Disney+ Dr. Strange in IMAX enhanced 1.90 on Disney+ is a new standard for streaming quality (1 Viewer)

[Jake Lipson]

How do they expect the box office to ever recover all that much when even something like this hits streaming so fast (w/out some pandemic lockdown, etc), stoking consumer expectations...

The box office has still been extremely robust. It has grossed $942 million worldwide to date. That number is without showing in China or Russia. China's government did not grant it a release, and Disney isn't putting anything out in Russia right now due to the war in Ukraine. But it has performed exceptionally well almost everywhere else. The quick turnaround doesn't seem to have put too many people off seeing it.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

There really isn’t an issue with a 45 day window because films like this make the majority of their money within the first 10 days.

This movie opened up with over $187 million in its opening weekend, but was down to $4 million last weekend and will be even lower this weekend. Whatever money Disney might be leaving on the table has to be outweighed by the money they save in not having to do a second massive ad campaign to remind the public of it, and by subscription revenue from D+ subscribers who are willing to pay a monthly fee for new and premium content.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

This is still a rather new thing, but I gotta wonder if it won't begin to erode future box office takes as consumers develop an expectation for such fast turnaround and feel more inclined to just wait, especially if they didn't see a movie during its opening week or so, particularly after it leaves the better theater screens (seemingly 2-3 weeks into the run)... It'd probably heighten the opening week excitement/attendance even more than before, but the opening week for most such flicks already seem very saturated though...

Such consumer expectation (and resultant inclinations/habits) wasn't already in place for this flick, but it would be at some point in the future if they keep this going...

_Man_

 

[Jake Lipson]

This is still a rather new thing, but I gotta wonder if it won't begin to erode future box office takes as consumers develop an expectation for such fast turnaround and feel more inclined to just wait

For other movies, that's definitely a possibility. There has been a lot of talk about Lightyear underperforming because audiences have become accustomed to seeing Pixar movies on Disney+.

For Marvel, though, I don't think it will be a huge issue. They drive so much of the cultural conversation around movies now. They have what the Russos called "weaponized spoilers" at their disposal. The fan base wants to get in and see it before the twists get ruined. Also, people know that a Marvel movie is always going to deliver big spectacle, and there will be an audience for that on the big screen.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I really don’t see it as being an issue. Tentpole films have been enormously frontloaded for long before the pandemic began.

Once the movie has played a couple weekends, that’s essentially it. When you vacuum up that much money so quickly, there’s no one left to attract. The people who want to have seen it in theaters will have done so, and the people that don’t want to go to theaters aren’t changing their minds. People go out to see these films immediately to experience part of the cultural zeitgeist and to avoid spoilers and that’s a time limited situation. By week three, the zeitgeist has moved on to something else, and the spoilers have been turned into memes and clickbait.

This isn’t really a new trend but an adjustment to a trend that’s been going on for a long time.

Frankly, Disney probably doesn’t care about theatrical revenue by this point in the title’s run. They’ll take it, of course, but it’s not driving their business decisions. Their splits with theaters are enormously frontloaded - they get 90-100% of opening weekends and by weekend eight or ten they’re not getting nearly as much. Keeping their 87+ million subscribers happy is worth more than maybe getting $2 million out of week ten in theaters.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Oh, I understand Disney's incentive to do it this way, but it doesn't seem good/healthy for the theaters though (and how long can they stay in business this way?)...

_Man_

 

[Josh Steinberg]

But that’s been true since before the pandemic, too. It’s a business that has major question marks for the long term because it came into existence at a time when that was the only way to see a movie, endured the advent of TV and home video by still being the best way to see a movie, and is now merely the first (and often least convenient) way to see a movie.

But at the same time, this really isn’t any different than live sports now. Sports on TV has coexisted with sports in person for decades. Most people watch a ballgame from home; a smaller percentage of fans pay premium prices to experience it in person. It’s really not that different.

At the end of the day, it’s an art/entertainment form that has existed for over a century and it’s not reasonable to expect it not to be impacted by changing times, interests and options. If there was audience demand for films to play exclusively in theaters for months or years, studios would do that. There is not. A “Greatest Showman” type that opens low and keeps gaining steam for months is an anomaly now. Most people who want to see a movie in a theater will see it in the first ten days. That was true this past weekend, this past year, and this past decade.

I personally think it makes more sense to do what they’re doing and acknowledge that there’s not much overlap left between people who want to see a movie in theaters and people who want to see it at home, and to adjust accordingly. It doesn’t help theaters to have a longer exclusive window if no one wants to come out past week three anyway.

 

[Jake Lipson]

it doesn't seem good/healthy for the theaters though (and how long can they stay in business this way?)...

The major studios have been trying to find a way to shrink the theatrical window for years. The advent of Covid just accelerated that process. 45 days is the new standard. For some smaller movies, it might be less. Universal can take any of their films to PVOD after 17 days if the movie opens to less than $50 million.

The theaters don't make their money on tickets anyway; the studios take the vast majority of that. The theaters make the vast majority of their income selling popcorn and soda and candy, which is why they charge so much for it.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I get what Man is saying but at the same point - how do you convince an audience to go out and see a film in theaters weeks or months after it’s opened when they simply have no desire to do so?

The $187 million worth of tickets sold opening weekend - those people don’t want to wait. It’s a non-starter to somehow convince them they should wait a month to see the film when it’s playing right now and they’ve been waiting months or years to see it.

And how do you convince the people who don’t like going to theaters that they should do so anyway when nothing will change the fact that the movie will be coming to their TVs eventually?

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I don't know. Personally, I'm in the demographic who pretty much never wants to go during opening week or so -- if I'm going, I want a good seat (in a good theater that actually beats my HT setup) w/out having to beat too big a crowd, etc to get it... plus I'm not quite on top of theatrical releases enough for that anyway...

Yeah, my preference, if there's all that many people like me (enough), doesn't necessarily suit the theaters for longer theatrical runs either. I just know that I gave up on some movies like this one because it disappeared from the better screens after just 2 weeks or so -- there are others I miss out on just because I was not aware enough during the first couple weeks or three like Everything Everywhere All at Once...

I guess (the theatrical side of) this current model/trend works best for people who are very regular movie-goers (who either go 1st week or two or don't mind lesser options in a later week), which I'm not... though I've been reconsidering ramping up my attendance (at least somewhat) this past year -- and my few movie-going buddies are similar (for the most part)...

But this going to 45-day window will definitely disincentivize me (and my family/friends) further I think...

_Man_

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I just know that I gave up on some movies like this one because it disappeared from the better screens after just 2 weeks or so

With respect, those films are going to disappear from premium screens in two weeks regardless of whether the window is 45 days or 90 days or 6 months.

A major part of the reason IMAX, for example, transitioned away from exhibiting movies on 15/70 film for two or three months windows to digital and laser projection with much shorter windows is because it was no longer profitable to do so. I was very happy circa 2008-2013 to see films in IMAX multiple times over the course of a season but by the end of their runs, even immensely popular films like The Dark Knight were playing to nearly empty auditoriums the majority of the time.

Those premium screens experience the same drastic drop off in attendance as ordinary screens, especially outside of major cities. The demand just isn’t there long term because the vast majority of people who want to see the movie in that format do so immediately. They can’t hold the auditorium for a month old film that’ll sell six tickets when there’s a brand new blockbuster that weekend that’s gonna fill up.

This new Doctor Strange, I couldn’t get to it opening weekend and saw it the following Wednesday. There were maybe six people in the theater. That’s not the makings of a sustainable, long term run.

But this going to 45-day window will definitely disincentivize me (and my family/friends) further I think...

Understood, I do get where you’re coming from. But in general, if you’re not seeing the movie in the first ten days, you’re no longer representative of an average audience member, and you and people like you aren’t buying enough tickets to meaningfully sway business decisions. If IMAX had kept Doctor Strange longer, it would have played to nearly empty houses while Top Gun was selling out all the other screens.

 

[Jake Lipson]

This new Doctor Strange, I couldn’t get to it opening weekend and saw it the following Wednesday. There were maybe six people in the theater. That’s not the makings of a sustainable, long term run.

This 100%.

Plus, the studios are all looking to book their big new titles in premium rooms as much as they can because whichever film has that auditorium gets to charge extra. My local theater is a Cinemark. Their premium screen is called Cinemark XD, which I think stands for "Extreme Digital." It is basically equivalent to a multiplex-size IMAX, but they don't call it that. They also don't get the shifting aspect ratios, but it is the biggest screen and best sound system available.

Last fall, I expected to see No Time to Die on opening weekend and would have been totally fine with paying a premium for that movie. But there was an issue with our van and I couldn't get there the opening weekend. By the time I could go in Bond's second weekend, both the XD room and the largest non-premium screen had switched over to Halloween Kills. So I ended up seeing No Time to Die tucked away in one of the smaller auditoriums and paid regular price for it without a premium. The week after that, Halloween Kills ceded the XD room to Dune. Dune had it for two weeks before ceding it to Eternals, which had it for two weeks until Ghostbusters: Afterlife. And so on. That's just how it goes these days.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

In the ye olden days before knockoff IMAX and surcharges for everything, that auditorium would have simply been the largest one in the venue and as such, reserved for whatever the hot new opening weekend title would be - the business has always been like that. The only thing that’s changed is that they figured out they could charge more for it. In other words, nothing has really changed on that front.

 

[white vader]

Because the whole theatrical industry is predicated on opening weekend/lack of word of mouth. Movies have generally made nearly all their money in the first two weeks. The exceptions are few and far between (ironically Maverick is one of them). And after that the studio to theatrical takings/percentages change. So the 45 day thing has been coming for a long time and 45 to 90 won't impact things a whole lot which is why exhibitors eventually agreed. Also the studios love streaming because they keep 100% of the profit.

 

[DaveF]

I watch more than enough vastly different types of movies that I generally don't burn out on any one given thing. Since Marvel films come out roughly four times a year, I can fill the other 360 days of the year with silents, noir, westerns, crime dramas, musicals, existential European cinema, samurai films, kaiju films, classic comedies, and so on.

If only it were that simple. But I have friends I like to talk with shows and movies about.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

If only it were that simple. But I have friends I like to talk with shows and movies about.

I get that. I stuck with Walking Dead and Stranger Things for at least one more season past the point where I was getting any enjoyment from viewing just to be social, until I just couldn’t do it any longer.

 

[DaveF]

Everyone’s watching Ms Marvel. Big conversation about it tonight at dinner out with friends. I‘m sure it’s a great show. I just can’t muster desire to watch another MCU series right now.

Same with Star Wars. I’m tired of mediocre Star Wars. Everyone was watching Obi Wan, so we watched it so we could talk and be social. But I’m glad it’s done.

 

[RJ992]

Sure they are, you just have to import it from Japan.

This is one title I'll import, despite cost. Saw it in 3D in theaters and having to see it flat is too big a downgrade for me.

 

[jayembee]

This is still a rather new thing, but I gotta wonder if it won't begin to erode future box office takes as consumers develop an expectation for such fast turnaround and feel more inclined to just wait, especially if they didn't see a movie during its opening week or so, particularly after it leaves the better theater screens (seemingly 2-3 weeks into the run)... It'd probably heighten the opening week excitement/attendance even more than before, but the opening week for most such flicks already seem very saturated though...

Such consumer expectation (and resultant inclinations/habits) wasn't already in place for this flick, but it would be at some point in the future if they keep this going...

_Man_

This has been the norm for quite some time. Certainly at least as far back as when the theater-to-VHS gap was roughly six months. Back then, I came across a significant number of people who said that they were perfectly willing to wait to rent it from Blockbuster.

Second week drop-off affects virtually every movie that gets released. It can be argued that cattleplexes that show tentpole blockbusters on three or four screens from the git-go do as much (if not moreso) to contribute to box office attrition for those kinds of films as anything else.

 

[jayembee]

Those premium screens experience the same drastic drop off in attendance as ordinary screens, especially outside of major cities. The demand just isn’t there long term because the vast majority of people who want to see the movie in that format do so immediately. They can’t hold the auditorium for a month old film that’ll sell six tickets when there’s a brand new blockbuster that weekend that’s gonna fill up.

It's also an issue of competition. My wife and I had planned to see Dune in IMAX rather than watch it on HBO Max, but Real Life kept getting in the way, and by the time we had the opportunity, it was no longer showing in IMAX near us.

When it came back in IMAX theaters that December, we knew we had to see it (and we did) right away, because the impending release of No Way Home was going to gobble up all of the IMAX screens. And as it turned out, we weren't able to get out to see NWH in IMAX while it was still available in that format. And that's come to be something of our attitude these days: if we can see it in IMAX, we'll do so; if not, we'll wait till it comes to disc or streaming.