One of the more interesting stories of the-shocked shudder– the first third of the COVID-19 pandemic was the months-long feud between AMC and NBCUniversal that began when Universal announced that Trolls World Tour had fared so well on on-demand platforms after losing its theatrical run that future Universal movies might also skip theaters even after the pandemic ended. AMC was so upset about this that it stated that no Universal movie would ever play in an AMC theater again, which is something Universal couldn’t care about, but a few months later they came to an agreement with shortened theater windows that apparently made everyone happy. Then Disney started dropping movies directly on Disney + and Warner Bros. announced that the full 2021 slate would be released simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max. Basically, while AMC was concerned that NBCUniversal would overthrow the traditional movie release model, the other major studios have … toppled the traditional movie release model.
Warner Bros. is adamant that the HBO Max thing is a workaround meant to avoid further delays and to show the few theaters that have reopened in the US some new releases (a plan that actually worked), but now Disney CEO Bob Chapek says he doesn’t think the old way of releasing movies will come back. This emerged during a question and answer session at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media, And Telecommunications Conference (through The Wrap), explaining that people have now become accustomed to “the luxury of a whole year of getting titles virtually home when they want them.” He added that he doesn’t want to “cut the legs off a theatrical exhibition run,” but clearly he’s not convinced people want that even more now that they know the studios are willing and able to make big movies online. through their dedicated streaming platforms.
Meanwhile, like The Wrap points out that we still don’t know if Disney will really commit to a traditional theater-only release Black Widow, which is scheduled for May 7 after being bumped by the 2020 pandemic. If Chapek seriously thinks this may be the new status quo, it would be weird to have Marvel Studios stick to the old way of working. President Biden now says the US will have enough vaccines for every adult in the country by the end of May, so like Disney is doing stick with the old model and the timing will be fine, Black Widow may the great “theaters be back!” film that Tenet should have been six months ago.