Speaking on a recent earnings call with investors, ViacomCBS CEO Bob Bakish has touched upon the future of the film industry and how that might impact his entertainment company.
His comments follow in the wake of both the recent deal between AMC Theatres and Universal, and the planned release of “Mulan” directly to PVOD via the Disney+ service.
Bakish says he sees further big changes heading to the world of theatrical distribution and seems to suggest that the ubiquitous three-month theatrical window of the past is dead and gone:
“We really are in sort of a ‘COVID rules’ phase of the business right now. Studios, including Paramount, are doing things they wouldn’t normally do because theaters remain closed. We remain committed to theatrical and believe a lot of this reverts once the world normalizes. But we do believe theatrical windows will probably shorten and some of these new monetization paths, including strategic ones and others, probably will become more [common].”
Paramount was already selling off certain releases to Netflix and the like before the pandemic, and as part of this call Bakish announced details of the company’s new SVOD service will see CBS All Access rebranded and vastly expanded to include a bunch of content from Showtime, MTV, Nickelodeon and Paramount Pictures – thus giving the studio another potential avenue for their feature content.
Paramount has several high profile theatrical releases waiting to be released including “Top Gun: Maverick” and “A Quiet Place Part II”.
Source: The Wrap
