What is Happening to Theaters and Cinema?

As I was looking into any past articles that are on the same topic, I saw an article asking if movie theaters were dying. I looked at the date it was published and it was published in november 2019. I chuckled a little to myself. The author at the time it was published had no clue what was about to happen and how absolutely bad the cinema world was about to get. Before the pandemic what caused people to worry about movie theaters was streaming exclusive movies. Netflix and Amazon are the main two streaming services with a large catalog of exclusive movies. At the time it seemed like within maybe a decade theaters would become less commonplace and streaming would become the dominant movie platform. Within a few months theaters closed and every single movie released was on streaming. One of the major streaming only movies before the pandemic ‘The Irishman’ still needed to have a short limited release in theaters to qualify for the academy awards, given that the movie was marketed as a Netflix exclusive. Only being able to see a movie for three weeks in theaters, with some states only having one or two theaters that are running it is a concept that is brand new and would never have been conceivable a few years ago. Then clearly, the pandemic hit, theaters closed and everything changed. The Oscars are now recognizing straight to streaming movies with no theater release. This last year has seen a lot of changes, and for better or for worse, the world of cinema is going to be changed forever.

When theaters started closing it was generally assumed that movies would simply make less money, the one movie that really broke out and changed that idea was surprisingly ‘Trolls: World Tour,’ The movie was able to within three weeks make 100 million dollars. The movie started the change to streaming and digital downloads to make a profit. Another one of the movies that attempted to get on the money making bandwagon is the live action remake of Mulan. Coming to only one platform and needing to pay $30 on top of the subscription people are already paying. Along with things coming out about china and disney’s filming locations being close to some of china’s reeducation camps, and a somewhat large boycott also didn’t help its box office. Mulan had a budget of 200 million dollars and made only 70 million, a huge blow to disney. Now in 2021 Raya and the last dragon are released, again with a $30 premier access payment required. So far Raya has made more than Mulan did and it's not done with its release. Raya and the last dragon is also releasing in theaters across the country wherever they can release it. Are these movies making less because of the lack of theaters, or the $30 payment it would be hard to tell considering how much goes into what makes a movie make a lot of money. Interestingly enough there is another movie we can look at to compare. Soul released between Mulan and Raya and did not have a premier access payment required to watch it. Out of the three Soul is the one that got the closest to making its money back, Soul is also the one that has received the most praise critically and from audiences. Is it the quality of the movie that dictates how much money they make? Well no, Soul and Raya have 80’s and 90’s in both critical and audience reviews on rotten tomatoes. Trolls world tour and Mulan have high forties and fifties in audience reviews. The one thing that the low performing movies have in common out of these four is the $30 fee. With how many different formats there are with getting movies released now the $30 fee is unique to disney plus movies. Cruella has the $30 fee and is also getting a lot of praise critically and from audiences and it is readily available to watch in theaters with more and more theaters opening across the world. Given that the movie has so far been beaten out by A Quiet Place Part 2 which has made almost three times as much, even though they released on the same day. Many people are willing to just wait a few months for the paywall to disappear. Disney’s release system has failed financially and ruined their reputation and the movies reputation as well. The problem is that other companies haven’t done much better.

Unlike Disney, HBO and Warner Brothers went with a different Covid movie release tactic, taking the loss and making the audience greedy. At first in 2020 WB kept delaying their movies, most notably Wonder Woman 1984. Then in 2021 They announced that they would be releasing every new movie on HBO Max the same day as theaters with no fee, no delay in between theater and digital release. While this is good for time and the public's need for instant gratification. The one problem with this is the only thing keeping theaters in business is the public's want to have the theater experience. If it’s easier and has the approval of the public why is this release system bad? Why do we even need theaters then? Well prior to streaming services, once the movie is made with the studio they hand it off to other companies that were in charge of distribution, from theaters, to on demand, redbox, on T.V. The studio had no involvement. With this plan and rumors of WB making their own theaters that only show their movies along with other studio’s. That's right WB and Disney have both considered not giving their movies over to the theater companies but building their own exclusive theaters where only disney and WB movies release. If your town has a WB theater but not a disney theater, you are then stuck with the $30 paywall and don’t even have the option to get the theater experience. The issue comes to monopolization. A monopoly sees no need to tell anyone their plans and only does things that make more money for the executive board. They told no one about their straight to HBO Max release plan, not the actors, writers, or directors what they were going to do. Big name directors like Christopher Nolan and Dennis Villeneveve bashed the company for shutting them out. Nolan noteably tried to make his 2020 Movie Tenet THE movie to save theaters, cutting oscar campaigns to make the theater run as long as possible. Nolan Said this after the HBO deal broke: “[We] went to bed thinking we worked for the greatest movie studio, and woke up finding out that we worked for the worst streaming service.” It might be nice now but if Warner continues and other studios follow suit, we have no idea if they will choose to make prices increase, and there would be nothing to do if you wanted to watch a WB or Disney movie. This is not the only thing that WB has done against the Movie making process.

One of the biggest Franchises that WB owns is DC comic movies. With the success of the Marvel movie universe there was a lot of pressure on DC to match. What WB didn’t have is Kevin Feige, a producer who was able to collaborate everything between every movie to make them all concise and connected. WB tried to imitate Feige and they just couldn’t, the pressure and Feige’s success made them much more involved with the DC universe than they should have been. Especially with Justice league. Given the loss of Autumn Snyder and Zack leaving the project immediately they did have a situation that most other studio’s didn’t have to do on such a large scale movie. They got Joss Wheaton to direct and continue the movie, which at the time was an understandable move given that they were trying to recreate Avengers. Unbeknown to them Joss would eventually become a man with a massive ego who felt he could do anything to the cast to make Justice League HIS movie and not Zack’s. After the absolute failure of the movies box office results and Zack making tweets about how close his cut of the movie was to being done, #releasethesnydercut started. For four years regular people along with Zack and the cast of the movie advocated for the cut to be released. Eventually WB budged and gave Zack some money and time to film the last few scenes and finish the CGI on it. In early 2021 Zack Snyder’s Justice League released exclusively on HBO Max. For some reasonWB has tried to hide all the numbers. On different app stores the public can see that HBO Max had an increase in downloads with its release, which WB has said is in anticipation of Godzilla Vs. Kong. The watch numbers have still not been released on Zack Snyder’s Justice league. Along with that WB has stayed mostly silent on the news and lawsuits about Joss Wheaton’s verbal abuse towards the cast. The one movie glimmer of hope is that Even with it’s instant HBO Max release with theaters Godzilla Vs. Kong is potentially the first movie in a year to make the money back.

With two of the major movie making companies having wildly different movie roll out plans, both not making money, with the instant access to movies in our pockets on the day of release, how will cinema continue? Considering that only one movie out of every one in a year didn’t lose money, and the first movie to genuinely make a significant amount of money with A Quiet Place part 2. The current system is not self-sustaining and every studio will go bankrupt if we keep this up. The problem being that the public has been spoiled with getting movies on release day in their house with the subscription they were already paying. Realistically movies need to make more money so they can make more movies. The public will want more movies but they likely aren’t willing to pay enough for movies. So, where does that lead to the future of cinema and movie theaters? I think that there could be some good change with the streaming being included in the box office run. What I ideally would like to see with movie theaters is still maintaining distribution outside the studio. Theaters should still have the full box office rights for a limited time, instead of several months like it used to be to bring it down to a few weeks. From there other companies can release it on their platforms, and charge a high price for renting it and lowering it as demand becomes less. There should also be a way to rent a new movie outside of the streaming services and their subscription, a free movie theater app with all the movies would work perfectly. This way movie theaters and the “theater experience” stays, movies make money and importantly people who want to watch them at home can. The other thing with this is that large families with lots of little kids wont be going to theaters because a one time rent even for $30 or $40 bucks is cheaper than two adults and five kids tickets at a theater, getting rid of the annoying crying kids in theaters. Will this happen or will a different movie release schedule happen? Well considering how greedy these companies have been over the last year. I find it hard to believe that they will do what would be best for the public and their movies. However WB recently signed a new deal allowing theaters to have full rights to movie distribution for a limited time after it releases. Plus the public has realised that they have the power to change how movies are made starting with the Sonic the Hedgehog design and with the Snyder cut. The public has the money that the studios need and if the people and the internet all band together real change can be made. Starting by watching what companies do things right and supporting them and not giving your money to the companies who aren’t doing what right is where each and every individual needs to start. I really hope that we can get a cinema world that works well for the audience that can give the studios enough money to make more quality movies.