Warner Brothers makes historic streaming decision and what will cinema look like in the future?

In a move that has sent shock waves around the movie industry Warner Brothers has made the historic decision to release all of there 2021 movie slate onto HBO Max and the same day they are released in cinemas.

This will include massive potential blockbusters such as Dune, The Martrix 4, The Suicide Squad, Godzilla vs Kong & The Conjuring:The Devil Made Me Do It. It will also release smaller Oscar hopeful films such as Judas and The Black Messiah, The Many Saints of Newark, King Richard & Cry Macho.

A press release stated that all films will be presented on HBO Max in 4K Ultra HD & HDR and will be available for subscribers to stream for a month after release, following that first month the films will remain in theatres that are still open before falling back onto the regular distribution window that applies to the title.

Warners were the only studio brave enough to take a risk earlier this year and released Tenet worldwide where cinemas were open and it was a mild success or mild failure depending on your point of view. The mixed reviews did not help but some of the more tabloid headlines of 'Can Nolan save cinema?' where unfairly of base. A cold narratively complex film that had mixed reviews and to me felt like a Nolan greatest hits movie was never going to be the massive success many wanted it to be despite the pandemic.

Disney have experimented with pay per view on their Disney+ subscriber service to unknown results though it can be a solid guess that Mulan did not make as much as they had hoped otherwise other large films would have followed suit.

The first of HBO Max's big screen offerings will be Wonder Woman 1984 on Xmas day which will fight it out with Disney+ releasing the new Pixar film Soul on the same day, however not everyone will be rejoicing on Xmas day.

Warner Brothers are already raising the ire of many theatre owners especailly AMC who are one of Americas biggest movie chains, they had previously agreed the deal for Wonder Woman 1984 to be played on HBO Max and cinemas but they were not happy about Warners deciding their whole 2021 output will be day and date in cinema and HBO Max.

The boss of AMC Adam Aron released a statement 'These coronavirus-impacted times are uncharted waters for all of us, which is why AMC signed on to an HBO Max exception to customary practices for one film only, Wonder Woman 1984, being released by Warner Brothers at Christmas when the pandemic appears that it will be at its height. However, Warner now hopes to do this for all their 2021 theatrical movies, despite the likelihood that with vaccines right around the corner, the theatre business is expected to recover'

Clearly Aron was not impressed and it seems that Warners have taken the decision themselves with little discussion with AMC and the other theatre owners.

My take is that Warners are actually being smart and realistic with their titles, territories where cinemas are open (like parts of the UK) will still get big screen releasese but in places like America where the virus is still running wild a streaming option is the only way to release their movies.

HBO Max costs $15 a month and there will be no extra charge for all the new Warners movies, that is a great deal taking into account thats around the cost of one single movie ticket, so its definitely a great deal for everyone in the States.

Unfortunately HBO Max is only available in the States and HBO have a deal with Sky to show most of their content on Sky Atlantic, I would not put it past Sky to try and charge people extra for these films on a pay per view basis which is total bullshit as i'm sure many of us would happily pay £10-15 a month to be able to watch all of the new Warners movies via a subscription based monthly service rather than the outdated and expensive pay per view model.

Many doom mongers are already calling this the death of Cinema and thats simply not true, with a vaccine on the way next summers blockbuster season will likely be saved and some creative finance will be utilised to get the major companies through until box office revenue gets back to what it was. Even in the worst case sceanario where many of the major cinema chains could go bust the infrastructure is there and someone else will swoop and reopen the cinemas.

You could even see a charge towards the old school model of vertical intergration that once ruled Hollywood, many of the streaming companies are actively looking into acquiring their own chains of cinemas to make sure there movies get played enough to be eligible for major awards such as the oscars and also to remove the stigma from elitists that streaming movies are not real cinema.

There is a scenario where Netflix, Amazon & Disney could own their own theatre chains and decide to only show their own movies there as why would you promote a rival? Instead of showing a Disney movie a Netflix cinema could show some of its lesser content or even high end tv shows on a cinema screen, also this could greatly help smaller indepedent films that are acquired by the major streaming companies gain wider exposure at a fraction of the major hollywood cost.

Another by product of so many major releases being delayed this year was that many smaller films were seen by a wider audience (where cinemas were open) and I think Warner's realised there is also going to be a massive bottleneck of films clogging the schedules next year if everyone hoarded all the new films till COVID is under control. Of course release dates will change many times over the course of next year but currently you have many major films opening week after week, for example in the UK in April/May you have 'No Time To Die','Last Night In Soho', 'Black Widow', 'Godzilla vs Kong' and 'Fast & Furious 9' all within 6 weeks of each other.

This will surely lead to many bigger films having smaller box office returns as with so much new content many people will only pick one big release to see a week at most and forget about seeing a film multiple times. With the vaccine about many usual summer events will be back and how many people will want to sit inside again after multiple lockdowns?

Finally I think the cinemas will fine as after lockdown people will beready to safely have that group experience of watching a major new film in the dark surrounded by other people having that same experience. People will flock back to cinemas once it is safe to do so after spending the best part of a year in their houses, they will want to get out, see their friends, meet up for a drink and a meal before or after the film, as seeing a film is a night out and for many a shared social experience that can not be replicated at home. It might take a while but cinema will be just fine.