It’s a streaming world, and we’re just living in it.
With most movie theaters in the world closed due to Covid and Hollywood studios struggling to discover new distribution models, Netflix is already experiencing the booming 1920s, with some 204 million subscribers serving the world and the company’s market capitalization of $ 221.7 billion. Netflix has announced that it will premiere 70 films in 2021 (the top 5 studios in pre-pandemic times can release up to 90 combined theater titles) and, working on your behalf, it looks like we’ll all be home for a while, while we wait for the 100 million vaccinations of new President Joe Biden in his first 100 days take effect.
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With Netflix already making a deal with Cinemark to show their films in a small window – unthinkable for a large network to agree before the pandemic – co-CEO and content director Ted Sarandos was invited by Barclays media analyst Kannan Venkateshwar during the fourth quarter earnings streamer video if a new revenue stream is available to the company at the box office (the implicit assumption is that AMC and Regal would agree to play the Netflix fare in a reduced window).
“Potentially,” replied Sarandos.
“We never had a problem with movies going to theaters, it was that you had to commit to this very long window of exclusivity to have access to theaters. This has been the biggest challenge. So if these showcases are going to crumble and we have easier access to show our films in theaters, I would love for consumers to be able to choose between going out or watching at home, which became the norm during Covid, ”explained Sarandos.
And instead of throwing mud at WarnerMedia’s HBO Max streaming service, founder and co-CEO Reed Hastings gave what appeared to be a sign of approval for his rival’s distribution plan to release movies in theaters and on HBO Max simultaneously in 2021. But with an asterisk.
“Hopefully, with the move from Covid to Warner Bros. what we’ll see after Covid, as the second half of the year, is that people go to cinemas in a significant number and watch their films, and they premiere simultaneously on HBO Max, and that will really set a path for simultaneous; it’s good for the movie, it helps both online and streaming and also in theaters. But we have to wait post-Covid to get a clear reading of this, ”said Hastings.
On making Netflix a PVOD channel for studios looking to release their films on a premium basis, Sarandos said, “We are not saying it is not (an attractive model), but this has been the most attractive model, both for consumers and our own deal ”over the streamer’s one-price ad-free model.
He added that Netflix has been able to make big changes in what it shows, that is, a foreign series like Lupine, as consumers open their minds to content, especially those who may have avoided subtitled series. Essentially, consumer dollars are not at risk, as is the case with the movie title, so there is no risk for them to try.
Venkateshwar also asked Sarandos if the 70-film streamer’s grand plan this year would take them to a place of low financial return in the future.
Without getting granular Sarandos, he replied “If you think about it in relation to a handful of titles that end up making a huge return to the studio compared to the hundreds of titles that barely reach breakeven, this is a great model for producers produce. And the fact that we can support you day after day in this type of volume and do projects that would otherwise be very difficult to do in some cases, has been very encouraging for filmmakers to adopt this type of model. “