The film industry has been seeing change through the past decade as the rise of online services have allowed an alternative way for many of us to consume media, the big names like Netflix continue to grow and the recent announcement from Disney that they had managed to hit 100 million subscribers after just sixteen months of being live – it’s no surprise that many big services have made the change, the success found in other online platforms particularly gaming as services like betting in Indiana have made a huge change at the same time as online platforms as a whole are succeeding. The big changes coming to film could have a huge impact on land-based services however, as a shift for new releases could signal the end of an era for cinema.
Announcements made by the Hollywood giant Warner Bros at the end of last year stated that the big releases in the likes of Dune and the Matrix 4 would find a direct release to video-on-demand through the streaming platform HBO Max and will be the first big change for a major studio to step away from the box office and towards and alternative – success throughout the year will certainly encourage others to make the change, but it isn’t without caveats.
With a growing number of streaming services comes the growing costs to stay subscribed to each as well, if each studio moves to have itself represented on a different platform uniquely then new releases could require each individual user to be subscribed to many different services which will inevitably lead to some being more represented than others as choices are made to which are more essential. Where success may be an opportunity for one, another may find failure as the opportunities are less likely to present themselves, which could deter some studios from making the change.
It does seem however that this sort of change is inevitable, some of the big releases over the past year have certainly found great success through different online platforms and will continue to do so moving forward too – with big box office releases it will only bolster the performance of these big streaming services and make newer releases more accessible than before. 2021 will certainly be telling of what the future has in store however, and it may see others jumping on board mid-way through the year in a bid to continue bringing new entertainment options to the home and directly to the consumer.
