When is the right time to release a movie?
It’s a question that executives have always confronted, trying to win counterprogramming battles with rival studios and dodging huge blockbusters. Over the course of the last year-and-a-half, however, it’s become a question riddled with tricky asterisks. Is now a good time to release a movie or are executives setting themselves up for a massive loss because of the ongoing pandemic and shifts in how people want to watch movies — mainly, streaming.
On the other side of the debate is one optimistic question quietly muttered around conference tables: What if we release it now, and it becomes the movie that drives people back to theaters? (Sorry, Christopher Nolan!) How much are we willing to bet to see if it actually pays off? With new COVID-19 statistics every week, changing guidelines, and individual state/national laws to contend with, trying to figure out when to release a movie has become a migraine-inducing task.
There’s no better example of this dilemma than Venom: Let There Be Carnage. Here’s a brief rundown of this movie’s release date: It was originally scheduled to be released on October 2, 2020. Sony was committed to the theatrical date, but in April 2020, the studio announced that Venom: Let There Be Carnage was delayed until June 25, 2021. In March 2021, Sony moved it further down the calendar again, this time until September 17th. It got bumped one more week to September 24, and then the Delta variant picked up.
Unsure of what theaters would look like, Sony moved Venom to October 15th where it stayed until a little cloud of hope appeared on the horizon in the form of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Marvel Studios’ latest film has earned more than $360 million globally since it debuted, and saw an impressive opening weekend in the United States, bringing in more than $71 million. People began to pack back into theaters and, while case numbers continue to rise in certain parts of the country and the world, so do vaccination rates.
Glimpsing a little bit of hope, Sony made one last move to Venom: Let There Be Carnage. The movie was moved up to October 1st. Venom will be one of the first non-Marvel Studios movies to test the waters, to see if a movie that isn’t part of a 13-year-running franchise with a massive built-in audience can bring people to theaters. While the industry can’t put the weight of its entire future on one or two movies, Venom: Let There Be Carnage is a perfect movie to see how general audiences are feeling.
There are a few criteria points that films need to meet for a studio to go forward now with a regular wide theatrical release, and stay in theaters for a minimum of 45 days. Those are:
- Is the talent in-demand enough to drive people out to see a movie and pay for a ticket?
- Related, is the IP (or franchise) in-demand enough for people to feel like they need to see it immediately and will pay to do so at a theater?
- Is theatrical attendance rising on average — that is, based on the number of new movies being released and playing in theaters?
- Does this necessitate a big screen experience, or can it appear on a streaming service?
- Can this movie wait another six months to a year?
Venom: Let There Be Carnage isn’t going to save the industry (time and new monetizable distribution paths — or, streaming — will), but it is the exemplary title to explore where the film industry is at currently.
Is There Enough Demand?
In lieu of Scarlett Johansson’s lawsuit against Disney over alleged financial losses for her work in Black Widow, the great debate about whether talent is more integral to a film’s success than the franchise itself has sparked. Did Johansson get bodies into seats or would it have happened regardless of the actor who played super assassin Natasha Romanoff in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?
On the other side of the equation is Ryan Reynolds’ Free Guy, which is still seeing spectacular box office success with more than $302 million worldwide, and isn’t a known franchise at all. Instead, Free Guy’s success can solely be attributed to demand for Ryan Reynolds, positive reviews, and strong word of mouth.
Tom Hardy and Venom: Let There Be Carnage are caught in-between those two sides. Venom is a popular franchise, but it’s not part of the Marvel Cinematic universe, and a big reason folks liked the first movie is because of Hardy’s charismatic performance. While demand for Hardy isn’t quite as strong as Reynolds, according to data from my firm Parrot Analytics, which examines how demand for a given title or artist translates into revenue, it’s still relatively strong, especially in global markets.
Demand for Hardy globally is especially key when we examine how the original Venom performed in 2018. The film grossed $856 million, with 75% of the total haul coming from international territories. Though the vast majority of that box office revenue came from China (more on that in a second), strong demand for Hardy in territories including the United Kingdom (4%), Russia (5%), and Germany, France, and Mexico (9.5% combined) helped drive significant revenue. As seen in the chart above, these are still key markets where Hardy thrives.
It only takes a quick glance at Hardy’s box office history to reiterate how demand for him translates into tickets sold. But, like many other A-list actors of that caliber, when Hardy is in a movie with a strong built-in fan base set in a world with characters that audiences already know and love, the movie becomes an even stronger bet. For example, three of the five highest-grossing films that Hardy stars in belong to big comic book properties or blockbuster sci-fi films: The Dark Knight Rises, Inception, and Mad Max: Fury Road.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage falls directly in this zone. Numbers from the last year have explicitly demonstrated what type of movies and which Hollywood stars audiences are willing to head to a theater to watch even in the middle of a pandemic. Looking at films that were released globally (ie, not just in the United States and not just in China), the top six grossing films of the year are F9 ($716.6 million), Godzilla vs. Kong ($467.9 million), Black Widow ($378.3 million), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings ($363.4 million), and Free Guy ($317.4 million) followed closely by A Quiet Place Part II ($297.4 million).
It’s action franchises, horror movies, and sequels that audiences want to experience theatrically, and Venom: Let There Be Carnage falls right in-between those three categories. When combining Hardy with a sequel to a Marvel movie that’s best categorized as a zany, horror-tinged action movie, all the ingredients are there for Sony executives to feel more confident about going forward with the film’s release.
The Numbers Are There
The other necessary data set to keep in mind is the number of COVID-19 cases in top tier markets (the United States, Canada, Europe, and China for example) alongside the vaccination rates and week-to-week attendance at theaters.
By and large, moviegoers want to feel as safe as possible during an incredibly unsafe and uncertain time. If vaccination numbers are increasing, and if theaters require seeing vaccine cards, consumers are more likely to feel comfortable sitting in a theater with a bunch of strangers. What’s missing is a plethora of movies to choose from; it’s hard to ask audiences to head to a theater if there’s nothing to watch, and it’s increasingly difficult if those same titles are available simultaneously on streaming services like Disney+ or HBO Max.
In 2020 and 2021, part of the conversations for companies without a streaming service like Sony came down to whether a movie was worth delaying until the business started picking up again or selling it off to a company like Amazon, Apple, or Netflix that have the budgets and desire for splashy movies on their platform. (See: Coming 2 America going to Amazon Prime Video and Trial of the Chicago 7 landing on Netflix, both courtesy of Paramount.)
Since May, however, there’s been a gradual uptick nearly week after week in theater attendance. This coincides with an increase in vaccination numbers around the world, and more theaters opening. Instead of looking to offload films, executives can now start to plan on bringing audiences back to theaters with movies that they are willing to go to a theater to see. It was harder in pre-pandemic days to convince consumers that they need to go sit next to a stranger for a smaller, independent drama compared to a comic book blockbuster. It’s especially difficult now because of streaming’s proliferation and the uncertainty that still lingers in the air.
Take Ben Platt and Dear Evan Hansen. Despite Platt having roughly the same demand as Hardy (ie, he’s a name people know and can act as a compelling reason to watch a movie or TV show), Dear Evan Hansen was rocked by negative reviews and doesn’t have the same strength as Venom, a fan-favorite franchise that exists within the greater Marvel universe.
Sony’s best guess about now being a good time to release Venom: Let There Be Carnage also has much to do with Black Widow and, even more so, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. While that success is certainly partially because “Marvel continues to Marvel,” a phrase I use often whenever a new MCU movie skyrockets to the top of the box office charts, the fact remains that Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings performed exceedingly well despite not having a current Avenger as the face of the film but instead a relatively unknown character and lead actor who had 1.5x the average demand of talent globally. Now, Simu Liu’s talent demand sits at more than 13x that of other talent in the United States, placing him in the outstanding category.
It speaks to people’s hunger for more blockbuster experiences in theaters and, yes, more Marvel.
Since Sony doesn’t have a streaming service, and based on data from the previous few months, releasing Venom: Let There Be Carnage now, and in theaters, is the best option the studio has — which leads to the final criteria point: Can this wait six months or longer?
Competition, Competition, Competition
We’re currently in a tiny window of opportunity for Venom: Let There Be Carnage, a traditional blockbuster film but not part of any greater cinematic universe (that we know of yet) and not a Batman or Spider-Man movie. The competition Venom faces over the next six weeks is relatively small. Its biggest competition is arguably Dune and No Time to Die, and the films are different enough and spread out just right. They won’t overlap too much and compete for the same audience.
All of that changes in the next 8-12 weeks, and beyond. Following Venom on October 1st, there’s a new Marvel movie, both from Disney and Sony, every month: Eternals in November, Spider-Man: No Way Home in December, and Morbius in January. February is a historically slow month for movie-going, so studios try not to release major films in that window, and then between the beginning of March and the end of April, three other major films will be released: The Batman, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Thor: Love and Thunder.
Part of understanding demand for talent and demand for specific franchises is knowing how to best use that demand in a certain time frame. Counterprogramming is just as important as nabbing a certain date. Venom: Let There Be Carnage could come out six months later, but that would place it in direct competition with some of the most anticipated Marvel and DC titles. It could go to summer, but the same thing happens again. Now is a tiny window that won’t come around for at least seven or eight months.
For the last 18 months, Sony executives have tried to find that aforementioned tiny window, the little hopeful cloud that could exist as a chance to release Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and make even a little return on the investment made. That cloud is here. The rest is entirely dependent on whether a Venom sequel actually is enough to get people back into seats. Venom: Let There Be Carnage is Marvel, but it’s really not.
Julia Alexander, a former IGN streaming editor, currently studies and analyzes business shifts in the entertainment industry as a Senior Strategy Analyst at Parrot Analytics.