Still from “Raya and the Last Dragon”.
Disney
The box office calendar is changing yet again. On the last day, more than a dozen Hollywood titles were removed from the list, moving to the end of the year or in 2022, due to the Covid pandemic.
Cinema owners, who in December expected to wait until March for a series of successful new films, are watching Sony, Disney and MGM postpone their main films.
On Thursday, the latest James Bond film, “No Time to Die” by MGM, was postponed from April to October, Sony’s “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” was moved to November and Sony’s “Morbius” and “Uncharted” they left for 2022. On Friday, Disney changed half a dozen films, including “The King’s Man” at the end of the year or removed them entirely from the calendar.
The few films left in February and March are linked to streaming releases. AT & T / Warner Bros. ‘”Tom and Jerry” hits HBO Max and theaters on February 26, Disney’s “Raya and the Last Dragon” opens in theaters and Disney + for $ 30 on March 5, and on AT & T / Warner Bros. ‘”Godzilla v. Kong” hits HBO Max and theaters on March 26.
Lions Gate’s “Chaos Walking” is the only major film released without a daily streaming plan.
“[Warner Bros.] did the right thing all the time, “said Jeff Bock, senior exhibitor relations analyst.” They may not have gone through the proper channels and may have caused problems in the process, but make no mistake, WB is the only studio besides Disney, which is really reinforcing itself and the cinemas simultaneously in a safe and responsible manner.
The US is reporting at least 187,500 new cases of Covid-19 and at least 3,050 virus-related deaths each day, based on an average of seven days calculated by CNBC using data from Johns Hopkins University.
Although President Joe Biden has promised to speed up vaccines across the country, only about 17.5 million doses have been administered so far.
Studios are concerned that the steady increase in coronavirus cases will keep movie fans out of theaters, even with new titles playing on the big screens. Many of these films have large production budgets and rely on strong ticket sales to break even.
However, studios that have streaming services have a safety net, said Bock. For Warner Bros., the dual release in theaters and HBO Max allows to increase subscriber subscriptions and earn money from ticket sales.
The success of this strategy is unclear, as “Wonder Woman 1984” is, so far, the only Warner Bros. film. to be launched that way. AT&T is due to release quarterly earnings next week, so analysts will likely have a better sense of how the film fared for the company.
The release of “Raya and the Last Dragon” by Disney is also unprecedented. The company previously released “Mulan” on Disney + for a $ 30 prize, but did not release it in theaters at the same time. Disney has yet to comment on “Mulan’s” performance at the company.
“It will be difficult to sled to the cinemas,” said Bock. “[They] will have to rely on independent distributors until at least May. “
Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of Universal Studios and CNBC. Universal is launching “No Time To Die” internationally, while MGM handles the domestic release.