Warner Bros. made history – and many people were angry – when they announced that they planned to release their next 2021 film directly to HBO Max. this may mean the death of the theatrical experience. In addition, creatives – filmmakers, actors and more – are feeling betrayed and angry.
Having these titles available for broadcast can impact the box office (movies are still having theaters on the same day they arrive on HBO Max), which in turn can hurt people financially (many actors and filmmakers receive an extra payment depending on how well your films do at the box office). To make matters worse, many of the people involved with the upcoming Warner Bros. titles. in 2021 they say they were never told that WB was planning to do that.
Because of all this, it seems that Warner Bros. decision may be benefiting rival studio Sony.
As we reported earlier, Warner Bros. ‘big decision launching its 2021 slate for HBO Max pissed off almost everyone in Hollywood. And apparently, it is causing some people to look elsewhere. Sony CEO Tony Vinciquerra recently said CNBC (via The Verge) this “talent” has summoned Sony with the hope of working with a studio that will not upload everything for streaming.
“The real benefit has been the number of talent calls for us, saying, ‘We want to do business with you because we know that you are a distributor and theatrical producer,'” said Vinciquerra. “It really worked out really well for us.” Now, I don’t want to say that Vinciquerra is making this up, but the story kind of has a “I have a girlfriend, but you don’t know her because she lives in Canada” vibe.
Still, it makes sense – Sony doesn’t have a streaming service in its name, and although they’ve sold some movies for streaming before (like Greyhound, which went to Apple TV +), they are less likely to play a full year of movie releases on a streaming service. At least for a while. In the meantime, there are unfounded rumors that some people involved with the next WB films are trying to strike back. The biggest rumor right now is that Legendary Pictures is ready to file a lawsuit with Warners about the release of Dune. Again: this is all conjecture and there is absolutely no confirmation. At least for a while.
Interesting posts from around the web: