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Warner Bros. Will Send Entire 2021 Slate to HBO Max and Theaters

341 points by yurisagalov 6y ago

xwdv 6y ago
Might as well. Now the streaming offering will benefit from the same marketing push as the big ticket cinemas, maximizing total revenue.
- FreeKill 6y ago
  Agreed. I believe a huge portion of the budgets for movies also revolves around marketing in general. Maybe those budgets can be reduced substantially if the movies are all being placed directly on streaming services. For instance, does it really matter in a streaming only world if your movie does huge numbers on the first weekend it comes out? I'd imagine success will be measured more in retention and possibly new subscriptions corresponding with a specific movie release.
akmarinov 6y ago
Torrents everywhere screaming with joy
- danso 6y ago
  Tangential question: how do rippers handle streaming-exclusive content these days? Just run a screen-capture program while streaming the video? I was thinking some fidelity would be lost, at least compared to ripping from the source Blu-Ray. (though obviously better than secret cam footage in the theater, if people still do that these days)
  - cammikebrown 6y ago
    Streaming in 4K is definitely lower quality than a 4K Blu-Ray.
    - draugadrotten 6y ago
      It would be unbearable to watch Bad Boys for Life in low quality streaming 4K. You need the fidelity of 4K Blu-Ray to really appreciate the fine nuances of the cinematography and acting.
    - tshaddox 6y ago
      That's true. UHD Blu-rays tend to be around 50-75 Mb/s, while 4K streams/VOD from Netflix tend to be around 15-20 Mb/s. In my experience though, the difference is less noticeable (on my pretty good 4K OLED) than I would expect.
  - leetcrew 6y ago
    the release groups don't publish much detail on their methods, lest they get patched. I doubt they use screen-capture, as this would involve reencoding an already bandwidth-starved video stream. my best guess is they have exploits for each service to extract and decrypt the stream, then remux into an mkv for distribution.
    - tshaddox 6y ago
      I would have guessed that it's more likely that these rips are easily available precisely because there are some old devices out there with a breakable DRM that streaming services can't disable from their end because the devices are too important to their customer base. Like, there's probably some old smart TV or set-top box platform that Netflix has to support because they have half a million subscribers using it, but it won't receive firmware updates and can only support some old DRM that has been broken.
  - sbx320 6y ago
    Screen captures aren't too common since they would incur an additional re-encoding step (losing a minor bit of fidelity), so for the more "professional" rippers it isn't a proper option. Instead they use the raw data stream from the streaming platform, strip the DRM and reassemble the video file. Of course the DRM stripping is the hard part with not much public knowledge being available. As you mentioned, the quality of those rips is a bit worse than a blu-ray rip, but if the blu-ray isn't available there's not much you can do. People will just enjoy a slightly worse quality version (just like they did with shaky cam rips).
  - wil421 6y ago
    You get certain hdmi splitters off Amazon. They will strip the hdcp off and then you can capture what you want. There are even specialized devices that you plug a dvi/hdmi/vga signal into and it will turn the signal into IP packets over Ethernet. I’m sure you could get away with a number of things in places you shouldn’t be with one of these.
slg 6y ago
This is sad as it appears to be the beginning of the end of moviegoing as a mainstream pastime. Watching a movie at home simply isn't an equivalent replacement and it has nothing to do with the size of the screen. Going to the theater is a social experience. You simply can't replicate the experience of seeing Captain American catch Thor's hammer in a sold out crowd on opening weekend. Also going to a theater is a purpose driven choice in a way watching a movie at home is not. It allows you to focus all your attention on a movie that simply can't easily be replicated at home.
- xwdv 6y ago
  There's no need for theaters to be mainstream. They can be a niche offering and you can still enjoy those things.
  - slg 6y ago
    That isn't necessarily true. Sure, there will probably always be movie theaters in large markets, but there might not be one in every town. It might end up being like seeing live bands in concerts. You might have to live in a top X market or spend hours traveling to one of those markets to see your favorite band play. That makes it an inherently more expensive and rarer experience even if it is still possible. It also isn't clear what the ramifications of this will be on the movies that actually get made. While I did mention the MCU in that last comment, I am a big fan of the idea of a standalone 90-180 minute movie as an artform. Those standalone movies make even less sense in a streaming world in which retention is the goal. I would be worried that movies become even more and more like TV than the franchise IP wave of the last decade has already caused.
    - xwdv 6y ago
      Small Stand-alone movies make more sense in streaming focused worlds, not less. It’s easier to take a risk on a small movie when the effort needed to watch it is less.
      - slg 6y ago
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
I am super excited about this trend of releasing movies to online services at the same time as theaters. I guess I am selfish, but even before the pandemic, I much preferred to watching a movie with my spouse at home on our big screen TV, in our comfortable chairs, with our preferred snacks, with the kids asleep in their bedroom, than having to go through the hassle of finding a babysitter, driving somewhere, paying crazy prices for food and drink, watching a ton of pre-roll ads, and being distracted by the jerk making running commentary next to you. Sure the giant screen and sound system are really nice, and worth paying for once in a while. But I am happy that decision is separate from, when do I want to watch the movie.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  So a long time ago, my wife broke her leg badly enough to need surgery. After she was up to it, I took her out to a movie. Got her out of the van, into a wheelchair, into the theater. We sat through the trailers, and were just about to get to the movie that we actually wanted to see... ... when our oldest called, saying that our youngest was throwing up, and we needed to come home now. All that work (way more work than usual), and we never got to see the movie. If we had been watching it at home, we would have just paused it. On the other hand, if we had been watching it at home, we would have been watching it with the kids, not just with each other. That's fine, if that's what you want. But if you want some time together as adults, it doesn't work.
  - treeman79 6y ago
    We stared counting interruptions during a movie. This is with kids have a separate floor To themselves; with clear instructions to give us 2 hours peace. 20+ interruptions was normal. Not including Loud crashes coming from gymnastics activities.
    - smegger001 6y ago
      As someone with two toddlers I look forward to the day i only get 10 interupts per hour.
wayanon 6y ago
I would see films in cinemas if I could be guaranteed a calm uninterrupted experience. A big problem for me is people talking, using phones etc. I don’t want to spoil their evening either by making a scene I think it’s just I’m no longer a cinema person - and yes I’ve tried art house places too!
- 8ytecoder 6y ago
  Some theatres like Alamo have strict rules and enforcement around it. I stick to theatres that I know are rather quiet and enjoyable.
- axaxs 6y ago
  Same for me! I don't know if I just got grumpier as I got older, or the smartphone era happened to occur in the same time, but I literally dread going to a theater. Instead of focusing on the movie, I just realize how self entitled society has become.
  - asciimov 6y ago
    It wasn't any better before cell phones. People still talked during the movie, kids ran up and down the aisles, people would get up in the middle of the movie to go to the bathroom. What changed was big home televisions got cheaper, and those of us who value decorum during movies can get it at home, with cheap snacks and the ability to pause the movie.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  if you don't mind me asking, what do you actually like about the cinema experience that you can't get at home? I get that the image quality is better than the average consumer tv, but it's not prohibitively expensive to get a good home theater setup, especially if you weigh the cost against eight years worth of movie tickets + the residual value of the equipment at the end.
  - v64 6y ago
    Speaking for myself, I live in an apartment with thin walls and can't blast my sound as loudly as it would be in a theater.
paul7986 6y ago
That's pretty awesome and now Im regretting my Roku TV mounted to my wall. I want HBO Max, but thus far only if available on said TV. Yet now with this I might get a Fire stick or a Chromecast.
- jskajakzkjx 6y ago
  Apple TV has the best experience IMO and supports all major streaming services.
  - jasonv 6y ago
    I've been waiting for Apple to update the AppleTV (I gave mine to a deserving friend), so I replaced my aging Roku with a FireTV (for HBO Max). Works great.
    - jskajakzkjx 6y ago
      It has been a long time since the Apple TV was updated, but it performs well for 4k content so I’m not sure what the average user would want from an upgrade. Personally the only item on my wish list is very niche - allow it to concurrently connect to more than 3 Bluetooth devices, so I can use more sensors with Zwift.
      - ascagnel_ 6y ago
        > I’m not sure what the average user would want from an upgrade I'd like to see a new revision with an HDMI 2.1 port -- support for 8K60 game streaming (the nVidia 3090s support running at that resolution) and 4K120 support.
  - macjohnmcc 6y ago
    Except for the bonkers remote control I agree. I have a few Roku's and one Apple TV HD. I love the picture quality on the AppleTV but the remote is too weird for my wife's liking.
    - 6y ago
danso 6y ago
It'll be interesting to see how this effects a culture/mindset shift among large movie producers and directors. Putting aside their artistic concerns that their films are best experienced on the massive widescreen, having a big box office haul seems to be a key part of Hollywood braqfests. If simultaneous theater+streaming becomes the norm, it would seem the days of multi-hundred-million box office gross will be past. In 2020, the highest grossing film (domestically) so far is the Bad Boys sequel, which released in January and got $204M. The only other 2020 release to break $100M is the Sonic the Hedgehog movie. And many of 2020's top grossing movies were released in late 2019, e.g. "1917" and Star Wars. Even worse, Christopher Nolan's "Tenet" – released in September by Warner Bros – basically bombed at under $60M [0]. Given the huge movies that WB is planning to put on HBO (Matrix 4, Wonder Woman, Dune), I wonder if that'll spur Disney to throw Black Widow onto streaming. Apparently its Mulan release (which required a premium subscription) didn't do so well, but seems risky for Disney to sit on its hands while WB goes all in. [0] https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2020/?grossesOption=calendarGrosses https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2020/?grossesOption=calen...
- johnnujler 6y ago
  I think Marvel and Disney would be very disappointed if this trend continues across the board. At least if we go by Marvel’s last decade results.
  - criddell 6y ago
    With the debt that Disney has, I think that's an understatement.
- WorldMaker 6y ago
  Disney already announced that Pixar's Soul will release to Disney+ the same week as WW1984 and will not be a "premium" release like Mulan. That does seem to indicate that Disney is feeling the same pressure, though I believe they still haven't announced plans for any of the Marvel properties yet.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  I'm interested in how this impacts the actual movies. I expect them to get much longer. I also expect this will free directors to cover topics and material that might not be appropriate for theatres. What people are willing to watch when in public is different than what people may be willing to watch in their own homes. I expect that Disney will have to run parallel focus groups, possible resulting in slightly different versioning between the streaming and in-theatre content. Dune is a good example. Dune has for decades been viewed as the quintessential impossible story to ever put on screen. It was done best as a miniseries, and even then it wasn't complete. But an open-ended streaming option not subject to theatre/TV time or content constraints? There is potential for very interesting content.
m1 6y ago
Just hope HBO Max comes to the UK soon!
- FreeKill 6y ago
  Same with Canada as well. Will be a shame if this experiment fails simply because they were unable to capture subscribers from the majority of the world outside the US. People aren't going to wait for it to come to their country, they'll likely pirate it instead...
- HighChaparral 6y ago
  Sky's deal with HBO makes that unlikely.
danhak 6y ago
If streaming does indeed come to overtake theaters as the primary distribution method of new releases going forward, I'm curious about how significantly this will upend the industry due to direct competition from classic films. For example, the way I purchase and consume a book is identical whether it is a classic or a new release. And my reading habits skew heavily toward classics. Same for the way I consume music, and I listen to releases from the 60's - 2000's just as much as new stuff.
- grawprog 6y ago
  >I'm curious about how significantly this will upend the industry due to direct competition from classic films. My guess, not much. If they started having to compete with classics and were losing, I imagine the classics would just vanish from those services.
  - ElFitz 6y ago
    Or you’d have to pay a premium to access x+ years old movies. Which would be a smarter move.
    - asciimov 6y ago
      I think you have it backwards, the old movies would be the draw, the new releases would be the premium. You have to keep people subscribed to the service, well curated old movies would be one way to do this.
      - ElFitz 6y ago
        You know what? Let’s A/B test! ^^
  - ghaff 6y ago
    There's not a lot of evidence that there's a big market for a premium streaming classics service. I would probably subscribe to one but the film buff market is probably not a huge one. (I know there's Criterion but that tends towards arthouse fare rather than mainstream classics.)
oleks637 6y ago
What is the point of releasing so many good movies on HBO Max if it is only available is US? Wouldn't it make more sense to first introduce it in more countries and then use these movies to incentivise more subscriptions?
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  They probably have existing long term contracts in other countries with other distributors.
asciimov 6y ago
Hands down the best movie experience I've had was this old refurbished theater in my hometown in the 90's and early 00's. Two weekends each month they showed an old movie. Classics from Casablanca, Laurence of Arabia, Fiddler on the Roof, to The Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet and War of The Worlds. Tickets were $4-5, boxes of popcorn and soda's of reasonable size were a $1-2 each, all movies lead with a cartoon and had an intermission. Best of all the ushers. They would kick you out if you made too much noise and wouldn't let you take your seat if you got up too often. It's a real shame that movie studios have cut the theaters margin on movies so thin that the theaters can't bring their snack prices down, nor offer a better experience (like kicking people out who can't shut up).
- r3trohack3r 6y ago
  This is exactly the reason I love Alamo Drafthouse. Zero tolerance policy on noise and cellphone screens (which they've actually enforced when I've been there). Food prices are comparable to other theater chains, but the _quality_ is much higher. Real food (not concession stand quality), adult milkshakes, etc. Seats are lazy boy quality recliners. Plus the ushers shimmy around on the floors to come take your order and bring it to your seat. You get these little menu cards you can fill out during the movie. The ushers look for folks who have a card ready and come grab it.
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    >> the ushers shimmy around on the floors to come take your order and bring it to your seat. Transpose "usher" with "waiter" and it has become literal dinner theater.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - asciimov 6y ago
    I'd actually like Alamo Drafthouse more if they skipped the whole dinner thing. I mean the dinner thing is great, but I do find the extra movement distracting. The drafthouse I typically go to doesn't have stadium seating so it is noticeable.
Hnaomyiph 6y ago
With this seemingly becoming the new norm, I hope streaming services can find a way to make the quality of streams better or offer a way to temporarily download a new movie at a higher quality. Streams still lag behind Blu-ray by quite a margin. Maybe if we could get something between Blu-ray and the DCP files theaters get. Or even just Blu-ray quality would be a greatly appreciated upgrade.
- asciimov 6y ago
  Gotta expand broadband and get rid of datacaps first.
  - Hnaomyiph 6y ago
    I agree, as I write this from a 25mbps connection with a 1tb datacap. For me personally, I wouldn't mind waiting a day or two for a multi-hundred gig file to download, but my datacap sure would.
- chenxiaolong 6y ago
  100% agreed. I'd even pay extra to get 60Mbps or higher bitrate streams to match blu-rays. The compression artifacts on the all of the major streaming services right now are quite noticeable when watching on a projector.
totaldude87 6y ago
>>The studio's 2021 slate includes projects such as The Suicide Squad, The Matrix 4, Dune, Godzilla vs. Kong and Space Jam: A New Legacy. Other films include Little Things, Judas and the Black Messiah, Tom & Jerry, Mortal Kombat, Those Who Wish Me Dead, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, In The Heights, Reminiscence, Malignant, The Many Saints of Newark, King Richard and Cry Macho. well this is an impressive line up! i usually take a pass of $20 or go on Tuesdays for movies that are worth $6-$7 , but with $15 for new movies and HBO shows this is a no brainer (YMMV) But i do miss the big screen experience , may be cheap home theater ideas will rise up and grant a % of that experience
asah 6y ago
Black Friday sales on 75 inch 4k TVs and sound bars => millions of people don't need theaters.
markdown 6y ago
What I've wanted most that I haven't seen yet is different versions of movies for different age-groups. Like, you could have a Deadpool movie on Netflix that played either a PG-13 or NC-17 version depending on your account settings. Basically make clearplay.com obsolete.
sto_hristo 6y ago
I don't really care what the equation is as long they reap profits enough the keep the wheel going full speed and produce more awesome products. I love the cinema for its grandeur and DB levels and nothing out there can replicate that. True - the frustrations with some trash people is a factor, but so far nothing that extreme to make me even consider ditching the big screen. But i'd settle for anything as longs as there will be more. MORE!
spear 6y ago
So when is HBO Max going to start streaming in 4k and HDR?
- spear 6y ago
  I found the answer: Dec 25 (for WW 84) https://twitter.com/PattyJenks/status/1333861228695875584 https://twitter.com/PattyJenks/status/1333861228695875584 Nice.
jedberg 6y ago
As a parent, I'm super excited about this. I love going to see movies. My wife and I used to go every week. Until we had kids. In the last six years, I think we've seen maybe two movies in the theater. I have however watched every day-of streaming release that's come out, even the ones that cost $30, just to support the idea. I would gladly pay $20 to see new movies in my home. My TV and sound are good enough. I'd still like to see the big action flicks in the theater, and if I were a teen, I'd still prefer dates in a theater rather than at home, and I'm sure a lot of people feel safer having a date at a theater than at someone's house. When the VCR came out, everyone said it would kill moviegoing. To prevent it, they usually waited 4+ years to release a movie on VHS. It turned out, when they shrunk that window to 4 months, it didn't really affect moviegoing. I hope they find the same is true here -- that there isn't a lot of overlap between people who want to watch at home and people who will go to a theater.
- bonestamp2 6y ago
  I'm excited about this too for the same reason. I too have been paying the high prices to support the idea of on demand new releases that skipped the theatre. I wouldn't be surprised if this means a price hike on the HBO subscription price, and I'd be willing to pay more for that in this case. Before covid, we still got to the theaters once in a while, but this will be awesome. Hopefully you can find a good babysitter and get back to the theater more too (when it's safe of course).
  - jedberg 6y ago
    > Hopefully you can find a good babysitter and get back to the theater more too (when it's safe of course). Ugh. We actually found the most amazing babysitter ever. She is a high school student and watched the kids during the day for us in summer until school started. We were so excited that we could finally go to movies again. And then the pandemic kicked in. Sadly, by the time it's safe to go to movies again, she'll have graduated and left. :(
- vincentmarle 6y ago
  > I'd still like to see the big action flicks in the theater, and if I were a teen, I'd still prefer dates in a theater rather than at home, and I'm sure a lot of people feel safer having a date at a theater than at someone's house. I never understood why going to the movies is a common thing to do on a date, don't you want to get to know the other person and be able to talk to them?
nacho2sweet 6y ago
Pirating is back baby, in a big way.
jessaustin 6y ago
Despite word of coming vaccines, the company decided to put the entire 2021 slate on HBO Max after consulting with epidemiologists. If you care enough about the future to pay experts for advice, you get different answers than e.g. those to which nightly news viewers are subjected. Like Dr. Michael Mina said recently on the Pivot podcast, "Since May, the vaccine has been a month away."
dekhn 6y ago
It's so funny watching a dysfunctional industry take 10 years to catch up with the obvious. The next interesting point will be the obvious consolidation and licensing wars when customers get tired of maintaining 4 or 5 streaming licenses.
- rement 6y ago
  > The next interesting point will be the obvious consolidation and licensing wars when customers get tired of maintaining 4 or 5 streaming licenses. I'd say that is already happening. I was surprised at first when I saw "The Simpsons" on Disney+ but I remembered that Disney purchased Fox entertainment last year. Disney already owns "Star Wars", "Marvel", "ESPN", "Pixar", and their own back catalog. There are other big players out there but Disney has a huge catalog.
  - huhtenberg 6y ago
    > Disney already owns ... And yet paradoxically there's still very little to watch on Disney+, because only a fraction of their huge catalog is actually accessible and what _is_ available, it's just the same old material, watched and re-watched a million times already. At least that's how it is here, in Europe, not sure about the US. I ended up dropping Disney+ subscription in exactly 1 month because there was nothing interesting left to watch. It was a rather strange experience TBH.
    - erklik 6y ago
      and whatever is there, their need to be child-friendly tends to block or worse, make them edit movies. There was a scene in the 1984 Splash where a naked butt is seen, the re-edited scene went fairly viral where they tired to extend the long hair of the female so it covered her butt. (Horribly done btw)
      - dekhn 6y ago
        that scene was a highlight of my childhood (I was 11 at the time) and tbh I wouldn't really want my kids to see a censored version of it.
dylan604 6y ago
Have you seen the content on HBO Max? There's nothing there. It looks like WB is trying to prop up Max.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  I find it better than Netflix for my needs, but I also just like watching old stuff. I also only have it since I get it includes with ATT mobile service at no extra charge.
softwaredoug 6y ago
Not everyone has room or space for amazing AV for movies. So I feel sad this will hurt movie theaters. I would much rather be watching Dune safely in a theater than watching in OKish AV at home.
softwaredoug 6y ago
HBOMax has such a horrible branding strategy, discovery features, and rollout that I wonder how much this will matter longer term to their subscribers. Like HBOMax already has perhaps the largest deepest catalog of movies, yet have struggled to find adopters dues to confusion about all the HBO* and confusion about what even is included in the app due to terrible organization and discovery features.
- sushisource 6y ago
  It's truly moronic. I cannot imagine what the discussion was like in those meetings, but it sure seems like it fits the "guy gets thrown out of the window" meme format where you can imagine all the HBO streaming leaders sitting around the roundtable and one dude's like "What if we just had... one app?". Boom. Out the window.
  - softwaredoug 6y ago
    It made sense when I listened to the “How I built it” podcast with Steve Case and AOL which discusses how truly terrible Time Warner is. So many fiefdoms. Rife Design by committee...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
keyle 6y ago
Well. That's sad. Time to invest in the home cinemas market!
bredren 6y ago
I wonder if the content was shipped to Netflix, Hulu and Apple. This seems to be most tenuous with theater chains, who could seek to punish WB as AMC threatened Universal over the release of Trolls. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/business/amc-universal-trolls-theaters-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/business/amc-universal-tr...
disown 6y ago
People seem to be missing the "data" portion of this move. This will boost subscriptions to hbo max which will increase revenue but also bring in data - capturing what,where,when,etc you and your children watch. AMC tried to capture this with their A-list movie pass, but I'm guessing the studios decide to step in front of the movie theater chains with this move. Disney and everyone else with a streaming services are bound to follow warner. I'm going to bet this will lead to people upgrading their home theater setup and I'm going to bet TV manufacturers are going to implement more data capturing features. Cameras to watch you watching TV. Where the eyeballs go. Mic to record what people say. Etc. The studios are all in trying to be netflix now. And netflix will try to be a studio. And the fracturing of the streaming continues. Until disney buys up everyone...
adrian_mrd 6y ago
An important note: this only affects those in the USA - unless HBO Max expands internationally in 2021 - because: “HBO Max is currently only supported in the U.S. and supported territories” [1] HBO Max has not announced any plans to expand outside of the USA at this stage. [1] https://www.hbomax.com/geo-availability https://www.hbomax.com/geo-availability
- deepspace 6y ago
  As someone outside the USA, I would love to support movie production by paying for a HBO Max subscription. But since they refuse to take my money, I will have to put the funds towards a seedbox so that I, too can enjoy the latest movies on demand. Idiots.
  - jonny_eh 6y ago
    International distribution rights for all these movies have already been sold.
- magicalhippo 6y ago
  I just read[1] that HBO Max is coming to Norway at the end of 2021. Google translation: "A spokesperson for HBO Nordic confirms to Dagbladet that HBO Max is scheduled to roll out in Europe in the second half of 2021 and that it will replace HBO's European services." Dagbladet is one of the larger newspapers here. [1]: https://www.dinside.no/mobil/hbo-max-kommer-til-norge/73141457 https://www.dinside.no/mobil/hbo-max-kommer-til-norge/731414...
nondeveloper 6y ago
Warner Brothers were pioneers in the implementation of motion picture sound technology in the 1920s with Don Juan and The Jazz Singer, among others [0]. Which is to say the experience of going and seeing movies was shaped by Warner’s risky investments in those technologies when they were new. There are actually allusions to this in Singin’ in the Rain [1]. [0] https://www.britannica.com/art/history-of-the-motion-picture/The-pre-World-War-II-sound-era https://www.britannica.com/art/history-of-the-motion-picture... [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singin'_in_the_Rain https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singin'_in_the_Rain
divbzero 6y ago
The article leaves out the significant detail that Warner Bros. and HBO Max are both owned by WarnerMedia, the media and entertainment arm of AT&T.

341 points by yurisagalov 6y ago

xwdv 6y ago

Might as well. Now the streaming offering will benefit from the same marketing push as the big ticket cinemas, maximizing total revenue.

FreeKill 6y ago
Agreed. I believe a huge portion of the budgets for movies also revolves around marketing in general. Maybe those budgets can be reduced substantially if the movies are all being placed directly on streaming services. For instance, does it really matter in a streaming only world if your movie does huge numbers on the first weekend it comes out? I'd imagine success will be measured more in retention and possibly new subscriptions corresponding with a specific movie release.

akmarinov 6y ago

Torrents everywhere screaming with joy

danso 6y ago
Tangential question: how do rippers handle streaming-exclusive content these days? Just run a screen-capture program while streaming the video? I was thinking some fidelity would be lost, at least compared to ripping from the source Blu-Ray. (though obviously better than secret cam footage in the theater, if people still do that these days)
- cammikebrown 6y ago
  Streaming in 4K is definitely lower quality than a 4K Blu-Ray.
  - draugadrotten 6y ago
    It would be unbearable to watch Bad Boys for Life in low quality streaming 4K. You need the fidelity of 4K Blu-Ray to really appreciate the fine nuances of the cinematography and acting.
  - tshaddox 6y ago
    That's true. UHD Blu-rays tend to be around 50-75 Mb/s, while 4K streams/VOD from Netflix tend to be around 15-20 Mb/s. In my experience though, the difference is less noticeable (on my pretty good 4K OLED) than I would expect.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  the release groups don't publish much detail on their methods, lest they get patched. I doubt they use screen-capture, as this would involve reencoding an already bandwidth-starved video stream. my best guess is they have exploits for each service to extract and decrypt the stream, then remux into an mkv for distribution.
  - tshaddox 6y ago
    I would have guessed that it's more likely that these rips are easily available precisely because there are some old devices out there with a breakable DRM that streaming services can't disable from their end because the devices are too important to their customer base. Like, there's probably some old smart TV or set-top box platform that Netflix has to support because they have half a million subscribers using it, but it won't receive firmware updates and can only support some old DRM that has been broken.
- sbx320 6y ago
  Screen captures aren't too common since they would incur an additional re-encoding step (losing a minor bit of fidelity), so for the more "professional" rippers it isn't a proper option. Instead they use the raw data stream from the streaming platform, strip the DRM and reassemble the video file. Of course the DRM stripping is the hard part with not much public knowledge being available. As you mentioned, the quality of those rips is a bit worse than a blu-ray rip, but if the blu-ray isn't available there's not much you can do. People will just enjoy a slightly worse quality version (just like they did with shaky cam rips).
- wil421 6y ago
  You get certain hdmi splitters off Amazon. They will strip the hdcp off and then you can capture what you want. There are even specialized devices that you plug a dvi/hdmi/vga signal into and it will turn the signal into IP packets over Ethernet. I’m sure you could get away with a number of things in places you shouldn’t be with one of these.

slg 6y ago

This is sad as it appears to be the beginning of the end of moviegoing as a mainstream pastime. Watching a movie at home simply isn't an equivalent replacement and it has nothing to do with the size of the screen. Going to the theater is a social experience. You simply can't replicate the experience of seeing Captain American catch Thor's hammer in a sold out crowd on opening weekend. Also going to a theater is a purpose driven choice in a way watching a movie at home is not. It allows you to focus all your attention on a movie that simply can't easily be replicated at home.

xwdv 6y ago
There's no need for theaters to be mainstream. They can be a niche offering and you can still enjoy those things.
- slg 6y ago
  That isn't necessarily true. Sure, there will probably always be movie theaters in large markets, but there might not be one in every town. It might end up being like seeing live bands in concerts. You might have to live in a top X market or spend hours traveling to one of those markets to see your favorite band play. That makes it an inherently more expensive and rarer experience even if it is still possible. It also isn't clear what the ramifications of this will be on the movies that actually get made. While I did mention the MCU in that last comment, I am a big fan of the idea of a standalone 90-180 minute movie as an artform. Those standalone movies make even less sense in a streaming world in which retention is the goal. I would be worried that movies become even more and more like TV than the franchise IP wave of the last decade has already caused.
  - xwdv 6y ago
    Small Stand-alone movies make more sense in streaming focused worlds, not less. It’s easier to take a risk on a small movie when the effort needed to watch it is less.
    - slg 6y ago

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago

I am super excited about this trend of releasing movies to online services at the same time as theaters. I guess I am selfish, but even before the pandemic, I much preferred to watching a movie with my spouse at home on our big screen TV, in our comfortable chairs, with our preferred snacks, with the kids asleep in their bedroom, than having to go through the hassle of finding a babysitter, driving somewhere, paying crazy prices for food and drink, watching a ton of pre-roll ads, and being distracted by the jerk making running commentary next to you. Sure the giant screen and sound system are really nice, and worth paying for once in a while. But I am happy that decision is separate from, when do I want to watch the movie.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago
So a long time ago, my wife broke her leg badly enough to need surgery. After she was up to it, I took her out to a movie. Got her out of the van, into a wheelchair, into the theater. We sat through the trailers, and were just about to get to the movie that we actually wanted to see... ... when our oldest called, saying that our youngest was throwing up, and we needed to come home now. All that work (way more work than usual), and we never got to see the movie. If we had been watching it at home, we would have just paused it. On the other hand, if we had been watching it at home, we would have been watching it with the kids, not just with each other. That's fine, if that's what you want. But if you want some time together as adults, it doesn't work.
- treeman79 6y ago
  We stared counting interruptions during a movie. This is with kids have a separate floor To themselves; with clear instructions to give us 2 hours peace. 20+ interruptions was normal. Not including Loud crashes coming from gymnastics activities.
  - smegger001 6y ago
    As someone with two toddlers I look forward to the day i only get 10 interupts per hour.

wayanon 6y ago

I would see films in cinemas if I could be guaranteed a calm uninterrupted experience. A big problem for me is people talking, using phones etc. I don’t want to spoil their evening either by making a scene I think it’s just I’m no longer a cinema person - and yes I’ve tried art house places too!

8ytecoder 6y ago
Some theatres like Alamo have strict rules and enforcement around it. I stick to theatres that I know are rather quiet and enjoyable.
axaxs 6y ago
Same for me! I don't know if I just got grumpier as I got older, or the smartphone era happened to occur in the same time, but I literally dread going to a theater. Instead of focusing on the movie, I just realize how self entitled society has become.
- asciimov 6y ago
  It wasn't any better before cell phones. People still talked during the movie, kids ran up and down the aisles, people would get up in the middle of the movie to go to the bathroom. What changed was big home televisions got cheaper, and those of us who value decorum during movies can get it at home, with cheap snacks and the ability to pause the movie.
leetcrew 6y ago
if you don't mind me asking, what do you actually like about the cinema experience that you can't get at home? I get that the image quality is better than the average consumer tv, but it's not prohibitively expensive to get a good home theater setup, especially if you weigh the cost against eight years worth of movie tickets + the residual value of the equipment at the end.
- v64 6y ago
  Speaking for myself, I live in an apartment with thin walls and can't blast my sound as loudly as it would be in a theater.

paul7986 6y ago

That's pretty awesome and now Im regretting my Roku TV mounted to my wall. I want HBO Max, but thus far only if available on said TV. Yet now with this I might get a Fire stick or a Chromecast.

jskajakzkjx 6y ago
Apple TV has the best experience IMO and supports all major streaming services.
- jasonv 6y ago
  I've been waiting for Apple to update the AppleTV (I gave mine to a deserving friend), so I replaced my aging Roku with a FireTV (for HBO Max). Works great.
  - jskajakzkjx 6y ago
    It has been a long time since the Apple TV was updated, but it performs well for 4k content so I’m not sure what the average user would want from an upgrade. Personally the only item on my wish list is very niche - allow it to concurrently connect to more than 3 Bluetooth devices, so I can use more sensors with Zwift.
    - ascagnel_ 6y ago
      > I’m not sure what the average user would want from an upgrade I'd like to see a new revision with an HDMI 2.1 port -- support for 8K60 game streaming (the nVidia 3090s support running at that resolution) and 4K120 support.
- macjohnmcc 6y ago
  Except for the bonkers remote control I agree. I have a few Roku's and one Apple TV HD. I love the picture quality on the AppleTV but the remote is too weird for my wife's liking.
  - 6y ago

danso 6y ago

It'll be interesting to see how this effects a culture/mindset shift among large movie producers and directors. Putting aside their artistic concerns that their films are best experienced on the massive widescreen, having a big box office haul seems to be a key part of Hollywood braqfests. If simultaneous theater+streaming becomes the norm, it would seem the days of multi-hundred-million box office gross will be past. In 2020, the highest grossing film (domestically) so far is the Bad Boys sequel, which released in January and got $204M. The only other 2020 release to break $100M is the Sonic the Hedgehog movie. And many of 2020's top grossing movies were released in late 2019, e.g. "1917" and Star Wars. Even worse, Christopher Nolan's "Tenet" – released in September by Warner Bros – basically bombed at under $60M [0]. Given the huge movies that WB is planning to put on HBO (Matrix 4, Wonder Woman, Dune), I wonder if that'll spur Disney to throw Black Widow onto streaming. Apparently its Mulan release (which required a premium subscription) didn't do so well, but seems risky for Disney to sit on its hands while WB goes all in. [0] https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2020/?grossesOption=calendarGrosses https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2020/?grossesOption=calen...

johnnujler 6y ago
I think Marvel and Disney would be very disappointed if this trend continues across the board. At least if we go by Marvel’s last decade results.
- criddell 6y ago
  With the debt that Disney has, I think that's an understatement.
WorldMaker 6y ago
Disney already announced that Pixar's Soul will release to Disney+ the same week as WW1984 and will not be a "premium" release like Mulan. That does seem to indicate that Disney is feeling the same pressure, though I believe they still haven't announced plans for any of the Marvel properties yet.
sandworm101 6y ago
I'm interested in how this impacts the actual movies. I expect them to get much longer. I also expect this will free directors to cover topics and material that might not be appropriate for theatres. What people are willing to watch when in public is different than what people may be willing to watch in their own homes. I expect that Disney will have to run parallel focus groups, possible resulting in slightly different versioning between the streaming and in-theatre content. Dune is a good example. Dune has for decades been viewed as the quintessential impossible story to ever put on screen. It was done best as a miniseries, and even then it wasn't complete. But an open-ended streaming option not subject to theatre/TV time or content constraints? There is potential for very interesting content.

m1 6y ago

Just hope HBO Max comes to the UK soon!

FreeKill 6y ago
Same with Canada as well. Will be a shame if this experiment fails simply because they were unable to capture subscribers from the majority of the world outside the US. People aren't going to wait for it to come to their country, they'll likely pirate it instead...
HighChaparral 6y ago
Sky's deal with HBO makes that unlikely.

danhak 6y ago

If streaming does indeed come to overtake theaters as the primary distribution method of new releases going forward, I'm curious about how significantly this will upend the industry due to direct competition from classic films. For example, the way I purchase and consume a book is identical whether it is a classic or a new release. And my reading habits skew heavily toward classics. Same for the way I consume music, and I listen to releases from the 60's - 2000's just as much as new stuff.

grawprog 6y ago
>I'm curious about how significantly this will upend the industry due to direct competition from classic films. My guess, not much. If they started having to compete with classics and were losing, I imagine the classics would just vanish from those services.
- ElFitz 6y ago
  Or you’d have to pay a premium to access x+ years old movies. Which would be a smarter move.
  - asciimov 6y ago
    I think you have it backwards, the old movies would be the draw, the new releases would be the premium. You have to keep people subscribed to the service, well curated old movies would be one way to do this.
    - ElFitz 6y ago
      You know what? Let’s A/B test! ^^
- ghaff 6y ago
  There's not a lot of evidence that there's a big market for a premium streaming classics service. I would probably subscribe to one but the film buff market is probably not a huge one. (I know there's Criterion but that tends towards arthouse fare rather than mainstream classics.)

oleks637 6y ago

What is the point of releasing so many good movies on HBO Max if it is only available is US? Wouldn't it make more sense to first introduce it in more countries and then use these movies to incentivise more subscriptions?

lotsofpulp 6y ago
They probably have existing long term contracts in other countries with other distributors.

asciimov 6y ago

Hands down the best movie experience I've had was this old refurbished theater in my hometown in the 90's and early 00's. Two weekends each month they showed an old movie. Classics from Casablanca, Laurence of Arabia, Fiddler on the Roof, to The Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet and War of The Worlds. Tickets were $4-5, boxes of popcorn and soda's of reasonable size were a $1-2 each, all movies lead with a cartoon and had an intermission. Best of all the ushers. They would kick you out if you made too much noise and wouldn't let you take your seat if you got up too often. It's a real shame that movie studios have cut the theaters margin on movies so thin that the theaters can't bring their snack prices down, nor offer a better experience (like kicking people out who can't shut up).

r3trohack3r 6y ago
This is exactly the reason I love Alamo Drafthouse. Zero tolerance policy on noise and cellphone screens (which they've actually enforced when I've been there). Food prices are comparable to other theater chains, but the _quality_ is much higher. Real food (not concession stand quality), adult milkshakes, etc. Seats are lazy boy quality recliners. Plus the ushers shimmy around on the floors to come take your order and bring it to your seat. You get these little menu cards you can fill out during the movie. The ushers look for folks who have a card ready and come grab it.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  >> the ushers shimmy around on the floors to come take your order and bring it to your seat. Transpose "usher" with "waiter" and it has become literal dinner theater.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- asciimov 6y ago
  I'd actually like Alamo Drafthouse more if they skipped the whole dinner thing. I mean the dinner thing is great, but I do find the extra movement distracting. The drafthouse I typically go to doesn't have stadium seating so it is noticeable.

Hnaomyiph 6y ago

With this seemingly becoming the new norm, I hope streaming services can find a way to make the quality of streams better or offer a way to temporarily download a new movie at a higher quality. Streams still lag behind Blu-ray by quite a margin. Maybe if we could get something between Blu-ray and the DCP files theaters get. Or even just Blu-ray quality would be a greatly appreciated upgrade.

asciimov 6y ago
Gotta expand broadband and get rid of datacaps first.
- Hnaomyiph 6y ago
  I agree, as I write this from a 25mbps connection with a 1tb datacap. For me personally, I wouldn't mind waiting a day or two for a multi-hundred gig file to download, but my datacap sure would.
chenxiaolong 6y ago
100% agreed. I'd even pay extra to get 60Mbps or higher bitrate streams to match blu-rays. The compression artifacts on the all of the major streaming services right now are quite noticeable when watching on a projector.

totaldude87 6y ago

>>The studio's 2021 slate includes projects such as The Suicide Squad, The Matrix 4, Dune, Godzilla vs. Kong and Space Jam: A New Legacy. Other films include Little Things, Judas and the Black Messiah, Tom & Jerry, Mortal Kombat, Those Who Wish Me Dead, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, In The Heights, Reminiscence, Malignant, The Many Saints of Newark, King Richard and Cry Macho. well this is an impressive line up! i usually take a pass of $20 or go on Tuesdays for movies that are worth $6-$7 , but with $15 for new movies and HBO shows this is a no brainer (YMMV) But i do miss the big screen experience , may be cheap home theater ideas will rise up and grant a % of that experience

asah 6y ago

Black Friday sales on 75 inch 4k TVs and sound bars => millions of people don't need theaters.

markdown 6y ago

What I've wanted most that I haven't seen yet is different versions of movies for different age-groups. Like, you could have a Deadpool movie on Netflix that played either a PG-13 or NC-17 version depending on your account settings. Basically make clearplay.com obsolete.

sto_hristo 6y ago

I don't really care what the equation is as long they reap profits enough the keep the wheel going full speed and produce more awesome products. I love the cinema for its grandeur and DB levels and nothing out there can replicate that. True - the frustrations with some trash people is a factor, but so far nothing that extreme to make me even consider ditching the big screen. But i'd settle for anything as longs as there will be more. MORE!

spear 6y ago

So when is HBO Max going to start streaming in 4k and HDR?

spear 6y ago
I found the answer: Dec 25 (for WW 84) https://twitter.com/PattyJenks/status/1333861228695875584 https://twitter.com/PattyJenks/status/1333861228695875584 Nice.

jedberg 6y ago

As a parent, I'm super excited about this. I love going to see movies. My wife and I used to go every week. Until we had kids. In the last six years, I think we've seen maybe two movies in the theater. I have however watched every day-of streaming release that's come out, even the ones that cost $30, just to support the idea. I would gladly pay $20 to see new movies in my home. My TV and sound are good enough. I'd still like to see the big action flicks in the theater, and if I were a teen, I'd still prefer dates in a theater rather than at home, and I'm sure a lot of people feel safer having a date at a theater than at someone's house. When the VCR came out, everyone said it would kill moviegoing. To prevent it, they usually waited 4+ years to release a movie on VHS. It turned out, when they shrunk that window to 4 months, it didn't really affect moviegoing. I hope they find the same is true here -- that there isn't a lot of overlap between people who want to watch at home and people who will go to a theater.

bonestamp2 6y ago
I'm excited about this too for the same reason. I too have been paying the high prices to support the idea of on demand new releases that skipped the theatre. I wouldn't be surprised if this means a price hike on the HBO subscription price, and I'd be willing to pay more for that in this case. Before covid, we still got to the theaters once in a while, but this will be awesome. Hopefully you can find a good babysitter and get back to the theater more too (when it's safe of course).
- jedberg 6y ago
  > Hopefully you can find a good babysitter and get back to the theater more too (when it's safe of course). Ugh. We actually found the most amazing babysitter ever. She is a high school student and watched the kids during the day for us in summer until school started. We were so excited that we could finally go to movies again. And then the pandemic kicked in. Sadly, by the time it's safe to go to movies again, she'll have graduated and left. :(
vincentmarle 6y ago
> I'd still like to see the big action flicks in the theater, and if I were a teen, I'd still prefer dates in a theater rather than at home, and I'm sure a lot of people feel safer having a date at a theater than at someone's house. I never understood why going to the movies is a common thing to do on a date, don't you want to get to know the other person and be able to talk to them?

nacho2sweet 6y ago

Pirating is back baby, in a big way.

jessaustin 6y ago

Despite word of coming vaccines, the company decided to put the entire 2021 slate on HBO Max after consulting with epidemiologists. If you care enough about the future to pay experts for advice, you get different answers than e.g. those to which nightly news viewers are subjected. Like Dr. Michael Mina said recently on the Pivot podcast, "Since May, the vaccine has been a month away."

dekhn 6y ago

It's so funny watching a dysfunctional industry take 10 years to catch up with the obvious. The next interesting point will be the obvious consolidation and licensing wars when customers get tired of maintaining 4 or 5 streaming licenses.

rement 6y ago
> The next interesting point will be the obvious consolidation and licensing wars when customers get tired of maintaining 4 or 5 streaming licenses. I'd say that is already happening. I was surprised at first when I saw "The Simpsons" on Disney+ but I remembered that Disney purchased Fox entertainment last year. Disney already owns "Star Wars", "Marvel", "ESPN", "Pixar", and their own back catalog. There are other big players out there but Disney has a huge catalog.
- huhtenberg 6y ago
  > Disney already owns ... And yet paradoxically there's still very little to watch on Disney+, because only a fraction of their huge catalog is actually accessible and what _is_ available, it's just the same old material, watched and re-watched a million times already. At least that's how it is here, in Europe, not sure about the US. I ended up dropping Disney+ subscription in exactly 1 month because there was nothing interesting left to watch. It was a rather strange experience TBH.
  - erklik 6y ago
    and whatever is there, their need to be child-friendly tends to block or worse, make them edit movies. There was a scene in the 1984 Splash where a naked butt is seen, the re-edited scene went fairly viral where they tired to extend the long hair of the female so it covered her butt. (Horribly done btw)
    - dekhn 6y ago
      that scene was a highlight of my childhood (I was 11 at the time) and tbh I wouldn't really want my kids to see a censored version of it.

dylan604 6y ago

Have you seen the content on HBO Max? There's nothing there. It looks like WB is trying to prop up Max.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
I find it better than Netflix for my needs, but I also just like watching old stuff. I also only have it since I get it includes with ATT mobile service at no extra charge.

softwaredoug 6y ago

Not everyone has room or space for amazing AV for movies. So I feel sad this will hurt movie theaters. I would much rather be watching Dune safely in a theater than watching in OKish AV at home.

softwaredoug 6y ago

HBOMax has such a horrible branding strategy, discovery features, and rollout that I wonder how much this will matter longer term to their subscribers. Like HBOMax already has perhaps the largest deepest catalog of movies, yet have struggled to find adopters dues to confusion about all the HBO* and confusion about what even is included in the app due to terrible organization and discovery features.

sushisource 6y ago
It's truly moronic. I cannot imagine what the discussion was like in those meetings, but it sure seems like it fits the "guy gets thrown out of the window" meme format where you can imagine all the HBO streaming leaders sitting around the roundtable and one dude's like "What if we just had... one app?". Boom. Out the window.
- softwaredoug 6y ago
  It made sense when I listened to the “How I built it” podcast with Steve Case and AOL which discusses how truly terrible Time Warner is. So many fiefdoms. Rife Design by committee...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

keyle 6y ago

Well. That's sad. Time to invest in the home cinemas market!

bredren 6y ago

I wonder if the content was shipped to Netflix, Hulu and Apple. This seems to be most tenuous with theater chains, who could seek to punish WB as AMC threatened Universal over the release of Trolls. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/business/amc-universal-trolls-theaters-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/business/amc-universal-tr...

disown 6y ago

People seem to be missing the "data" portion of this move. This will boost subscriptions to hbo max which will increase revenue but also bring in data - capturing what,where,when,etc you and your children watch. AMC tried to capture this with their A-list movie pass, but I'm guessing the studios decide to step in front of the movie theater chains with this move. Disney and everyone else with a streaming services are bound to follow warner. I'm going to bet this will lead to people upgrading their home theater setup and I'm going to bet TV manufacturers are going to implement more data capturing features. Cameras to watch you watching TV. Where the eyeballs go. Mic to record what people say. Etc. The studios are all in trying to be netflix now. And netflix will try to be a studio. And the fracturing of the streaming continues. Until disney buys up everyone...

adrian_mrd 6y ago

An important note: this only affects those in the USA - unless HBO Max expands internationally in 2021 - because: “HBO Max is currently only supported in the U.S. and supported territories” [1] HBO Max has not announced any plans to expand outside of the USA at this stage. [1] https://www.hbomax.com/geo-availability https://www.hbomax.com/geo-availability

deepspace 6y ago
As someone outside the USA, I would love to support movie production by paying for a HBO Max subscription. But since they refuse to take my money, I will have to put the funds towards a seedbox so that I, too can enjoy the latest movies on demand. Idiots.
- jonny_eh 6y ago
  International distribution rights for all these movies have already been sold.
magicalhippo 6y ago
I just read[1] that HBO Max is coming to Norway at the end of 2021. Google translation: "A spokesperson for HBO Nordic confirms to Dagbladet that HBO Max is scheduled to roll out in Europe in the second half of 2021 and that it will replace HBO's European services." Dagbladet is one of the larger newspapers here. [1]: https://www.dinside.no/mobil/hbo-max-kommer-til-norge/73141457 https://www.dinside.no/mobil/hbo-max-kommer-til-norge/731414...

nondeveloper 6y ago

Warner Brothers were pioneers in the implementation of motion picture sound technology in the 1920s with Don Juan and The Jazz Singer, among others [0]. Which is to say the experience of going and seeing movies was shaped by Warner’s risky investments in those technologies when they were new. There are actually allusions to this in Singin’ in the Rain [1]. [0] https://www.britannica.com/art/history-of-the-motion-picture/The-pre-World-War-II-sound-era https://www.britannica.com/art/history-of-the-motion-picture... [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singin'_in_the_Rain https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singin'_in_the_Rain

divbzero 6y ago

The article leaves out the significant detail that Warner Bros. and HBO Max are both owned by WarnerMedia, the media and entertainment arm of AT&T.