Streaming hit Hollywood quickly. In its wake, the industry is rushing to find a new way of doing business, rethinking who is in charge, how contracts are drafted and how stars are paid.
Studios are overturning their management ranks, empowering executives with backgrounds in business development, technology and strategy. Producers, filmmakers and actors like Will Smith and Tom Hanks try to protect their interests in new contracts that aren’t built around ticket sales in movie theaters.
With most theaters in the US closed and studios with billions of dollars in unreleased movies, business parents see streaming as their best opportunity to grow. According to Comscore, domestic box office revenues were only $ 2.28 billion last year, compared to $ 11.4 billion in 2019.
Now the city revolves around how many subscriptions Disney +, HBO Max and Peacock have versus Netflix. Executives ask how many technology companies such as Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. spend on movies and shows, and how long movies can appear in theaters only, or not at all.
As a sign of how dramatically the shift is changing Hollywood, Warner Bros., owned by AT&T Inc.’s WarnerMedia for the first time in its nearly 100-year history, has no executive whose sole job it is to oversee. the production and distribution of films intended for the big screen.