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      ‘Glass Onion’ and ‘Matilda’ Test Netflix’s Approach to Theatrical Releases

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      The company agreed to some exclusive theatrical distribution for “Glass Onion” and “Matilda the Musical,” but it’s not clear exhibitors will get much more.“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” the much-anticipated follow-up to the 2019 sleeper hit directed by Rian Johnson, was supposed to be the moment Netflix crossed the Rubicon.Rather than give the film a perfunctory theatrical release — a strategy designed to ensure most viewers ultimately watch a movie on the streaming service — Netflix, in a first, would give the film a traditional, exclusive run in a large number of cinemas.It didn’t happen.After much back and forth, and contrary to the wishes of some Netflix employees and Mr. Johnson, a theatrical release for “Glass Onion” that at one point some people inside the company hoped would reach up to 2,000 screens ended up at 638 in the United States. The movie, which was released on Wednesday and has received positive reviews, will run in theaters for just one week before becoming available on Netflix on Dec. 23.What was supposed to be the moment to prove the value of theaters to the streaming giant will not come to pass. Yet the company is also involved in another intriguing theatrical experiment this weekend, one that could end up providing Netflix with even more valuable feedback.On Friday, “Matilda the Musical,” financed and produced by Netflix, will open on more than 1,500 screens in 670 locations across the United Kingdom and Ireland. The movie, starring Emma Thompson as the villainous Miss Trunchbull, will be released and promoted by Sony Pictures, which, in a unique one-picture deal, licensed the rights to Netflix on the condition that Sony could hold onto the United Kingdom for a theatrical release. (“Matilda,” which is based on a stage musical that itself is based on a children’s book by Roald Dahl, is beloved in the United Kingdom. The musical has been running in London’s West End since 2011.)“It will be a good example of what could be done,” said Tim Richards, founder and chief executive of Vue International, a London-based exhibitor with theaters in countries including the United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany and Italy. “If there was ever a film made for the big screen, it’s ‘Matilda.’”Sony Pictures, which declined to comment for this article, bought the film rights to “Matilda the Musical” in 2015, with the show’s director, Matthew Warchus, set to oversee the adaptation. At the same time, Netflix was trying to bolster its roster of family films and had its eye on the Roald Dahl estate. (In 2021, Netflix ultimately purchased the entire Dahl estate, giving the company the ability to adapt books like “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “The BFG” into films and television shows, while also controlling the publishing rights.)At the end of 2019, the companies entered into an arrangement whereby Netflix would finance “Matilda the Musical” and produce it in conjunction with Sony and Working Title Films, a U.K. producer. Netflix would control rights to the finished product worldwide, excluding the United Kingdom and Ireland, where Sony would own the rights and release the film theatrically. “Matilda the Musical” will not appear on Netflix in the United Kingdom or Ireland until next summer, though it will be available to stream in the United States and other countries on Christmas.“Matilda the Musical” is receiving a traditional theatrical release in the United Kingdom.NetflixSo far the film has received positive reviews. The Independent deemed it “a frothy, whimsical delight,” while The Guardian called it “a tangy bit of entertainment, served up with gusto.” It has a 100 percent positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes and could do the kind of business that the original “Peter Rabbit” did at the British box office, where it sold $54 million in tickets.Whether the box office performances of “Glass Onion” and “Matilda” have any long-term impact on Netflix’s approach to theatrical distribution is a big question. According to three people with knowledge of Netflix’s inner workings, numerous executives in the company’s film group would like Netflix to embrace a more traditional strategy regarding film releases, but the co-chief executives, Ted Sarandos and Reed Hastings, remain focused on streaming. “There is no question internally that we make our movies for our members, and we really want them to see them on Netflix,” Mr. Sarandos said on an earnings call last month, adding, “Most people watch movies at home.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.Learn more about our process.Netflix declined to comment for this article.Discussions about a significant theatrical release for Netflix’s biggest movies began in earnest in April, after the company’s stock dropped 35 percent following a dismal first-quarter earnings report, according to the three people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal matters. “Glass Onion,” one of two “Knives Out” sequels the company purchased for $450 million in 2021, seemed to be the perfect candidate. The original grossed an impressive $165 million domestically — a notable feat for a movie not based on any well-known intellectual property.Spencer Klein, the company’s distribution director, went to the theater owners’ trade convention in Las Vegas to inform eager exhibitors that in light of Netflix’s subscriber slowdown, the company was considering wider theatrical releases. The issue was again brought up at a retreat for senior management in May and discussions continued in June, the people said, when there were preliminary talks about pushing back the streaming debut of the action-adventure film “The Gray Man” to allow for additional time in theaters. (This idea, specifically, never gained much traction.)Each conversation ended the same way, the three people said, with Mr. Sarandos adamant that a theatrical model was a confusing distraction and that the company’s best films should debut on Netflix. It wasn’t until September that Mr. Sarandos re-engaged in the debate, allowing his film team to use “Glass Onion” to test the market to examine two things: whether big-budget Netflix films could make money in theaters, even with the added marketing and print costs required; and whether those additional marketing costs would ultimately improve the film’s performance on the streaming platform.Netflix is releasing “Glass Onion” in more than 600 theaters, but that’s below what some in the company’s film group wanted.Netflix, via Associated PressScott Stuber, Netflix’s film chief, was hoping to put “Glass Onion” into a wide release, anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 screens, according to the people familiar with the discussions. Mr. Sarandos wanted 500. They agreed to more than 600 with a 30-day window between the film’s theatrical debut and its appearance on streaming. Mr. Sarandos demanded that it play for just one week and that the exhibitors promise not to release the box office numbers to the news media. For the first time, the two largest theater chains in the United States, AMC Theatres and Regal Cinemas, agreed to a deal with Netflix, along with other smaller chains. AMC’s chief executive, Adam Aron, said in a statement at the time that the deal showed that “both theatrical exhibitors and streamers can continue to coexist successfully.”That enthusiasm was short-lived, stifled when Mr. Sarandos emphasized his commitment to streaming during last month’s earnings call.Some of the large exhibitors were considering backing out of the deal after his remarks, according to one of the people familiar with the company’s inner workings. They remained only because they hoped a success story would change the top executives’ thinking. It helped that Netflix had committed a healthy budget to marketing “Glass Onion,” running commercials during “Sunday Night Football” and “Saturday Night Live,” and showing the trailer in theaters before movies like “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and “Ticket to Paradise.” “We want as many people as possible to see it in theaters,” Mr. Johnson, the director of “Glass Onion,” told The Hollywood Reporter this week about the film. “And then we want it to do incredibly well when it hits Netflix — so lots of people see it and so it demonstrates to everybody, most of all Netflix, that these two things can coexist.”Mr. Sarandos’s thinking runs counter to what other major studio heads now believe. “I’ve seen the data,” David Zaslav, the chief executive of Warner Media Discovery, said during a recent investor conference. “A movie that opens in the theater performs five times as well as a movie that you put direct to streaming.”Yet, releasing films theatrically is far from a sure thing these days. The U.S. box office is down some 32 percent compared with 2019, and the pandemic significantly altered moviegoing habits. Older moviegoers have yet to return to the cinema in big numbers, and studios are making fewer films, 36 percent fewer, in fact. One exhibitor said that if the three big streaming companies — Netflix, Amazon and Apple — released roughly 20 movies in theaters each year in total, that would help make up for the deficit and potentially return the business to a healthy place.Until then, theater chains are hopeful that releases like “Glass Onion” and “Matilda” will convince the companies to try more like them.“I’m hoping that ‘Glass Onion,’ even though it’s a very limited release, will deliver sufficient numbers that will certainly tweak some interest into doing something more in the future because they’ve got some amazing movies coming up,” Mr. Richards of Vue International said. “They’re moving slowly but I’m hopeful that there will be a change in thinking.” More

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      How ‘Terrifier 2’ Slashed Its Way to Box Office Success

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      The low-budget, ultraviolent, no-stars, killer-clown horror film has been in the Top 10 since it was released theatrically earlier this month.Halloween is still days away. But for the writer-director Damien Leone, Christmas is already here.That’s because his horror film “Terrifier 2” — a low-budget, ultraviolent sequel to his brutal killer-clown film “Terrifier” (2016) — has become an unexpected and unlikely hit.When “Terrifier 2” opened the first weekend in October, it cracked the Top 10, taking in $805,000. This past weekend it came in seventh, pulling in an estimated $1.89 million, according to Box Office Mojo, for a three-week total of $5.2 million.So how did an unrated, almost two-and-a-half-hour slasher film — made for $250,000 and starring nobody you’ve heard of — become the little horror movie that could?“Fun and fearlessness,” Leone said.The film ascended from the horror underground into the mainstream mostly through word of mouth and social media chatter, especially after reports surfaced of people puking and fainting at screenings. Media outlets that normally wouldn’t touch an extreme horror release, like the CBS daytime show “The Talk,” covered the commotion.With all of its can-you-handle-it? chatter, it’s giving big studio movies like “Halloween Ends” and “Smile” underdog competition as the most talked about horror movie this Halloween. Even Stephen King recently tweeted about it.Lauren LaVera with Thornton in “Terrifier 2.”CinedigmDuring a recent interview at a Midtown coffee shop, Leone kept his cool but seemed genuinely floored by his film’s runaway success. For folks taken aback by the violence, he had a reminder: It’s called “Terrifier” for a reason.“I’m not worrying about offending anybody or putting any agendas on,” he said. “It’s coming from the place of being a genuine horror fan.”“Terrifier 2” isn’t the first indie film to come out of left field and find mainstream success; “The Blair Witch Project” and “Paranormal Activity” did too, on far bigger scales. But unlike those films, “Terrifier 2” is aggressively and transgressively violent.The film is so gory, it makes other hit horror movies this year, like “Nope” and “The Black Phone,” look like “Ticket to Paradise.” It picks up where the original left off, as an American suburb is terrorized on Halloween by Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton), a psychopathic bozo who slaughters his victims in stomach-churning ways, including flaying, scalping and dismemberment — and that’s just in one scene. There are new, mostly young characters, including its protagonist teenager (Lauren LaVera) and her kid brother (Elliott Fullam).The first “Terrifier” (free to watch on several streaming services) won over many horror die-hards when it was released, in large part because of Art the Clown, a character who “threads the needle between being utterly creepy and absolutely hilarious,” said Jonathan DeHaan, who co-hosts the horror movie podcast Nightmare on Film Street. The Art the Clown Appreciation Society on Facebook has almost 12,000 members.But what’s drawing eyeballs to “Terrifier 2” is more than another creepy clown. In details like Art’s harlequin jumper and tiny top-hat fascinator — and in the gruesome nondigital makeup effects Leone crafted himself — what moviegoers are buying is homemade filmmaking.“People are responding to it because it’s an independent movie that feels like it’s made by people and not a giant studio machine,” DeHaan said. “There are actual people on set doing stuff with their hands, and you can feel it.”But what about the shock, walkouts, regurgitation?“We all wish we could see ‘The Exorcist’ on opening weekend and experience people vomiting in the aisles,” DeHaan said. “This is as close as you’ll get to that.”Who makes a movie like this? A guy who was born in Brooklyn and raised on Staten Island, in a household led by an Italian American single mother who loved classic movies so much, she named her only son after the child Antichrist in “The Omen.”Leone said his mother introduced him to horror landmarks like “Jaws” but also to the sword-and-sorcery sagas she adored, like “The Beastmaster.”But as she watched “Terrifier 2,” she got a little possessed.“She was beyond repulsed, just screaming at me, cursing me out like a truck driver,” he said.But by the end of the movie “she was very proud,” he said. “It was a badge of honor.”For some viewers it may be their first encounter with fantastically line-crossing gore, the kind with roots in the works of maverick directors like Herschell Gordon Lewis and Lucio Fulci. Leone knows the violence in his film is outrageous, and he’s buckled in for the backlash. But he wants audiences to understand that watching it comes with a purpose that’s endemic to horror.“Our mortality is so devastating to us that we need ways to accept it,” he said. “An attraction to violent horror,” he added, “is a coping mechanism.”And if people get sick at his film — and Leone said he really hopes nobody does — hey, it’s all part of the sell.“Sometimes you have to embrace the exploitation, especially if you’re trying to get noticed,” he said. “I don’t pretend that we are not exploiting the violence. We are. But those are the kinds of movies I loved, growing up.”The pluses and pitfalls of “Terrifier 2” were on display at a 10:30 showing on a recent Monday night at a Times Square theater. (The 10:45 was sold out.) The 19 people who started watching the film dwindled to 17 when two men took off after Art the Clown cracked a guy’s head in half before the title credits even started. By the end there were 14, after three folks grabbed their popcorn tubs and skedaddled when a character was gruesomely beheaded.Among those who stayed was Michelle Martinez, 22. She and a group of friends traveled from Brooklyn to see the film because, she said, “the ad looked scary.”And her review? “I’m not really into scary movies,” she said. “But this one is nice.” More

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      in Television

      After Hollywood’s #MeToo Reckoning, a Fear It Was Only Short-Lived

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      Harvey Weinstein’s second sex crimes trial began Monday in Los Angeles. “She Said,” about the journalistic investigation that took him down and helped ignite the #MeToo movement, arrives in theaters on Nov. 18. “The Woman King” opened to strong ticket sales last month, with Viola Davis saying she thought about the man who sexually assaulted her to power her visceral performance as the leader of an all-female group of African warriors.The convergence is a reminder of just how earthshaking #MeToo was for Hollywood.It helped touch off a broader reckoning in the entertainment industry around diversity, equity and inclusion on both sides of the camera — who gets to make movies, who gets to be the subject of them. Activists say that studios and sets have been permanently changed for the better. Zero tolerance for workplace sexual harassment and discrimination is real.In recent months, however, Hollywood’s business culture has started to regress in subtle ways.New problems — widespread cost-cutting as the box office continues to struggle, coming union contract negotiations that producers worry will result in a filming shutdown — have become a higher priority. Fearing blowback, media companies that were vocal about #MeToo and Black Lives Matter have been quieter on more recent political debates over cultural issues.Diversity, equity and inclusion executives say they are exhausted by an old-boy network that is continuously trying to reconstitute itself: Women who were hired for big jobs and held up as triumphant examples of a new era have been pushed aside, while some of the men who were sidelined by misconduct accusations are working again.“The Woman King,” starring Viola Davis as the leader of an all-female group of African warriors, opened to strong ticket sales last month.Ilze Kitshoff/Sony PicturesIf asked to speak on the record about their continued dedication to change, Hollywood executives refuse or scramble in terror toward the “we remain staunchly committed” talking points written by publicists. But what they say privately is a different story. Some revert to sexist and racist language. Certainly, much of the fervor is gone.This article is based on interviews with more than two dozen industry leaders — including top studio executives, agents, activists, marketers and producers — who spoke on condition of anonymity to candidly discuss the current state of the entertainment business. They varied in age, race, ethnicity and gender.“For three years, we hired nothing but women and people of color,” said a senior film executive, who like many leaders in the industry is a white male. He added that he did not think some of them were able to do the jobs they got.In hushed conversations over lunch at Toscana Brentwood and cocktails at the San Vicente Inn, some powerful producers and agents have started to question the commercial viability of inclusion-minded films and shows.They point to terrible ticket sales for films like “Bros,” the first gay rom-com from a major studio, and “Easter Sunday,” a comedy positioned as a watershed moment for Filipino representation. “Ms. Marvel,” a critically adored Disney+ series about a teenage Muslim superhero, was lightly viewed, according to Nielsen’s measurements.“There was an overcorrection,” one studio head said.At another major studio, a top production executive pointed to the implosion of Time’s Up, the anti-harassment organization founded by influential Hollywood women, as a turning point. “For a while, we all lived in complete fear,” he said. “That fear remains, but it has lessened. There is more room for gray and more benefit of the doubt and a bit of cringing about the rush-to-judgment that went on at the height of #MeToo.”“Bros,” the first gay rom-com from a major studio, had disappointing box office results.Nicole Rivelli/Universal PicturesIs this a pendulum swing back to the bad old days?“Amazing progress has been made that is not going away, and that should not be discounted or overlooked,” said Amy Baer, a producer, former studio executive and the board president of Women in Film, an advocacy organization. “But there is fatigue. It is hard to maintain momentum.”Entertainment companies are not backing off the tough sexual harassment policies that have been introduced in recent years, in part because board members are worried they will face shareholder lawsuits. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently recommitted to its diversification campaign. Despite years of aggressive efforts to invite women and people of color to become members, the academy is currently 66 percent male and 81 percent white..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.Learn more about our process.Studios remain focused on inclusive casting, most notably Disney, which has a live-action “Little Mermaid” movie on the way with a Black actress playing the title role, and a “Snow White” movie in production with a Latina lead.The moment is nonetheless unnerving, said Sarah Ann Masse, an actress who appears in “She Said” — which is based on a book by The New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey — and who serves on two sexual harassment prevention committees for SAG-AFTRA, the omnipotent actors union. In 2017, Ms. Masse accused Mr. Weinstein of sexually assaulting her in 2008. He has denied wrongdoing.“I’m not naïve enough to think that a system that is unequal and oftentimes oppressive — yes, still, very much so — is going to change overnight,” Ms. Masse said. “At the same time, I find it incredibly frustrating. People at the top of the food chain, in particular, seem to have gotten distracted by new concerns.”In August, Warner Bros. Discovery shelved “Batgirl,” a nearly finished movie starring a Latina actress, featuring a transgender actress in a supporting role, written by a woman, produced by women and directed by two Muslim men. Warner Bros. Discovery never publicly explained its decision, but signaled that it found “Batgirl” to be creatively lacking.Dan Lin, a producer whose credits include “Aladdin” (2019) and “The Lego Movie,” was among those who inferred something else.“It’s no longer about optics,” Mr. Lin said. “A recession is coming, budgets are tightening and I’m really worried that diversity is going to be the first thing that goes.”The producer Dan Lin recently started a nonprofit that aims to help budding minority filmmakers and writers.Todd Williamson/Invision, via APLast week, Warner Bros. Television, as part of wider cost cutting, shut down “new voices” programs for emerging writers and directors, prompting a fiery reaction from the Directors Guild of America. “The D.G.A. will not stand idly by while WB/Discovery seeks to roll back decades of advancement for women and directors of color,” the guild said in a statement.Within a day, Warner Bros. Discovery had scrambled to clarify that, while the “new voices” programs would indeed end, it had planned all along to expand talent pipeline programs in its diversity, equity and inclusion department.“The resolve is still there to have more women and people of color in writers’ rooms and directing and up on the screen” Mr. Lin said. “The problem is that there is so little training and support. Those things cost money.” To help, Mr. Lin recently started a nonprofit accelerator called Rideback Rise that focuses on budding minority filmmakers and writers.There is no longer across-the-board banishment for men who have been accused of misconduct. Johnny Depp is directing a film, having largely won a court case in which his former spouse, the actress Amber Heard, accused him of sexual and domestic violence. John Lasseter, the animation titan at Disney and Pixar, was toppled in 2018 by allegations about his behavior and unwanted hugging and apologized for “missteps” that made some staff members feel “disrespected or uncomfortable.” He is now making big-budget films for Apple TV+. James Franco’s acting career imploded in 2018 amid sexual misconduct allegations. Four years later, after a $2.2 million settlement in which he admitted no wrongdoing, he has at least three movies lined up.Johnny Depp largely won a court case in which his former spouse, the actress Amber Heard, accused him of sexual and domestic violence.Craig Hudson/Associated PressStudios have also started to take more risks with content — backing scripts, for instance, that would have been radioactive in 2018, at the height of #MeToo, or in 2020, when Black Lives Matter was at the forefront of the culture.Examples include “Blonde,” the Netflix drama about Marilyn Monroe that has been derided by critics as exploitative and misogynistic. (It features an aborted fetus that talks.) Paramount Pictures is working on a live-action musical comedy about slave trade reparations; it comes from Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the politically incorrect creative forces behind “South Park” and “The Book of Mormon.”Two ride-along reality shows that glorified the police, “Cops” and “Live PD,” and were canceled in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing in police custody have both been reconstituted. “Cops” was picked up by Fox Nation, a streaming service from Fox News, and “On Patrol: Live,” a thinly disguised copy of “Live PD,” debuted over the summer on Reelz, a cable network.At the same time, some movies and shows that overtly showcase diversity and inclusion have either struggled in the marketplace or failed to get off the runway. The takeaway, at least to some agents and studio executives: We tried — these “woke” projects don’t work.Of course, most of what Hollywood makes struggles to get noticed, and almost never for a single reason; nobody looks at poor ticket sales for a Brad Pitt movie and concludes that no one wants to see older white men onscreen. But entertainment is a reactive business — chase whatever worked over the weekend — and there is a risk that “go woke, go broke” jokes could calcify into conventional Hollywood wisdom.“When the real question should be whether comedies generally can succeed at the box office, my concern is that the question is becoming ‘can a Filipino comedy work’ or ‘can a gay comedy work,’” said Mr. Lin, who produced “Easter Sunday,” which starred Jo Koy and collected $13 million in theaters before stalling out. “If you are a woman or a minority, you still do not get repeated chances.” More

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      Streaming Services Want to Fill the Family Movie Void

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      With theatrical releases way down, the streaming giants have been pumping out multigenerational fare, including a number of live-action films.Sony Pictures unleashed the singing reptile “Lyle, Lyle Crocodile” in 4,350 theaters across the country this weekend to the tune of an estimated $12 million to $13 million.It was the first wide theatrical release for a family film since “DC League of Super-Pets” from Warner Bros. in July, and only the 12th family film to hit theaters this year. Just two more are expected before the end of December.That’s a far cry from the prepandemic days of 2019, when 24 family movies came to theaters. They accounted for $8.9 billion in box office receipts, a whopping 32 percent of the worldwide total for Hollywood studios that year.The decline today is due to a combination of factors: a hangover from the pandemic, efforts by studios like Disney and Paramount to bolster their own streaming services with fresh content and the risks of greenlighting family films that aren’t based on well-known intellectual property.It’s affecting the health of the theatrical business.“The movie industry needs a big and thriving family moviegoing business to return to strength,” David Gross, a box office analyst, said. He’s predicting that gross profits for family films in 2022 will total $2.75 billion to $2.8 billion. “Success with families is essential to the long-term health of the business. We consider this to be the biggest production challenge ahead.”So where have all the family movies gone?To streaming, of course. While last month was the worst September at the box office since 1996 — excluding the pandemic year of 2020 — Netflix, Disney and others have been pumping family films to their services. “The Adam Project” arrived on Netflix in March and the animated “The Sea Beast” in June, while Disney+ released “Pinocchio” in September and just announced that “Hocus Pocus 2,” which debuted Sept. 30, was streamed for more hours over its first three days than any previous premiere on the service.And the streaming giants are just getting started. While both remaining theatrical releases of family films this year are animated — Disney’s “Strange World” and Universal’s “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” — Netflix plans an onslaught of the kind of live-action family fare that studios are producing less and less. The titles include “The School for Good and Evil,” starring Charlize Theron and Kerry Washington; “Slumberland,” from the “Hunger Games” director Francis Lawrence; the sequel to “Enola Holmes”; and “Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical,” starring Emma Thompson as Miss Trunchbull.Disney+ will debut the “Enchanted” remake “Disenchanted” on Thanksgiving weekend, and Apple TV + plans to make “Spirited,” its holiday musical-comedy starring Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds, available on Nov. 18.The majority of the Netflix projects look expensive, with “Slumberland” costing around $90 million. Contrast that with the budget in the $50 million range for “Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile,” which is based on a children’s book and stars Javier Bardem, Constance Wu and Shawn Mendes (as the voice of Lyle).The Race to Rule Streaming TVApple’s Will Smith Problem: The actor is the star of a $120 million Civil War drama that finished filming earlier this year. Apple envisioned the film as a surefire Oscar contender. But that was before the slap.Cable Cowboy: The media mogul John Malone opened up about the streaming wars, the fast-changing news business and the future of his own career.Warner Bros. Discovery: The recently formed media colossus announced plans for a free streaming service and a paid subscription streaming service combining HBO Max and Discovery+.Turmoil at Netflix: Despite a loss of subscribers, job cuts and a steep stock drop, the streaming giant has said it is staying the course.The filmmakers behind “Lyle” are bullish on its prospects. “The combination of a live-action CGI crocodile, the fact that it’s also musical and a family film, I think give it multiple points of attraction that will hopefully lure audiences off their couches,” said one its producers, Hutch Parker, a former president of production at 20th Century Fox.Also helping the film’s fate is the very thing that has theater owners more broadly concerned: a lack of product in the marketplace.“Every movie I’ve made for the last 30 years had four or five other movies coming out on the same weekend, with four to five movies that had come out the previous weekend that were still out,” Mr. Parker said. “And this is unique in that you’re coming into a market that on the one hand is less vibrant. On the other hand, the opportunity in an open marketplace is unique.”Josh Greenstein, Sony’s president of the motion picture group, added: “If we can open in the low- to midteens we can play and play. The lack of competition will be very good for the movie.”Indeed, the lack of product this year has kept films in theaters longer, generating more ticket sales along the way. Sony’s “Where the Crawdads Sing,” for instance, earned close to $90 million domestically, and “Elvis,” from Warner Bros., had $150 million in box office revenue.The “Lyle” directors Will Speck and Josh Gordon, who turned to family fare after a career making broad-based comedies like “Blades of Glory,” hope that their crocodile will encourage family audiences to change their moviegoing tendencies.“We’re excited that we’ve made something that we feel like if people actually can shift out of the habit of what they might be in with streaming, we’ll deliver them something that brings joy and escape and happiness and all the things you want it to do,” Mr. Speck said in an interview.Complicating this challenge is Netflix’s burgeoning interest in family entertainment, specifically live-action projects. The streaming service sees an opportunity to develop films based on original characters and story lines.“We loved going to see great original family films,” said Ori Marmur, vice president of studio film at Netflix. “Sadly, now when you look at what a lot of the offerings are, they aren’t live-action family. It’s usually animated for family, and then it’s reboots, remakes, sequels, low-budget horror. We saw a real opportunity in seeing those kinds of movies, and building up a slate like that.”The company’s quest to dig deep into films that appeal to all ages has prompted it to acquire big-budget spectacles — often ones the studios turned down because of costs or the risks of releasing a family movie not based on existing intellectual property. “The School for Good and Evil,” for example, originated at Universal Pictures almost a decade ago.While family films released on streaming do not receive the same kind of marketing blitz that theatrical releases do, they often have other attributes coveted by studios hoping to succeed at the box office. “Slumberland” and “The School for Good and Evil” have the spectacle; “Matilda” has the musical elements, and “Enola Holmes” is a known property.Marlow Barkley and Jason Momoa in “Slumberland,” which comes out on Netflix on Nov. 18.Netflix“Slumberland” began at Fox, but things got complicated once the company merged with Disney in 2019, said Mr. Lawrence, the film’s director. Disney, after all, prides itself on its expertise in making family films. It didn’t need Fox doing the same thing.The Chernin Group, which produced “Slumberland,” had a deal that if one of its films had a director, an actor and a completed shooting script, Disney had 30 days to decide whether to make it. The company passed.“It almost instantly turned over to Netflix,” Mr. Lawrence said in an interview, adding: “Releasing it around Thanksgiving, I am hoping that families will watch it together. That’s sort of the ideal scenario.”Set to debut on Nov. 18, the action-adventure is based on the comic book series “Little Nemo in Slumberland,” by Winsor McCay. It features a young female protagonist, mystical dreamlands, numerous special effects, and a story about grief and loss.“I find it comforting knowing that when it actually comes out, I won’t have that same sort of box-office stress that happens on every movie where by Friday afternoon, everybody knows what it’s made for the weekend and it’s either a success or a failure,” said Mr. Lawrence, who directed three of the four movies in the “Hunger Games” franchise and is currently shooting the prequel, “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” “Not having that sort of pressure on it is interesting.”And he’s hoping some audiences will find the film in the Netflix-owned theaters, too.“Would I have loved a slightly longer theatrical release, maybe some IMAX screens or something like that?” he said. “Sure.” More

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      Netflix’s ‘Knives Out’ Sequel Headed to Theaters Before Streaming

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      “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” will receive a weeklong release in about 600 theaters in the United States a month before it becomes available on Netflix.Netflix is giving theater owners a Thanksgiving present.The streaming giant announced on Thursday that “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” will be released in around 600 theaters across the United States for one week beginning on Nov. 23 before becoming available to stream around the world on Dec. 23.The largest theater chains — AMC Theaters, Regal Cinemas and Cinemark — have all agreed to the deal, a first for the top exhibitors. Cinemark screened Netflix films in the past. But Regal and AMC previously refused to work with the company because it would not agree to the exclusive theatrical release periods and financial terms that are usually offered by traditional studios. Terms of the deal for “Glass Onion” were not disclosed.Yet the news now comes as a welcome relief to the industry after the past month, in which theaters generated just $328 million in ticket sales. That was the lowest number in September since 1996, with the exception of the pandemic year of 2020. The original “Knives Out,” starring Daniel Craig as the quirky detective Benoit Blanc, was a sleeper hit in 2019. It cost $40 million to make and grossed $165 million in North American theaters and $311 million worldwide. It was considered a prime example of how studios could successfully release films based on original ideas in theaters.But the chances of replicating that theatrical success seemed to be squashed last year when Netflix plunked down $465 million for the writer-director Rian Johnson to move his star-studded franchise to the streaming service for its next two iterations.“I’m over the moon that Netflix has worked with AMC, Regal and Cinemark to get ‘Glass Onion’ in theaters for this one-of-a-kind sneak preview,” Mr. Johnson said in a statement. “These movies are made to thrill audiences, and I can’t wait to feel the energy of the crowd as they experience ‘Glass Onion.’”The raucous reception for the film at its debut at the Toronto Film Festival last month inspired Netflix to pursue a more expansive theatrical strategy than it had for other films.Whether this development means that Netflix is willing to take a more traditional approach to theatrical distribution remains to be seen. The streaming service said it also did not plan to publicly report how the film did at the box office during its weeklong run. More

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      How Much Would You Pay to Hear Great Music?

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      With ticket prices for performing arts rising, could fresh approaches like pay-what-you-can increase access and foster more adventurous programming?“I’m a cellist, and I have played in orchestras my entire life,” Blake-Anthony Johnson, the president and chief executive of the Chicago Sinfonietta, said recently. “I used to ask the other musicians, ‘What is the most you would pay for your ideal concert?’ And it was nowhere near what our patrons actually pay.”Johnson was describing a slow-moving crisis in the performing arts: Ticket prices have risen far more precipitously than most Americans’ earnings — to say nothing of the seductively low cost of streaming services at home.This rise doesn’t just trouble short-term sales. It also affects the long-term health of arts organizations, which depend on the philanthropic support of patrons who have generally built close relationships with the objects of their giving.“I have long been concerned that ticket prices present a barrier to newcomers who are curious, and a barrier to inciting habitual attendance,” said Marc Scorca, the president and chief executive of the trade organization Opera America, noting that kind of habit can lead to later giving.“High ticket prices are a disincentive to experimentation, and they raise the level of expectation,” he added. “And the higher the price, the less likely that expectations will be met, leading to disappointment.”It’s axiomatic: High ticket prices are barriers at a time when organizations need their doors to be open ever more widely. And dependence on ticket sales also hobbles programming innovation. (In Europe, where arts institutions receive sometimes substantial public subsidies, ticket sales are a far smaller percentage of budgets, so artistic decisions don’t have to prioritize attendance.)But could new approaches to ticketing work to increase access and foster more adventurous programming?“Removing socioeconomic barriers is one of those things we have to be ahead of,” said Johnson, whose Chicago Sinfonietta introduced a pay-what-you-can ticketing approach last season. “I sleep really well at night, to have someone say, ‘I’m able to bring my family to these concerts.’”Experimentation in this area has been spreading in the theater world. Most recently Ars Nova, the prominent Off Broadway incubator, announced that it would move to a pay-what-you-want model for the coming season.In classical music, this kind of initiative has been far rarer, with the Sinfonietta leading the recent charge. But a much larger and more influential institution, Lincoln Center, threw down a gauntlet this summer, when it made the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra’s brief season choose-what-you-pay.The results were heartening. According to the center, 90.5 percent of tickets were sold for the concerts, which took place at Alice Tully Hall since the orchestra’s usual home, the larger David Geffen Hall, was being renovated.The suggested ticket price was $35, but the average paid was just over $19 — compared with almost $60 during the orchestra’s 2019 season, when face value ranged from $35 to $90. Sixty-three percent of Mostly Mozart ticket buyers this summer were first-timers to a Lincoln Center presentation (though not, perhaps, to the center’s constituents, like the Metropolitan Opera or New York Philharmonic).Of course, many institutions have reduced-price tickets available for students or seniors, or for last-minute buyers. And increasingly some have subscription-style programs that make cheaper tickets available for a monthly or annual fee. But those programs effectively penalize newcomers and occasional ticket buyers. And what about those who aren’t students or seniors, but are still challenged by rising prices?“I find it really odd that we subsidize tickets for youths and senior citizens,” Johnson said. “There is a very large group of people in between. What I’m suggesting is that we have the kind of relationship with the community in which we are a public service and want to be a part of your life regardless of whether you’re giving us money.”As Renee Blinkwolt, the producing executive director of Ars Nova, told The New York Times when that company’s new pricing policy was unveiled in August: “It’s not income based, it’s not age based, there’s no demographic basis. It’s just radically accessible — the doors are wide open to any and everyone to pay what they will.”The rise of dynamic pricing — in which ticket prices fluctuate based on demand — is spreading beyond the commercial theater world. This can help maximize revenue for institutions when they have a hit.But it can also do a disservice to audiences and the long-term fate of presenters. Aficionados are probably less likely to be purchasing tickets at the last minute, when in a dynamic pricing situation they’ll be most expensive. So relative newcomers will disproportionately be the ones stuck needing to pay a premium, when they should be most diligently targeted with discounts. (For this reason, the Metropolitan Opera did not employ dynamic pricing during its highly successful run of “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” last season.)The obvious solution would be for institutions simply to systemically lower prices — without expecting patrons to comb through websites for special ticketing programs or know how to game the dynamic pricing system.One way to lower prices is to eliminate ticket revenue as a factor in budgeting. Yes, that sounds extreme: When Emilee Syrewicze, the executive director of Opera Grand Rapids in Michigan, told her board earlier this year that their company was going in that direction, there was a little freakout.“Their first thought was, We’re no longer selling tickets,” Syrewicze said.What she was envisioning, though, was something different. Syrewicze had realized that the company’s ticket sales, as at many small and midsize institutions, were bringing in only a small portion of the budget: in the case of Opera Grand Rapids, around 15 percent. She also saw that the company consistently lacked a steady source of income to direct toward new projects and new works.What if, she thought, the opera reorganized its finances — and juiced its fund-raising to compensate — so that all of the money from ticket sales would be devoted to creative programming? In other words, as she put it: “What if we had a couple hundred thousand laying around?”When she explained to the board that the company was not simply disappearing the ticket revenue, but was planning to put it into other programs — and that the change would happen gradually over a few years, starting this fall — the members calmed down.“The freakout was only momentary,” Syrewicze said with a laugh.In Grand Rapids, the goal is not to lower prices, which are already cheap and addressed by several accessibility programs. But other organizations could use the same strategy as a model for price reductions: If ticket revenue doesn’t matter, tickets can be cheaper.Small or midsize institutions may well have an easier time experimenting, because if changes to ticket strategy are going to work without cutting budgets, donations will need to rise to fill the gap. That said, smaller organizations also tend to have less fund-raising prowess; the Stavros Niarchos Foundation supported the Mostly Mozart pilot program this summer, and Syrewicze and her new development director are confident that their city — which has a notably strong philanthropic record — will support their experiment.But it is still a gamble, and it requires a rethinking of the entire organization around a goal of lowering prices.For larger companies that sell more tickets, and those that still look to ticket sales as a bigger percentage of their budgets, the losses — and increased pressure on fund-raising — might not be workable. And as Johnson pointed out, the very configuration of most concert halls, in hierarchical tiers, resists truly democratic approaches to pricing.But Lincoln Center has shown that even the biggest organizations can at least experiment in this area, embracing the radical accessibility espoused by Ars Nova and opening the door to broader audiences of their own while providing inspiration for the rest of the field.There is still work to do. Syrewicze said she didn’t know of other organizations doing truly creative thinking in the pricing area, though a couple of her colleagues approached her to learn more after she had presented what she was working on in Grand Rapids at an Opera America meeting.“They liked the sound of it, but we like the sound of a lot of things,” she said. “How things translate to a budget is totally different. Because of our size and because we keep ourselves lean, we’re comfortable experimenting with this.”Of course, even if ticket prices came down, it wouldn’t solve all of the problems faced by orchestras and opera companies seeking to build their audiences and secure their donor bases.“When we’re talking about folks who have not come to the opera generally, price is not the only barrier,” Scorca said. “We should not kid ourselves that lower ticket prices will make people feel totally comfortable. But it is a potent, tangible, identifiable barrier.”Just the same, it would be unfortunate if the fact that lowering prices won’t solve everything keeps it from solving anything.“Let’s see what happens,” Scorca added. “It doesn’t have to be all or nothing in an experimental mind-set.” More