Universal’s “Trolls World Tour” was released over the weekend on VOD services, becoming the first real major studio film to attempt the Premium VOD experiment.
According to the studio’s stats, the release was a major success – pulling in numbers ten times that of their previous biggest conventional home entertainment launch, and that’s with the higher rental price tag. Is it going to replace theatrical releases? No, but the experiment has seemingly proven that Premium VOD is a perfectly viable option.
The prospect of any potential shortening of theatrical windows appears to have gotten exhibitors scared. So, the National Association of Theater Owners (NATO) has just published a new study that it thinks will convince studios that not rushing films to VOD is the right option.
A new Ernst & Young study, commissioned by NATO and published in Variety, says that the longer a studio waits before it takes a theatrical release and puts it on home video, the more money everyone makes with the study claiming to show a “statistically significant” impact on theatrical box office and home video revenue.
Specifically the study claims a film that stays in cinemas 100 days and doesn’t hit VOD until 108 days will make $1.75 million more in revenues than the exact same film that had a theatrical run of 100 days but hit home video in only 98 days. 67% of that added revenue reportedly comes from the theatrical box office, while the rest comes from home video.
NATO also proudly points out that almost every film that was scheduled to be released in March through June has chosen to reschedule rather than make an early debut on VOD:
“Without theaters available, the release window was temporarily irrelevant for those movies,” the organization said. “These unique circumstances, however, do not signal a change to the theatrical release model. Three titles unreleased at the time of the shutdown have chosen to go straight to the home, yet the vast majority of theatrical releases scheduled from March through June have been rescheduled for theatrical release – 37 of them, with six more delayed with no set release date – rather than rushed to the home.”
How much these results can be objectively trusted is an obvious question, especially as the study was commissioned by parties with a vested interest in the results.
With the COVID-19 pandemic still forcing cinema closures, the biggest cinema chain in the U.S. about to enter potential bankruptcy, and a likelihood that cinemas won’t open again until well into the Summer (if then), there’s understandable nervous tension.
