Streaming services have been having a boom time during the pandemic, what with people stuck at home and watching a lot more TV. But folk are starting to return to theaters. Godzilla vs. Kong did respectable numbers over the past weekend, for instance. Warner Bros. made waves by deciding to release all of its 2021 movies in theaters and on HBO Max at the same time, but they’ve committed to returning to normal in 2022 (although the theatrical runs for their movies will be a bit shorter than they used to be).
So whatever some pundits would have you believe, streaming services have not killed movie theaters (yet), and the two organizations can still help each other. For example, Variety reports that Netflix and Sony have just reached a deal under which all movies made by Sony Pictures — which includes studios like Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures Classics, Screen Gems and TriStar Pictures — will live exclusively on Netflix after they complete their theatrical runs. That’ll all start in 2022, hopefully after the pandemic has cleared up and people feel safe going to movie theaters again.
So what kind of movies are we talking? Netflix will have the streaming rights to films in the Jumanji and Venom franchises, as well as new Spider-Man movies starring Tom Holland. That last one is something of a special case, as Sony and Marvel have a joint custody agreement over the character. Most likely, Spider-Man movies that revolve around the webslinger will go to Netflix, but Marvel movies that include Spider-Man as part of the ensemble cast will be on Disney+.
Sony breaks the mold but not creating its own streaming service
In the days before everyone and their mother had a streaming service of their own, these kinds of “pay one” deals were common. For example, Disney had a similar deal with Netflix that started in 2016 and was supposed to last three years…but Disney got out of it early because it decided it wanted to make Disney+ and host all of its content there.
Disney+ has been a huge success, but I’m glad that Sony Pictures is deciding to keep up with this kind of deal rather than make its own streaming service, because between Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video, Peacock, Paramount+ and Apple TV+, how many more can we really take?
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