I am personally looking forward to Day One home releases for as long as this lasts (and I hope that's forever.) I like the theater experience, but hate actually scheduling a day around going to a...
I am personally looking forward to Day One home releases for as long as this lasts (and I hope that's forever.) I like the theater experience, but hate actually scheduling a day around going to a multiplex and dealing with the crowds.
I wouldn't get my hopes up about this lasting past 2021. Warner is going to lose a lot of money doing this, but it is preferable to losing even more money. They are hoping this will bring in...
I wouldn't get my hopes up about this lasting past 2021. Warner is going to lose a lot of money doing this, but it is preferable to losing even more money. They are hoping this will bring in enough new subscribers to keep production going on their slate of 2022 movies.
Are we sure about that? I wonder how the math actually works out. WB would have made some amount of money on each release, but will they make more over the course of the year by keeping people...
Are we sure about that? I wonder how the math actually works out. WB would have made some amount of money on each release, but will they make more over the course of the year by keeping people subscribed to Max?
They will make more over the course of 2021 than they otherwise would because people can't go to the theaters. In 2022 though, the pandemic will be over and people can go to the theaters just...
They will make more over the course of 2021 than they otherwise would because people can't go to the theaters. In 2022 though, the pandemic will be over and people can go to the theaters just fine.
Here's my math: For a family of 5 to go see the latest superhero movie would cost the equivalent of nearly half a year of a single HBO Max subscription. If that family sees three Warner Brothers movies in a year, Warner is losing out. The company needs to see enough revenue from HBO Max to replace the lost box office revenue, while still making enough extra to cover all the rest of the content they normally put on the service.
Sure, they would lose out in that case. But the important factor is wether they lose out in the average of cases. If I remember right, the median number of movies watched by a person each year in...
Sure, they would lose out in that case. But the important factor is wether they lose out in the average of cases.
If I remember right, the median number of movies watched by a person each year in a theater is 1. The key revenue builders for streaming services are people who sign up and forget to cancel. With these factors in mind, a family of arbitrary size just has to sign up for one movie and forget to cancel, and WB breaks even in a few months.
This is all backseat economics without enough data, so remember that it is just speculation.
The average number of movies seen per year by people in the US (the only country where HBO Max is available) is five. That statistic is from 2014, but I don't imagine 2019 was lower given the...
The average number of movies seen per year by people in the US (the only country where HBO Max is available) is five. That statistic is from 2014, but I don't imagine 2019 was lower given the record-breaking box office revenue.
That data was an online survey of 2311 people in 2013. I would not take this data as the truth. Anecdotally, my experience disagrees with this data significantly. Movie prices have grown faster...
That data was an online survey of 2311 people in 2013. I would not take this data as the truth.
Anecdotally, my experience disagrees with this data significantly. Movie prices have grown faster than inflation, which may account for increasing box office revenue despite decreasing viewership. Most people I know go to 0-1 movies each year (pre-COVID). My grandmother, who explicitly loves theaters and goes to many movies each year only goes to 2-3.
Anecdotally, most of the people I know go about once a month. But anecdotal evidence is meaningless, let's do our own math. In 2019, US box offices sold a total of 1,235,481,028 movie tickets,...
Anecdotally, most of the people I know go about once a month. But anecdotal evidence is meaningless, let's do our own math. In 2019, US box offices sold a total of 1,235,481,028 movie tickets, which equates to 3.7 tickets per person living here.
Let's do some different math. Last year, Warner Bros. brought in $1.6 billion at the box office, which is equivalent to 106,666,667 HBO Max subscriptions. I guess that is technically less than the 128,600,000 million households in the country, but not even Netflix has achieved that level of market penetration yet.
This is why I don't think it will be permanent, at least not without some big changes in how movies are budgeted.
I think your math is good, however it misses one step IMO. As you stated from your source, WB brought in $1.6b from 172,395,259 ticket sales in 2019 (about $9.11 per ticket). Which does work out...
I think your math is good, however it misses one step IMO.
As you stated from your source, WB brought in $1.6b from 172,395,259 ticket sales in 2019 (about $9.11 per ticket). Which does work out to about 106,666,667 HBO Max subscriptions. However that's per month. Since the revenue figures we're using are from all of 2019, we can further divide by 12 and state that WB would need about 8.8 million people to subscribe for 12 months of HBO Max to completely replace their box-office revenue.
According to this Netflix had about 61 million subscribers in the US, so ~8m doesn't seem like an unreasonable goal for WB to target if they're willing to put some effort into it over a few years.
So it looks like Warner shocked theaters, producers, and just about everybody else with this announcement, and this sort of risky all in brinkmanship implies a couple things to me. Warner has all the power in this sort of situation when it comes to putting the latest movies into theaters, so they're pulling no punches. But Warner is also in a situation where they can't afford to play nice with theaters anymore, with a backlog of movies, AT&T still in debt, and a new streaming service that needs a exclusives badly. This is also in the shadow of Disney's investor call on December 10th, which is probably going to kick up a whole lot of dust whether they decide to match or not.
AMC just barely got out of bankruptcy from whatever change they had lying around in investor's couches, so they're naturally going to play up the good old days of how things used to be because...
AMC just barely got out of bankruptcy from whatever change they had lying around in investor's couches, so they're naturally going to play up the good old days of how things used to be because trying to keep the lights on with a business model that is kinda against the law right now is kinda difficult. If this plays out, AMC either negotiates getting more of the ticket costs, or getting bought up by Disney and pivoting to a Chuck E Cheese experience.
https://deadline.com/2020/12/warnermedia-legendary-challenge-dune-godzilla-vs-kong-streamer-battles-looming-1234651283/ Legendary has plans to start a fight with Warner over going straight to...
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/christopher-nolan-rips-hbo-max-as-worst-streaming-service-denounces-warner-bros-plan People who make movies for Warner not fans of Warner's plan to devalue...
People who make movies for Warner not fans of Warner's plan to devalue their movies. May open up opportunity to Disney to be the studio that saved theaters, but how much harder can squeeze that fruit before it's no longer of use to them?
I am personally looking forward to Day One home releases for as long as this lasts (and I hope that's forever.) I like the theater experience, but hate actually scheduling a day around going to a multiplex and dealing with the crowds.
If Wonder Woman getting a simultaneous release was a big deal, then this is the new normal.
I wouldn't get my hopes up about this lasting past 2021. Warner is going to lose a lot of money doing this, but it is preferable to losing even more money. They are hoping this will bring in enough new subscribers to keep production going on their slate of 2022 movies.
Are we sure about that? I wonder how the math actually works out. WB would have made some amount of money on each release, but will they make more over the course of the year by keeping people subscribed to Max?
They will make more over the course of 2021 than they otherwise would because people can't go to the theaters. In 2022 though, the pandemic will be over and people can go to the theaters just fine.
Here's my math: For a family of 5 to go see the latest superhero movie would cost the equivalent of nearly half a year of a single HBO Max subscription. If that family sees three Warner Brothers movies in a year, Warner is losing out. The company needs to see enough revenue from HBO Max to replace the lost box office revenue, while still making enough extra to cover all the rest of the content they normally put on the service.
Sure, they would lose out in that case. But the important factor is wether they lose out in the average of cases.
If I remember right, the median number of movies watched by a person each year in a theater is 1. The key revenue builders for streaming services are people who sign up and forget to cancel. With these factors in mind, a family of arbitrary size just has to sign up for one movie and forget to cancel, and WB breaks even in a few months.
This is all backseat economics without enough data, so remember that it is just speculation.
The average number of movies seen per year by people in the US (the only country where HBO Max is available) is five. That statistic is from 2014, but I don't imagine 2019 was lower given the record-breaking box office revenue.
That data was an online survey of 2311 people in 2013. I would not take this data as the truth.
Anecdotally, my experience disagrees with this data significantly. Movie prices have grown faster than inflation, which may account for increasing box office revenue despite decreasing viewership. Most people I know go to 0-1 movies each year (pre-COVID). My grandmother, who explicitly loves theaters and goes to many movies each year only goes to 2-3.
Anecdotally, most of the people I know go about once a month. But anecdotal evidence is meaningless, let's do our own math. In 2019, US box offices sold a total of 1,235,481,028 movie tickets, which equates to 3.7 tickets per person living here.
Let's do some different math. Last year, Warner Bros. brought in $1.6 billion at the box office, which is equivalent to 106,666,667 HBO Max subscriptions. I guess that is technically less than the 128,600,000 million households in the country, but not even Netflix has achieved that level of market penetration yet.
This is why I don't think it will be permanent, at least not without some big changes in how movies are budgeted.
I think your math is good, however it misses one step IMO.
As you stated from your source, WB brought in $1.6b from 172,395,259 ticket sales in 2019 (about $9.11 per ticket). Which does work out to about 106,666,667 HBO Max subscriptions. However that's per month. Since the revenue figures we're using are from all of 2019, we can further divide by 12 and state that WB would need about 8.8 million people to subscribe for 12 months of HBO Max to completely replace their box-office revenue.
According to this Netflix had about 61 million subscribers in the US, so ~8m doesn't seem like an unreasonable goal for WB to target if they're willing to put some effort into it over a few years.
https://deadline.com/2020/12/amc-responds-to-hbo-max-warner-bros-theatrical-model-2021-suicide-squad-matrix-4-dune-1234650125/
https://www.vulture.com/2020/12/panic-over-the-warner-bros-hbo-max-news-sets-in.html
WB did take the risk and released Tenet in theaters. AMC response is so strange. Like they are showing fake concern for WB profits.
AMC just barely got out of bankruptcy from whatever change they had lying around in investor's couches, so they're naturally going to play up the good old days of how things used to be because trying to keep the lights on with a business model that is kinda against the law right now is kinda difficult. If this plays out, AMC either negotiates getting more of the ticket costs, or getting bought up by Disney and pivoting to a Chuck E Cheese experience.
https://deadline.com/2020/12/warnermedia-legendary-challenge-dune-godzilla-vs-kong-streamer-battles-looming-1234651283/
Legendary has plans to start a fight with Warner over going straight to streaming.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/christopher-nolan-rips-hbo-max-as-worst-streaming-service-denounces-warner-bros-plan
People who make movies for Warner not fans of Warner's plan to devalue their movies. May open up opportunity to Disney to be the studio that saved theaters, but how much harder can squeeze that fruit before it's no longer of use to them?