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We’re saved! The movies are back, and after all the hand-wringing, there is no reason to change a thing.
• Let us drink deeply of the irony that after the ups and downs of his tempestuous career, not to mention his relationship with the House of Fast, that Vin Diesel—Hollywood’s least favorite star—should be the man to save the entire industry.
• Which goes to show you again that stars still matter. Does anyone feel confident that this outcome would’ve been the same if the F9 were fronted by some weightlifter randomly plucked off YouTube? Or that “the franchise can be the star now”? Even in the ninth installment, the stars still matter.
• Too bad Hollywood’s not in the business of making stars anymore. Pre-2015 minted stars are essentially a limited edition.
• Were the folks at Uni geniuses to release this box-office only? Were the great minds at Disney fools to send Black Widow to VOD?
There are a million ways to calculate that, and frankly, I’ve gotten a headache trying to read through the different stabs at it. After a handful of releases during unusual times, we’re still grasping in the dark on this and there’s no rule yet so written in stone that one mega-hit on the one side or another can’t rewrite the entire playbook.
But step back from tying your brain in knots over the box office vs. subs question. And ask for starters: What does it mean that Furious remains a viable theatrical franchise?
Given all the future possibilities of things you can do with a viable franchise still in its prime like F&F, the results this week increase its long-term value. If it was worth 10 dollars a week ago, this week if you were going to sell it off, you could ask for 15. Compare that to Wonder Woman. If that franchise was worth $10 before the 1984 release, what was it worth after? $6? $4?
Different films, different questions, different months, of course. But there are never apples-to-apples comparison in le arts. You never dog paddle across the same river twice. And these are but two data points, but the point is, can you name a franchise or artist whose value wasn’t diminished at least a tiny bit by their VOD releases of the past year? Include every single film released on Netflix in that question.
Is Trolls more valuable? Hamilton? Justice League? Tom Hanks? Michael Bay? Did any of them see their stock rise over the past year?
Now we’ve got a couple of franchises—F&F and Quiet Place—that are definitely more valuable than they were a month ago after straight theatrical releases. Nothing conclusive, but worth noting.
• But is even that diminishment of your IP worth it if it boosts your streamer? If the streaming services are the future, why not sacrifice any IP at your disposable, ephemeral, firehouse of content altar? (And can someone please build one of those to put in the Netflix lobby?)
Question is: If you’re a modern studio, what is your bedrock? Is it your subscriptions or your IP?
Subs are certainly more durable than box-office revenue, but, like box office, they can also come and go. Slower no doubt, but with increasing consumer savviness about unsubscribing and resubscribing from the myriad of services, maybe not that much slower.
Are studios distribution companies or they entertainment companies? What is the core competency, as they say?
A Netflix advantage is that they know the answer to that. Does anyone else?
The Studios mostly began with a core competency in exhibition, and then distribution, and got into production to serve those businesses, to give themselves a reliable supply of films to distribute and to show in their theaters. But eventually, they became a bit of both and didn’t really have to decide which business they were in. Neither production nor distribution was successful without the other.
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