We have full confidence in the industry’s current business model. Today we make it clear again that we will not be showing movies that fail to respect the windows as it does not make any economic sense for us. “Cineworld’s roots go back 90 years in the industry and it was always open to showing any movie as long as the rules were kept and not changed by one sided moves. Regal Cinema’s parent company, Cineworld, soon followed suit, saying: “Therefore, effective immediately AMC will no longer play any Universal movies in any of our theaters in the United States, Europe or the Middle East.” – AMC Theaters chairman-CEO Adam Aron That includes installments from global billion-dollar series Jurassic World, Fast & Furious 9, and the latest Illumination animated films Minions: The Rise of Gru and Sing 2. Theater giant AMC was quick to respond, threatening not to release any of Universal’s upcoming films in their theaters around the world. It was so huge that Jeff Shell may have said too much in his interview, revealing that Universal would consider releasing films in theaters and on VOD at the same time from this point on. What does this mean? It means Universal made bank on this release. With video on-demand, studios can keep up to 80% of the profits. Traditionally a film’s theater release nets the studio 50% of the profits, and the theaters keep the other 50%. With the percentage of profit Universal keeps in VOD sales compared to theater premieres, we are talking multi-millions of additional profit. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell revealed that Trolls 2 pulled in an astounding $100 million dollars, with Fandango backing up the numbers, revealing it was the biggest VOD release of all time.īut that’s not the only thing to take into account.
The risk paid off, and Universal has revealed huge profits.
During the theater closures, Universal moved most of their current releases into VOD immediately, including Trolls World Tour, The Invisible Man, and the upcoming King of Staten Island releasing in June. Normally there is a deal in place where the VOD releases are not made available until a 90-day window after a film opens in theaters. After the closure of movie theaters during the Covid-19 pandemic, Universal Pictures decided they were willing to take a risk and pull Trolls World Tour from its theatrical debut and move it directly into video on-demand (VOD).
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