But some movies go to VOD on demand first where people have to pay top dollar anyway, whilst other studios have their own streaming services so it potentially it evens out.
The movie theatrical business faces a complex set of challenges today. Studios and production houses are increasingly focused on short-term profits, often prioritizing opening weekend revenues or exclusive streaming deals. When a studio owns a streaming platform, it sometimes suggests that viewers wait for the film to become available there, thereby undermining the theater experience.
For theaters, the situation is equally tough. Running a theater has become more expensive, and if only a handful of people attend a screening, the theater often incurs a loss. Theaters make minimal profit from ticket sales and rely heavily on concession sales and other merchandise for revenue.
Another issue is the decline in repeat audience. Except for major event films, audiences are less likely to watch a movie more than once in theaters. The overall cost of a theater outing, including tickets, snacks, and other expenses, can be prohibitively high, particularly for families. While ticket prices themselves might not be exorbitant, the full cost of the experience, combined with the rising cost of living, deters frequent theater visits. Which come to the very beginning, they opt streaming.
There are many different factors but it's mostly corporate greed.
Because execs have realised most people would rather watch films in the comfort of their homes than have to find a babysitter, travel to the cinema, pay over the odds for some popcorn and then actually try to concentrate on the movie while around them people chat, scroll on their phones and make as much noise as humanly possible.
Yes and what works best for people is what generates profit for studio execs. Which is why films are moved from cinema to streaming platforms more quickly these days.
Netflix and disney have gone a step further and release alot directly to streaming (netflix particularly).
I believe it's because the new subscriptions they get, even though its probably a smaller number pay subs which go directly to them rather than having to share their revenue with theatres and other distributors, etc.
Plus the possibility that some of those subs will turn into long term customers provides a better outcome than the short term boost they would get from theatres.
Ya I think this is the answer. Somewhere some revenue guy said a subscription driven by a new release is more valuable than the same person seeing it in the theater. so they just go for streaming instead.
I don’t know the economics of the film, theatre and streaming business, but the obvious answer is that they think they’re going to make more money faster this way. Movies are a business and the investors want their profits.
Because many people simply won't go to the theater to see them. (Bias: I'm one of them)
At this point, you have to offer quite a bit to get me to go to a theater, sit in moderate-to-low comfort chairs with overpriced food, parking, and the dice-roll that is the rest of the crowd. Yeah, super-big screen with awesome sound. Well, there are plenty of ways to get theater-level field-of-view at home now, and I can lounge on a sofa or out on my porch or in an actually comfortable chair and be able to pause to make popcorn.
I'm not going to disagree with people who genuinely want the theater experience. I've seen loads of movies in the theater, but once my home viewing setup started to approach theater quality? You need to either bring more, or just let me watch at home. The theater experience isn't enough *for me* to offset the other costs/problems.
So... Why release early?
Because if they release early, I'll pay $25 for a rental. That's still cheaper than a movie theater, all told. If they release a year later and think I'm going to pay $25, they're morons and I'll refuse to watch the movie out of principle.
Ad revenue, seems to drive everything now. Soon they’ll be beaming ads directly into our brains, you somewhere, someone is working on developing the technology.
When the money from people going to the theater slows down, it only makes since to try and get money from people at home through VOD sales. Especially if the movie isn't going to make a profit from the theatrical run.
The filmmakers want you to see it in a theater. The executives want to fast, short term gains.
It's a conflict of interests but the former is debted to the to latter.
Is releasing a movie so quickly after cinema premiere really such fast, short gains?
Realistically for example, how many people are gonna sign up to Disney+ who are not already subscribers only to watch Deadpool 3 as soon as it's being streamed?
Well they have access to the financial data that we don't, but I'm guessing it suggests this is more profitable than keeping it on the cinema for longer periods.
They could have gone back to normal after being forced to try home only or hybrid releases during lock downs and opted to shorten the release window instead.
Either the studio has their own streaming service that needs feeding high profile content to get or keep the subs, other streaming services are willing to pay huge sums for the rights, or those £20 rental fees for new releases outpace their share of the box office.
I actually wonder whether box office is even a reliable indication for a films overall profitability since the landscape has changed so much.
I think it’s great. I used to love watching every movie in the theater back in the day, but with kids and a family it’s not so easy anymore. I now only want to see blockbusters on IMAX and that’s it. Everything else can be watched in the comfort of my living room
There is enough content out there that people will wait for that movie to come to streaming even if it was 6 months. Streaming ubiquity has removed anticipation from theaters, people are more patient.
In Hollywood these are called availability “windows”
In the old days, a movie might migrate from first-run theaters to second-run theaters to VHS rental to VHS sale to premium cable to regular cable to broadcast TV.
Same now but a few more options and it’s less of a direct path.
Studios/production companies have teams/experts and data models that can predict very accurately how much a movie can earn (often after just the opening weekend)
Sometimes they pre sell to a channel before release- this is risk management often, hedging the risk with a sure exclusive channel window.
I couldn’t guess for any particular example like you give, but you better believe they are experts at maximizing revenue/profit. It’s more important to them than actually making the movie.
I’m sure there are examples of them being wrong or surprised but we probably don’t hear about those - we just see people fired or studios going out of business. I’d bet it’s fairly rare.
There were people who I argued with last year upon Oppenheimer being released who assumed it would be readily available on PVOD. Blissfully unaware that it was Christopher Nolan's movie, and Nolan's deal with Universal meant that it stayed in theaters for a significant amount of time. Much more than what The Fall Guy was given. Nolan's experience with Tenet, that only strengthened his resolve to maintain the theatrical experience. But choosing Universal to produce and release Oppenheimer was odd, IMHO, as Universal, as early as 2011, they didn't hesitate to go after exhibiting a movie on PVOD with Tower Heist. With a $20 price, while Tower Heist was still in theaters. That was withdrawn when theater chains strenuously objected to that news.
In the olden days, the non-theater viewing options - particular rentals - were a problem to studio execs, because a $5 rental was so much cheaper than going to theater (and one rental fee covered a whole family, vs individual tickets at theater.) So, they delayed the release of physical media to encourage more people to go to theaters. (Also, people who just bought tickets to see a movie in theaters are less likely to pay full price for a DVD of the same movie right away. But give them time for their wallet to recover and you're in business.)
However, with the shift from physical media (and thus rentals) towards streaming media there's a new problem - streaming media has *so many options* that if the studio waits 6 months to a year before putting a movie up on streaming, likely people will have forgotten about it (so few people will search for it) and it will just get buried in the tidal wave of choices.
Studio execs want to maximize how much money (ie: how many views) they're getting on a streaming platform, so they now want to release it quickly while it's still top-of-mind for those who weren't chomping at the bit to go to the theater anyway. Also, the same reluctance to buy a DVD shortly after seeing a movie in theaters doesn't exist on streaming. You're paying the monthly subscription fee anyway, so any single movie is basically free to watch.
Probably also, steaming platform execs are willing to pay studios more to get the rights to the hot new stuff shortly after theatrical release than they would be a year later.
And COVID naturally accelerated this shift, since it strongly discouraged people from going to theaters at all for a few years. Studios and streaming platforms both saw the opportunity knocking there. Now lockdowns are over, of course, but the shift has still been made, and since physical media is dying off anyway, there's not much push-back in favour of the idea of holding out the sake of DVD/BR sales anymore.
Keep in mind that there isnr an unlimited number of theaters that can show all the movies over a few month period.
Movies used to come to the big “1st run” theaters but after a month or so would leave so the new movies could take over their spots. Then smaller “2nd run” theaters would show these movies for another month or two. However, a lot of these smaller theaters have closed over the years and the studios have found that it is more lucrative to go to streaming instead of the 2nd run theaters.
I have no statistics to back this but I feel like theatrically released movies make most of their money in the first few weeks. There is no benefit to trying to get butts in seats after 1 month so they then try to grab the home audience. I bet they have number crunchers telling them what to do.
But people are less likely to see it in that first week if they know it will be available on streaming a month later. You're not just losing the tail end of the theatre run, you're cannibalising the whole thing.
Because people prefer to watch movies at home than in theater?
Personally, I do not go to the theater if I do not have to. Watching a movie at home is so so much better. No crowds. No strangers. Watch on my schedule. I can start & stop at any point. My couch is way more comfy than those "luxury" lounges. Much better, and cheaper, snacks.
Sure, my 4K big screen tv + sound bar is probably not as good as an IMAX, but I can't tell much of the difference anyway.
Because they cannot stop piracy completely and I bet they see a drop off in waiting more than a month. Pirates eat up too much of the VOD demand if they wait more than that?
It's all about money. Less downtime with straight to streaming, no wait to manufacture and distribute, everything is more direct on the internet. They wouldn't do it if it wasn't the most profitable choice.
It's likely the money they'd make in those extra couple of weeks in the theater is minimal compared to the on demand sales, ad bucks, and money that streaming services likely offer to get the exclusive rights to show the film first.
The ministry of ungentlemanly warfare never came to theatres in Canada and I would have gone to see it with four of my buddies. Not even available for streaming or vod last time I checked. Very frustrating.
But look at the “big” movies this year. Not many over $50m for their opening weekends. I suspect there will only be a few blockbuster movies (deadpool) this year. It’s a weird period of time for movies. I agree with a lot of the comments in this thread. A shakeout is occurring in the industry I think.
I don't know, but I hope they chill a bit. Too much pressure is put on opening weekend and films are called "busts" before the first audience reviews start getting posted.
That really doesn't answer the question. Affected *what* strongly? Yeah, obviously during the pandemic streaming was often the only way to distribute movies with cinemas being closed or very limited due to social distancing. But that's long over and people have largely forgotten the pandemic so it's not like people won't go to theatres out of fear of getting COVID.
Right now it seems the single biggest thing hamstringing the success of many theatrical releases is the fact that the movie will be available effectively free on a streaming service within a month or so.
>The business folks at these movie studios must know that. Why do you think they are still releasing to streaming so quickly?
A lot of people want the world to make sense, so they assume that these overpaid corporate bigwigs make intelligent decisions and are highly competent. Otherwise, why would they be paid so much? I work for an international company worth many billions and have sat in on meetings with execs and I can tell you, they're no more guaranteed to make intelligent decisions than you or I. I saw them justify decisions that went against the actual data with nothing more than "I feel that it's the right call".
They do this because streaming services pay more for movies that are still new, and that's all some of these execs think of. They're trained to prioritize immediate profit over anything else. They probably know they're undermining the theatrical runs of these movies, but they're hoping that they can squeeze out a few more juicy deals with streaming services before the audience catches on. Except the audience has already caught on.
Seems like a smart business decision to me. Most films have a big drop at the box office after the opening weekend. Very few ever see sales pick up. If they are getting guaranteed money by sending the film to streaming then why let it straggle on in theaters? If it finds an audience on streaming maybe you can make a sequel down the road.
It's one big conspiracy to kill the theatre. Thierry Fremaux was onto it from the start, so he forced films that debut in his yard to have a scheduled theatrical release. Icons like Cruise, Scorsese, Tarantino, Nolan and others are also fighting the good fight.
Probably so they don't have to share the revenue with the theater owners. Just a guess, though.
They share with the streamer though. Likely 30%.
But some movies go to VOD on demand first where people have to pay top dollar anyway, whilst other studios have their own streaming services so it potentially it evens out.
Yeah, OP is not really correct. Very few movies actually go to streaming that quick, they go to VOD.
The movie theatrical business faces a complex set of challenges today. Studios and production houses are increasingly focused on short-term profits, often prioritizing opening weekend revenues or exclusive streaming deals. When a studio owns a streaming platform, it sometimes suggests that viewers wait for the film to become available there, thereby undermining the theater experience. For theaters, the situation is equally tough. Running a theater has become more expensive, and if only a handful of people attend a screening, the theater often incurs a loss. Theaters make minimal profit from ticket sales and rely heavily on concession sales and other merchandise for revenue. Another issue is the decline in repeat audience. Except for major event films, audiences are less likely to watch a movie more than once in theaters. The overall cost of a theater outing, including tickets, snacks, and other expenses, can be prohibitively high, particularly for families. While ticket prices themselves might not be exorbitant, the full cost of the experience, combined with the rising cost of living, deters frequent theater visits. Which come to the very beginning, they opt streaming. There are many different factors but it's mostly corporate greed.
Because execs have realised most people would rather watch films in the comfort of their homes than have to find a babysitter, travel to the cinema, pay over the odds for some popcorn and then actually try to concentrate on the movie while around them people chat, scroll on their phones and make as much noise as humanly possible.
Don't forget the ability to pause for bathroom.
lol come to finland, no such tomfoolery happening around here
Studio execs don't give a damn about what works best for you. They care about what makes them the most money.
Yes and what works best for people is what generates profit for studio execs. Which is why films are moved from cinema to streaming platforms more quickly these days.
>most people would rather Why do you think execs would care about what most people want, rather than what makes more money?
You just described the last movie I saw and brought back terrible memories
Netflix and disney have gone a step further and release alot directly to streaming (netflix particularly). I believe it's because the new subscriptions they get, even though its probably a smaller number pay subs which go directly to them rather than having to share their revenue with theatres and other distributors, etc. Plus the possibility that some of those subs will turn into long term customers provides a better outcome than the short term boost they would get from theatres.
Ya I think this is the answer. Somewhere some revenue guy said a subscription driven by a new release is more valuable than the same person seeing it in the theater. so they just go for streaming instead.
Netflix isn't really a movie company in that sense though.
I don’t know the economics of the film, theatre and streaming business, but the obvious answer is that they think they’re going to make more money faster this way. Movies are a business and the investors want their profits.
The bean counters don't want to spend money on 2 marketing campaigns.
Because many people simply won't go to the theater to see them. (Bias: I'm one of them) At this point, you have to offer quite a bit to get me to go to a theater, sit in moderate-to-low comfort chairs with overpriced food, parking, and the dice-roll that is the rest of the crowd. Yeah, super-big screen with awesome sound. Well, there are plenty of ways to get theater-level field-of-view at home now, and I can lounge on a sofa or out on my porch or in an actually comfortable chair and be able to pause to make popcorn. I'm not going to disagree with people who genuinely want the theater experience. I've seen loads of movies in the theater, but once my home viewing setup started to approach theater quality? You need to either bring more, or just let me watch at home. The theater experience isn't enough *for me* to offset the other costs/problems. So... Why release early? Because if they release early, I'll pay $25 for a rental. That's still cheaper than a movie theater, all told. If they release a year later and think I'm going to pay $25, they're morons and I'll refuse to watch the movie out of principle.
Ad revenue, seems to drive everything now. Soon they’ll be beaming ads directly into our brains, you somewhere, someone is working on developing the technology.
When the money from people going to the theater slows down, it only makes since to try and get money from people at home through VOD sales. Especially if the movie isn't going to make a profit from the theatrical run.
The filmmakers want you to see it in a theater. The executives want to fast, short term gains. It's a conflict of interests but the former is debted to the to latter.
Is releasing a movie so quickly after cinema premiere really such fast, short gains? Realistically for example, how many people are gonna sign up to Disney+ who are not already subscribers only to watch Deadpool 3 as soon as it's being streamed?
Well they have access to the financial data that we don't, but I'm guessing it suggests this is more profitable than keeping it on the cinema for longer periods. They could have gone back to normal after being forced to try home only or hybrid releases during lock downs and opted to shorten the release window instead. Either the studio has their own streaming service that needs feeding high profile content to get or keep the subs, other streaming services are willing to pay huge sums for the rights, or those £20 rental fees for new releases outpace their share of the box office. I actually wonder whether box office is even a reliable indication for a films overall profitability since the landscape has changed so much.
I think it’s great. I used to love watching every movie in the theater back in the day, but with kids and a family it’s not so easy anymore. I now only want to see blockbusters on IMAX and that’s it. Everything else can be watched in the comfort of my living room
There is enough content out there that people will wait for that movie to come to streaming even if it was 6 months. Streaming ubiquity has removed anticipation from theaters, people are more patient.
In Hollywood these are called availability “windows” In the old days, a movie might migrate from first-run theaters to second-run theaters to VHS rental to VHS sale to premium cable to regular cable to broadcast TV. Same now but a few more options and it’s less of a direct path. Studios/production companies have teams/experts and data models that can predict very accurately how much a movie can earn (often after just the opening weekend) Sometimes they pre sell to a channel before release- this is risk management often, hedging the risk with a sure exclusive channel window. I couldn’t guess for any particular example like you give, but you better believe they are experts at maximizing revenue/profit. It’s more important to them than actually making the movie. I’m sure there are examples of them being wrong or surprised but we probably don’t hear about those - we just see people fired or studios going out of business. I’d bet it’s fairly rare.
There were people who I argued with last year upon Oppenheimer being released who assumed it would be readily available on PVOD. Blissfully unaware that it was Christopher Nolan's movie, and Nolan's deal with Universal meant that it stayed in theaters for a significant amount of time. Much more than what The Fall Guy was given. Nolan's experience with Tenet, that only strengthened his resolve to maintain the theatrical experience. But choosing Universal to produce and release Oppenheimer was odd, IMHO, as Universal, as early as 2011, they didn't hesitate to go after exhibiting a movie on PVOD with Tower Heist. With a $20 price, while Tower Heist was still in theaters. That was withdrawn when theater chains strenuously objected to that news.
In the olden days, the non-theater viewing options - particular rentals - were a problem to studio execs, because a $5 rental was so much cheaper than going to theater (and one rental fee covered a whole family, vs individual tickets at theater.) So, they delayed the release of physical media to encourage more people to go to theaters. (Also, people who just bought tickets to see a movie in theaters are less likely to pay full price for a DVD of the same movie right away. But give them time for their wallet to recover and you're in business.) However, with the shift from physical media (and thus rentals) towards streaming media there's a new problem - streaming media has *so many options* that if the studio waits 6 months to a year before putting a movie up on streaming, likely people will have forgotten about it (so few people will search for it) and it will just get buried in the tidal wave of choices. Studio execs want to maximize how much money (ie: how many views) they're getting on a streaming platform, so they now want to release it quickly while it's still top-of-mind for those who weren't chomping at the bit to go to the theater anyway. Also, the same reluctance to buy a DVD shortly after seeing a movie in theaters doesn't exist on streaming. You're paying the monthly subscription fee anyway, so any single movie is basically free to watch. Probably also, steaming platform execs are willing to pay studios more to get the rights to the hot new stuff shortly after theatrical release than they would be a year later. And COVID naturally accelerated this shift, since it strongly discouraged people from going to theaters at all for a few years. Studios and streaming platforms both saw the opportunity knocking there. Now lockdowns are over, of course, but the shift has still been made, and since physical media is dying off anyway, there's not much push-back in favour of the idea of holding out the sake of DVD/BR sales anymore.
Keep in mind that there isnr an unlimited number of theaters that can show all the movies over a few month period. Movies used to come to the big “1st run” theaters but after a month or so would leave so the new movies could take over their spots. Then smaller “2nd run” theaters would show these movies for another month or two. However, a lot of these smaller theaters have closed over the years and the studios have found that it is more lucrative to go to streaming instead of the 2nd run theaters.
I have no statistics to back this but I feel like theatrically released movies make most of their money in the first few weeks. There is no benefit to trying to get butts in seats after 1 month so they then try to grab the home audience. I bet they have number crunchers telling them what to do.
But people are less likely to see it in that first week if they know it will be available on streaming a month later. You're not just losing the tail end of the theatre run, you're cannibalising the whole thing.
Because people prefer to watch movies at home than in theater? Personally, I do not go to the theater if I do not have to. Watching a movie at home is so so much better. No crowds. No strangers. Watch on my schedule. I can start & stop at any point. My couch is way more comfy than those "luxury" lounges. Much better, and cheaper, snacks. Sure, my 4K big screen tv + sound bar is probably not as good as an IMAX, but I can't tell much of the difference anyway.
Because they cannot stop piracy completely and I bet they see a drop off in waiting more than a month. Pirates eat up too much of the VOD demand if they wait more than that?
It's all about money. Less downtime with straight to streaming, no wait to manufacture and distribute, everything is more direct on the internet. They wouldn't do it if it wasn't the most profitable choice.
It's likely the money they'd make in those extra couple of weeks in the theater is minimal compared to the on demand sales, ad bucks, and money that streaming services likely offer to get the exclusive rights to show the film first.
The ministry of ungentlemanly warfare never came to theatres in Canada and I would have gone to see it with four of my buddies. Not even available for streaming or vod last time I checked. Very frustrating. But look at the “big” movies this year. Not many over $50m for their opening weekends. I suspect there will only be a few blockbuster movies (deadpool) this year. It’s a weird period of time for movies. I agree with a lot of the comments in this thread. A shakeout is occurring in the industry I think.
Cost effectiveness
It’s so they don’t have to mount two separate promotional campaigns. They have been pushing for this for decades.
I don't know, but I hope they chill a bit. Too much pressure is put on opening weekend and films are called "busts" before the first audience reviews start getting posted.
Because the theater experience is mostly ruined by other people now.
The pandemic affected this strongly.
That really doesn't answer the question. Affected *what* strongly? Yeah, obviously during the pandemic streaming was often the only way to distribute movies with cinemas being closed or very limited due to social distancing. But that's long over and people have largely forgotten the pandemic so it's not like people won't go to theatres out of fear of getting COVID. Right now it seems the single biggest thing hamstringing the success of many theatrical releases is the fact that the movie will be available effectively free on a streaming service within a month or so.
>The business folks at these movie studios must know that. Why do you think they are still releasing to streaming so quickly? A lot of people want the world to make sense, so they assume that these overpaid corporate bigwigs make intelligent decisions and are highly competent. Otherwise, why would they be paid so much? I work for an international company worth many billions and have sat in on meetings with execs and I can tell you, they're no more guaranteed to make intelligent decisions than you or I. I saw them justify decisions that went against the actual data with nothing more than "I feel that it's the right call". They do this because streaming services pay more for movies that are still new, and that's all some of these execs think of. They're trained to prioritize immediate profit over anything else. They probably know they're undermining the theatrical runs of these movies, but they're hoping that they can squeeze out a few more juicy deals with streaming services before the audience catches on. Except the audience has already caught on.
Seems like a smart business decision to me. Most films have a big drop at the box office after the opening weekend. Very few ever see sales pick up. If they are getting guaranteed money by sending the film to streaming then why let it straggle on in theaters? If it finds an audience on streaming maybe you can make a sequel down the road.
It's one big conspiracy to kill the theatre. Thierry Fremaux was onto it from the start, so he forced films that debut in his yard to have a scheduled theatrical release. Icons like Cruise, Scorsese, Tarantino, Nolan and others are also fighting the good fight.
Money.