Universal is among the many production companies that has been forced to either push back their theatrical releases or put their films on VOD. They were one of the first to put their films straight onto digital with ‘Trolls: World Tour.’ The company also took films ‘Emma’ and horror flicks ‘The Hunt’ and ‘The Invisible Man’ out of theaters and onto VOD for the public. Straight to VOD is a decision that many companies have been wrestling with the idea of ever since the pandemic began. Universal is taking it a step further by releasing their first live-action film to go straight to VOD.
The film that they plan on releasing straight to VOD without any kind of theatrical release is Pete Davidson’s ‘King of Staten Island.’ Pete Davidson and Judd Apatow’s film will hit the home market early, forgoing any theatrical release to start earning money now. Universal has found relative success in their current VOD venture that is making them re-think their current model. Exactly how much they are re-thinking that model is unknown, but what is known is that the company is doing well with what they currently have going for them.
‘The King of Staten Island’ is a sort of autobiographical comedy by comedian Pete Davidson and director Judd Apatow. The movie features Davidson in his first leading role in a movie as a tattooist named Scott in his mid-20’s living with his mother. Scott has had a case of arrested development ever since his father died when he was young. His world is soon rocked, however, when his mother starts dating a firefighter and he can’t deal with the new “loudmouth.” The film was originally set to premiere in theaters on June 19th.
This pandemic has since changed Universal’s plan for releases as it did with many other companies’ plans. Universal has managed to make this new plan work for them with all things considered. ‘The King of Staten Island’ was, like most other films meant to release between now and mid-July, pulled from the schedule to be placed on a digital docket. Now the film will release digitally in the same month it was meant to release theatrically. This release model may not be permanently effective when things go back to normal, but for now, it works.
Due to the unexpected pandemic that has been brought upon the world by the coronavirus, companies have had to change the way they work. Entertainment companies have had to make some of the biggest changes of all to contend with. Production companies in particular have had to deal with what they have to do with movies that were slated for release. Either those films would have to be pushed back to a later theatrical release date or they would have to be released digitally. Those that have been released digitally are fairing pretty well all things considered.
Among the movies that were released onto VOD early recently was ‘Trolls: World Tour’ which didn’t even get a theatrical release. Instead, the film went straight to VOD so that Universal would be able to start making money on the film and they wouldn’t have to wait. This ended up working out for them, at least to some degree, after three weeks of the film being released digitally. The movie has made over $100 million since its digital release, making its revenue on VOD higher than the original film’s. This doesn’t mean that the movie will end up grossing more overall than the first film did, but it is definitely a start.
The movie probably isn’t going to make as much as it would if it managed to have its full theatrical release, but at least money is being made on the film. Of course a lot of money for marketing was lost because of the film losing its full release, but at least they are making money on it. Many companies can’t say the same because they decided to delay their films. That wasn’t necessarily a bad idea though, it just means they will have to wait awhile to put their product on the market. Universal is overall pretty happy with the fact that their film managed to make that much money.
Universal has wanted to try out this format since the release of movie ‘Tower Heist’ in 2011, but this pandemic has given them the perfect chance to try it. In general it works out for the company since they only have to focus on digital distribution, and it saves them the hassle of having to make and distribute physical copies. Also, with so many people at home, this ends up working out for them even more than if they had done this normally. The studio also gets to withhold more money from digital sales than from box office sales, so all-in-all the company definitely made out on VOD.
After ‘Captain America: Civil War,’ we ended up with an excellent rendition of Spider-Man to add to the MCU. Tom Holland wasn’t given a very large role in the film, but it was a role that he played perfectly in tune with the character. Since then, he has become an incredible embodiment of the character and is loved by audiences. Unfortunately for the writers, he also has a mouth that he sometimes can’t keep shut. He has been known in the past to talk about plot points from the movies he has been a part of, and some of them have been huge parts of MCU storytelling. ‘Infinity War’ and ‘Endgame’ writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely still don’t trust Holland with MCU spoilers.
Holland has already made five appearances in MCU films thus far, and is planned to appear in at least two upcoming films. His enthusiasm has managed to make him a fan-favorite, but his enthusiasm has also gotten him in trouble a couple of times already. Over the past few years, Holland has also become infamous for his leaking spoilers from Marvel films. So notorious in fact that he was paired with Benedict Cumberbatch while on a press tour to keep him from over-sharing movie details. He also wasn’t allowed to read the ‘Infinity War’ and ‘Endgame’ scripts.
Marvel Studios has used this to their advantage a few times over in the past by having him “leak” images and titles on social media. However, the studio still thinks that he is a liability when it comes to information leaking. Holland has joked that he no longer reveals spoilers for films, but that isn’t going to make people stop watching over him like a hawk to keep him from letting anything out that he shouldn’t be. This is even shown to the point that Stephen McFeely make a joke with a lot of truth in it when asked whether he can now trust Holland with spoilers and he answered, “Would you?”
While Holland might not be the only, or worst, offender when it comes to spoilers for the films, he still has to prove that he won’t spoil films. The other big offender, Mark Ruffalo, has also had to do the same, but he also managed to turn it around by joking with co-star Don Cheadle. Hopefully, Holland will do the same in the near future because he has multiple films coming up soon for him to work on. With that in mind, Holland will be getting many scripts and many chances to prove he can be trusted with spoilers. Eventually, he should be able to become a trustworthy actor for writers and they will not have issues with giving him information in the future.
Today was the second year anniversary since the original theatrical release of ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ and yesterday was the one year anniversary for ‘Avengers: Endgame.’ Those movies were the end of a saga that spanned over 10 years and gave us a solid end to a generation of films. There are countless moments throughout both films that have paid off due to years of hard work. However, there are a few things that had to be left out unfortunately. So now, we will go over a list of a few changes that had to be made to the films.
One of the first changes to mention was the deletion of the a longer reunion scene between the Hulk and Black Widow in ‘Infinity War.’ As we know, they had a relationship in ‘Age of Ultron,’ but we didn’t really get a longer scene involving them due to time constraints. A big change going into ‘Endgame’ was the addition of Smart Hulk, which seemed sudden and out of nowhere. How he ended up in the film was meant to be explained but, according to the writer it didn’t fit with the plot of the film. Something else that was cut was Iron Man had dying words, but this was decided not to happen in the final cut.
There are also countless other scenes like Rocket talking to Jane Foster in the past for the reality stone and Dr. Strange knocking Thanos out of his body during their fight. Sometimes movies just can’t include everything that was meant to be in them. These two films were no exception to this fact, especially because of their lengths exceeding two and a half hours. On top of that, there was reportedly somewhere around 900+ hours of footage to comb through. So, I guess we can be happy with the footage we got to see play out in the two films.
In an effort to give businesses a chance to make money so they aren’t completely financially ruined, Georgia state is re-opening public businesses with restrictions. There are a lot of issues that arise from people suddenly going back to being in public places with a lot of other people. With that in mind, the question is presented as, “What happens when we leave the house?” The state government has managed to come up with rules to allow public businesses to re-open while trying to look out for the safety of citizens. These rules are similar to ones that are essentially already in place in stores that are still open.
Those of you who have left the house in order to go out and get necessities know what stores look like with social distancing rules in place. Things like tape on the floor to keep people six feet apart as well as signs placed everywhere reminding people to stay apart. Businesses must take many additional precautions in order to re-open such as screening patrons for fever at the entrance, limiting occupancy, implementing heavy sanitation routines and staggering employee work stations. Theaters have even more restrictions with people being forced to sit six feet apart, parties can only have up to six people in them. Additionally, “employees must clean every seat, armrest, door handle, handrail and doorknob before and after each showing,” and ushers “will help enforce social distancing.”
Many theaters almost immediately started going under financially after the pandemic began with even the largest theater chain, AMC, having to furlough its employees. However, even with some theaters choosing to re-open, there is the issue with what movies they will be able to show and how many people would even want to go. With movies either pushed to later dates or released digitally, theaters only have what is in their inventory to show the public. Also, people are wary to go back out in public, and rightly so, given the threat that still exists out there. With that in mind, this is how they plan to do things in the coming weeks.
So, with the states of Georgia and Tennessee planning, quite poorly, on re-opening public establishments with certain restrictions, theaters are also planning on opening their doors. This leaves many theaters with nothing, however, since no new motion pictures will be available. With no new films available for premieres, theaters are left showing older films or they must repeat showings of other films. Not only will theaters be short on films, they will be short on people. Specifically, they will be short on people because those who are being cautious and safe will not be going, especially if there are crowds.
These things have been taken notice of by NATO, the National Association of Theater Owners, who recognize the issues that are being presented. The association has already noted that these things will end up being a major issue and that it will create problems for theaters that actually do re-open. Not having any new films and knowing that they will not sell out that many seats leaves very few options as to what to do. Not only do they have nothing to offer, but many theaters will also be understaffed since many employees had to be let go when all of this began.
“The movie theater industry is a national industry,” as said by a spokesperson from NATO. This means that unless all theaters can re-open, there will be issues with how movies are shown on the big screen. So, from their point of view, they are saying that it is a market that simply would not exist at this point in time, even if they did re-open. It being a national industry and there being no new product to push means that it will likely be one of the last industries to properly re-open their doors and it is still a long way off.
Many theater chains such as AMC or Cinemark will not re-open until they know for sure that they have some kind of market to open up to. AMC isn’t planning on trying to re-open until June, while Cinemark is trying to aim for a re-opening in July. Now, we are seeing summer films being pushed back as it becomes more apparent that this is something that will go on longer than originally anticipated. With theater companies chasing after release dates for movies so that they have something to show, even if Georgia and Tennessee want theaters re-opened, they may have no choice but to stay closed.
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