In the United States, a successful film can claim four weeks of theatrical exclusivity before being offered on video on demand. It is the good fortune that knows Boop, released Friday, July 22, after earning 44 million dollars (43.1 million euros) in revenue during its first week of operation. And, sixteen days after its release, the third feature film by Jordan Peele, after get-out (2017, $176 million at the North American box office) and Us (2019, 175 million), cumulates 98 million in box office receipts.
This success, which comes after those of the hybrid film (comedy, fantasy, martial arts, philosophical speculation) Everything Everywhere All at Once – it has grossed $69 million in theaters since its release on Friday, March 25 – and horror film Black Phone, with Ethan Hawke (84 million dollars, since Friday June 24), raises some hopes. Could American cinemas hope for a fate other than that of boxes for superhero films? The three films mentioned have in common that they have been enthusiastically welcomed by a young audience – the very people who make the fortune of Disney-Marvel feature films – and that they stand out, to varying degrees, from the genres to which they belong.
These unexpected successes go against the policy of the Hollywood majors, according to which profitability can only be achieved by offering works already familiar to the public – whether they feature characters with proven success or are derived from trademarks. It remains to be seen whether these are the last lights of an era or a sign that creative cinema can still live in theaters.
Weak supply
Two of these feature films (Black Phone and Boop) are distributed by Universal, a studio that has a policy of offering its films on video on demand, two or three weeks after their theatrical release. Thus, in the United States, one can find Minions 2: Once Upon a Time Gru Where Jurassic World: the world after, Universal films, on sale, on iTunes and other platforms, for 19.99 dollars. This strategy inevitably shortens the career of the film in theaters, it does not prevent it from being profitable. The animated movie brought in $300 million in one month, the dinosaur movie 370 million in two months.
At a time when another major studio, Warner Bros Discovery, is tripping over the carpet stretched between platform and room by canceling the release of Batgirl, a film a priori intended for the big screen and yet budgeted for an online release on HBO Max, Universal’s strategy seems viable. At least it doesn’t affect the morale of directors and stars the way Disney’s dithering did – crews are said to have been disappointed to see the latest Pixar production, Red alert, skip the theater stage – and a fortiori Warner, who, with each change of ownership, manages to alienate All-Hollywood, whether the major cancels the theatrical release of all the films scheduled for 2021 or that it will deplete the content offering of its platform in 2022 – in addition to the cancellation of Batgirl, it was noticed that a number of titles produced specifically for HBO Max had been pulled from the catalog.
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