In the months immediately following the onslaught of COVID-19, the dynamics of sharing films with audiences took on a radical new form, with Disney Plus and HBO Max and others leaping onto the same-day release bandwagon. Overnight, multiplexes transformed into ghost towns. In the place of movie theaters, the primary vehicle to distribute movies up to that point, streaming took up the slack. The supposedly “experimental” simultaneous-release plan was put into effect as an exciting new opportunity to safely view films from your sofa without the need to don your hazmat suit. Same-day release emerged in 2020 as a beacon in the fog for Hollywood. The consequences have yielded mixed results. To say nothing of the lasting ramifications of the era, especially for the wider peripheral movie industry.

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This marketing lingo was just that: a facade. Cutting out theaters, studios dropped the cost on theater operators and distributors, who were left to suffer the worst. No one in the industry was safe, however. Estimates place the loss of revenue for Hollywood studios at roughly 30 billion in 2020 alone (via Yahoo!). For companies like Warner Media, the situation reached dire enough levels they were required to hot potato their whole slate of upcoming films onto the lap of HBO Max at massive losses.

For this reason, and this one above any other, the promise of same-day release is, for all intents and purposes, dead as a long-term viable strategy. Kick-starting a streaming war to replace movie theaters was hardy an ideal solution, and with successful films like Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick reinvigorating theater sales in 2022, it seemed to be dead before it even had a chance to fully prove itself and innovate. Does this really mean that the concept has already shown itself incompatible with movie-going tastes? How did it go south so fast? And what does the future hold for same-day release?

A Not-So-Old Idea

     London Films

When out of ideas, the film industry has exactly one plan: dig up an old idea that they tried years earlier and blow the dust off. First, it was with 3D; now, it is same-day release. In the case of same-day release, their salvation, or so they desperately gambled, was resurrecting a distribution concept from the glory days of Laurence Olivier. His Richard III debuted on both television and movie theaters across multiple continents all the way back in 1955.

The premise was sound, but hampered by the obvious issue of hardware, with most television screens back in the 50s a blurry, black and white mess that paled in comparison to the majesty of a color movie screen the dimension of a tennis court. The film went down as a classic; though the arguably most intriguing aspect of Olivier’s project’s legacy — its design and marketing — was quickly forgotten. That is, until a certain pandemic once again gave it relevance during its own winter of discontent.

The Right Place at the Right Time

     Marvel Studios

A finished film is bankable only so far as is shown to as wide an audience as possible. Completed films either sit on a shelf or are released to recoup some of the budget back. That is to say, movies are shockingly perishable. Black Widow managed to limp its way to near-break-even profits despite a disappointing showing, if only by disappointing by Marvel standards. Disaster averted? Well, not quite.

The Trap is Sprung

     Disney

Cracks were soon to appear in the scheme as early as 2020. Simply put, simultaneous release was doomed to fail from the very start thanks to piracy undercutting any slim potential for profits. “I am pleased to announce that simultaneous release is dead as a serious business model, and piracy is what killed it,” the president of the National Association of Theatre Owners asserted last April, via LA Times, putting what should be a final nail in the coffin of the floundering tactic. The internet, to the horror of studio execs, transformed the straight-to-home smorgasbord of entertainment to their advantage. Regardless of the steep $30 price tag that Disney+ affixed to their live-action version of Mulan at the height of COVID, no amount of creative strategies or “premium access”-tier pricing could ever address the primary failing of the same-day release conundrum. Studios can only make profit when in a controlled environment. Anything left to the online domain will simply be pilfered and offered for distribution by the parasitic nature of internet torrent sites.

This extends further, the release model disproportionately affecting films aimed at older demographics, who simply avoided streaming altogether as they did theaters. It has been speculated that somewhere around 8% of former cinema attendees who regularly frequented theaters have abandoned going out to movies altogether, never to return. That’s a sizable chunk gone virtually overnight. It is hard to fault a company when it faces pumping further resources into a movie that will never have a chance to recoup anything. Bombs like West Side Story aren’t helping, but it is clear we should expect a return to theatrical-exclusive releases.

The Lasting Impact

     Legendary Pictures

Some low-budget and niche films may favor the same-day release for building word-of-mouth buzz on social media, translating the commotion to turn around and secure theater bookings. The very idea has its roots in the traveling road show, where a film, once gifted the chance to prove itself could get a second chance in theaters. The economics have changed slightly, Morbius a doubled-edged-sword example of how that idea can backfire in modern times, as studios comically attempt to scrap the barrel for every last viewer’s dime.

Horror streaming services like Shudder have proven a boon to microbudget filmmakers. However, the benefit is often outweighed by the production costs, which necessitate ticket sales, especially when it comes to big-budget films. Though the COVID aftermath has also hurt indie filmmakers who continue to struggle to obtain any funding at all. If funding is a matter of concern for Warner Media, Sony, and Disney, it is an existential worry for Indies who face losing finacing altogether in light of an industry stumbling around like drunk in a house of mirrors, searching for something solid to keep them balanced. And until that equilibrium is discovered, the possibility holds that things could get worse for smaller production companies before they get better.