Still from “Raya and the Last Dragon.”
Disney
The checkout calendar is moving again. In the last day, more than a dozen Hollywood titles were displaced from the slate, and they withdrew later in the year or in 2022 due to the Covid pandemic.
Cinema owners, who had hoped to hold off a slew of new instant features until December, are watching Sony, Disney and MGM postpone major films.
On Thursday, MGM’s latest James Bond movie, “No Time to Die” was released from April to October, Sony’s “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” was moved to November, and Sony’s “Morbius” and “Uncharted” were moved to 2022 On Friday, Disney will move half a dozen movies, including “The King’s Man,” later in the year or remove them completely from the calendar.
The few films left in February and March have been linked to streaming releases. AT & T / Warner Bros. ” Tom and Jerry ‘goes to HBO Max and theaters on February 26, Disney’s’ Raya and the Last Dragon’ debuts in theaters and on Disney + on March 5 for $ 30, and AT & T / Warner Bros. ‘”Godzilla v. Kong” hits HBO Max and cinemas on March 26th.
Lions Gate’s “Chaos Walking” is the only major movie release without a day-and-date streaming plan.
“[Warner Bros.] Jeff Bock, senior analyst at Exhibitor Relations, has always made the right move. ‘They may not have cleaned it through the right channels and may have suffocated a few feathers in the process, but make no mistake, WB is the only studio. unlike Disney, which really strengthens itself and theaters simultaneously in a safe and responsible way. ‘
The U.S. records at least 187,500 new Covid-19 cases and at least 3,050 virus-related deaths each day, based on a seven-day average calculated by CNBC using Johns Hopkins University data.
While President Joe Biden has promised to speed up vaccines across the country, so far only about 17.5 million doses have been administered.
Studios are worried that the steady increase in cases of coronavirus will keep moviegoers away from cinemas, even with new titles appearing on big screens. Many of these films have large production budgets and rely on strong ticket sales to equalize.
However, studios with streaming services have a safety net, Bock said. For Warner Bros. can double the release in theaters and on HBO Max strengthen subscribers and earn money from ticket sales.
It is unclear how successful the strategy was, as ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ is so far the only Warner Bros. film released in this way. AT&T will report quarterly earnings next week, so analysts are likely to better understand how the film performed for the company at the time.
Disney’s release of “Raya and the Last Dragon” is also the first time. Previously, the company released ‘Mulan’ on Disney + for a $ 30 premium, but did not release it in theaters at the same time. Disney has not yet commented on how ‘Mulan’ has performed for the company.
“It’s going to be tough sledding for theaters,” Bock said. “[They] will have to rely on indie distributors until at least May. ‘
Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of Universal Studios and CNBC. Universal releases ‘No Time To Die’ internationally, while MGM handles the local release.