Credit: Warner Bros.There’s been a strange trend in the movie industry lately when it comes to streaming.
As movies are released into theaters and studios gauge how well they’re doing, their release to streaming can be a major indicator of how well or how poorly a movie performs in the studio’s eyes. Most recently, we’ve seen this with Disney’s Haunted Mansion, which was just released in theaters last week, but is rumored to be released to Disney+ in September, just a few months after its theatrical release. The Flash was another example of this, receiving an almost immediate release to Max after a devastating performance at the box office.
Although it had been praised by Warner Bros. as the studio’s best movie, it completely missed the mark with fans, and after just a few disappointing weeks in theaters, was released to Max. Originally, it had been expected to be released to streaming sometime in the fall, but after a theatrical release on June 16, it was available to watch at home on July 18, one of the shortest time frames between a theatrical and at-home release for a movie in recent years.
In comparison, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023) was released in theaters in early May, and was well received by critics and fans, and performed well overall at the box office. After Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania became Marvel’s biggest flop earlier this year, Guardians of the Galaxy was desperately needed to help Marvel’s Phase Five come back from a devastating start. The Guardians of the Galaxy was just recently released to Disney+, almost three months after its initial theatrical release. While initially not expected to be released so soon, with the ongoing Hollywood film strikes, Marvel seemed to have little choice.
Compare all those examples to the release of Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), and a connection starts to form. The Avatar sequel was released in December 2022, a follow-up to 2009’s Avatar, which featured industry-defining CGI and shot the movie to the highest-grossing of all time. While Avatar remains the highest-grossing movie, Way of Water skyrocketed to become the third highest-grossing movie of all time. With so much success, demand for a physical or streaming release was high, but Disney allowed the anticipation to simmer for almost six months before releasing it to Disney+ in June.
Recently, Deadline reported that Warner Bros.’s Barbie will be released for streaming sometime in the fall. Incredibly ambiguous, it leaves the room open for Barbie to see a streaming release anywhere from September through November. The film has broken records and continues to see tons of interest and popularity, with theaters still consistently selling out showings. The movie was released in theaters on July 21, so an unspecified fall release could that the film remains in theaters through August, and into September at the very least. Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav stated that he intends to “let it play out…go into PVOD, take it through the windows that have worked forever,” confident that it “will have a good impact in the fall.”
While not nearly as much time between Way of Water’s theatrical and streaming release, it certainly beats other recent streaming release dates. With that in mind, it seems as though Barbie has clearly been the comeback that Warner Bros. has been hoping for.
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