I’m 100% open to this being the case but I’d really like to see some numbers of valuation. And I’m a lot less concerned with historic (pre-streaming) value than with recent revenues and future projections.

Being wholly subjective, I don’t give a shit about Disney Ip. My kid is into it but she doesn’t pay the bills and she’s limited to one hour of TV a day, and even then just a few days a week. What do pocket book holding adult want to watch? In my house, HBO and Bravo rule the roost.

It kinda feels Warner shoot themselves in the foot with some releases...Dune for example...doesnt makes sense to release it the same day on streaming and theatres...give it a month and put it on HBO max. But the same day?? for a movie with that scope? its stupid.

Not if they’re trying to increase subscription numbers right before a major merger that begets a new publicly traded corporation. It’s actually the perfect thing to do.

If the box office is not good they wont make another one. How is that a good bussines choice?

Because a single great box office run creates short-term consumer perception of success, and a short-term lump sum payday. Conversely, long term subscription increases create long term consumer perception of success and drive stock prices up over a much longer cycle.

Their merger is set to take effect mid-2022. The day 1 IPO stock value is directly driven by subscription numbers. That’s way more important to a conglomerate of this scope than a short term theatrical payday.

This is like when Ovitz left CAA to get into the global business world, and every went “wtf?!” Hollywood success is financially meaningless next to the revenues to be found in global conglomerate telecoms stuff.

if IP are so fucking important, you are killing a potentially big one right now. They spent a lot of money trying to make an event film and they are killing it by releasing it on streaming the very same day. Again, do it, but leave it on the theatres and Imax alone for 20 days, one month.

Just you watch the sub numbers around Xmas. Consider Warner’s position: do they want all those customers to buy a single ticket to a single movie? Or to pay $7.99/mo for the foreseeable future for a huge library of content?

and im on the fence on how good those streaming numbers are

IP is a feature of their product; it drives the consumer benefit of choice. Warner is in a choice war with Netflix, Disney, etc.

Title-to-title box office battles are a thing of the past. Which platform offers the greatest number of high quality choices? How can they get new customers in the door to sample their buffet? By offering an exclusive viewing of a major motion picture that will drive online and dinner table discussion during the holiday season.

Yeah I make no claims here. Only that the strategy makes perfect sense from a publicly traded global business perspective.

So drunk on my own powerful knowledge right now. Quick, someone ask me about Albini versus Pearl Jam.

Again, i disagree. If you dont have the subscription numbers, it really doesnt make sense. The box office numbers are weaker and you can kill potentially huge franchises.

Also, you lost Nolan and seems Villeneve too. They fucked up when they thought they needed to be Netflix.

I don't think you guys are really disagreeing with each other, Trag's just talking about the long-term conglomerate business benefit and VG is talking about the film studio's cultural, artistic and financial standing (which is also what I was thinking about initially)

You are viewing this from the vantage point of a film studio who wants to make money off a picture. That’s not what this is about.

Box office numbers are a small table dice roll in a humongous casino. If one pic hits really big, congratulations, they get to green light ten more pics.

Sub numbers are everything right now. If a moderate sub increase drives IPO value up even a small amount, that gives the two standalone entities (ATT and Warner/Discovery) lots more cash to push 5G AND further develop the most diverse content catalog on the planet.

Read this:

https://seekingalpha.com/article/442960 ... d-the-deal

Yes but to consider the studio’s goals as if they’re in a 1998 vacuum is silly. That model is dead.

I'm sure they've crunched the numbers and decided it's more profitable to try to push their streaming service than film franchises, but then again bureaucratic corporate behemoths are often very stupid, so we'll see if they are right I guess. They may be acting very short-sightedly.

Yeah

HBO Max is still lagging behind Disney+, Amazon Prime, and Netflix in terms of subscriptions. I don't think they got as much juice from the day-of streaming release experiment as they were hoping, or at least that seems to be the common impression

The big movies seem to only stream for a few days anyway, no?

True, but I think reading between the lines, their intent is to develop 5G, divest from cable, and offer diverse streaming packages that blow the others out of the water. This deal, and the IPO stock price, allows them to fight two simultaneous battles: the 5G buildout, and continued content creation. As a first step towards positioning themselves for global dominance, it’s a great play. And I’m sure they’ll just try to buy Netflix in another 5-10 years.