For years, there has been a debate about what is “cinema” and what is just a “movie.” That debate is often fruitless and leads to heated disagreements and name-calling on social media. But in more recent times, the new debate isn’t between what is cinema and what is just a movie. Instead, we’re talking about the blurred lines between films, TV series, and “content.” Well, even though WarnerMedia continues to help blur the line between those distinctions, the CEO wants everyone to know the studio still believes in films.
According to Variety, while announcing the future of filmmaking for WarnerMedia during a recent investors call, CEO Jason Kilar said that he believes “motion pictures matter and will continue to matter.” Of course, that doesn’t mean motion pictures are going to be exclusively in theaters, and the ones that are won’t be there for as long as they were before.
Before we look at the future, we have to look at 2021 and the huge decision WarnerMedia made to release every Warner Bros. film in theaters on the same day as HBO Max. That was a controversial move when it was announced and continues to be controversial, even though there have been huge successes financially such as “Godzilla vs. Kong.” But this 2021 experiment isn’t continuing in 2022 and beyond. Instead, WarnerMedia is taking a multi-pronged approach to film distribution.
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Part of the plan for WarnerMedia in the future is to continue to release films in theaters with exclusive runs on the big screen. But the days of 90-day theatrical windows are totally gone, as most of those films will likely only stay on the big screen for 45 days before moving onto streaming and/or VOD. And in addition to those films going to theaters, WarnerMedia explained how 2022 will see no fewer than 10 films made exclusively for the HBO Max streaming service, continuing this trend of having the new platform be a premier place to find first-run features.
“Clearly motion pictures matter and will continue to matter,” Kilar added. “They also matter at home in terms of the response we’ve gotten” from HBO Max subscribers.
Obviously, we don’t know exactly which films are heading to HBO Max and which will go straight to theaters. However, this is yet another move from a major studio that continues to blur the line between what we know of as cinema and what is lumped into that dreaded category of “content.”
