During the Paramount+ streaming service opening ceremony, Viacom stated that due to COVID 'new normal', Paramount's own movies will have shorter theatrical windows before hitting home and streaming media. That window is 6 weeks and Paramount has showcased that it is true with their recently released movies such as A Quiet Place Part II. However, they stated that partner movies such as Hasbro's Snake Eyes and Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts (then known as Transformers 7) will have longer windows. Seems it's not the case. Last week, an official press release went out to entertainment sites, stating that Snake Eyes will have its Home Release on September 6th. Confirming that, both Google and Apple now have Snake Eyes home release (digital) up for pre-order and the movie is hitting homes on September 6th, just 6 weeks after the theatrical release. If ROTB is indeed following Snake Eyes, it too will have an early August home release. But the amount of production cost going to ROTB is significantly greater than Snake Eyes. If Paramount sticks to the 6 Week release window, we may potentially see the worst TF financial disaster since TLK. Your thoughts?
Not a surprise. I doubt people will fully be comfortable with going to the theaters due to fear of catching the virus by then. Plus with the popularity of streaming taking off it makes sense to show off on your streaming service to.
This isn't nice IMO, but it's a sign of the times. And who knows whether home release management can really get back to normal if Heaven grants easier days ahead?
With shorter release windows, focus on streaming services, and accounting for how people may not be willing to go to theatres yet, we may be looking at the era of billion dollar blockbusters coming to an end. Frankly, I think this will be subject to change (indeed, after freakin' CATS had a literal patch update issued in the middle of its run to improve the CGI, nothing is off the table) with Paramount banking on things opening up further next year before release. The dates we have now are merely tentative and Snake Eyes was a sacrificial effort simply to have something out during this time period to function as a test run and also maybe keep Hasbro happy to a degree by not giving up on GI Joe. Though given its reported performance and the quality of the film itself, Hasbro might have been happier if it had never been made at all... Regardless, ROTB really has the odds stacked against it and needs to do well for future movies. Otherwise, I would have to think serious consideration would be given to ending the TF films once and for all and instead shifting to something like a big budget seasonal production ala Westworld, as distrubution would be easier via streaming platforms and really I think the franchise just would benefit from a much more traditional 'episodic' installment presentation instead of solid two/three hour block films.
They could just be doing snake eyes early because it won’t make enough money to warrant a longer theatrical release (and also has a much smaller budget). Hopefully paramount learns their lesson from snake eyes and steps up the marketing with ROTB, because it seems we won’t be getting another G.I.Joe movie for a while considering SE’s box office :/
Snake eyes had a small marketing because paramount didn’t have enough faith in it so they didn’t want to spend a lot of money. Transformers has a 200 million budget and it’s gonna be everywhere because they don’t want to lose their biggest franchise.
I’m kinda glad they’ll be doing this. I enjoy the theaters and I hope by then Covid will be less of an issue. I like this approach better than the Disney equivalent of same day streaming when a movie begins its run in theater. As seen with Black Widow, it hurt it a bit at the box office. Though it remains to be seen if they’ll be able to effectively market ROTB to make the money they want off of it. TLK’s marketing was largely forgettable in my opinion, and that was the last summer blockbuster for the franchise.
I don't see a home release after 6 weeks hurting the movie at all. From what I understand movies tend to make most of their money in the first couple weeks...you can usually tell whether something's going to be a flop or not based on how it does opening weekend. If the movie hasn't made its money back by 6 weeks, it probably never would've anyway. Heck, a flop probably wouldn't even hang around in theaters for that long. And if it's a big smash hit like Endgame that sticks around for months, the home release won't stop it from being profitable.
Yeah how'd that logic work out for Bumblebee, which they couldn't even put 'Transformers' in the title?
Bumblebee did very well at the box office considering the franchise fatigue and releasing right next to Aquaman and Into the Spiderverse... both hugely successful films.
It could have done better, though. A lot of people that were interviewed about their thoughts on the film admitted that they didn't see it on account of not realizing it wasn't supposed to be another bayformers film, and that had they known the difference they would have gone to see it.
Yo we have technology where we can get them faster now on physical media besides most movies are doing that now fast 9 will be on demand this Friday. This isn't something to be worried about hell bumblebee had that aswell where they had pre orders up before the movie even came out.
