The movie licensing market has changed dramatically over the past few years, with the US being one territory where the first-pay home for US movies has strained far from its pre-COVID norm. The same is true for international markets, with Movie Tracker revealing to what extent this has changed, depending on the studio.
The massive majority once held by Pay TV only a few years ago has been cut by over half, affected in a small part by global SVODs such as Amazon and Netflix, but more-over by the rise of studio SVOD services, which in 2022 held the biggest share for the first time in first window movie premieres. Examining 2022 closer by studio reveals how much of this share is supported by Disney, who are almost all in with their approach to vertical integration.
In France, Disney, or any studio looking to engage in vertical integration, have to contend with the existing legislation, meaning that no movie can come to a streaming service within 36 months of its theatrical release. For this reason, Disney continues to licence its movies in the first window to the Pay TV service Canal+ in France before they are eventually allowed by the French government to premiere on Disney+ in a later window.
Even studios without their own services such as Sony are selling less to Pay TV, selling most of their movies to global SVOD services instead. While the likes of Netflix and Amazon may be acquiring less of the latest TV from third parties, these SVODs recognise the importance of having big theatrical releases on their platforms. For studios like Sony, the opportunity is huge as these SVODs may be willing to pay a lot of money to acquire Sony’s biggest movies for their services across multiple international markets. In the case of MGM the vast majority of their global SVOD sales are to their new parent Amazon.
The rise of studio SVOD is having an inevitable effect on the movie windowing market, with studio movies more likely than ever to debut on SVOD than its traditional first window home of Pay TV. The one exception is NBCUniversal who has the highest proportion of Pay TV buyers, greatly supported by the company’s own Sky group in the UK, Germany and Italy. Vertical integration in this instance is helping keep the traditional Pay TV window open for NBCUniversal movies.
The shrinking of Pay TV acquisitions of new movies is not limited to those from the major studios but also some of the industry’s top indie distributors.
The biggest growth in indie acquisition is from global SVOD services like Netflix and Amazon, with the latter taking a number of high-profile movies from the likes of A24 in multiple markets such as ‘The Green Knight’, even branding it as an Amazon Original movie in acquired markets and releasing it alongside its local theatrical premiere. Other titles from A24, such as the Oscar winner ‘Everything Everywhere all at Once’, have also become a favourite of Amazon in multiple markets, although in this instance it was allowed a full theatrical run prior to being acquired. These types of acquisitions are just one small part of A24’s success as a distributor.
As for the other indie distributors there is much more variety in the types of services that are acquiring their movies, with Neon most recently in 2022 engaging much more with AVOD services in the first-Pay window. The studio offers a wide range of movies in scope, with titles like ‘Bodied’ coming to Plex in multiple markets, while other high-profile movies like ‘Pig’ instead typically went to traditional buyers like Canal+ in France or Sky in the UK, Italy and Germany.
The industry has yet to land on a new status quo in a post-COVID world but Indies are finding themselves well positioned to supply movies to the many services that are seeing their traditional pipelines coming from major studios shrink or be diverted entirely. With the current strikes undoubtedly set to effect the upcoming pipeline from major studios, high-profile services may look to Indies, some of whom are still able to produce during the strike, for movies to acquire. In this instance, it would be the studio SVODs reliant on vertical integration set to take the biggest hit to their upcoming movie first-pay slate.
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