According to various sources, Universal Studios has decided to forgo the theatrical release of "Troll World Tour", in light of the current coronavirus situation, and they're instead opting for a VOD (video on demand) option instead, where you may have to pay around 20 dollars for example to rent the movie online like many are having to do now with such films like "The Invisible Man", "The Hunt" and etc. No, you won't get to own these digital copies but for twenty dollars, you can rent these movies online. Needless to say, this has angered theatrical chains like AMC, who said they wouldn't forget about Universal pulling this stunt.
After reading various articles about this topic, there's a lot of people who feel this could be the end of movie theater chains as we know it considering if this model is successful, then why even release films in theaters at all when you can do it digitally and cut out the middle man? And others also go onto to say that given how long this epidemic could last, people could get so used to seeing movies online that seeing movies in theaters will become impractical once the coronavirus has ended.
Heck, even Wonder Woman 1984 is being rumored to go straight to streaming on HBO Max because of the coronavirus situation. Granted, Warner Bros. has definitively denied these claims, and insist that the new Wonder Woman film will get a theatrical release, and won't be premiering on HBO Max like rumors are suggesting. However, that hasn't stopped several writers and youtube critics from speculating, and citing anonymous inside sources, saying how WB is lying, and how they are considering releasing Wonder Woman 1984 on HBO Max, but don't want the public to know just yet until they made their decision.
Grace Randolph from beyond the trailer brought up some interesting points about this situation that I had not considered until she brought it up. She points out that given the situation, HBO Max coming out in May of this year is arguably the worst timing for a streaming service to come out given the epidemic, and it may make Warner Bros. look bad asking people who are forced to be quarantined and losing their jobs and whatnot to have to pay them money for a streaming service that hasn't been established yet; especially since Hulu, Disney Plus, Netflix and Amazon Prime has already been the comfort streaming services people go to for content, so why should people either add HBO Max or switch to them? She also brought up how one of the biggest selling points to get HBO Max was to see the highly anticipated "Friends Reunion", but production on that has been put on hold due to the coronavirus, so that may not be available at launch for WB. She also brought up how another selling point for the service was that it would be the only streaming service to have exclusive access to the Snyder Cut of "Justice League."
For those of you who don't know. When Justice League was originally in production, it was set to be directed by Zach Snyder, whom also directed such DC films like "Man of Steel" and "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice." Regardless of whatever your opinions of those films are, the point is Zach Snyder was originally tasked to direct the Justice League film. However, due to his daughter committing suicide during post production, he was forced to step away from the project for obvious reasons. According to Snyder, he was going to take time off to be with his family, and then finish production on Justice League himself.
However, the problem was that the CEO of WB at the time needed that movie to come out at a certain date, or else he wouldn't get his bonus. I'm not joking. Anyways, while Snyder was mourning the loss of his daughter, WB quickly hired Joss Whedon to make the Justice League film more jokey and light hearted in the same vein of Marvel's Avengers film, while using Zach's loss as an excuse saying he left the project because his daughter died, even though that's not actually the case. Needless to say, the Justice League film was a complete mess that was a huge flop at the box office, and it was universally panned by both audiences and critics. In fact, Zach Snyder himself has not been shy about voicing his complaints about the Justice League film, and cited how it was drastically different in terms of story and tone that he wanted for the project. Needless to say, Zach and his many legions of fans have been DEMANDING a Snyder cut of the Justice League film.
Keep in mind, the Snyder cut of Justice League does exist, and it's finished, BUT the studio would still have to implement the special effects in various blue screen shots, according to various sources. Now that wouldn't be too hard to do right away before launch of HBO Max right? Nope because apparently Zach not only wants to finish the CGI for some of the various blue screen shots that he was originally going to use in justice league that weren't used in the theatrical release, but he also wants to shoot a few extra scenes as well. And given the coronavirus situation, all film studios can't really do that right now for obvious reasons. Therefore, HBO Max might be dead on arrival given the situation, which is why Grace feels that WB releasing Wonder Woman 1984 on that service at launch might be the best thing for the company overall.
My thoughts on this situation is this. While I'm not going to deny any of the arguments that feel this could be the end of movie theaters as we know it, but I will say this. Part of the reason why streaming has not taken out film theaters is because once you upload a movie online, it becomes very easy to pirate it. And according to most programmers and coders, they'll tell you that eliminating piracy is next to impossible. You can't really stop a person from pirating a movie these days.
And the thing is even though YOU might say you'd be willing to pay say like 20 to 50 dollars to rent a movie online, the problem is you don't speak for everyone in the world. Seriously, let's look at this logically for a minute. If you had the opportunity to see for example "Black Widow" on VOD for 50 dollars online, but you also knew of a piracy website that allows you to see the same movie in the same level of quality for FREE, then would you seriously pay money vs seeing the movie for free if you had that option? You see that's why I personally don't agree with a lot of movie writers and vloggers on this subject, but I could be wrong.
Heck, I even said this myself to various people that at the end of the day, everything will be clear once "Trolls World Tour" comes out, as I'm going to make a prediction right now. If "Trolls World Tour" makes a substantial profit...not a billion dollars mind you, but just enough to where it's considered profitable, then yes I do think that will be the end of film theater chains dying out. But if it's not, then I predict nothing will change and the status quo will be restored once the coronavirus situation settles. But what are your thoughts?
Do you agree with me that film theaters won't go away because of piracy? Or do you think that Trolls World Tour will be a game changer, and studios will see that releasing films VOD and streaming is way more profitable in the long run for them? Please discuss.
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