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Hammer Drops12/6/2020 Images: Denise Jans on Unsplash
WarnerMedia, owned by AT&T ($T), announced last week their straight-to-stream model with HBO Max. AMC Theaters said it was nice knowing everyone, bought a lime green VW Beetle, and set off to find the meaning of... anything. For longtime Netflix ($NFLX) subscribers, this is cause for concern. Straight-to-stream "blockbusters" have mostly been a waste of everyone's time excluding the film set catering companies. Marco Polo (200mm USD), The Ridiculous 6 (Adam Sandler still?), and Bright were all disasters. Anything that's good is because of the writing and not the production value though Peaky Blinders was great until the crash of '29. Does this mean we should get ready for green screen butchering? Studios have to make up for the instant cash flow represented by their former partners in giant movie complexes and controlling fire is expensive. Subscription models make it difficult to justify massive budgets like Game of Thrones and Rome on HBO. Many just look like Threat Level Midnight, though. Perhaps the best product to come from the plague regarding entertainment will be refocusing efforts on screenplay writing. They remade Ghostbusters for crying out loud. $T will open at 29.54 USD and $NFLX at 498.31 USD tomorrow. |