“At some point you have to choose to share any
love and joy you have to give, over everything
else,” Jenkins wrote on Twitter.
It can be easy to cheer such moves, even if their
financial performance remain cloudy (no studio
has been transparent about its viewership
numbers or digital grosses) and their long-term
viability uncertain. Can you replicate $1 billion
in box office in new subscriptions? And for how
long will the one-time bounce of a new movie
(unlike a series staggered over weeks or months)
drive subscribers once streaming services are
closer to tapping as many homes as they can?
“The whole thing is more complicated than
people want it to be,” says Ira Deutchman,
the veteran independent film producer and
Columbia University professor. “The way movies
are made and distributed, certainly at the studio
level, has been really in need of change and
hopefully this will bring it on. But when people
hear that, it’s like: The pandemic is the straw that
broke the camel’s back and now theatrical is
dead. I personally feel that’s garbage.”
Deutchman considers the idea that people, after
a year of quarantines and lockdowns, won’t want
to leave their living room “ludicrous.” But he does
imagine continued mergers and acquisitions,
and “a new equilibrium” for distributors and
theater owners.
So what could that mean on the other side
of COVID, if moviegoers are once again
comfortable sitting in packed theaters on
opening weekend? It will almost certainly mean
the months-long runs of films like “Titanic” or
“Get Out” are a thing of the past. It could mean
variable pricing on different nights. It could