Will You Pay $20 to Watch 'Trolls World Tour'?
by EG
Are people really willing to pay a premium price to see a movie like Trolls World Tour, or are they actually only will to pay for the experience of seeing a family movie in a theater? Universal is going to find out the answer to that question as it releases the Trolls sequel for on-demand home viewing during the pandemic-induced theater shutdown. The cost of streaming the movie will be cheaper than taking a family of four to the theater to see it, but it will be much, much more expensive than viewing a movie of comparable quality on another streaming platform. Read on for details.
"World premiere. Stream from home!" So trumpeted Fandango's homepage on Friday in touting Universal and DreamWorks Animation's Trolls World Tour, which is defying tradition in launching on premium VOD and a smattering of theaters that remain open.
Universal is hoping the test will help answer the question of how much consumers are willing to pay to watch a high-profile new movie in the home. The release of almost every other Hollywood spring and early summer title has been delayed amid the novel coronavirus pandemic and resulting theater closures, but Universal opted to stick to Troll's Easter weekend release and make the film available to rent in the home for 48 hours for $19.99 (it will also be made available to 25 or so U.S. drive-ins and any cinemas still in operation overseas).
Theater owners have denounced Universal's decision to break the theatrical window, arguing that a film's home entertainment potential is based on a high-profile run in theaters that generally lasts three months. But some Wall Street analysts aren't as quick to judge.
"You have hundreds of millions of families stuck at home. I don't know if a new title would work on a weekly basis, but I actually think Trolls will surprise people in terms of how well it does," says media and entertainment analyst Richard Greenfield of LightShed Partners.
Unlike box office grosses, home entertainment numbers for inpidual titles aren't disclosed. It isn't yet clear whether Universal will share any information it collects in the coming days.
The first Trolls opened to $46.6 million domestically in October 2016 on its way to earning $346.9 million globally. Greenfield calculates that Universal, which splits grosses with cinema owners, received back about $190 million of that in theatrical rentals. "That would equal fewer than 10 million pay-per-view hits for Trolls World Tour," he concludes.
Greenfield adds that cable giant Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, reaches 20 million homes alone. Overseas, Comcast also owns Sky, whose subscriber count is 30 million homes. And rival platforms such as Apple Movies and Amazon Prime are also pushing Trolls in a major way.
A premium VOD play would be far more difficult in terms of economics for tentpoles relying on mega-grosses, such as a Star Wars movie or even Disney's Mulan, says Greenfield.
But the Trolls franchise — voiced by Justin Timberlake and Anna Kendrick — is a different proposition. The first Trolls cost around $125 million to produce before marketing, while the sequel cost closer to $100 million after tax incentives and rebates.
The other Hollywood movie that will now go straight to digital is Disney's Artemis Fowl, which cost in the same range as Trolls and is headed for Disney+ (it had been set to hit theaters at the end of May).
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.
Will you pay to stream Trolls World Tour on demand? Let us know in the comments below.