deadline recently reported that Emma Stone’s “Cruella,” “Pinocchio,” and “Peter Pan and Wendy” may skip theaters in favor of a Disney Plus debut. But more pressing: There has been little talk of two 20th-century Disney-owned studio films – the YA musical “Everyone’s Talking About Jamie,” scheduled for February 26, and “The King’s Man” by Matthew Vaughn, a few weeks earlier. February 12. Could a Hulu or Disney Plus arc be in their future?

The fate of other films that should be unveiled in early 2021, such as Sony’s remake “Cinderella” with Camila Cabello (February 5) and “Morbius” by Jared Leto (March 19) remains in question. But it wouldn’t be unexpected to see the trend of almost constant release date changes continue into the New Year. Executives across Hollywood expect the film’s schedule to remain fluid for the near future.

With that in mind, it’s possible that MGM’s “No Time to Die” will move again after being pushed from April through November through spring 2021. The Bond sequel is currently slated to premiere on April 2, 2021, but The film’s backers are wary of being the first blockbuster to come out because its primary audience is older, a demographic that has been more reluctant to go to the movies during the pandemic.

Paramount was an active seller during the coronavirus shutdown, shipping items like “Without Remorse,” “Coming 2 America” with “The Trial of the Chicago 7” by Eddie Murphy and Aaron Sorkin to Amazon and Netflix and collecting hundreds of millions of dollars in the process. However, the studio doesn’t appear to be on the verge of selling more films.

Universal is moving forward with plans to release several films in theaters that remain open during the pandemic, as it has made deals to put them on demand within weeks of their bow. AMC and Cinemark, # 1 and # 3 respectively among US movie chains, are already adhering to Universal’s strategy to shorten the cinematic window and bring movies home faster. Sources say the studio is on the cusp of a similar deal with Regal, the second-largest circuit in the United States and the last standout. This is important because the three combined routes represent more than 50% of the US market. The reason Universal orchestrated these deals in the first place was to avoid the possibility that movie chains would refuse to show the studio’s films if they arrive on demand earlier than usual. (Over the summer, AMC CEO Adam Aron threatened such action after Universal released “Trolls World Tour” simultaneously in theaters and on digital rental services.) Assuming the With the Regal deal coming to an end soon, the studio will have confidence to move forward with Windows abbreviated theaters without fear of losing out on substantial screens. Of course, that assumes that the struggling theater chains will survive the next few months.

Universal rolled out its new model to some success last weekend with “The Croods: A New Age,” making over $ 14 million in its first five days in theaters. A year ago it would have been a disaster. During the coronavirus, it was practically given the status of the second blockbuster of the film “Croods”. Upcoming releases from Universal and its independent Focus division include the revenge thriller “Promising Young Woman” and “News of the World,” a Tom Hanks drama the studio has mitigated the risks to by selling foreign rights to Netflix. .

Siphoning movies to the world’s Netflix, Amazon Primes, and Hulus seems like the obvious temporary fix, but insiders say it’s more complicated than flipping a switch. Studios should look at contracts that may promise some sort of theatrical release, as well as renegotiate a backend deal with funding partners and talent before making any press announcements. In the case of “Wonder Woman 1984,” insiders say that Gadot and director Patty Jenkins received generous backend deals after agreeing to send the film to HBO Max. The pair may never have reached the milestones needed to trigger that money in today’s environment, given that many theaters are closed and theaters still haven’t opened in New York or Los Angeles. But in pre-pandemic times, the sequel to 2017’s “Wonder Woman” would likely have been close to the billion dollar mark. The original superhero adventure grossed over $ 800 million at the global box office.

To complicate matters further, studios have to play a seemingly endless game of phone beacon for all parties to approve. Some of these actors and directors have moved on to other projects, many of which are filming in the UK, Australia or other exotic dwellers that are wreaking havoc on the alignment of all time zones.

If the director, big stars or producers cannot be convinced that digital debuts are their best option, the alternative is to keep releasing films on the road. But then they run the risk of an even more uncertain theatrical environment. There is no indication when cinema will return to a significant degree, which means that the wait can be just as risky as taking a bold bet on a streaming service. When “Tenet” premiered in September, 70% of American theaters had reopened. By Thanksgiving, hundreds of people had closed their doors again, leaving about a third in business. The number of screens to play a movie could continue to decline, especially if independent theaters do not receive federal assistance.

And there are films which must contractually open abroad. It’s harder to convince filmmakers to move them, as virtually every country outside of the United States has had much more success in controlling coronaviruses, and key markets, particularly in Asia, have already seen big. box office success. But maintaining the release date internationally poses problems beyond simple piracy issues for its eventual national release. It’s hard to relaunch a movie that feels like its time has come and gone.

That was the situation with “The Personal Story of David Copperfield,” an adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel that Fox Searchlight released at the end of August, seven months after its UK theatrical launch. “Copperfield” was originally due to be released in the country. in the spring until COVID upsets those plans. This is a bigger problem with independently funded productions, which rely on a foreign pre-sale process in which producers auction distribution rights for key territories in order to raise money to make a film. Canceling these agreements and getting all parties to comply with a new publishing plan during a pandemic can be difficult.

The heads of the studios keep talking, with any luck, of a return to “normal” which they believe could occur in the summer when a vaccine is widely available. However, few believe the industry will be able to quickly shake off the financial devastation of the past few months. Plus, the way movies are opened in theaters may have changed irrevocably. That reality is the new world order that the studios will operate in when the pandemic finally ends.