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With the future of theatrical releases still in limbo, Red Notice promises a movie event that can be enjoyed from the comfort of one’s home.
Last week, Netflix released the highly anticipated trailer for the action thriller Red Notice, promising everything one would expect from a major blockbuster: a star-studded cast — including a charming Dwayne Johnson, a fast-talking Ryan Reynolds and a suave Gal Gadot — a massive budget and impressive-looking set pieces. It also debuted just one day after Paramount Pictures delayed Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick and Mission: Impossible 7 to May 27, 2022, and Sept. 30, 2022, respectively. The timing may have been pure coincidence, but the message is clear: If theaters can’t deliver a fall movie event of the season, Netflix will.
In the early summer, theaters had every reason to celebrate. Vaccines were being distributed at a fast pace and people were returning to cinemas, leading to impressive hauls for films like F9 and Black Widow. But as August arrived, vaccine distribution began to slow and the rise of the delta variant once again hurt consumer confidence in theaters, leading to disappointing box office numbers for The Suicide Squad and Jungle Cruise. As of Sept. 1, only 43 percent of adults say they are comfortable seeing a film in theaters, a low point for the summer. With colder weather on the horizon that will force people indoors, it’s possible that case rates could continue to rise, which would only increase the financial bleeding theaters are already struggling to contain.
This has spooked studios, which have action in a similar fashion to fall 2020. Even before delaying Top Gun 2 and Mission: Impossible 7, Paramount had already pulled Clifford the Big Red Dog from theaters in favor of an exclusive Paramount+ debut. Sony also made some moves, selling Hotel Transylvania 4 to Amazon Prime Video for more than $100 million and pushing Venom: Let There Be Carnage from Sept. 24 to Oct. 15. Even Disney has been rumored to be playing the wait-and-see game, mulling a simultaneous Disney+ Premier Access/theatrical release for Eternals, depending upon how Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings performs.
With all this uncertainty, Red Notice could end up being the movie event of the season. It will be available to Netflix’s 209 million subscribers, giving it unmatched reach compared to other streamers, and promises the exact type of popcorn experience that families look forward to as the holiday season begins. It’s also the type of movie that is difficult to find on the big screen these days, one that relies on superstar appeal rather than recognizable IP, giving it a nostalgic feel for a movie experience that was disappearing even before the pandemic started.
Of course, Red Notice won’t be the only major film streaming in the fall. Warner Bros. has both Dune and The Matrix: Resurrections, which premiere in theaters and on HBO Max the same day. But Dune has received mixed reviews, which praise the visuals over its adaptation of the source material, and it’s unclear whether the property is recognizable enough to garner enough interest. The Matrix: Resurrections could generate some chatter, but it’s coming 18 years after the previous film in the franchise, which left a bad taste in audiences’ mouths. HBO Max also has just 67 million subscribers, a fraction of Netflix’s audience, and some of those don’t have access to Warner Bros.’ same-day premiere films.
Still, there is some good news for theater owners. Shang-Chi is projected to open to $90 million by the end of Labor Day weekend, passing Black Widow‘s $80 million pandemic opening record and cementing a theater-exclusive premiere for Eternals. No Time to Die also looks to be sticking to its Oct. 8 U.S. premiere date, and the release of Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s first trailer in late August indicates that Sony is hoping to keep its Dec. 17 opening.
Even if Eternals, No Time to Die and Spider-Man all open on time, Red Notice will still find much success as a movie event of the season rather than the movie event of the season. More importantly, it puts theaters and legacy media companies on notice that, if they don’t entertain the masses, someone else will.
To see if Red Notice is one of the bigger blockbusters of the summer, the film hits Netflix Nov. 12.
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