Warner Bros. Reverts to TV's with Antennas
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Regal Cinema has announced that they will resume showing films in April, in line with local fatwas regarding social distancing, face diapers, etc. In most locales, attendance is restricted to 25-50% of capacity. They have reached a deal with WB for 2022 in which they will have exclusive rights for 45 days (the industry standard was 90 pre-pandemic) and then WB will presumably release to the streaming market. WB is presently releasing simultaneously on HBO Max and theaters.
Hollywood is scrambling to try to solve the problem for blockbusters in a socialist society. Funny, isn't it? They've been advocating for socialism for decades and now they're trying to sleep in the bed of their own construction.
It's a definite paradigm shift, sort of like when cable TV became a thing and TV on antennas became obsolete. Inexplicably, WB is betting on TV's with antennas. This is what happens when you're so committed to a business model that you're willing to go down with the ship. Call it the Titanic marketing model.
The pandemic iceberg has exposed the weakness of the blockbuster. Spend 100 million dollars to make the next summer blockbuster and clear only a few million or take a loss (anyone remember Johnny Depp's Lone Ranger? $150 million budgeted versus $89 million sales)--BEFORE the pandemic. Introduce a global panic and it's weird--it's like people believe the talking heads who are droning on and on in their ears about their imminent deaths. Voila: the perfect storm for big film. Or at least the perfect iceberg.
Now, as variant strands of the present pandemic make their appearances globally and the standards of quarantine and hysteria have been firmly established by the powers that be, there is no end in sight to this freak show. Fill your theaters to 25-50% capacity and you're looking at epic losses. As long as Dr. Fauci keeps spouting off his self-contradictory theories and social experiments, big film death remains immanent.
The only hope for the future of film is streaming. The new normal is likely the only normal for the foreseeable future. Imagine what will happen when the next global pandemic hits that is NOT a sequel to the virus that shall not be named.
Now is the time for talented, young filmmakers to ply their trade. Someone somewhere needs to build a platform where they can showcase that talent and maximize profitability. Films that cost tens of thousands instead of tens of millions and which have huge built-in profit margins. Faith based films have been doing it for years pre-pandemic. I wonder what would happen if someone freed filmmakers to love God and make what they want? What would happen if someone built a platform that people WANT to use to help make films that they WANT to see?
You're about to find out.
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