Expect the worst when a 'big' movie dumps on streaming

The modest box office success of Ben Affleck’s “Air” illustrates a recent change in strategy for some of the industry’s biggest streaming services. Intended as an exclusive Amazon Prime streaming release, “Air” pivoted to a theater-first model, pouring millions into the film’s marketing while sending Affleck and Matt Damon on an exhaustive promotional tour. People love those “Good Will Hunting” boys, am I right?

Though the movie will be lucky to earn back its budget in theaters, Amazon clearly sees its performance as a win, as a “hit” movie generally fares way better on their streaming site, at least compared to the Random Movie of the Week model that competitor Netflix made a habit.

Netflix, even with what would’ve been an obvious box office juggernaut in “Knives Out 2” last year, prefers to keep their movies for their own library. Even when “Knives Out 2” made terrific money in a rare, five-day theatrical release in theaters prior to its Christmas debut on Netflix, the streaming giant quickly pulled the movie out of theaters as they promised and shipped it back to the smaller screens.

With the box office finally approaching pre-pandemic era revenue, it certainly seems like some movies benefit financially from what has become the clout of the “Only in theaters” moniker (a strategy often deployed by Disney to help their audience decipher between all the Marvel content on Disney Plus and the “premium” content that hits theaters).

However, the box office remains anchored/handcuffed to established franchises and sequels. The colorful, kid-friendly “Super Mario Bros.” was always going to dominate the box office (a fact confirmed by the Illumination-produced movie itself being about as unmemorable as a “Minions” sequel).

“Air” made some money, but it required a TON of marketing. After all, Affleck and Damon co-wrote and co-starred in a movie just a couple years ago (“The Last Duel”) that bombed miserably, in part because of its intense subject matter and probably more because of lingering COVID concerns at the time. A movie already as expensive as “The Last Duel” probably required an equally huge marketing campaign to even come close to breaking even, so it’s understandable that the studio didn’t give it the full “Air” treatment.

Success for non-franchise, adult-skewing movies remains elusive, a trend that began before COVID but certainly escalated during the pandemic. Older audiences have so much premium content available at home, mostly in long-form television. In the 90s, a “Succession” like premise could star Michael Douglas and bank $100 million. Nowadays, adults know where to find that sort of high-quality drama — HBO, Amazon, Netflix, etc.

If an expensive movie debuts exclusively on streaming now, audiences are right to be somewhat skeptical about it. Case in point, Apple’s “Ghosted,” starring Chris Evans and Ana de Armas looked like a surefire “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”-esque action/comedy blockbuster. Rather than going to theaters, it landed on Apple TV last week and subsequently got pummeled by film critics who kept making two seemingly contradictory points: 1). A movie like this belongs on the big screen and 2). The movie is bad.

Moving forward, Apple seems to be steering into Amazon’s recent strategy. This fall, Apple will release Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” with Leonardo DiCaprio and Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon” starring Joaquin Phoenix exclusively in theaters for a few weeks before releasing them on streaming.

Netflix, meanwhile, remains committed to their model. While they release Oscar-y movies in a few theaters in large cities for Oscar consideration, they want most of its target audience to stream titles and keep paying the monthly subscription. That strategy probably works fine for serious dramas with limited commercial appeal, but what are they doing with those crazy-expensive pseudo-blockbusters? Things like “Red Notice” with Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds, and “The Gray Man” with Ryan Gosling cost Netflix upward of $200 million apiece. Why didn’t they try to make at least some box office cash with those big names?

Well, we sort of know the answer: Both of those movies were bland, forgettable, and likely to tank in theaters once word-of-mouth spread. If you want to go theatrical, it pays (at least sometimes) to be good.

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Tyler Wilson is a member of the International Press Academy and has been writing about movies for Inland Northwest publications since 2000, including a regular column in The Press since 2006. He can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.