Delayed Films Are Still Meant to be Released in Theaters
As has already been discussed by so many people on the internet, movies are being delayed left and right. There are many people that think the companies that are making the films should instead put their movies up on digital services. There are a number of reasons why this is simply not going to happen with almost every movie that has been delayed. I say almost every movie because it has already happened when Universal made the radical decision to make The Invisible Man and Trolls: World Tour available to rent on-demand for $20.
Of course, this got people guessing as to whether the company will continue this trend which would change the theatrical release model forever. That would be stupid on their part, however, and they know that which is why they said already that it is pretty much a one-time thing. For those that don’t understand why, theaters equal money for the entire industry and they also allow companies to gain widespread feedback on a film from the general public. The amount of money that is lost by not putting films in a theater before they release for purchase is just absurd. There is a reason direct-to-video movies always sell terribly.
Movies being released to theaters is a part of the business cycle for movie production. It is up to the companies whether more money can be made by delaying a release or allowing early rentals. I’ll just say now that the former is certainly the most likely in this situation. Even if a movie is delayed, the possibility for it to make revenue is still there and if the movie is a blockbuster, then it’ll still be one months from now. Delays can only help a production or project be better in the end by giving people more time to work on post-production.
The National Association of Theater Owners has already put out a statement saying that people hoping accelerated releases are completely ignoring financial aspects to those releases. They have said that the rescheduling of those films will take place when life returns to normal. This actually works out for theater companies since, when the delayed movies release, they will have plenty of movies that are awaited by the public to put on screens.
When quarantines end and people can escape isolation, theaters will be able to make a lot of money. With the number of anticipated films, and the amount of people who simply want to leave the house, theaters will make quite the buck. Whichever titles are going to be available after the quarantine are going to be massive events that bring out relatively large crowds. This means that this isn’t the worst that could happen to the industry and they will recover.