In a Potential Game-Changing Decision, NBCUniversal Will Make Theatrical Movies Available On Demand Immediately

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After years of discussions about the possibility of shrinking the theatrical window, NBCUniversal is going to obliterate it altogether. According to a new report, the company is going to release at least some of Universal Pictures’ theatrical offerings on demand at the same time that they hit theaters. When a book is written about this period in history, this may be a crucial turning point in the way the entire industry operates.

 

 

 

An Unprecedented Decision

 

According to The Hollywood Reporter, NBCUniversal is taking the unprecedented step of making “its current movies from the Universal Pictures stable — including the upcoming event family movie Trolls World Tour — will be made available on-demand at the same time they hit those theaters that remain open during the coronavirus pandemic.” Starting as early as Friday, March 20, 2020, theatrical films including Universal’s The Hunt and The Invisible Man and Focus Features’ Emma. will be available to stream on a variety of on demand platforms. (Trolls World Tour will hit theaters and on demand on April 10, 2020.) The movies will be available for “a 48-hour rental period at a suggested retail price of $19.99 in the U.S. and the price equivalent in international markets.”

 

For the better part of the last decade, there have been conversations in Hollywood about shortening the theatrical window – in other words, minimizing the length of time between a film’s theatrical release and when it is available for home viewing. Theaters have been fighting tooth and nail to preserve an extended window, with the fear being that as home entertainment systems continue to improve, people may bypass the theatrical experience altogether if they don’t have to wait very long to rent highly-anticipated movies and watch them at home. Companies like Time Warner Cable and Napster founder Sean Parker’s The Screening Room tried to introduce options where people could pay as much as $50 to watch recent theatrically-released movies at home, but they never took off. Now, the coronavirus (aka COVID-19) has forced the studios’ hand, and NBCUniversal is the first to jump into the deep end and embrace a new way of doing things.

 

Will This Be Hollywood’s New Normal?

 

THR’s piece specifically says that this simultaneous release plan “isn’t a blanket policy for the studio’s entire 2020 calendar, and that decisions regarding other titles and the duration of the policy haven’t been made yet.” NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell issued a statement commenting on the policy:

 

“Given the rapidly evolving and unprecedented changes to consumers’ daily lives during this difficult time, the company felt that now was the right time to provide this option in the home as well as in theaters. NBCUniversal will continue to evaluate the environment as conditions evolve and will determine the best distribution strategy in each market when the current unique situation changes.

 

Universal Pictures has a broad and diverse range of movies with 2020 being no exception. Rather than delaying these films or releasing them into a challenged distribution landscape, we wanted to provide an option for people to view these titles in the home that is both accessible and affordable. We hope and believe that people will still go to the movies in theaters where available, but we understand that for people in different areas of the world that is increasingly becoming less possible.”

 

Shell wants people to still go to theaters, but he understands that isn’t the best idea right now. Movie theaters have already been closed in New York and Los Angeles, and AMC is limiting its screenings to only 50 people everywhere else in the country. But the stock market is in free-fall, last weekend’s box office performance was one of the worst in decades, and as of this morning,

 

AMC Theatres (the largest chain in the country) was reportedly on the path to “a negative $285 million of free cash flow” which “could lead to some liquidity issues.” All of that is terrible news for the industry (and obviously the people affected by the virus itself), and it appears that Shell is looking to minimize the loss as much as possible by taking a new approach to distribution.

The big question we have is: once a move like this has been instituted, can studios then rescind it and return to the ways of old? Or is this a Pandora’s box situation in which once the new methods are rolled out, it will change the way things work forever?

 

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Universal Making ‘Invisible Man’, ‘The Hunt’ & ‘Emma’ Available In Home On Friday As Exhibition Braces For Shutdown; ‘Trolls’ Sequel To Hit Cinemas & VOD Easter Weekend

 

 

In an unprecedented crunch of the theatrical window as several markets across the U.S. close down in response to safety coronavirus along with worldwide, NBCUniversal’s Universal Pictures is officially making its current movies in cinematic release –Blumhouse’s The Invisible Man and The Hunt, and Focus Features’ Emma — available in homes as early as this Friday for on-demand 48-hour rental at the suggested price of $19.99 each. This is both for domestic and offshore markets where the titles are in release. Jeff Shell, CEO of NBCUniversal, made the announcement this morning.

 

In addition, with the outlook of the theatrical marketplace unclear, Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Trolls World Tour, which was scheduled to be the first theatrical comeback title down the road on Easter weekend April 10, will now go day-and-date in homes and on the big screen. Trolls World Tour doesn’t roll out widely offshore until April 20, and in those markets, the sequel will also be available for VOD rental as well as cinemas. Already, Trolls World Tour has a large marketing campaign underway, including support from the conglom’s Comcast, NBCUniversal and Sky’s cross-company Symphony. Trolls World Tour opened over the weekend in Singapore and Malaysia to a lackluster $200,000.

 

Note this theatrical window-breaking doesn’t extend to Universal’s exorbitant $175 million Robert Downey feature Dolittle, which tanked theatrically this winter with $227.3 million in worldwide box office. That movie will follow through with a regular theatrical-to-home window. Dolittle is awaiting for a release in China once that country’s exhibition infrastructure gets back on track following its coronavirus outbreak.

 

The intentions here by NBCUni is to make big movies available in the home to the masses as current circumstances have made it more challenging for them to head out, and as the nation is poised for a massive shut-in at home. “NBCUniversal will continue to evaluate the environment as conditions evolve and will determine the best distribution strategy in each market when the current unique situation changes,” read a statement this morning.

 

The current theatrical window is 90 days. Those titles that don’t obey that window aren’t booked by the nationwide circuits like AMC, Cinemark and Regal. Netflix has tried to crunch the window in regards to their releases with major chains, but they’ve never found a common meeting ground, hence, big $200 million productions like Martin Scorsese’s lauded The Irishman played in limited theatrical release before finding their way on the streaming service a month later.

 

At this point in time, the theatrical-VOD day-and-date release policy seen here isn’t one set in stone for future titles beyond Trolls World Tour. Decisions on titles and duration have not been made yet.

 

“Universal Pictures has a broad and diverse range of movies with 2020 being no exception. Rather than delaying these films or releasing them into a challenged distribution landscape, we wanted to provide an option for people to view these titles in the home that is both accessible and affordable,” said Shell. “We hope and believe that people will still go to the movies in theaters where available, but we understand that for people in different areas of the world that is increasingly becoming less possible.”

Betty Gilpin as Crystal in “The Hunt,” directed by Craig Zobel Universal

 

This past weekend, the domestic weekend box office saw a 22-year low of $55.3 million, with around 109 cinemas closed throughout the country. Both Los Angeles and New York, which are the box office capitals of the U.S., have mandated that their cinemas close soon. LA was the top-grossing market with $2.6M this past weekend, -55% from last weekend, while New York, typically No. 2, dropped to third with $1.469M, -64%. The projected grosses for the crop of new wide releases The Hunt, I Still Believe and Bloodshot were off significantly, with their three-day totals coming in at $5.3M, $9.5M and $9.3M, respectively. In normal market conditions, The Hunt could have posted $8M-$10M, Bloodshot about the same, and I Still Believe between $11M-$14M. Disney’s Onward posted the biggest second-weekend drop for a Pixar title ever at -72%, or $10.5M, as moviegoers were distracted in stockpiling goods given coronavirus mania.

 

While most movies this past weekend saw a bump on Saturday over Friday, it wasn’t by much. Overall, for Uni’s pics, which are hitting the 48-hour VOD rental on Friday, they like other titles saw big weekend drips, i.e., The Invisible Man ($6M in weekend 3, -60%, for a $64.4M total) and Emma ($1.37M after expanding to 1,732 in Weekend 4, -72% for a $10M current total).

 

If market conditions had been normal, the one film that would get hurt by this proposition is The Invisible Man, which conceivably had $15M left in it. Emma was limited in its play with sophisticated older adults being the prime demo, and The Hunt arrived in the marketplace already tainted after the Blue State vs. Red State movie was bashed by right-wingers over the summer at the height of public shootings, which forced the pic’s release off its original September date.

 

However, the move to put Trolls World Tour out day-and-date is a shocker. After No Time to Die left the April 10 Easter corridor for Thanksgiving, Uni swooped in. The pic for some time was looked at as a sign of hope by exhibition that if this coronavirus situation eases up, Trolls World Tour would eventually bring us back. The first movie, which cost $125M, went on to make $347M WW and spawned spinoff TV shows, merchandising and a hit song by the pic’s star Justin Timberlake. The song, “Can’t Stop the Feeling,” went quadruple platinum with over 7.6M units sold in the U.S. as well as setting other records, and it was his best first-week single on Digital Songs clocking a 163M audience, higher than “Mirrors.”

 

In response to local city ordinances, movie chains were capping their auditorium capacities by as much as 50%. AMC said this morning that for those chains open, auditorium capacity wouldn’t exceed 50 people. Distribution execs weren’t fearing those caps as curbing business as most majors and indie distributors had postponed their releases indefinitely, i.e., such event pics like No Time to Die, Mulan, A Quiet Place Part II and more.

 

The last time in recent memory when a major studio release was made available both in theaters and in-home was Sony’s The Interview during that studio’s massive hack six years ago. Given the controversy that James Franco-Seth Rogen satire comedy stirred up with North Korea, with that country being one of the reported suspects behind the hack, Sony pulled the full-on theatrical release and made The Interview available for purchase and rental on demand, in-home. While the major circuits wouldn’t play The Interview, smaller chains like Alamo and mom-and-pop cinemas actually did. The Interview, which cost an estimated $44M before P&A, only made $11.7M at the domestic box office over the 2014 year-end holiday.

 

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