If You Teach Audiences to Stay Home, They Will

Plus: A cagey assignment!

Oppenheimer explains to Einstein the theory of general window-tivity. (MovieStillsDB)

Here’s a headline from Indiewire that I found mildly vexing:

In the piece under that headline, the author argued that the relatively paltry grosses earned by Oppenheimer after day 45 of its theatrical release meant that Universal should have rushed to get the film to video-on-demand sooner:

But the case could be made that as early as 45 days into its run, the impact of PVOD would have been minimal in theaters. Playing exclusively there, it added only $16 million more. After 52 days (the “Barbie” window), $10 million. After 60 (very long, but what Disney had for “Elemental” and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”), $6 million. After 90 (“Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One”) only $1 million.

Now. There’s no evidence that Universal cost themselves money so much as delayed themselves money by holding off the VOD release. And given that Oppenheimer appears to have outsold the fairer half of the Barbenheimer duo in its first week on VOD despite being released later, I feel like they made a decent call here. Regardless, I am more or less of the opinion that if a studio releases a three-hour, R-rated historical epic that is half in black and white and that movie then grosses nearly a billion dollars worldwide, sells out on 4K when it hits home video four months after its initial theatrical release, and tops the VOD charts in its opening weekend, that studio understood what it was doing and we would be foolish to second guess them.

Setting all that aside, the simple fact of the matter is that Universal wouldn’t have gotten anything from Oppenheimer if they hadn’t agreed to Christopher Nolan’s demands, which included theatrical exclusivity for 90 or 120 days, Variety reported back when the deal was struck. There’s probably a lesson to be learned here about the importance of artists understanding what they and their art are worth and demanding more of studios, but then Nolan is probably sui generis in his leverage as an artist. (If not sui generis then likely in league only with Quentin Tarantino in terms of bargaining power.)

But setting that aside, one needs to look no further than the struggles suffered by Disney in recent months and years to understand that there’s nothing worse for your theatrical business than emphasizing streaming over everything else. The Marvels is an out-and-out disaster; if it grosses $100 million domestically, it’ll be a miracle. Wish is not faring much better; while it could, theoretically, still pull an Elemental and leg out to a respectable number, its anemic $51 million worldwide so far suggests it is shaping up to be another out-and-out disaster. Combined with the soft Quantumania grosses and the dreadful returns for Lightyear and Strange World last year, Disney has a real problem on their hands.

And I’d wager that problem relates to a recurring sentence I keep hearing nearly every time I mention either The Marvels or Wish: “Eh, I’ll wait for Disney+.” Needless to say, this isn’t a problem exclusive to the Mouse House. When Blue Beetle hit Max, a bunch of people bemoaned the fact that the DC movie didn’t get any love in theaters. But I don’t know why anyone is surprised. After all, why would anyone go to a generic superhero origin story for a dead universe—or a generic placeholder MCU movie, or a generic animated movie—when they knew it was going to be streaming two or three months later for free anyway?

My point, simply, is that the system of windowing works and that even if it doesn’t necessarily generate a ton of revenue theatrically in the last 45 days it likely generates more in the first 45 because people understand that a movie won’t instantly be available six weeks after release to watch at home. It’ll be several months. Curious audiences need to feel as though they’ll be deprived if they decide to wait until something hits their TVs. If they don’t feel that deprivation … well. They’ll just wait the paltry few weeks.

---

Make sure to swing by Across the Movie Aisle for today’s bonus episode on inconsistent directors who also happen to be great directors. Should we only consider the peaks, not the valleys? Or is consistency the key?

---

Links!

Napoleon is not a movie you should see if you’re expecting a precise breakdown of Napoleonic politics or battle tactics. It is a movie you should see if you’re looking for an entertaining, surprisingly funny examination of the foolishness of imperial vanity. I quite enjoyed it, but your mileage may vary.

We also discussed Napoleon on Across the Movie Aisle this week in addition to diving into the thorny questions of free speech (as a norm and an ideal, not a legal regime) and what it means to be a public figure while debating the firing of Melissa Barrera from the next Scream movie for her anti-Israel comments.

Saltburn has inspired some incredibly deranged responses on social media, and my review might fall into the trap of responding to criticism of a work rather than just the work itself. Like Napoleon, I enjoyed it, but with something as intentionally outré as Saltburn, your mileage, again, may vary.

There’s an amusing anecdote about Tom Cruise nestled in this profile of Zack Snyder that serves as a reminder that in a weird way Tom Cruise really is the mayor of Hollywoodland.

Studios are hiding that forthcoming movies are musicals, probably because audiences mostly hate musicals.

Really enjoyed talking to Scott Eyman last week about his new book on Charlie Chaplin’s exile from the United States.

---

Assigned Viewing: ‘Vampire’s Kiss’ (FreeVee)

‘Vampire’s Kiss’ (MovieStillsDB)

I went on a bit of a Nicolas Cage binge this week prepping for an interview with the author of a new book on Cage (check this space tomorrow for that episode!) and finally watched Vampire’s Kiss. It’s Cage going Full Cage before we all really understood what “Full Cage” meant, and as such, it’s kind of fascinating. There’s a case to be made that Vampire’s Kiss represents an important turning point in Cage’s career, away from the Method-style realism he had pursued in the earlier years of his career and toward something more expressionistic and wild.