Independent filmmakers see benefits in direct releases

Director Emerald Fennell enjoyed the audience’s reaction to her revenge thriller Promising young woman when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in early 2020.

“She is under pressure and then she is released and the people in the room are [understanding] things at different times, ”said Fennell, who adopted a sexual policy that awarded him an Oscar for best original screenplay. “Many of the cinematic techniques. . . they are there to do it like a walk. You make a film because it’s a community experience. “

But it turned out that few people ended up watching the movie in theaters. On April 17 last year, a theatrical debut in the United States was canceled as Covid-19 forced the closure of venues. Promising young woman finally opened in theaters on Christmas Day 2020 and grossed $ 13.3 million, a small sum but still making it the highest grossing film in the world. all movies nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars this year.

A few weeks later, on January 15, the film could be rented at home using a video on demand (PVOD), a format that has been available for a decade but gained new relevance last year. , as the pandemic stopped cinema. In addition to any regular monthly fee, they could rent subscribers to platforms such as Amazon Prime, Now’s Sky Player and Apple’s iTunes Promising young woman for about $ 20.

As the US $ 40 billion box office faces one uncertain future, the journey for Promising young womanThe release could serve as a template for independent films in a post-pandemic world, according to executives at Focus Features, the art house studio located in Comcast’s NBCUniversal conglomerate and film distributor. film.

“Woman [Langley, chair of Universal Pictures] I decided that we would go PVOD literally on the first day of the stoppage of this pandemic and a week later we were there in the services, ”said Peter Kujawski, president of Focus Features, referring to the series of other films that they were released this way. during the last year.

“It simply came to our notice then [if it] it was viable [strategy] and Donna. . . I feel strong: now is not only a good time to do it in cinema, but also for business in general ”.

The first home rentals were a necessary experiment during the pandemic. But while the US reopens after a year of empty cinemas, entertainment industry executives wonder if the industry has changed forever.

Most agree that big-budget blockbusters will be shown in cinemas once the crisis subsides, albeit with shorter theatrical windows. However, lower-budget films, which do not need to earn hundreds of millions of dollars in ticket sales to match, can increasingly become a home experience, perhaps released in the United States. theaters through the PVOD just days after it premiered in theaters.

“You’ll see a world where everyone will be more careful than what happens in theaters,” Kujawski said. “The key determination of theatricality will be size and budget.”

Universal led the change, offering movie rentals like The invisible man i Emma as soon as the cinemas close.

Jeff Bock, box office analyst at Exhibitors Relations, said PVOD became “a lifeline for studios” last year, especially for independent films that could be “lost on the air.” “. [of streaming]”.

However, he warns that without revenue numbers, which studies have largely retained, it is difficult to calculate the success of the strategy. “All we can really do is control what distributors do in the future, because actions speak much louder than words.”

Universal’s move to break the traditional “window” between a movie’s debut in theaters and online was scorned by movie owners who have spent years fiercely protecting their formation of news from the raid of streaming platforms like Netflix.

But two of the largest chains, AMC and Cinemark, reached agreements with Universal, which allowed the studio to release its films via PVOD just a few weeks after debuting in theaters in exchange for a reduction in home sales.

Meanwhile, indie film chain Alamo Drafthouse, which in March sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, has taken things a step further by launching its own PVOD platform last year.

Although Focus put other films online via PVOD, there was an internal debate about whether Promising young woman, a film designed to arouse emotions around gender relations, could generate cultural buzzes through an online release.

“We really wanted a premiere in traditional cinema,” Fennell said. “Of course, when you do something designed for a purpose and then it will look different. . . it will take a minute to readjust ”.

Focus executives decided to wait and see how other Universal films acted, postponing the release until Christmas.

A year later, the company considers the launch to be both an economic and cultural success. With a budget of $ 10 million, Promising young woman he had already made a profit from his box office returns. The PVOD premiere made the film even more profitable, offsetting the reduction in ticket revenue, people close to the company said.

Focus declined to say how many PVOD sales the film produced. However, its multiple, measured as total gross revenue compared to last week’s opening sales, is the highest of all Universal PVOD releases last year, said one person familiar with the subject.

“You have metrics that you want every movie to come in, dollars, cents, and transactions for us,” Kujawski said. “But everyone has an eye on the softer metric of cultural impact. And seeing that [PVOD] being able to release a film in this way was a key thing because it was not obvious that it would be like that ”.

A higher rental price differentiates movies that might otherwise be lost in a sea of ​​streaming, he added. “There’s a lovely value when you’ve decided you’re going to pay $ 20 to see something instead of being fed with the algorithm.”

The main drawback of the PVOD model is the simple economy: for big movies it doesn’t make as much money as theater. Rich Gelfond, CEO of Imax, said at a conference last year that the PVOD was a “failed experiment.”

“The numbers haven’t worked in a pandemic, so how would they work in a non-pandemic?” He said, noting the studies ’reluctance to share revenue numbers.

But there are indications that PVOD is here to stay, even for blockbusters. Disney, which charged $ 30 to watch movies like Mulan on its broadcast platform at the same time as they were theatrically released, it will make two of its great summer films, Black widow i Cruel, available for rent the same day they arrive in cinemas.

For creative talent, the battle in streaming between the world’s largest entertainment companies has been good news, as it means an endless demand for content, no matter where people end up watching.

Fennell, who said he had a subscription to “probably all broadcast services,” works on projects across a variety of media, from a West End stage show to a TV show and a motion picture.

“For me, what I’d like to do is write down the thing first and then determine where it lives,” he said. “Sometimes you want to do something epic in the theater. Sometimes you want something to be bingeable. What’s really great right now is that it makes sense. ”