The year of 2020 was not kind to a large portion of the economy, but it proved especially apocalyptic for the movie theater industry.  With the out of control spread of the COVID-19 pandemic across the world, the theater industry had no choice but to shut it’s doors in order to mitigate any further spread.  Likewise, Hollywood had to reshuffle it’s entire calendar an either push back all their big releases, or go straight to streaming, which further put pressure on the theatrical market that was left with few options for it’s survival.  Nearly a year after the shutdowns began, the theatrical market has yet to settle and begin the long road to recovery.  Some areas of the world are returning to business as normal, but in the largest theatrical market in the world (North America), the pandemic still is causing mayhem, and potentially could even lead to a collapse of the theatrical industry itself.  There has been a lifeline handed out by the government to assist smaller, independent theaters through the stimulus, and it will indeed help ensure that they can survive this storm.  But, the ones left out of the stimulus package were the big theater chains that are publicly traded, and their survival is crucial to the actual survival of the theatrical market, because they are the ones that account for the most box office grosses that Hollywood banks their investments on.  The fact that they are on their own in search for a way to survive the pandemic gives very little doubt in the likelihood of a full recovery for the pandemic ravaged theater industry, and this is very much reflected in the economic woes of it’s largest player in the market; AMC Theaters.  Starting off this new year, no matter what they’ve managed to do thus far, it looked like AMC was almost certainly going to face bankruptcy.  But like many of the movies that they’ve screened for audiences over the years, their story suddenly found itself in a late hour plot twist.

The sudden reversal of fortune came with this week’s chaotic stock trading upheaval.  Fueled by the Reddit community WallStreetBets, several nearly bankrupt stock listings saw their value skyrocket, with a sudden influx of share buying from the Reddit users.  Done mostly as a means of gaming the system to force a significant loss of revenue for hedge funds that have been aggressively short selling stocks in order to ensure that they fail so they could profit over their collapse, the WallStreetBets community disrupted the power dynamic of Wall Street while at the same time giving a temporary boost to stocks that were being pressured to fail by these vulture-like hedge funds.  And one of those stocks just so happened to be AMC Entertainment.  Up until this week, AMC’s stock value had dipped down to nearly $3 a share, which is as close to rock bottom as you could get for a company once valued much higher during the peak of the theater business.  Prior to this week’s unexpected turns in the stock market, AMC was facing almost certain bankruptcy, as their capital was almost going to run out by the end of the month.  In a last ditch effort to save the company, CEO Adam Aron pushed for a large sale of stock to the private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, whose much larger investment in the company gives them further leverage over the future prospects of the company.  It’s a risky effort, but Aron was left with little other options left.  And then, suddenly, thanks to Reddit, the stock saw a giant spike in value within a single day of trading, rising to nearly $20 a share.  After buying all that stock so cheap earlier, Silver Lake Partners now suddenly saw a 300% increase on their investment, and began to sell back their shares at a massive profit.  Of course, none of this Reddit fueled investment is going to last long, but it was enough to give AMC a short term boost that helps to settle some of it’s massive debt and remain solvent for a few more months, and possibly even the rest of the year.

So, the good news for AMC is that because of this sudden and unexpected turn of events, they are no longer in immediate danger of bankruptcy.  However, they are not out of the woods yet, because their long term fortunes are still going to be determined by the recovery of the theatrical industry in general.  The fact remains, normal is still a long ways off, with Hollywood still unsure about the prospects of box office totals ever returning to it’s record breaking highs of the past.  A lot has changed in the past year, with so many compromises having to be made just to keep theaters from going under in the wake of the pandemic.  There was the controversial shortened window deal made between AMC and Universal Pictures last year, which allowed for the studio to start streaming their movies after a short 3 week theatrical run.  It was an unfortunate shift in the power dynamic favoring the studios, but it was also essential for the survival of the theaters that were open, since Universal’s movies were often the only ones driving any significant box office grosses over the last year, like with Dreamworks’ The Croods: A New Age (2020).  And then came the highly controversial decision by Warner Brothers that they were going to do same day releases of their movies in both theaters and on their streaming service HBO Max; a move they decided on without consulting the theaters themselves first.  It’s been moves like these that the theater industry always feared as streaming became a stronger competitor over the last couple years.  And that’s a genie that can’t be put back into a bottle.  The sad reality of 2020 for the theatrical market is that they’ve lost ground to a competitor that they are likely never going to get back.  The only way to move forward now for the theaters is to convince both audiences and the studios that the best option to watch a new movie is on a big screen with a large gathering of people.  And in a pandemic driven shift away from social gatherings in general and more towards getting people to stay home, that proposition is going to be a hard sell.

Indeed, AMC theaters was in hot water long before the pandemic took hold, and it was largely due to their unsustainable desire to become the industry leader.  The company oddly enough started small over a century ago.  The Dubinsky brothers of Kansas City, Missouri began their company with the purchase of the Regent Theater in the downtown district in 1920, where they would stage melodramas for the community.  As the newly emerging artform of motion pictures began to take the world by storm, the Dubinskys, now called Durwoods, shifted to showing movies at the Regent to great success.  Over the years, the Durwood family began to buy more theaters in the greater Kansas City area, and with the Paramount Decision in the 1950’s, the Durwood chain began to grow further with the competition from Hollywood studios being taken out of theater ownership.  By the sixties, the Durwood family chain had spread across all of Missouri, Kansas, and several other Midwestern states.  By this time they rebranded to American Multi-Cinema (AMC) and began their next big contribution to the theatrical industry, which was the mulit-plex model.  Opening the first multiple screen venue in North America, AMC sparked a revolution in the way people went out to the movies.  The multiplex brought movies out of downtown and into the suburbs, with malls and mini malls becoming the new homes for cinema.  And with that steady growth over time, AMC withstood the ups and downs of the industry, as different chains came and went, but could never top AMC’s dominance.  By the turn of the millennium, the theatrical market was defined mostly by the big three: AMC, Tennessee-based Regal, and Texas-based Cinemark.  Nearly 80% of all movie screens in America are run by these three competitors alone.  A boon for the theaters on top, but a negative aspect for diversity within the business as a whole.

And when there is little competition at the top of the market, it creates a lot more havoc once that market becomes destabilized, like what we’ve witnessed over the last year through the pandemic.  A large reason why AMC was in such a dire situation is because a large part of their finances became tied up in mounting debt.  As the company began to go international, thanks to backing from China based mega-corporation Wanda Group, they had to amass a lot of capital in order to expand, remodel or build entirely new theaters in order to grow their market reach.  Now, it’s not unusual for companies to function while holding onto a great amount of debt; Netflix for instance has operated entirely while carrying billions of dollars in debt for almost it’s entire period of existence.  The only thing is, in order to operate while in debt, you’ve got to prove to yur creditors that you remain profitable in the long run.  It’s a good thing when your company sees sustained growth over time, but it can be disastrous when the market suddenly changes, and there is no hope of recovery.  That is the position that AMC suddenly found itself in last year, and it could not have come at a worse time for them.  In addition to their expansion, the company was also investing heavily in a video rental service of it’s own, as well as a membership plan similar to MoviePass.  Both could prove beneficial to the company, but required a large upfront investment in order to lay the groundwork.  Once the pandemic cut off their box office and concessions sales, AMC was left with no other revenue stream to pay for these expensive new services that they were hoping to sustain with the profits from their theaters.  So, even before the pandemic hit, AMC had already put themselves in a rocky position that left them perilously close to collapse.  And it was all driven by a desire to grow their business at a time when the cracks were already starting to show in the dam.  All it took was a sudden pandemic to make the deluge happen.

And AMC’s woes are not just exclusive to their own company; it is industry wide to varying degrees.  Regal, the number two theater chain, made the unprecedented move of just closing their entire chain for the time being in order to save on finances for the rest of 2020.  Cinemark, is also financially struggling, but not at the same level as they hold much lower debt than their competitors.  And the smaller chains and independent theaters were also on the brink of closing before the pandemic stimulus package was passed to provide relief.  And there are many theaters that were sadly too far gone, and closed for good in the last year.  There is no doubt that the theatrical industry is going to look far different in the months and years ahead; diminished and likely to be contracted even more.  They’ve even given up much of their leverage in the business just so that they could survive another day.  Even with the lifelines extended (miraculously in the case of AMC), we’re likely going to see the closure of many theaters still in the coming year.  I don’t really see AMC holding onto as many of their locations that they held pre-pandemic.  In my local area in the San Fernando Valley, AMC has no less than 4 locations within a five mile radius of my apartment, and that’s even with competition from Regal and Cinemark.  Downtown Burbank alone is home to 3 AMC theater properties, with 30 total screens.  Now, Burbank is a busy enough market that they can sustain 3 separate theaters, but in other communities, that would be overkill.  In order to raise further capital, AMC and other big chains may have to look at either selling off their properties, closing them, or maybe even breaking their company up altogether into smaller blocks.

The hard truth is that the long term survival of AMC and other movie theaters is dependent on the confidence that Hollywood is going to have to have with them.  And that is all dependent on whether or not audiences do return back to the numbers that were seen pre-pandemic.  I highly doubt that we are going to get back to normal any time in 2021.  The state of the industry may still have to depend on these special measures and hybrid releases in order to generate any box office this year.  There are some pleasing signs of commitment from big studios like Disney, Paramount, and Sony towards still premiering their movies on the big screen.  But, those same studios are still hedging their bets and that has resulted in them further delaying the releases of their movies towards the back end of the year.  Disney for one seems to be favoring the hybrid model for now, as their latest animated feature Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) is still marked for a March release on both Disney+ and in theaters, though the premium access pay wall does at least give theaters a competitive break.  It remains to be seen if this is only temporary or just ends up becoming the new normal.  We’ll know more when Disney decides what to do with their big Marvel tentpole Black Widow (2021), which was originally slated for last summer.  The hard truth is that with a lot of people staying home during this pandemic, they became a lot more comfortable consuming media from the comforts of their own living room.  Movie theaters need to convince the public that they are the ideal place to watch movies again, and that is going to be hard as a lot of people have turned away from theaters for a long time.  A lot of people’s pet peeves about going out to the movies (high ticket prices, disruptive patrons, lack of sanitation) just make the stay at home option all that much more appealing.  But, there is a case for the communal experience being a part of the entertainment, like the experience of watching a audience pleasing Marvel movie that makes the crowd cheer and applause, or the fact that some movies are just too big to be fully appreciated even on the largest of TV screens.  It’s that case that needs to be made by the theatrical industry, and hopefully by seeing the near collapse of the industry over the last year, movie theaters are going to be far more focused on showing why we need the movies now more than ever.

So, what we saw this week on Wall Street was much less a new lease on life for the ailing AMC and more of a stay of execution.  Reddit users’ crusade of taking down predatory hedge fund short sellers by investing in AMC gives the theater chain some much needed breathing room, but what it does now is going to be crucial for it’s long term survival.  They need to convince audiences to come back and believe that the theaters are the best home for the movies once again.  The unfortunate thing is that the pandemic entrenched so many of us with only one option to watch our movies in the last year, and that’s a foothold for streaming that they are likely going to hold onto for quite a long time.  And that’s a dire prospect for movie theaters across the board.  Just in order to survive the year, movie theaters had to cut compromises that they otherwise would never have done before, and while it did keep some of them afloat for a while, it also ceded more ground to streaming in the process.  At the same time, particularly in the case of the big three chains, it is a case of turnaround.  They turned their nose up at Netflix for years, refusing to screen their movies in theaters because of Netflix’s desire for a short theatrical window before premiering on their service.  But, as the pandemic raged, AMC relented and granted such a deal with Universal just so they could survive the year.  One thing that could be a plus is that now Netflix can indeed screen their movies in the big chains, and Netflix has indicated that they still want to.  Like I said before, we have only begun to see the change within the industry happen, and it’s going to change the way we view what it means to be box office hit under this new dynamic.  For AMC, I’m sure that this last year is not at all how they wanted to celebrate their centennial anniversary, but it’s something that was well out of their control.  The crazy thing we learned this week is that even their good fortune was completely out of their control as well.  I hope that AMC’s benefit from these Wall Street shenanigans, as short-lived as they may be, does spur on a renewed commitment to revitalizing the theatrical industry and making it better and more sustainable.  It’s a crazy plot twist, but hopefully it’s one that does open a new, and better chapter for the story of AMC theaters and the cinematic experience in general.

I’ve often written on this blog about the first couple phase of a film’s life, namely the creation phase of a movie and also the presentation phase.  But there’s one other phase of a movie’s life that I haven’t explored as much and that the final phase; home entertainment.  Sure, streaming has been discussed much lately and that falls under the umbrella of home entertainment, but what I want to talk about here is the unique culture that has arisen around the market of physical media, and how that has evolved over the years.  Movie aficionados like myself have our preferred ways of consuming entertainment, and it often is reflected in the ways that we also collect movies once they are available to purchase.  Home video started off as a niche market to begin with, but over time grew into one of the largest segments of film distribution within the industry.  Now with the rise of streaming, the home entertainment market has changed once again and it has in many ways diminished physical media as an essential part of the life cycle of movies.  But, that doesn’t mean that physical media has disappeared all together.  Instead, the home video market has shifted more into a specialty mode, with physical media carrying more of a prestige than it once did, and as a result, a higher value as well.  But what makes physical media stand out when compared to what someone might find on Netflix or Amazon for instance?  What makes buying a movie take on more of a value than either renting or streaming it?  In many cases, it not the movie itself that matters, but the way that it is packaged and presented that gives it more value in the physical media market.  Movie collections often become just as beloved a part of someone’s personal belongings than anything else.  In many ways, it’s something that connects us closer to the movies than any other form of media consumption that is offered up by Hollywood.

For me personally, my journey as a film buff has been largely tied to the way that I collect movies.  It goes all the way back to my childhood even.  Instead of asking for video games or sports equipment as gifts from my parents like my siblings would on birthdays and Christmas, I always wanted movies on video tape to add to my growing collection.  I grew up in the 80’s, when VHS cassettes were coming into their own as the primary form of physical media for home entertainment.  And the company that took advantage the most out of this growing market in the 1980’s was Walt Disney Pictures, which naturally I was the target audience for.  I remember receiving Lady and the Tramp (1955) as my first movie on video tape when I was 5 years old, and it left an immediate impact on me.  In the years after, Disney began releasing their back catalog of titles, and even began using their new Home Video label to bring their brand new classic films, like The Little Mermaid (1989), to a home audience.  As I collected more movies, I began to self teach myself about the history of the Disney company, and how every movie had a canonical place within the timeline of the studio.   This was largely due to the fact that every box labeled the movies in the chronological order that they fit within the Disney canon.  By the time I had reached high school, I had every Disney movie on VHS cassette, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937) all the way up to Hercules (1997), which marked 35 movies in total.  But, what started as a childhood collection for me extended beyond just wanting to have each one of those movies as a part of my collection.  In retrospect, I see those movies as the key to helping me deep dive into the history of film itself, through the lens of one studio.  By knowing everything there is to know about the body of work of a single studio, it allowed me to see the incredible mark that cinema leaves in general, and it sparked my interest to explore beyond just what Disney ended up making and look at the history of film as a whole.

Apart from the entertainment value that I would get from the movies I owned, I also have realized over the years how much the aesthetic of physical media matters as well.  In many cases, a well packaged movie plays just as important a role in selling a movie as anything else.  One of the things that I liked best about the Disney movie collection on VHS was the way that they were packaged.  For the most part throughout the history of VHS cassettes, the majority of movies that were released by the major studios packaged their films in flimsy, cardboard sleeves with artwork printed on the front, back and spines.  Disney, however, opted to package their films inside insulated, plastic clam shells, which to a young collector like me made them feel a little bit more special than the other movies for sale.  And when I had them all on my shelf at home, they often looked to me like books in a library, with each title specially designed to stand out.  Aesthetics mean a lot to collectors no matter what the item may be, and the best producers of home video packages were well aware of how each of their title would look in the consumer’s home.  By the end of the VHS era, box sets had become a niche market that had come into it’s own, with movie fans willing to pay the extra little bit to have a movie on their shelf that not only was important to them, but could even stand out as a work of art on it’s own.  One other thing that I always found interesting in that era, which in turn also helped me to expand my interest in film, was the aura of the double cassette boxes.  These were usually made for movies that were so long, that they had to be split up into two cassettes, which to me made them feel even more special.  In that time, it was movies like The Ten Commmandments (1956), Ben-Hur (1959), Dances With Wolves (1990), Braveheart (1995) and Titanic (1997) that were given this treatment, and the fascination that I had with movies that were too big for one tape became a big part of what pushed me into exploring beyond just what I knew about films from Disney.  If movies weren’t packaged the way they were like they had been in the VHS era, I wonder if I would’ve still gone down the road of film fandom that I ultimately did.

Things did change in the turn of the millennium, when VHS gave way to a new form of home entertainment; DVD.  Instead of cassette film, DVD’s encoded movies onto compact discs, thereby opening the world of cinema up to the digital age.  The same technology had been used for years prior on the laser discs, but DVDs were more economical to make and own and fit much easier on a bookshelf.  The picture quality also put VHS to shame, which of course led to a significant downturn for VHS production.  But what may have been the most significant contribution of the DVD era was the implementation of bonus features as part of the package.  Another carryover of the laser disc format, bonus features reached a new level of popularity with the rise of DVD.  Ranging from making of material to alternate audio tracks and even alternate cuts of the movie, DVD bonus features really raised the overall value of the movie that a person was purchasing.  And often the success level of a movie on DVD could be determined by the amount of bonus features that it offered as a part of the set.  This also led to the first instances of people buying a movie in a new format that they already owned in another.  I certainly am guilty of that many times over now.  I have probably purchased the movie The Lion King (1994) five times now across four different formats; VHS, DVD, Blu-ray (twice), and now 4K.  And why is that?  For me, whenever a new special edition of a movie is released on home video, I weigh my choice of purchasing on whether it offers anything more that the other editions did not have.  A lot of films don’t do this, and usually I’ll find that I make one lifetime purchase with said films when they become available.  But there are certain offers on new re-issues that I can’t pass up and I’ll pay that money again, even though I have owned the movie before.  Disney, the clever marketers that they are, have their so-called “Disney Vault” release plan, where their movies stay in circulation for a short time, then go back into the “vault” and out of distribution, thereby driving more demand for the film, which they’ll then re-release again in a big new, specialty package.  Sure it’s market manipulation, but it works, and it’s gotten me every time.

But there is one thing that I as a consumer really found myself valuing with the introduction of bonus features on the DVD format, and that was the in depth making of material that were found on certain special editions.  Not only did they spark my interest as a film history buff, but they even inspired me to want to work in the world of filmmaking itself.  Perhaps no other film release on the DVD format left a bigger impact on me as an aspiring filmmaker than the Extended Editions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Filmmaker Peter Jackson did the extraordinary thing of having cameras roll behind the scenes the entire time while he was putting together his epic film trilogy.  He invited behind the scenes documentarian Michael Pellerin to document every level of production, from the script phase to the final picture lock, and the whole complete wealth of material ends up eclipsing the movies themselves in length.  In keeping with the Tolkein theme, the collection of documentaries that Pellerin and his team compiled together are known as the Appendices on the special edition, and many film collectors will tell you that the entire package feels like having a film school master class in a box.  Peter Jackson would continue to pull back the curtain and reveal all the tricks of the trade in his follow up movies King Kong (2005) and The Hobbit trilogy in what he described as Production Diaries, and it could be said that an entire generation of filmmakers were inspired solely because of the documentaries on these DVD sets.  Even aesthetically they were pleasing to the eye, emulating volumes of books much like the ones the movies were based on.  Peter Jackson and Michael Pellerin certainly didn’t invent the DVD bonus feature, but they raised the bar high for the decade that followed, and as a result, the DVD era saw a flourishing of in depth making of material as a necessary element in home entertainment.

But, for many home video collectors, quality can sometimes be valued over quantity when it comes to all the bells and whistles.  One label in particular has made it their mission statement to deliver movies as a prestige product above everything else, and it’s one that I’ve talked about so much on this site that I devote an entire series to them; the Criterion Collection.  Criterion not only puts a great amount of work into presenting the movie itself in the highest possible quality, but it makes the package you buy it in just as much of a prize in itself.  The Criterion Collection caters to the film collector specifically, with the aesthetic of the box art given it’s own special consideration, knowing full well that the person who is buying a title in their collection likely owns a few more of their titles as well, so they’ve got to make it feel worthy of the label.  Each Criterion title maintains that aesthetic integrity from the box art all the way to the disc menu, and that’s part of the appeal of the Collection to most film aficionados.  There is a prestige to their presentation that you don’t find from most other publishers.  This includes a booklet found beside the discs that includes scholarly essays that gives the consumer a richer view of the movie that they have just purchased.  The bonus features from Criterion, many of them made in house, also illustrate the “quality over quantity” idea behind prestige entertainment.  Special Editions straight from the studio often package as many EPK materials as they can onto the disc and believe that it fulfills the criteria of a “special edition.”  But Criterion opts to in depth analysis into a film’s making and it’s themes on a larger sense.  Often, the total number of features may be less than the studio label, but the quality will be much more enriching.  When a movie receives the Criterion treatment, it’s seen as a badge of honor, and that is what has helped to make Criterion a valuable brand in the home distribution market.  And that special level of prestige is likewise what makes it less embarrassing for film nerds like me having to rebuy a movie that we already own.

But, like a lot of other aspects about the film industry, home video collecting is changing in the wake of the rise of streaming.  Indeed, home video sales have plummeted over the last decade since the heydays in the 2000’s.  And that’s in large part due to streaming taking over so much of what was the backbone of the home entertainment business.  Home video rental houses, like Blockbuster, are pretty much extinct now, and movies are readily accessible to buy, rent, and stream digitally from the comfort of home.  In the aftermath of the end of the rental market, and the declining sales of disc based media, we are starting to see how little of a market movie collecting really is.  When people were buying up movies by the dozens from their local video store, it was because there was no other option available for movie ownership.  Now that streaming has made it easier to access movies from the safety of home, more and more people are drifting to the option that is far more convenient and adds less clutter to their book shelves.  What’s left are the die hard movie collectors that want to have that physical movie to hold in their hands, and it’s a market that is likely going to grow smaller in the years to come.  As a result, the physical media market is changing to appeal to the niche market once again.  Movie studios are keeping their inventories lower on new releases due to the smaller demand, and in the process, the movies themselves are becoming a more elusive commodity.  Labels like Criterion are still thriving, because they’ve always operated this way, but the major studio labels are having to rethink what they should invest in when it comes to physical media.  Extra special editions, like those that include not just the movies , but special collectibles as well are becoming more prevalent, but also at the same time, more rare and expensive.  The Lord of the Rings trilogy even put out an $800 special edition set that included the Hobbit movies, all packaged in special leather bound boxes and stacked on a special, hand carved wooden shelf.  It’s a high price for a movie set that most people already have, but for what it is offering, it becomes less about the movies themselves and more about the exclusiveness of the package itself.  It may seem outlandish, but it could also mean the future of physical media in the long run.

It’s hard to know at this moment what physical media in home entertainment will look like a decade from now, but there is no doubt that the market is changing.  We may not see the likes of the incredible Lord of the Rings Extended Editions box sets again, but I also believe that very few people are ever going to through their original copies away either.  There’s just something to be said about a complete, aesthetically pleasing special edition package of a beloved movie that holds a special place in the hearts of film lovers.  It may be the end of a movie’s life cycle, but it’s also the phase that connects a movie to it’s fan more than any other.  When you hold the movie in your hands, it means a whole lot more to you; it’s yours to watch forever.  The Criterion Collection understands this, and they cater to what their audience wants by making each film feel special.  They have even remarkably convinced streamers of this as well, as Criterion has become the physical media home for films from Netflix, like Roma (2018), Marriage Story (2019) and The Irishman (2019).  If Netflix can be convinced to put their high profile, exclusive movies on physical media, then there is still hope.  I for one am an undeterred film collector, still buying some of the same movies over and over again.  I’m particularly a completionist with Disney movies, having own each canonical film on VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray, with 4K well on the way next.  And yes, they are all organized in chronological order, just like I did with my VHS tapes back when I was a child, because that’s who I am.  Even still, if a movie catches my eye in the sadly shrinking video sections at Target and Best Buy, I will make it a part of my collection that is now numbering in the hundreds.  I consume digital media as well without complaint, but a part of me will always desire a hard copy above all else.  It may be long past it’s glory days of filled to the brim special editions, but physical media has found a devoted fanbase that continues to support it, and it’s one that I hope continues to hold these movies up to a high standard, with quality standing above all else.

It is abundantly clear that Walt Disney had a strong interest in music.  Once he was able to bring synchronized sound to his Mickey Mouse shorts, he would continue to make music an integral part of every project he put together thereafter.  In addition to the popular Mickey Mouse shorts, Disney also created a separate series of cartoons centered completely around musical arrangements called the Silly Symphonies.  With a combination of established and original tunes, the Silly Symphony series not only became a popular collection of cartoons in their own right, but also a good testing ground for experimentation.  Walt Disney could do in the Silly Symphony shorts what he otherwise was unable to do with Mickey Mouse and Friends.  The experimental animation done throughout the Silly Symphony brand of the 1930’s paved the way for the kinds of advancements that would make it possible for Walt Disney and his crew to undertake the even more bold adventure of feature length animation.  In 1937, Disney released the fulfillment of all that hard work and ambition with his first ever feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and it became a box office phenomenon.  With the profits off of Snow White, Disney expanded his base of operations, moved his company to a bigger lot in Burbank, and quickly moved towards completing his second feature, Pinocchio (1940).  However, Walt still wanted to give due recognition to the mouse that started it all, as well as give the waning Silly Symphony series a refreshed new direction.  So, Walt and his team of animators decided to create one of the most ambitious Mickey Mouse shorts ever, set to a popular piece of classical music.  The story of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice was chosen because of the wildly popular orchestral piece by French composer Paul Dukas.  But, over time, the project proved to be too ambitious, as the short was going wildly over-budget and couldn’t continue being just a simple stand alone short anymore.  As a result, Walt Disney would head down the path of creating what would ultimately be the most experimental and unique film of his entire career.

The road to Fantasia (1940) becoming a reality would begin upon the crucial meeting between Walt Disney and famed orchestra conductor, Leopold Stokowski.  Stokowski was at that time one of the most highly respected figures in the world of music.  The English born conductor was famous for his striking presence in music halls around the world, orchestrating with his hands instead of a baton.  His rise in popularity led him to becoming not just the director of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, but the founder of many more across America and Europe.  He was especially popular in Hollywood because of his involvement in the creation of the iconic Hollywood Bowl, and it led to him even appearing as himself in multiple musical films.  Of course Walt Disney wanted Stokowski’s involvement in the orchestration of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and Stokowski was likewise interested in collaborating with Disney too.  Stokowski agreed to arrange a recording of his orchestra for Sorcerer’s Apprentice, but as meetings between the two artistic giants continued, it would become apparent that there was going to be a lot more to this arrangement.  Walt and Leopold began discussing other ideas for shorts based on classical music, and it eventually led to Stokowski coming up with the idea for what he dubbed a “Concert Feature.”  The movie would be like visiting one of Stokowski’s concerts at the Philadelphia Performing Arts Center, only the musical pieces would come alive on screen with the artistry of Disney’s team of animators.  It was a way of bringing the Symphony Orchestra concert experience to a mass audience through cinema, and the idea pleased both Disney and Stokowski equally.  It was decided that The Sorcerer’s Apprentice would now become a part of a larger program that would include multiple animated sequences set to classical music from some of the greatest composers in history.

Stokowski would work extensively on the project as the musical director, making the necessary edits needed to condense the lengthy pieces of music.  He also, alongside Disney, chose what would ultimately be the musical pieces that would make up the program.  In addition to Dukas’ Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the feature would also include the Toccata Fugue in D Minor from Johann Sabastian Bach, the Nutcracker Suite from Peter Tchaikovsky, The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky, The Pastoral (6th) Symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven, the Dance of the Hours by Amilcare Ponchielli, the Night on Bald Mountain by Modest Mussorgsky, and finally the Ave Maria by Franz Schubert.  Though all the pieces were well known in classical music circles, some may have been unfamiliar to a broader audience, and there needed to be context given to why they were bundled together in this feature.  So, Walt Disney and Leopold Stokowski turned to another collaborator; popular music critic Deems Taylor.  Taylor was a contributing writer to publications like New York World and Musical America, and sometimes a composer in his own right, and he built a reputation both in print and on the radio for explaining the artistry and impact of classical music in a way that the “average joe” could comprehend.  His direct and personable communication style was ideal for shaping the program for Disney’s “Concert Feature,” and Disney granted Deems Taylor the opportunity to both write the introductions to each segment as well as appear as the on screen host.  Through Taylor’s guidance, the movie found it’s connective thread, thanks to him laying out the different blocks of music that each of the chosen pieces fell into.  In his intro, he plainly explains that music falls into three types; one that tells a definite story, another that isn’t specific but still paints a picture in one’s mind, and a third kind that is music that exists simply for it’s own sake.  And with those concepts in place, Disney’s team of artists and animators were able to flex their creative wings.

It’s interesting that the “Concert Feature” does not begin with the short that launched the project from the start, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.   Instead, it begins with a piece based on the third kind of music; the one of pure abstraction.  It makes sense that Bach’s Toccata Fugue opens the film, given that it’s music simply for it’s own sake.  Famous for it’s ominous opening segment, often used in silent horror films, Toccata Fugue introduces us to the orchestra itself, filmed in a daring surrealist way by soon to be legendary cinematographer James Wong Howe.  Soon the orchestra gives way to abstract, formless animation of shapes and colors set to the music that was unlike anything seen on film before.  Combined with that iconic silhouette of Stokowski conducting commandingly with his arms and his back to the camera, it is a bold start to the feature that follows.  What is even more surprising is that the second segment takes a piece of music that does tell a familiar story, The Nutcracker, but removes the narrative entirely.  Instead, the Nutcracker Suite uses the familiar melodies to showcase a symphony of nature, complete with dancing mushrooms, flowers, goldfish, and fairy sprites.  Disney could’ve easily have retold the famous Nutcracker story, but what they did instead was make this segment fall into the category of music that suggests something entirely different.  The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, a very definite story told through music follows, and it very much is as masterful as Disney intended it to be.  Mickey’s Sorcerer outfit is almost as universally recognized as his normal get-up, and the segment is without a doubt the most popular of the film all these years later.  The fourth segment is probably the most controversial inclusion of the film.  When Igor Stravinsky premiered his Rite of Spring ballet in Paris in 1914, it was so scandalous that it caused a riot.  Interesting enough, Stravinsky was the only composer still living during the making of this film.  Living in exile away from his native Russia post-Revolution, Stravinsky was now living in Beverly Hills, and Walt Disney did indeed welcome him to visit the studio.  Perhaps Stravinsky never anticipated that Disney would take his orchestrations to tribal dance and shape them into a chronicle of the evolution of life on Earth, all the way to the age of the Dinosaurs.  Stravinsky soured on the film over the years, though it’s been said that he was more upset by Stokowski’s edits than the artistry of Disney’s artists.  Even still, the inclusion of The Rite of Spring in the film is a bold choice, and one that is particularly heavy dramatically for animation, not shying away from gruesome onscreen death and violence.

After an intermission, the only one in any Disney movie, the orchestra returns to the screen and Deems Taylor introduces the audience to a “special member” of the crew; the Soundtrack.  The Soundtrack is personified as a simple line across the screen that comes to animated life synchronized to the accompanied music of different instruments.  It’s quite an achievement on the animators part that they manage to put personality in something as simple as a soundtrack line, but it does present the audience with an identifiable representation of an instrument used by studio orchestras that help them stay synchronized when recording for a film.  From there, the movie continues with two segments that suggest stories that the animation team freely adapted.  First off, they take Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, which was inspired by the splendor of Bavarian countryside, and instead expand it into a portrayal of Greek mythological creatures frolicking in the shadow of Mount Olympus.  After that, the animators take the Ponchielli’s Dance of the Hours ballet from the opera La Giaconda, and supplant the dancers with wild animals such as hippos, ostriches, elephants, and alligators.  These two segments are the ones closest to the traditional Disney formula, and as a result, the most overtly comical, especially Dance of the Hours.  If you ever wanted to see a hippo in a tutu, the animators certainly deliver on that promise.  These more light-hearted segments help to comfort the audience before the film reaches it’s very profound finale.  The closing of the film combines two pieces of music that are the antithesis of each other, representing what Deems Taylor states is a clash between the profane and the sacred.  It begins with Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain, another favorite of silent horror, and we are introduced to one of Disney’s most iconic evil characters in their entire library; the demon god Chernabog.  Animated by legendary artist Vladimir “Bill” Tytla, Chernabog is a tour de force creation, representing some of the most profound character animation ever.  The segment also features some of the most disturbing and macabre artwork ever in a animated feature, let alone a Disney one.  How Walt Disney was able to get away with something this unapologetically dark and foreboding in that time is a mystery, and the segment continues to be popular to this day, especially around Halloween.  After the madness of Bald Mountain, the movie concludes with a soulful rendition of Ave Maria, with an incredible showcase of Disney’s most valued device, the multiplane camera, giving stunning depth to the artwork in the segment.

To say that Walt Disney’s plans for Fantasia were ambitious would be an understatement.  Not only was he pushing the studio on an artistic level, but he was also experimenting on the music front as well.  Walt wanted to recreate the music hall experience as much as he could for the big screen, and that called for inventing an entirely new kind of soundtrack.  The Disney Studio technicians invented what they called Fantasound, which was a forerunner to stereo surround sound that we all know today.  It is amazing to think that long before 5.1 surround sound would become the norm in sound mixing for every film made by Hollywood, the Disney studio had already invented it just for this one film alone.  The only problem was that Fantasound was expensive, and required movie theaters to install new equipment just to run the film to it’s full potential.  As a result, Walt Disney opted to premiere Fantasia as a Roadshow, premiering the movie in select markets that could support his Fantasound experience before he could present a monoaural version in smaller markets later.  But, even with a finished film, Walt was no where near done.  His plan was to have Fantasia be continuously renewed every year, swapping one segment out for a new one in a continuous chain.  Fantasia would be a movie without end that would continuously refresh itself year after year.  And indeed, he wasted no time, putting new segments quickly into production.  These included segments based on Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries for instance.  Walt even began collaborating with artist Salvador Dali on a segment called Destino, which would have centered around Dali’s surrealist style.  However, real life put the breaks on Walt’s ambitious plans.  The outbreak of World War II cut off the crucial European market, and Walt’s expensive Roadshow presentation was not able to recover it’s cost.  With only an adaptation of Claude Debussy’s Claire de Lune complete, Disney had to permanently shelve his Fantasia plans in order to salvage the studio after the double whammy hit of disappointing box office returns for both Pinocchio and Fantasia.  A year later, America would enter the war and Walt Disney would open his studio up to produce propaganda pictures for the war effort; a drastic move that Walt might have avoided had he been on stronger financial footing.

After the War, Walt Disney decided to give Fantasia another chance, however with much less fanfare than he had previously planned.   A 1946 re-release removed the surround sound track in favor of a standard mono recording.  It also shredded most of Deems Taylor’s introductions down to the bare minimum. It was certainly a shell of it’s former self, but thankfully for Walt Disney, the re-release was a success, and helped to keep the movie in the public eye.  Walt never again tried to attempt another film like Fantasia again, and refrained from re-booting his plans for more segments through the rest of his life.  Subsequent re-releases over the years helped to build Fantasia’s reputation and it developed a strong following.  A 50th anniversary re-release in 1990 proved to be a pivotal one, because it restore the five channel surround sound of the audio tracks, as well as helped to clean up the image that was definitely showing it’s age at this point.  There was also the controversial removal of centaurs from the Pastoral Symphony sequence that were deemed offensive black stereotypes.  This 50th anniversary was both popular in theaters and on a special home video release.  But, it was a restoration of the 1946 version.  One of the most ardent champions for Fantasia at the Disney studio at the time was Walt’s nephew Roy E. Disney, who was now the head of Animation.  Roy took it upon himself to fulfill Walt’s dream by creating a fresh continuation of Fantasia in a new sequel called Fantasia Continued.  But, at the same time, Roy desperately wanted to find the original 1940 version of the film and see if it could be restored.  Thankfully, the Disney Archives were able to find and restore the original film elements of the 1940 version.  Unfortunately, the 5 track audio was not in a complete form, as only the musical tracks survived.  So, the restoration team made the tough decision to dub over Deems Taylor’s complete narration with a soundalike (in this case, veteran voice actor Corey Burton).  Even still, Roy was able to have a complete version of Walt’s original Fantasia ready to premiere to the public alongside his brand new Fantasia sequel.

Fantasia 2000, as it would later be called, launched off as the first movie of the new millennium, premiering on January 1, 2000.  And like Walt’s original, the movie’s premiere plan was perhaps a little too ambitious for it’s time.  Instead of a wide theatrical release, Fantasia 2000 would instead play exclusively on IMAX screens across the world for six months; a first for a major studio release.  Keep in mind, this was years before The Dark Knight would popularize IMAX as a filmmaking tool for Hollywood releases, so IMAX screens were few and far between, and were often used more for nature documentaries.  So, Fantasia 2000, like it’s predecessor, would also be hailed as an artistic achievement that unnecessarily was hampered by a limited theatrical release.  But, also like Fantasia, it would continue to build a strong reputation over time and now on it’s own 20th anniversary, it is recognized as a classic in it’s own right.  But, it is the original that still stands tall as a icon in film history.  There is honestly no other movie like it, other than it’s long in the making sequel.  It’s a perfect blending of two great artforms, elevating the potential of each other.  The classic music pieces chosen for the film underscore some of the most imaginative imagery ever captured in animation, and the movie likewise helped to keep these particular classical pieces popular in the public consciousness, even through the changing musical landscape of the 20th century.  Fantasia even changed the way that we experience music in a visual medium.  You can see it’s influence in the way that music videos try to match the tempo of the music to the visuals, or in the way that some movies will sometimes edit to music cues.  The short that started it all, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, is also today an integral part of the Disney Company’s iconography, with the Sorcerer’s hat found in even the architectural framework of key Disney properties like the Animation building on the Burbank Lot, and at the Disneyland Hotel.  After two groundbreaking but still narratively familiar feature films to start off his legacy in Hollywood, it is quite remarkable that Walt Disney would undertake something as experimental and unique with his third feature.  Thanks to a pivotal meeting with the likes of Stokowski, Walt Disney not only changed the concept of what could be considered a film with his “Concert Feature,” but he also changed the way we experience music as well.  Fantasia truly is a monumental film in the history of cinema, and though it faced an uphill climb beyond it’s original release, with technology finally catching up to it’s ambitious vision, we now see it today 80 years later as the game-changing experience that Walt Disney had always wanted it to be.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and the same holds true for a period of great upheaval like the one that we are experiencing now.  The long term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are still unknown, but for the moment, it has had devastating effects on the worldwide economy.  No where has that been more apparent than within the film industry.  With production ground to a halt for many months and theatrical exhibition pretty much on life support, TInseltown has pretty much spent the entire year of 2020 reassessing it’s priorities, in addition to having to quickly shift to new economic norms.  The pandemic also came at a crucial junction within the shifting industry itself, as this was also the year that several new streaming services were launching their platforms to enormous fanfare.  We knew for a long time that streaming was going to emerge as a rapidly growing new arm of distribution for the entertainment industry in the years ahead.  What I’m sure that no one expected at the start of this year was that streaming would become the sole outlet for the major studios to premiere their new and expensive content after the majority of theatrical venues were forced to close their doors.  It was fortuitous for the big Hollywood studios that their streaming platforms were launching in the middle of this worldwide catastrophe, but at the same time, they never anticipated it to be their sole lifeline either.  Indeed, streaming was never the planned destination for movies that were meant to gross over a billion dollars worldwide.  But, given the state of the theatrical industry going into next year, we may have to reconsider what we deem as a blockbuster, because business as normal may be impossible for a long time if ever.

So, Hollywood is at a crossroads right now.  Either patiently wait for the theatrical industry to sort itself out and hold out their big properties until they are able to safely recoup their investment, or go all in on streaming.  For the theatrical industry, they are deeply worried that Hollywood is going to choose the latter.  The largest chain in the North American market, the largest theatrical market in the world, is AMC, and their financial situation is the most dire of all.  With only enough cash to see them remain solvent into January of next year, AMC may be forced to declare bankruptcy within the next month or so, significantly hampering any chance of the theatrical market returning to normal business within the foreseeable future.  Before this point, AMC had already cut deals that they otherwise would not have in other circumstances with the major studios in order to cut the theatrical window shorter.  Their landmark deal with Universal, which reduced the theatrical exclusive window down to a mere three weeks, already uprooted decades old norms about the dynamics of power between Hollywood and the theaters.  The even older Paramount statute, which barred studio ownership of movie theaters is also being lapsed as a way of possibly opening the window for studios investing more in the future of the theatrical market.  As we can see, even before the pandemic has reached it’s end or even it’s zenith, the theater industry is already forever changed, and the uncertainty that brings to a film industry that has relied heavily on box office dollars is going to lead to a lot more changes.  Right now, a streaming service with a monthly subscriber base just seems more like a surer bet for some people, but that is also dependent on how well the services are able to sign up and secure new subscribers.  In addition to making their big, publicized launches in the year 2020, most of these streaming services are also making their big push to convince people that their content is worthy of the monthly fee to access it, and that has led to a lot of dramatic re-shuffling of distribution.  And of course change is not accomplished without some resistance.

Which brings us to the controversial move made this past week by Warner Brothers and their parent company AT&T to move their entire catalog of new films slated for 2021 to a hybrid theatrical and streaming option.  This means that every movie released by the studio next year will premiere both in theaters and on Warner Media’s streaming service, HBO Max, at the same exact time, with the streaming option being at no extra charge on top on the subscription price.  The hybrid model is nothing new, but up until now it has only been used on a movie to movie basis.  The fact that Warner Brother went out of their way to state that all their movies in the next year would be following this model, regardless of the conditions of the market and the pandemic, is what gave pause to the film industry this week, and raised an alarm amongst the theater chains.  AMC CEO Adam Aron blasted the news, saying that Warner Media was “sacrificing box office profitability in order to subsidize their streaming platform” and that he “wouldn’t allow them to do so at their (AMC’s) expense,” according to a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.  What is alarming many, in addition to AMC, is that Warner Media seemed to make this decision unilaterally, without consultation, and that it seems to be a brazen way of just generating more attention to their HBO Max platform.  Originally, Warner Brothers did make a free-standing agreement with the movie theaters to try such a release model with Wonder Woman 1984, which is slated for a Christmas 2020 release after two prior delays.  AMC and others gladly accepted the terms, because they believed it to be a special case and it would allow them to have a blockbuster level movie that could help drive up business for them in a difficult time.  As the pandemic subsides, and the restrictions loosen, then the theaters and the studios could return back to the old model.  But it seems that Warner Brothers used this opportunity to take the precedent of this deal, and apply it to everything else on their plate for the foreseeable future.  And to the theater industry, this is not only seen as a betrayal, but a possible threat to their very survival if other movie studios follow suit.

The movie theaters do have industry insiders that are championing their side in the fight.  Chief among them this past week has been celebrated director Christopher Nolan, who has long been a passionate advocate of the theatrical experience.  And Nolan’s injunction into this argument is a fascinating one to watch because for the past couple decades, his home base has been the Warner Brothers studio, which has had a hand in producing all his movies from Insomnia (2002) to this year’s Tenet (2020).  Nolan did not parse words, saying in an NPR interview that “the economics are unsound,” and in a separate statement to the Hollywood Reporter, he even went on to say the most damning statement yet, saying, “Some of our industry’s biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed the night before thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up to find out they were working for the worst streaming service.”  That final few words, “worst streaming service,” went especially viral in the days after, because it really spelled out the bad blood that has developed between Warner Brothers and their “Golden Boy” director.  Warner Brothers and AT&T have spent the better part of the year trying to promote their expensive new streaming platform, and here was their most celebrated filmmaker publicly trashing it.  Warner Brothers fired back, stating that the underperformance at the box office for Tenet is what prompted the economic decision to invest more in streaming; a situation that Nolan bared some responsibility for putting them in with his insistence on a theatrical run.  No doubt about it, the creative partnership between Christopher Nolan and Warner Brothers might be forever frayed, and who knows if Nolan will continue on with them after his contract is up.  Some certainly have criticized Nolan’s statements as self-serving in a pandemic affected climate, labeling him as putting his own self-interest over the health and safety of theater patrons.  There are arguments that filmmaker vanity could be behind why Nolan has come at Warner Brothers so hard, but the case grows stronger against the studio when he is not the only aggrieved party.

Denis Villeneuve, whose upcoming sci-fi epic Dune (2021) is also affected by the HBO Max decision, backed up what Christopher Nolan said, even going so far as to attack parent company AT&T for what he sees as brazen corporate meddling.  Speaking to Variety, Villeneuve said of AT&T, “hijacked one of the most respectable and important studios in film history.”  Further support has come from filmmakers all across the spectrum of the industry, all stating that AT&T and Warner Brother’s choice of diminishing box office in favor of boosting streaming subscriptions was an unfair move driven by economics and not by creative choices.  Warner Media would argue, as they have in response to Christopher Nolan’s remarks, that the situation has left them with no other alternative, as the likelihood of a return to normal box office appears to be impossible.  The dire situation that the big theater chains find themselves in seems to back up the Warner Media claim, as there will likely be a diminished number of theaters open throughout most of next year, and it will likely never bounce back.  For Warner Brothers, they see themselves adjusting to a new market reality, where their movies can still reach the largest possible audience, without having to deal with disappointing box office returns from a diminished market.  But the filmmakers point out that HBO Max is in no position to supplant theaters so soon.  Nolan’s sharp critique of HBO Max as the “Worst Streaming Service,” does bear some fruit, at least in it’s first year.  If it weren’t for the catastrophic collapse of Quibi to make it look good by comparison, HBO Max would have had the most disastrous launch of any of the new streaming services this year.  Paralyzed by terrible marketing, a confusing user interface, lack of buzzworthy original content, and an unusually high starting subscription price, there have been a number of problems that have dragged HBO Max down, and now it’s supposed to carry the weight of the studio going forward.  This is why a lot of filmmakers are not happy with the decision by AT&T and Warner Brothers to go all in at the expense of the theatrical market.

Another major complaint is that it also violates already existing labor contracts as well.  This was the point made by the most clout worthy critic of the move made by Warner Media regarding streaming; the Director’s Guild of America.  Their concern is over how the move from theatrical to streaming will affect the pre-existing contracts of not only those within it’s union, but with all the technicians and crew men and woman working on the sets of productions at the studio.  They claim that Warner Brothers acted unilaterally in making this decision, without consulting the unions and the talent involved, whose compensation may be affected by the shift to the hybrid model.  For a lot of contracts in Hollywood, particularly for directors and actors, residual compensation is dependent on box office performance.  There is a separate contractual compensation once a movie goes to streaming, but it’s worked out as a fixed amount upfront.  Numerous contracts have had to be reassessed because of the pandemic this year, but it’s been done on a movie to movie basis.  Where the issue hits on this HBO Max situation is that because of the hybrid model of theatrical and streaming at the same time is that it appears Warner Brothers is intentionally diminishing the potential for higher than expected box office grosses, thereby also diminishing the residual compensation they must also honor on the contracts.  And the DGA is looking at this as an abuse of pre-existing contracts to ensure more money on the studio side and less of the talent side.  No doubt there will be lawsuits filed over the issue, with arguments made over what is owed to the the people involved in the making of these movies, making sure that they are getting their due compensation, even with the emergency actions in response to the pandemic.  But, if it can be proven that AT&T and Warner Media made this change with the intention of diminishing residuals based on box office in violation of these contracts, then Warner Brothers could seriously be facing a significant blow to their reputation within the industry.

One of the biggest concerns on the part of filmmakers and the unions and agencies that are representing them is that Warner Brothers’ unilateral action is going to make other studios follow suit, including studios with a much stronger footing in the streaming world.   A year after it’s November 2019 launch, it’s abundantly clear that the strongest challenger to the Netflix dominance in the streaming market is Disney+, reaching an unheard of first year subscriber base of 83 million in one year.  That’s why, immediately on the heels of HBO Max’s industry shaking news, a lot of eyes were on Disney’s Investor Day announcements on December 10, 2020.  Disney has been indicating with their corporate shuffling that there would be a renewed shift towards more interest in Disney+.  The only question was, would they abandon theaters in the process.  Though a lot of huge announcements were made, the majority of the news was about the ongoing and limited series slated for Disney+.  As far as feature films, a few announcements of Disney+ exclusives were detailed, but for some of the biggest brands (Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar), there was no stated announcement of a hybrid theatrical/streaming release plan.  The only movie that is receiving the treatment that they announced in the presentation is Disney Animation’s Raya and the Last Dragon (2021), scheduled for early March.  Considering that the release date is so near, it makes sense to have it available for both options, similar to what Wonder Woman 1984 is doing.  But, for the next big Disney release, Marvel’s Black Widow (2021), they announced nothing other a theatrical release, which I’m sure was a welcome sign for the theater industry.  Plans could indeed change, but it appears that Disney, a clear industry leader, is in no hurry to abandon theaters just yet.   Still, the worry is that as long as the theaters continue to struggle, the more the studios will feel inclined to lean more heavily on streaming as a preferred mode of distribution.  And what Warner Brothers’ move has shown is that such a pivot will likely meet a good deal of resistance from within the industry itself.

Christopher Nolan’s words against HBO Max were certainly harsh, but he’s not a solitary voice screaming into the void.  A lot of industry players certainly know that streaming is a part of the future going forward, but they are feeling like they are being dragged by the collar into accepting the new normal without their say.  Warner Brothers, or more appropriately parent company AT&T, made a choice clearly driven by economics and didn’t consult anyone else within the film industry.  For filmmakers, unions, and production companies that partner with the major studios, it feels to them like a power grab that diminishes their say in the creative process.  AT&T, who bought the Warner Media library fairly recently, has probably never had to deal with talent and production in this way before, and their lack of experience in the matter was apparent in their hasty decision.  They’re a telecom giant trying to branch out in the business of entertainment, and they believed that the film industry would gel just as well into their longstanding corporate structure.  But, as we saw with this rushed decision, the film industry is not ready yet to fully conform.  It goes beyond those filmmakers who are insistent on their art being shown on the biggest screen possible.  Certainly films like Dune or Godzilla vs. Kong and Matrix 4 (also 2021) are movies that demand a big screen showing, but they are not the only ones with skin in the game.  Mid-level and micro budget films made under the Warner Media umbrella also are affected by the move, and they are making their voices heard as well.  So, is it all Warner Media using the pandemic as an excuse to shift priorities and reduce expenses on pre-existing contracts, or is it a necessary change to boost their struggling streaming service and position itself in a new normal post-pandemic.  It’s strange that a company built on communications would be so terrible at communicating to it’s own pool of talent.  There is room for improvement on HBO Max, but doing so at the expense of relationships with the theatrical market could lead to a variety of problems to Warner Media’s long term prospects going forward.  We’ll see if these plans stick in the long run, but for right now, many different parties believe that this is a shot across the bow to change the industry for good and leave movie theaters in the dust behind them.  And there is far more support to honor the way things were before than what they could be based on what a spreadsheet might say.  More than anything, whether it’s based out of the home or out at a movie theater, make it worthwhile for the audience themselves to give their money willingly to be entertained.  That way you can going from being the worst service, to the best.