Warner Bros will not go "back to the way the world was". In 2022, it will release 10 movies simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max, while other movies will have a reduced theatrical window.
Same-day HBO Max premiere
It made waves when WarnerMedia announced that it would release all of its 2021 movies (17 in total) on HBO Max the same day as in theaters – in up to 4K HDR and Dolby Atmos.
The company is planning to continue its hybrid model next year. 10 movies will premiere simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max while other movies will have a reduced theatrical window of 45 days, according to comments made by WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar during Q2 earnings call and reported by The Verge.
The CEO added that Warner has no plans to return to the old ways.
- "I certainly don’t anticipate us going back to the way the world was in 2015 or ’16 or ’17, where windows were quite lengthy between theatrical and home exhibition, whether it was an a la carte transaction or something else," said Jason Kilar.
Disney and Warner have been the studios most aggressively pushing towards a new reality with same-day premieres in theaters and online, but other studios like Paramount and Universal have also experimented with early home releases.
HBO Max will launch in more regions later this year and in 2022.
- Source: WarnerMedia via The Verge
