While theatres struggled to survive during the pandemic, most US studios began launching their own SVOD services, if they hadn’t already. Many begun to experiment during the course of the pandemic with different release opportunities. Disney+ experimented with PVOD, allowing users to rent select movies day and date with their theatrical release, while HBO Max simply made many of its high profile theatrical releases available day-and-date to stream.
Multiple disruptions and changes to the movie licensing market has meant now on the other side of the pandemic the first window landscape for the US movie market has changed dramatically. By comparing the buyers of first window movies from the major studios in the US between before the pandemic (2019) and the year just gone (2022) Movie Tracker reveals the starkness of this move from a long established status quo.
Warner Bros. Discovery continues to be the first window home for most major studio movies in the US, but overall airs far fewer movies from its competitor studios than it once did. It still is airing a number of movies from the likes of Disney, who still have a deal with Warner for many 20th Century movies to air first on HBO (alongside HBO Max) in the US.
The landscape of 2022 contains many more buyers of major studio movies than pre-pandemic, with most of the newer service owners appearing supported by their own vertical integration. While Paramount’s Showtime has long been a first window home for many high profile indie movies, its pre-pandemic acquisition activity from major studios was limited, with Paramount rarely engaging in vertical integration. This strategy has changed since the launch of Paramount+, with the SVOD taking the majority of Paramount movies in 2022 in the first window. Paramount CEO Bob Bakish claims the decision to bring ‘Top Gun Maverick’ to Paramount+ has served as a major boost to the service’s subscribers in the US and abroad.
The same is true for NBCUniversal and Peacock, with the studio more likely to licence their movies to HBO or Netflix pre-pandemic although in the case of Universal Pictures, their recent slate has been sizeable enough that they can split some of it between supporting Peacock and bringing in more direct revenue by continuing to licence to third parties.
One of the biggest changes is the output of MGM. That which would previously had been licensed to Hulu is now going either directly onto MGM+ (FKA EPIX) or Amazon Prime, following the acquisition of MGM by Amazon.
The only studio seemingly uninterested in supporting their own service is Lionsgate. This is no doubt in no small part due their continued efforts to find a buyer for Starz which will inevitably appear a more attractive proposition if it is not wholly reliant on its relationship with Lionsgate to find content. What it has allowed the studio to do is adopt the traditional Sony ‘arms dealer’ approach, licensing their movies to a number of different services, including other first window newcomers in 2022 like FOX, AMC+ and The Roku Channel.
Although the move towards vertical integration is not moving a fast as can be seen in the world of scripted TV, for movies this does seem to be the priority for many studios as they know popular blockbusters can serve as effective banners to attract new subscribers to their services. As all the studios pivot their strategies away from growth at all costs and towards streaming profitability however, we may very well see the current breadth of third party buyers (both in the US and abroad) remain for a little longer.
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