Breaking... Warner Bros entire slate of 2021 films to be released same day on HBOMAX .. Holy Shit
- Thread starter fonzerrillii
- Start date
Well The Matrix 4 will be just simply "Matrix" what a cop out but I'm still there.
Marvel Is Trying to Dodge the WB Backlash With Its New Streaming Talent Deals
Marvel is preparing for the unexpected by negotiating new deals with talent in case movies wind up getting moved to Disney+.
observer.com
Marvel Is Trying to Dodge the WB Backlash With Its New Streaming Talent Deals
By Brandon Katz • 12/17/20 8:00am
Marvel Disney+ Series
How do major studios compensate talent in an era of hybrid releases? Marvel/Disney+
When WarnerMedia first announced that it would release Warner Bros.’ entire 2021 movie slate both in theaters and on HBO Max, one of our immediate questions was how this seismic shift would impact talent compensation. Quickly, this became the most pressing question facing the studio as the unprecedented decision has drawn the ire of the entire film community (hello, Christopher Nolan). Now, Disney is attempting to avoid the same mistake with pre-emptive transparency and deal making.
Marvel Studios is exploring new talent deals that will provide flexibility in the event that the coronavirus pandemic or shifting consumer behaviors convince the company to reroute films to Disney+, TheWrap reports. But even as these negotiations cover tens of millions of dollars, it’s still unclear to the average movie fan how these deals are structured (and then restructured) in the first place.
“Most talent agreements include dual compensation streams: 1) guaranteed up-front money, and 2) potential back-end that is tied to performance, which is heavily tied to box office success,” Matthew Wilson—Partner, Arnall Golden Gregory LLP—told Observer. “Given the tremendous revenues that the MCU franchises have been generating, I’m sure that the standard compensation arrangements for MCU films are more heavily weighted on the back-end box office revenues.”
Over 23 films, Marvel Cinematic Universe movies average $371.5 million at the domestic box office and nearly $981 million worldwide. Five of the studio’s last six films have surpassed $1 billion in ticket sales, two of which managed to cross $2 billion. Last year’s Avengers: Endgame ($2.79 billion) became the highest grossing film unadjusted for inflation in box office history.
Thanks to that success, the cast was handsomely rewarded as Marvel is said to have set aside roughly $400 million for the screenwriters, directors, producers and principal actors as compensation for the two most recent Avengers films. Robert Downey Jr. was reportedly paid a $20 million base salary and an additional $55 million in compensation thanks to an eight percent cut of the back-end profits. Chris Hemsworth earned between $15 million and $20 million per picture on the last two Avengers flicks as did Chris Evans. Scarlett Johansson will be earning upwards of $20 million for starring and producing in Black Widow.
“If I were representing talent, I might attempt to estimate what the box office numbers would have been based on historical performance of similar films in the franchise.”
Wilson explains that if Marvel decides to skip theatrical distribution, they may be in breach of existing talent agreements. Beyond that, the producers and studio have a vested financial interest in keeping key talent happy, which is why Marvel is now renegotiating.
But restructuring these deals for a new age of film delivery, in which theatrical, SVOD and PVOD continue to overlap, is no small feat as WarnerMedia is learning.
But restructuring these deals for a new age of film delivery, in which theatrical, SVOD and PVOD continue to overlap, is no small feat as WarnerMedia is learning.
“If I were representing talent, I might attempt to estimate what the box office numbers would have been based on historical performance of similar films in the franchise,” Wilson said. “The goal of the agent is to make the talent whole, but I’m not sure how the studio and producers can agree to that since the pie is smaller for everyone. Another option is to negotiate a share of any premium revenues generated from the streaming subscribers and/or a share of subscription dollars based on the number of streaming viewers for the film.”
Fans and industry observers have been spoiled by the transparency of box office data for decades. That has made it difficult for interested parties to adapt to the lack of clarity surrounding how many people watched X film on Y platform. Streaming viewership is guarded closer than a MacGuffin in an Indiana Jones movie as are subscriber numbers and active viewers for certain platforms. The fact that Marvel is even considering such action underscores how radically the normal ways of doing business have been altered due to the pandemic.
The MCU currently has four films on its 2021 schedule: Black Widow (May 7), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (July 9), Eternals (November 5), and Sony’s untitled third Spider-Man film (December 17).
BATGIRL, ZATANNA, STATIC SHOCK And More DC Film/TV Projects Announced At AT&T Investor Day 2021!
BATGIRL, ZATANNA, STATIC SHOCK And More DC Film/TV Projects Announced At AT&T Investor Day 2021!
Wonder how they going to pull off DMZ..that movie"Bushwick"was kind of an unofficial film adaptation
Waiting on my Matrix.
HBO Max Might Have Outsmarted the Streaming Wars
The play to put all Warner Bros. theatrical movies on the service in 2021 was a big gamble. It paid off.
Almost exactly one year ago, Warner Bros. made a rather startling announcement: In 2021, all of the movies on its slate would be released on HBO Max the same day they hit theaters. Suicide Squad, Godzilla vs. Kong, Dune, The Matrix Resurrections—all of them. Cinephiles all but revolted. Dune director Denis Villeneuve published a letter in Variety calling HBO Max’s launch a “failure” and the decision by Warner Bros. parent company AT&T to “sacrifice” the 2021 lineup to the streaming service “a desperate attempt to grab the audience’s attention.” In many ways, Villenueve was right—it was a move intended to boost subscriber numbers in a market slowly becoming saturated with streaming services. But also, it worked.
Back when the company first announced the day-and-date HBO Max movie plan—internally code-named Project Popcorn—HBO and HBO Max had about 61 million subscribers worldwide. Today, that number is closer to 70 million. (For context, Netflix has somewhere near 214 million subscribers, while a smaller cable network like Starz has around 30 million.) Meanwhile, the streaming service has bolstered up a certain level of cool by being the destination for original programming like Hacks, HBO’s critical juggernaut Succession, and this week’s Sex and the City spinoff And Just Like That … “All things considered, HBO Max has had a good year,” says Sarah Henschel, principal analyst in media and entertainment at Omdia. “Their strategy to release blockbuster films like Dune directly day-and-date on HBO Max has kept the service relevant throughout 2021.”
In other words, HBO Max may have found a way to hack the streaming wars. Subscriber growth is stagnating across streaming services, but HBO Max has been able to slowly, strategically gain a toehold in a business that, when the service first launched, didn’t look like it had much room for new players—and has only gotten more since then. (Hello, Peacock! Welcome, Paramount+!) And it's serious about holding on to the position it's achieved. One of the reasons for the service’s lackluster subscriber numbers in the third quarter of this year was because HBO Max parted ways with Amazon Prime Video to prioritize direct subscriptions to the service rather than those that come through Amazon. “While this might slow growth in the short term this quarter,” Henschel notes, “it is strategic for growing revenues in the long term.” She also points to HBO Max’s ad-supported tier, which costs $10 as opposed to the standard $15, as a way to broaden its appeal in the crowded market.
Make no mistake, this was all a bit of a gamble. Putting millions of dollars worth of marquee films on a streaming service in the hopes that they would attract, and retain, a few million subscribers is a big bet. It could have easily failed. It also is the kind of play that could maybe only have worked during a pandemic. Many folks are still leery of theaters, and HBO Max provided a good alternative for those who still wanted to watch big blockbusters. It also helped Warner Bros., which had a few movies ready to go and sitting idle but was not necessarily able to produce more at its usual volume. “It was great for the service, especially during a time where schedules were not fully populated because of Covid-related production delays,” HBO chief content officer Casey Bloys recently told Vulture. “It was just a great steady source of movies that people loved.”
Things in 2022, however, might look much different. Omicron, or whatever Covid-19 variant comes after it, might still be lingering when next summer’s big movie season starts, but chances are people will be much less reliant on streaming. So what will become of HBO Max then? Well, for one, its parent company, AT&T, is spinning off WarnerMedia to merge it with Discovery. It’s still unclear what the result will be, but it’s hard not to imagine some combination of HBO Max and Discovery’s properties—HGTV, Oprah Winfrey’s OWN, Animal Planet, etc.—will ensue.
HBO Max is also planning lots of new original series, like the Game of Thrones spinoff House of the Dragon. The company is also trying something new (again) when it comes to its film slate: Next year, Warner Bros. movies will go back to being released exclusively in theaters, but they will be available on HBO Max 45 days later—a much shorter time window than the eight months HBO previously needed to wait before airing a new release. “That’s huge,” Bloys told Vulture. “I believe it’s going to work really well because people who want to go to theaters and experience a movie theatrically get to do that—and then 45 days later, it’s on Max. That, to me, seems like a really great situation. We’ll see how it goes.” Guess we all will.
www.wired.com
The play to put all Warner Bros. theatrical movies on the service in 2021 was a big gamble. It paid off.
Almost exactly one year ago, Warner Bros. made a rather startling announcement: In 2021, all of the movies on its slate would be released on HBO Max the same day they hit theaters. Suicide Squad, Godzilla vs. Kong, Dune, The Matrix Resurrections—all of them. Cinephiles all but revolted. Dune director Denis Villeneuve published a letter in Variety calling HBO Max’s launch a “failure” and the decision by Warner Bros. parent company AT&T to “sacrifice” the 2021 lineup to the streaming service “a desperate attempt to grab the audience’s attention.” In many ways, Villenueve was right—it was a move intended to boost subscriber numbers in a market slowly becoming saturated with streaming services. But also, it worked.
Back when the company first announced the day-and-date HBO Max movie plan—internally code-named Project Popcorn—HBO and HBO Max had about 61 million subscribers worldwide. Today, that number is closer to 70 million. (For context, Netflix has somewhere near 214 million subscribers, while a smaller cable network like Starz has around 30 million.) Meanwhile, the streaming service has bolstered up a certain level of cool by being the destination for original programming like Hacks, HBO’s critical juggernaut Succession, and this week’s Sex and the City spinoff And Just Like That … “All things considered, HBO Max has had a good year,” says Sarah Henschel, principal analyst in media and entertainment at Omdia. “Their strategy to release blockbuster films like Dune directly day-and-date on HBO Max has kept the service relevant throughout 2021.”
In other words, HBO Max may have found a way to hack the streaming wars. Subscriber growth is stagnating across streaming services, but HBO Max has been able to slowly, strategically gain a toehold in a business that, when the service first launched, didn’t look like it had much room for new players—and has only gotten more since then. (Hello, Peacock! Welcome, Paramount+!) And it's serious about holding on to the position it's achieved. One of the reasons for the service’s lackluster subscriber numbers in the third quarter of this year was because HBO Max parted ways with Amazon Prime Video to prioritize direct subscriptions to the service rather than those that come through Amazon. “While this might slow growth in the short term this quarter,” Henschel notes, “it is strategic for growing revenues in the long term.” She also points to HBO Max’s ad-supported tier, which costs $10 as opposed to the standard $15, as a way to broaden its appeal in the crowded market.
Make no mistake, this was all a bit of a gamble. Putting millions of dollars worth of marquee films on a streaming service in the hopes that they would attract, and retain, a few million subscribers is a big bet. It could have easily failed. It also is the kind of play that could maybe only have worked during a pandemic. Many folks are still leery of theaters, and HBO Max provided a good alternative for those who still wanted to watch big blockbusters. It also helped Warner Bros., which had a few movies ready to go and sitting idle but was not necessarily able to produce more at its usual volume. “It was great for the service, especially during a time where schedules were not fully populated because of Covid-related production delays,” HBO chief content officer Casey Bloys recently told Vulture. “It was just a great steady source of movies that people loved.”
Things in 2022, however, might look much different. Omicron, or whatever Covid-19 variant comes after it, might still be lingering when next summer’s big movie season starts, but chances are people will be much less reliant on streaming. So what will become of HBO Max then? Well, for one, its parent company, AT&T, is spinning off WarnerMedia to merge it with Discovery. It’s still unclear what the result will be, but it’s hard not to imagine some combination of HBO Max and Discovery’s properties—HGTV, Oprah Winfrey’s OWN, Animal Planet, etc.—will ensue.
HBO Max is also planning lots of new original series, like the Game of Thrones spinoff House of the Dragon. The company is also trying something new (again) when it comes to its film slate: Next year, Warner Bros. movies will go back to being released exclusively in theaters, but they will be available on HBO Max 45 days later—a much shorter time window than the eight months HBO previously needed to wait before airing a new release. “That’s huge,” Bloys told Vulture. “I believe it’s going to work really well because people who want to go to theaters and experience a movie theatrically get to do that—and then 45 days later, it’s on Max. That, to me, seems like a really great situation. We’ll see how it goes.” Guess we all will.
HBO Max Might Have Outsmarted the Streaming Wars
The play to put all Warner Bros. theatrical movies on the service in 2021 was a big gamble. It paid off.
I remember all of the Marvel stans swore up and down that HBOMax was making a big mistake and that the Marvel titles would be enough.
I like Marvel, but in the grand scheme of things it's not enough. Just like all of the DC titles was not enough.
I like Marvel, but in the grand scheme of things it's not enough. Just like all of the DC titles was not enough.
I'm just happy that we're finally getting films released, that's my biggest turnoff with marvel and it's really made me disinterested in the upcoming films bc they keep pushing the releases off...
‘Coyote vs. Acme’ Being Shopped to Other Studios After Warner Bros. Axes Finished Film
Amazon and Netflix were active buyers during the pandemic as traditional studios were siphoning off films for extra cash, but nothing has been ironed out for “Coyote vs. Acme.”
By Rebecca Rubin
November 13, 2023
Amazon and Netflix were active buyers during the pandemic as traditional studios were siphoning off films for extra cash, but nothing has been ironed out for “Coyote vs. Acme.”
By Rebecca Rubin
November 13, 2023
‘Coyote vs. Acme’ Being Shopped to Other Studios After Warner Bros. Axes Finished Film
After Warner Bros. announced it's shelving the completed Looney Tunes-inspired film, "Coyote vs. Acme" is being shopped to other distributors.
variety.com