‘Sponge on the Run’ May Go Straight to VOD
By George Robbins
Nowadays it is difficult to find things to do that can keep us all busy since everything around us has essentially been shut down. Some movie studios have decided to help alleviate some of the boredom that we are all feeling. Movie theaters have been shut down since mid-March when this pandemic was first declared in order to curb the rate of infection. With movie theaters shut down, studios have had to make the call as to whether they should delay the theatrical releases for their films or if they should put there movies on PVOD. PVOD stands for Premium Video on Demand which means that movies would be put online without any kind of theatrical release tied to them.
Most recently, two films have had PVOD releases and have been very successful financially. Those two films are ‘Scoob!’ and ‘Trolls World Tour’ which have been selling at the top of the VOD lists so soon after their releases. These trends may not end up lasting long at all since the only real reason people are buying the films on VOD is because theaters are closed. That doesn’t change the fact that these are the current trends and this is what is currently working for the movie market during these times. So with that in mind it is of no surprise that some movies are making similar moves to this.
Universal is putting a lot of stock into the PVOD release model and it is clear that, at least for family movies this model will continue to work. So wouldn’t it make sense that for some movies, it would be a much better option to release the movie this way than to wait months on end for a theatrical release. This is clearly something that studios have to put a lot of thought into so that they don’t end up losing too much money in the long run. However, there are many reasons to delay the movies as well such as keeping faith with the theaters that were meant to show them or the fact that the movies could possibly lose more money being released now rather than later. Some believe that one of the next movies to release via PVOD will be the ‘SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run.’
‘Sponge on the Run’ is the newest SpongeBob SquarePants movie that is currently slated for release on August 7th, after being shuffled around by Paramount. The question is whether their plan will continue the way that they initially had it set up since it would seem to make more sense if they released the movie to VOD earlier. Even if they don’t release the film early to VOD and decide to release it to VOD on its current release date, they would probably be much better off. Since, even when theaters reopen, people will probably not want to go out to a crowded public place even with the new health and safety rules in affect. So it would make more sense it this point, at least for safety, if they released the movie to VOD.