By Rob Gonsalves, Special to the Neighb News
First came Wonder Woman. Always the trailblazer, she led the way. If 2020 had been a normal year, Wonder Woman 1984 — the sequel to 2017’s Wonder Woman — would have opened last June. After several COVID-related delays, the movie’s distributor Warner Bros. announced that it would premiere on the streaming service HBO Max on the same day (Christmas) that it opens in theaters. For a while, onlookers were surprised, but not shocked; WW84, after all, had been bumped numerous times already (its original release date was actually December 13, 2019).
But then Warner made another announcement. This time there was shock, as well as anger from some quarters. Sixteen major Warner films were going to follow Wonder Woman’s lead and hit HBO Max the same day they hit theaters.
The releases would be spread out over the course of 2021; the slate would be a mix of smaller dramas (The Little Things with Denzel Washington; the Sopranos prequel The Many Saints of Newark; the Fred Hampton biopic Judas and the Black Messiah) and blockbusters (Denis Villeneuve’s massive new adaptation of Dune; the self-explanatory Godzilla Vs. Kong; the shrouded-in-mystery Matrix 4).
Some filmmakers were not happy. Villeneuve penned an indignant piece for Variety blaming AT&T (which owns WarnerMedia). Judd Apatow (The King of Staten Island) and Christopher Nolan (Tenet) also piped up. The consensus is that AT&T is throwing the theatrical experience under the bus in order to bail out HBO Max, which has not been performing as well as competing services like Disney+ or Peacock. As I write this, no other studio has joined Warner in this decision, at least not on this level. United Artists, for instance, is not yet considering putting the new Bond film (No Time to Die, to be released in April) on any streaming service day-and-date with its theatrical bow. Marvel hasn’t yet said it would throw Black Widow on Disney+ in May along with its run in theaters.
I can tell you two things. (1) I don’t subscribe to HBO Max, and I’m not going to start now; (2) I’m not seeing any of Warner’s films (or anyone else’s) in theaters until there’s a vaccine and the COVID stats are way lower than they are now. And for all we know, the vaccine will be everyone’s golden parachute and it won’t even be necessary to release Dune on HBO Max. At the moment, Dune is scheduled for October 1, 2021. That’s ten months away.
Matrix 4, assuming production goes as planned (never a safe assumption), has been pencilled in for December 22, 2021 — that’s almost a year out. A lot can happen in a year; look at the one we’ve just been through.
A calmer way to look at this is that Warner has left its options open. If things are still bad, Warner has HBO Max as a back-up. If things get better, they won’t need the back-up.
A lot of the objection to Warner’s call boils down to a rigid fealty to seeing movies on the big screen with an audience. Sure, that’s a nice way to see movies. And yeah, catching Dune on a large screen with booming sound is probably the optimal way to experience it.
The inconvenient truth, though, is that more and more people are watching movies in other ways: DVD, Blu-ray, streaming; on their 50-inch digital TV, or on their phones. Here’s a bitter little factoid filmmakers don’t like: in 2019, theatrical attendance was down 4.6 percent.
The “theatrical experience” in recent years has meant paying far more (ticket inflation, concession, babysitter) for far less (obliviously rude and talky audiences; outmoded sound and lighting systems). When you can get Netflix or Hulu or Disney+ for less per month than a single movie ticket costs, the writing is on the wall. Warner, just read the writing.
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