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Blockbuster
: Scene from "Wonder Woman 1984" with
Gal Gadot
- the film start was postponed due to closed cinemas and is now streaming at the same time.
Photo: Clay Enos / AP
The entertainment company Warner Bros. has announced a decision that could have far-reaching consequences for the entire cinema industry.
In 2021, the company plans to release all of its new films simultaneously in theaters and via online streaming.
The measure was initially decided for the coming year against the background of the corona pandemic.
However, cinema owners are now likely to be wondering whether their business will ever run again as it did before the crisis.
"We live in unprecedented times that demand creative solutions," said Warner Bros. boss
Ann Sarnoff
(59).
"Nobody wants movies back on the big screen more than we do. We know that new content is the lifeblood of cinemas, but we have to balance that with the fact that most cinemas in the US are likely to be limited in 2021 Capacity. "
Because of the pandemic, this new marketing strategy will be introduced in the coming year, the Hollywood studio announced on Thursday.
According to this model, 17 films, including "Godzilla vs. Kong", "The Suicide Squad", "Dune" and "Matrix 4", will appear in the US at the same time as the cinema release on the streaming service HBO Max of the media group Warner Media.
Usually there are weeks between the release in the cinema and the later streaming exploitation.
"Wonder Woman 1984" is the beginning
The films were to be seen for a month on HBO Max, it said.
After that, they should only be shown in theaters in the US and worldwide.
Warner Bros. had recently announced this release model for the film "Wonder Woman 1984".
The superhero flick will be out on HBO Max and in US theaters simultaneously on December 25th.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the cinema release had previously been postponed several times.
Disney had already started bringing titles to its own streaming service Disney + instead of to the cinema before the pandemic - and is now driving radical change.
Unlike Disney or Netflix, HBO Max is not positioned globally.
This makes it even more difficult for Warner Bros. to play in the costs of producing blockbuster films with the streaming offer.
The decision is actually only about a few blockbuster titles, said analyst and investor
Matthew Ball
, formerly chief strategist of Amazon's streaming unit.
The number of viewers has been declining for a long time, and in recent years the cinema has increasingly developed into a channel for blockbusters, from which grossing results of $ 750 million to $ 1 billion are expected.
Many titles would never have had a chance of ending up in the cinema anyway.
In important markets in the USA and worldwide, many cinemas are closed due to the coronavirus crisis or are only allowed to open with low occupancy.
Numerous planned film releases have been postponed to 2021 in the last few months.
cr, rs / dpa, AFP
