Streaming Bundle Explosions and Box Office Implosions
Welcome to the latest installment of One Moore Hollywood Podcast! In this episode, our hosts, Chris Moore, Katie Marpe, and Dennis De Nobile, discuss the current landscape of streaming bundles, how to navigate them, and how the heck to get people back to the theaters.
Box Office Duds
It's now officially summertime, and our hosts have industry updates.
First up: Memorial Day weekend, known for kicking off the summer film season with a bang, was a full-on box office flop this year. The highly anticipated film Furiosa: A Max Max Saga was a dud, barely beating The Garfield Movie at the box office opening weekend. Our hosts were some of the few who did go to the movies that weekend, only to be significantly disappointed by Furiosa, a film they say needed more direction and a cohesive narrative.
Streaming Bundles 101
"I have a literal PhD in streaming, and I can't keep up with this," Marpe says, referring to the constantly shifting landscape of subscription-based streaming bundles.
The biggest news is the alliance between Disney+, Hulu, and Max. Another new bundle is the Comcast trifecta, comprising Peacock, Netflix, and Apple TV Plus. The former bundle is available for everyone, while the latter requires a Comcast internet subscription for access.
De Nobile advises listeners to always look for bundle options because they're everywhere now. Cell and internet providers regularly have offers for grouped streaming subscriptions, and it's worth looking into them. You can save some big bucks each month depending on what you prioritize watching.
Similarly to how cable operated when it first came into the picture, streamers are starting to experiment with how best they can maximize subscribers and profit. As of now, their answer is bundling. Only time will tell how the audience will take to this new approach to streaming subscriptions.
How Do We Get People to the Theaters?
Perhaps, Marpe suggests, we should not expect the industry to continue operating in the old ways. Maybe it's not a bad sign that Memorial Day Weekend was a box office flop. Maybe we don't need a summer movie season. "I don't think we're subscribing to the right predictors…just make good movies and put them out," she says.
Continuing along in that vein, Marpe references the panic people in Hollywood felt when TV was invented. The inherent threat of home televisions to theaters was clear. The industry had no idea how to entice the audience back to the theater, trying all sorts of theatrical gimmicks before finally realizing they could use TV to advertise the films being shown in theaters. Eventually, family programming became associated with the home, and theaters became known for their edgier, more adult content. "It was a reaction to the very thing it was about," Marpe says.
"We need to figure out how to react specifically to streaming and use what's happening now to get people back in the theater," Marpe explains. Somehow, we must find a way to use the things threatening theaters to draw people back to them.
If anyone has any ideas, OMHP is all ears!
Listen to the entire episode here: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or iHeartRadio.
