It was just three weeks ago that there was a sudden rush of excitement on the new theatrical release front when the weekly trend numbers pointed to possibly 542 new arrivals at your local cineplex by the end of the year. That was the best showing for the year.
While that is still a far cry from the pre-pandemic average of 753 new movie released annually, the 542 number was a healthy improvement over 2020, 2021 and 2022.
That highwater mark slumped back to 520 and then this past week the air was all but out of the balloon with a return to the 514 level.
At some point this 500 – 520 result is going to get baked in. So many weeks, so many theatres, so many seats to fill … it will be “wait until next year” for a healthier theatrical environment.
It doesn’t help the state of theatrical exhibition when a film such as writer/director Sam Hargrave’s Extraction 2 skips theatrical venues and goes directly to streaming. Not only does that impact raw box office numbers, but the “hit” film count as well is down one (this would have been a toasty summer theatrical hit).
It could also be argued that this streaming-only strategy also hurts the bottom line of Netflix. Chris Hemsworth, the star of Extraction 2, has appeared in 16 non-Avengers films that have been released theatrically since 2012.
These non-Avengers theatrical releases had a combined domestic box office haul of $1.7 billion, or an average of $107.9 million per release. Throw in DVD, Blu-ray and 4K sales that would follow and Netflix potentially burned $70 million (or more) in net profits for their shareholders.
On the “helper” front this past week, Disney+ released producer/actor/writer Utkarsh Ambudkar's World’s Best on Friday, June 23 (starring Manny Magnus, Ambudkar and Punam Patel … direction by Roshan Sethi) and it was immediately available on Blu-ray.
Despite solid reviews, the film skipped theatres and went directly to streaming. With Disney’s track record of foregoing DVD and Blu-ray releases for the vast majority of the studio’s film and series productions this might be, sadly, the only source for fans who enjoyed the film (and its music) to obtain a Blu-ray copy.
And, speaking of Disney, another enterprising “helper” has started taking pre-orders (July 6 delivery date) for the Marvel Studios production of writer/director James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3. This puts Blu-ray copies on the street about 30 days prior to Disney’s official home entertainment packaged media product launch on Aug. 1 (a full mix … 4K, Blu-ray and DVD).
Another pre-order — all driven by streaming availability — that surfaced this last week is director Steven Caple Jr.’s Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (Paramount), which will be available as a “helper” Blu-ray product offering on July 10. It is unlikely that Paramount Home Entertainment will have official Blu-ray, 4K and DVD editions available before Aug. 15.
There were plenty more “helper” attacks this past week, but why belabor the point. Just sit back and enjoy the fun of it as “Hollywood” burns money.
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