Cinemark and Universal have reached a deal that opens the door for the studio to pull their films faster if the project does not reach $50 million after the third weekend of release. A strange time to come to an agreement amidst rising COVID-19 cases.
While this was agreed upon recently, the deal is a multi-year pact that will affect the Domestic Box Office and movie going experience for the foreseeable future. The details of the deal are that if a film makes more than $50 million in the first three weekends, or the first seventeen days, then it must stay in theaters until the fifth weekend or the thirty-first day.
However, if it makes less than $50 million in the first three weekends, which post-pandemic no domestic release has made, then the studio can pull it and either sell it or put it on their VOD or streaming platform.
For example, Tenet, the biggest film following theater re-openings, only made around $30 million in its opening three weekends, meaning if Warner Bros. was a part of this deal, they could pull the film from theaters no questions asked. In the current landscape, this deal seems to favor mostly the studios.
Though in a normal world, say 2019, most blockbusters make $50 million in the opening weekend. A film that had a decent box office run with mixed reviews was Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, which made $56 million in just two weekends, according to Box Office Mojo. Only time will tell if this agreement swings more towards theaters once things return to a little bit of normalcy. While there is no sign of the pandemic letting up anytime soon, some theaters are still open and are following strict COVID-19 guidelines to keep everyone safe.
Universal currently has several movies coming out in theaters including: The Croods: A New Age on November 25, All My Life on December 4, and the Carey Mulligan led Promising Young Woman on Christmas Day.
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