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Warner Bros says entire 2021 movie entry(Dune, Matrix 4, Suicide Squad, etc) will also be available on HBO Max upon release(as well as theaters)

Evangelion Unit-01

Master Chief



There are some limitations to the new business model. The movies will only stream on HBO Max for one month before leaving the platform for a period of time. They will also play in theaters, keeping the relationship with movie theater distributors like AMC and Regal. The plan is to run this experiment for one year.

The movies Warner Bros. is planning to release include: The Little Things, Judas and the Black Messiah, Tom & Jerry, Godzilla vs. Kong, Mortal Kombat, Those Who Wish Me Dead, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, In The Heights, Space Jam: A New Legacy, The Suicide Squad, Reminiscence, Malignant, Dune, The Many Saints of Newark, King Richard, Cry Macho and Matrix 4. All films will be released in 4K Ultra HD and HDR.

More at the link.
 
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Husky

THE Prey 2 fanatic
Aw geez, two threads, which to reply to...
the one with more info in the OP!

That's pretty tight! I fucking hate when some asshole checks their phone in the theater. Much comfier watching at home. Hey, I can even pause and use the bathroom, wicked.
 

levyjl1988

Banned
Good because no way in hell I would risk exposing myself to Covid-19 to see a movie. I'd rather watch it in the comfort of my home where I can pause and play for bathroom breaks. I don't need audience reactions and uncomfortable seats to distract me.
 

GloveSlap

Member
HBO Max is really good. They just need to add 4k HDR for at least their 1st party stuff. It looks like these theater movies will be 4k though so its a start at least.
 
Meanwhile in Europe

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dorkimoe

Member
Megaton. Fuck yes. I get it free with att cell plan. But this is massive. No extra cost either. Fuck you Disney. And Netflix too busy trying to stay woke cancelling good shows
 

ManaByte

Gold Member

WarnerMedia didn’t have to wait until Wonder Woman 1984 debuted both on HBO Max and in theaters: The Burbank, CA-based Warner Bros is putting its entire 2021 theatrical slate on HBO Max for the films’ respective first month of release, concurrent with a global cinema release.

And get a load of what you’ll be able to see in-home next year: Denzel Washington’s The Little Things, Judas and the Black Messiah, Tom & Jerry, Godzilla vs. Kong, Mortal Kombat, Those Who Wish Me Dead, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, In the Heights, Space Jam: A New Legacy, The Suicide Squad, Reminiscence, Malignant, Dune, The Many Saints of Newark, King Richard, Cry Macho and Matrix 4.
 

Blond

Banned
This is going to backfire. They're going to lose money.

Tenet barely broke even with a worldwide release and it more than likely lost even more money than if they just sold rights to Netflix/Hulu/Etc and got royalties. Theaters are a lost cause indefinitely and The Irishman really showed you can make a 100+ Million Blockbuster and keep it moving from a business perspective, there's nothing more to see here.

Doesn't that only accelerate piracy. Seems like a bad idea.

Not really. Piracy has gone down significantly in both music and movies because streaming is just that much easier. Sign in, select play, keep it moving vs Download, Find a player, figure out how to hook it up to your TV and play it not to mention actually controlling it.
 
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pauljeremiah

Gold Member
So basically what Film4 have been doing for years? For example, when Ben Wheatley's "A Field In England" came out in 2013, on the same day, it was released in cinemas, released on iTunes, Blu-ray and DVD to buy, and shown on Film4 that night on TV.

Studios should have done this nearly a decade ago. It battles piracy and puts the ball in the audiences court.
 

cryptoadam

Banned
International markets will become even more important and expect most movies now to play to China since they still have Cinema's there.

WB is in a tough spot because they have to pay back their creditors for the money they borrowed to make these movies. They are a sunk cost and at some point you have to make something back and start paying down the interest if not the principal. 50 cents on a dollar is better than nothing.

Feels like its all going according to plan to force these studios into financial ruin and then CCP can swoop in and buy them up on pennies on the dollar. All though having China focused movies is probably a step up fomr SJW crap Hollywood was putting out. At least this might mean no more gender/race swapped reboots and forced diversity editors. China don't play that game.

Well off to the seven seas with me matey's. A pirates life awaits for me.
 

DarkestHour

Banned
It doesn’t make sense to only release to theaters and then release digitally later. This is good that Warner realizes this and will release both simultaneously. They’ll still get the theater goers and also people that would never see the movie in the first place.
 

QSD

Member
So basically what Film4 have been doing for years? For example, when Ben Wheatley's "A Field In England" came out in 2013, on the same day, it was released in cinemas, released on iTunes, Blu-ray and DVD to buy, and shown on Film4 that night on TV.

Studios should have done this nearly a decade ago. It battles piracy and puts the ball in the audiences court.

off topic but man I tried to watch that movie once on a nightshift but even with some significant experience with psychedelics I still couldn't figure out what was going on
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
Damn, I pity any actor or director who signed on with profit sharing!

Warner is gonna be taking BILLION dollar losses on these films.
 

KAL2006

Banned
If theatres really do start closing down I really have to invest in good surround sound setup at home. I used to go cinemas atleast 10 times a year. As for subs, I stopped subbing a long time as all the content is spread across too many services, Hulu, Prime, HBO, Netflix etc. And where I'm from some services are not even available in the UK. I use a pirating streaming platform that combines all the services into one convenient place, I would pay if all the companies banded together and have everything in one place but unfortunately they don't so it seems pirating is the most convenient way to get content. So will be strange to watch the latest movies day 1 without spending a penny.
 

pauljeremiah

Gold Member
off topic but man I tried to watch that movie once on a nightshift but even with some significant experience with psychedelics I still couldn't figure out what was going on

It is one of those WTF did I just watch kind of films.
 
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The New Guy

Unconfirmed Member
I don't really enjoy the Cinema much anymore, but not having it as an option much anymore would be disappointing. Sometimes I do enjoy watching a movie on a big screen and buying overpriced popcorn, it's just a different experience. Plus it gets me out of the house, which I need to do more of. I enjoy watching & streaming movies at home way more, but there is some releases which are great seen on a big screen. Especially Superhero films I feel like. Joker was great in Cinemas, for example.
 

finowns

Member
Whatever I’m still watching Dune in theaters although they pushed it back to October 2021.
 
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GeorgioCostanzaX

Gold Member
Alamo Drafthouse is my FAVORITE theater. I was so happy when they started expanding out of Texas you have no idea.

Yeah we had a clone when I was in Portland called Cinetopia. In LA there was Studio Movie Grill and IPIC one of which is already bankrupt. I seriously hate any other type of theater without nice seats and age limit and food.

Fuck now I’m worried about Pruneyard up in the Bay Area which is closest to me.
 
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Movie studios have made their play. There will be less theaters out there for sure and I think in the future only big time event movies (i.e. Endgame, Avatar, Star Wars) will be getting released in select theaters, if that.
 

JORMBO

Darkness no more
I wonder what this will do for some movie budgets. I can't imagine some of the bigger movies pulling in a billion or more through HBO Max streaming profits.
 
I think AT&T owns all of these properties and doesn't see a way movie theaters will make money in 2021 anyway. Pretty sizable gamble though.
 

sol_bad

Member
I predicted theaters would be obsolete in about 10 years before even Covid.

It's pretty much going the way of the video game arcade. Covid just sped it up. This was inevitable.

Nah, this will be a short term thing until it's safe to walk around America.

Right now there are 38 million HBO Max subscribers in America. That's about 570 million a month they are making? If Covid19 wasn't around, Warner could plop Wonder Women 84 in cinemas and easily make another 400-500 million in America. HBO Max would need another 20 million subscribers to cover that extra revenue. But here is the thing, even if Warner don't release their theatrical films on HBO Max, they would still gather those extra subscribers over time.

And let's say millions of people subbed to HBO Max for a month just to watch a theatrical film, Warner would still make less money in this manner than if they released theatrically.

On the radio news they estimated that it would take a year or more in Australia to have everyone vaccinated for Covid19, so sometime in 2022 everyone will be vaccinated. I'd imagine it would take even longer to have everyone vaccinated in America. Warner are just making smart business decisions for the now.


It doesn’t make sense to only release to theaters and then release digitally later. This is good that Warner realizes this and will release both simultaneously. They’ll still get the theater goers and also people that would never see the movie in the first place.

How does it not make business sense? There are people on this film that are ecstatic that they can watch these films on HBO Max but if there was no Covid19 they would be forced to go to the cinemas to watch. In a pre-covid world Warner would make money at the cinemas and then later make more money on Blu ray and then even more money on HBO Max.

If theatres really do start closing down I really have to invest in good surround sound setup at home. I used to go cinemas atleast 10 times a year. As for subs, I stopped subbing a long time as all the content is spread across too many services, Hulu, Prime, HBO, Netflix etc. And where I'm from some services are not even available in the UK. I use a pirating streaming platform that combines all the services into one convenient place, I would pay if all the companies banded together and have everything in one place but unfortunately they don't so it seems pirating is the most convenient way to get content. So will be strange to watch the latest movies day 1 without spending a penny.

Unless you can afford the same quality sound as a cinema, your surround sound will never match up to the cinema experience. I have an 8K aud set up and yeah it sounds good but no where near as good as the cinema. And if you are using a pirating streaming service to watch films you'd be wasting money on a surround sound set up. If you buy a surround sound set up you want to make sure you are getting movies on blu ray/4K.
Movies on Netflix / Disney+ / HBO / Hulu sound like absolute shit compared to physical media.
 
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