Movies

In the Heights, Scoob!, and More Delayed Indefinitely


Like No Time to Die or F9 before it, attempting to move Wonder Woman past the crisis is a prudent move and reveals much of how studios currently intend to handle their blockbusters. It also matches what Phil Contrino, director of Media & Research at the National Association of Theatre Owners, told us last week.

“There’s this kind of borderline hysteria where
people are coming to the conclusion that, ‘Okay, because a lot of movies are
going to streaming quicker now that that means that’s going to be the future of
the industry and studios and filmmakers are just going to abandon movie
theaters,’” Contrino said. “And that’s just so far from what the reality of the
situation is. Studios across the board are committed to theatrical, and filmmakers
are committed to theatrical.”

Still, we are intrigued by the fact the other three movies are in a holding pattern without new release dates. Obviously, WB is going to continue monitoring how the coronavirus outbreak unfolds, and whether we really “flatten the curve” in North America by July or August (a more reasonable timetable than rumbles of a new Easter Sunday deadline for the virus). With that said, we can’t help but notice that all three of WB’s other delays bear some faint similarity to movies that are going to VOD right now.

Scoob! is an animated movie based on a character rife with Gen-X and baby boomer nostalgia, not unlike the Trolls dolls. And Universal Pictures is putting the next animated adaptation of those toys, Trolls: World Tour, on VOD on April 10. Meanwhile Malignant is the newest original horror movie from James Wan, who has a knack for launching franchises in the genre like Saw, Insidious, and The Conjuring. And the first two of those he co-created at the screenplay level with Leigh Whannell, whose latest writing-directing effort, The Invisible Man, was among the first movies to historically break the theatrical window in favor of VOD.

While no musicals like Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of Miranda’s In the Heights have made the jump to VOD yet, the similarly adult-targeted romantic comedy, Emma., certainly did alongside The Invisible Man and The Hunt. So it is fair to wonder whether WB is taking a wait and see approach to how the VOD market treats all these films, particularly Trolls which will make its debut on VOD. Could any or all of these movies end up on VOD? It’s something we’ve certainly speculated is possible. Time (and the length of current crisis) will of course bear it out, but it’s more likely than Wonder Woman ever was….



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