LogFAQs > #947890524

bryans7 posted...

That was my thought too. They're eliminating a major revenue stream and I wonder if streaming will make up for it when you have budgets of $200m or more.

It almost certainly won't. Deadline's article on the news has "financial analysts in the know" estimating that Wonder Woman 1984 will need to make ~$500 million in worldwide box office to break even, a take which would shock me at this point. That being said, this gamble isn't about trying to profit on huge tentpoles - it's about establishing HBO Max as a viable option for consumers in a world where streaming is altogether the future and increasingly even the present case of media consumption.

Xiahou Shake posted...

Most of the cost of movies comes from marketing in the cases we're talking about here, though. I can't say anything for certain but I wonder what impact having dedicated space on a streaming platform's home screen will have on the necessity to double a film's budget to plaster busses, billboards and the like.

This isn't quite true. For one thing, reported film (production) budgets almost never include marketing costs, which is why Blumhouse movies look so cheap, for example. For another, ~$150 million is the typical marketing spend for a standard live-action tentpole with a conventional worldwide theatrical rollout, a figure which said movie's production budget will usually exceed.

Also, if there was any doubt that American movie theaters will be reduced to a niche largely in line with that other type of theater sooner rather than later, this announcement should go a long way towards correcting it.

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