• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Streaming platforms make a play for cinema’s lunch. Is Nollywood paying attention?

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The announcement on Thursday by Warner Bros, that all its 2021 movie releases will arrive simultaneously in theatres and on the HBO Max streaming service in the United States, is a significant departure from Hollywood’s traditional business model of cinema releases, an aftertaste of a world scarred by COVID-19, and a likely pointer of things to come.

So far three pharmaceutical companies have developed vaccines – Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca – with very promising results in early trials in Western countries and Britain will soon begin administrating COVID-19 vaccines to the elderly and other vulnerable people. It is expected that by the first quarter of next year, vaccines would have been available for large swaths of people.

Yet, even with this development, Warner Media Group is betting that the cinema-going culture will not recover until at least the end of the year. It must be noted that this view is not widely shared in the United States as other big studios are banking on large crowds at cinemas after the coronavirus has been contained. Even Warner Media Group is not saying whether this move will be permanent.

“We know new content is the lifeblood of theatrical exhibition, but we have to balance this with the reality that most theaters in the U.S. will likely operate at reduced capacity throughout 2021,” Ann Sarnoff, chief executive of the WarnerMedia Studios and Networks Group, said in a statement.

“We can support our partners in the exhibition with a steady pipeline of world-class films, while also giving moviegoers who may not have access to theaters or aren’t quite ready to go back to the movies the chance to see our amazing 2021 films,” Sarnoff said.

Other big studios in the United States are pushing the release of movies slated for 2020 to next year with the closure of theatres across the country for most of this year. Some studio executives have made a decision to send some low-budget movies which are not expected to be box office hits straight to video on demand.

Resistance to streaming platforms

The chief reason big studios in the United States have shunned releasing big-ticket movies over streaming platforms is money. A blockbuster hit like “Black Widow” which cost about $200 million to make could haul in up to $1 billion at the global box office for Marvel Studios. Then it would be pushed to home video or streaming platforms, but releasing it straight to video will cost the producers money. This is why its release date has been postponed till next year.

Streams do not seem as profitable as cinema releases yet. For example on Netflix, for a $15/month subscription, Netflix customers can watch whatever tickles their fancy on the platform. Since viewers do not pay per view, studios cannot earn money on a specific title. Though Amazon Prime has offerings where viewers pay to watch specific titles, they are not as profitable as movie tickets.

Studio executives are also unwilling to swap theatrical releases for on-demand streaming so that the films can be eligible for the Academy Awards. The award requires a film to be released in a commercial theatre in Los Angeles County for at least seven days and be shown three times a day to be eligible for a nomination. It is unclear if this rule will be upheld this year considering COVID-19 has led to the shutdown of theatres around the world and competitive movies are now showing on streaming sites.

Winter is coming

If current trends are any indicator, the future is often kinder to the paranoid. Digital solutions have disrupted all facets of our lives and the business model of huge theatrical releases of blockbuster movies is ripe for disruption.

In the United States, streaming services have had to wait 90 days while the movie plays exclusively in theatres. In a world where audiences have shifted online, this policy now seems obsolete. Some studios have moved to owning their own streaming services and pushing their content online.

Streaming platforms have also become adept at not only distributing movie titles but commissioning productions with all the ingredients of a blockbuster movie. Netflix’s productions like ‘The Crown’, ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ and the documentary ‘Tiger King’ are drawing rave reviews and earning critical acclaim. Netflix added about 15 million new subscribers in the first quarter of 2020 pushing its numbers to 183 million.

Many are now questioning the decision of movie studios to postpone releases of new movies till next year even when theatres are expected to be closed until June 2021.

What Nollywood can learn

For Nigeria’s movie industry, cinemas still represent the gold standard of movie release. Producers make conscious efforts to improve the quality of video, audio, acting, and storytelling when movies are intentionally produced for cinemas.

During Nollywood’s evolution in the 1990s, most of its movies could not be shown to international audiences as theatrical releases were rare. Many producers could not also submit their movies for prestigious awards like the Academy Awards because they were not shot on the recommended format for cinema or were not shown in cinemas. Last year, Genevieve Nnaji’s ‘Lionheart’ was disqualified from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awards because the characters didn’t speak enough Igbo for it to pass as a foreign film.

Some recent Nigerian movies including ‘Wedding Party’, ‘Sugar Rush’, and ‘Chief Daddy’ have raked in tens of millions of naira through the box office. After wild success at the cinemas, some successful films are distributed by cable operators like DSTV’s Africa Magic. This represents another significant path to income. Eventually, they make it to streaming platforms like Netflix. It could also be the other way round.

Kunle Afolayan’s ‘Citiation’ and Kenneth Gyang’s ‘Oluture’ are among the few Nigerian-themed productions that were released straight to the on-demand streaming platform Netflix. These movies have remained among the most-watched since their releases indicating wide acceptance. The jury is still out on their financial success as Netflix distributed them. They would have to surpass a movie like ‘Wedding Party’ which raked in over N450 million locally to be viewed as runway success. Netflix has over 50,000 subscribers in Nigeria.

With Warner Bros’ release of 17 movies over the on-demand streaming platform HBO Max, it is turning the widely-accepted business format on its head. But Warner Media is not the only one, Walt Disney Company is deepening subscription on its own streaming platform. The company recently hit over 73 million subscribers assisted greatly by its “Mandalorian” franchise.

This is significant for Nollywood because many producers are yet to embrace the reality that streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and others have announced their intention to take a wrecking ball to the business model of cinemas. The future could as well be streaming platforms and those who own parts of them.

The social-economic situation in Nigeria is proving that IrokoTv and some online streaming platforms have the right idea. Though Nigeria has been spared the worst effects of COVID-19, the general insecurity in the land, the horrendous traffic situation in Lagos and other cities have severely restricted many from visiting movie cinemas since they were opened in September. An economy in recession has dwindled the spending power of many too.

Jason Kilar, Warner Media’s chief executive officer, told the New York Times, “I have a lot of confidence in the theatrical model, and I have a lot of confidence in the subscription model. In many ways, you could see a future where budgets and ambitions continue to grow because that which you make more convenient tends to be used more often.”

For Nollywood movie makers then, the reality is that on-demand streaming services and theatrical releases offer big opportunities that can be exploited to deepen the success of an industry valued at over N200 billion, built mostly by the ingenuity of private enterprise. But it would want to watch streaming platforms closely because it represents the future.