"Wonder Woman 1984" Will Drop Directly To Streaming On Christmas Day
An important thing to note is that it will not cost anything additional for HBO Max subscribers, unlike the Mulan streaming VOD option that Disney+ did.
We talked a little about this on the last LCB, but I think it is essentially a bittersweet feeling as a movie fan. As a consumer who is absolutely dying for new blockbusters, I will always want the short-term gratification this offers. The downside is that this obviously bodes very poorly for the theater industry. Releasing a $200 million dollar blockbuster on streaming now puts a bunch of pressure on all the other studios that are blue balling their properties
On the surface you might think "oh that's kind of nice of them to burn their investment to give us some entertainment". They're a business, tho, and there is a very big motivator for them.
Here is some insight from Credit Suisse analyst Doug Mitchelson via THR:
"We see this as a smart, albeit expensive, strategic maneuver aimed to drive very substantial subscriber acquisition for HBO Max given how starved audiences are for film content, both in terms of converting existing HBO subs (HBO Max has been off to a slow start with only 8.6 million of the 28.7 million eligible U.S. HBO subs taking the free conversion over to HBO Max so far) and adding new subscribers to HBO Max (the 38.0 million total HBO/HBO Max subs are just under 30 percent of U.S. households)."
This is essentially an attempt by AT&T, the owner of Warner Media which owns HBO Max, to get a greater market share of the streaming world. With streaming getting a huge boon during the initial covid wave, they're going to try and take advantage during the this next wave of lockdowns that we're staring down the barrel of.
From an outside perspective, I am a little surprised to see them struggling since they have and incredibly great catalogue of both TV and movies. The barriers for entry are obviously higher than with other options that are cheaper, but you really do get what you pay for.
Trillballins and I kind of broke down our streaming usage and it went like this for both of us.
- Netflix is for occasional appointment viewing programs (IE the random original that hits like Queens Gambit)
- Disney+ is for Mandalorian
- HBO Max is for high-quality movies
- Hulu is mostly for established TV (Having It's always sunny, futurama, American dad, tons of reality shows and more is hard to beat)
- Amazon Prime is for "prestige" original tv (Fleabag, Patriot, The Boys, Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Sneaky Pete)
- CBS All-access is for the dumpster and nobody uses it.