“In hindsight, it turned out to be a really great decision,” Donna Langley, the chair of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, said in an interview on Saturday. “We had a range of scenarios from best to worst, and this is right there as the best.”
“F9,” directed by Justin Lin and starring Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez, isn’t the first movie to perform well since movie theaters began reopening their doors. paramount’s gamble to delay the release of “A Quiet Place 2” also paid off. While the studio sold off some of its other properties including “Coming 2 America,” and the forthcoming “The Tomorrow War” to streamers itching to get their hands on additional content, it held on to “A Quiet Place 2,” the John Krasinski-directed horror sequel, until Memorial Day weekend last month and has accrued $135 million in the United States and over $200 million worldwide.
Others haven’t been as lucky. Warner Bros. Entertainment’s “In the Heights,” for instance, has had a muted run in theaters despite rave reviews from critics. Since opening simultaneously in theaters and on the company’s streaming service, HBO Max, on June 11, the adaptation of Lin Manuel Miranda’s Broadway musical has earned only $22.5 million.
“I would call the moviegoing market during the last month ‘tentative,’” said David A. Gross, who owns Franchise Entertainment Research, a movie consultancy. “It’s hard to get a clean read because of the muddle of streaming options — different for each movie.”
Indeed, the pandemic has only accelerated Hollywood’s interest in experimenting with release patterns for its feature films, and that flexibility is likely to continue into the foreseeable future.