The year 2020 has been difficult for many businesses globally due to lockdowns and restrictions. Theatres are among the businesses suffering due to the COVID-19 restrictions. One business that has gained success from people staying home is video streaming services. Platforms such as Netflix, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime, Crave and HBO Max have been seeing an increase in streaming numbers over this past year.
One thing that has been hurting theatres is having big names like Disney and Warner Brothers with their own streaming services now. This has meant in order to get more subscriptions and to stop massive delays on movie releases, these companies have been putting big movies on their streaming services.
One of the first cases of this was Pixar releasing the movie Onward to Disney Plus around it’s scheduled release date instead of waiting to put it in theatres. One of Disney’s biggest scheduled releases was Mulan. Trying to get more money from this and not put it in theatres they made it a premium feature which meant you had to pay extra to watch it early. The only movies Disney seems to be holding off on releasing are their Marvel movies which are always big box office hits.
HBO Max recently announced that in 2021 every Warner Brothers theatre release will release on the streaming service as well. This will surely be a big hit to theatres as many places around the world are still in lockdown. Many people will also take awhile to adjust when things go back to “normal,” so to many home-viewing is the safer and cheaper choice. Many theatre chains have remained closed or shut down entirely. As many streaming services are getting movies first, online streaming numbers look like they will continue to rise.
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