The 2020 Winter Movie Preview – Part 1

December 4, 2020

Well, the calendar has turned to December and in a matter of weeks, we’ll be saying goodbye to this most unusual year.  It’s hard to put into words just how much has changed in all of our lives this year, and I find it fascinating to think about what life will be like in a year, especially if the vaccine momentum continues and we can dodge anything else catastrophic.  Yeah, I know – only if our luck changes.  With another change in the seasons, it’s time for another movie preview.  As I’ve been saying since March, despite all of the disruption to the movie industry, it has still been an excellent movie year.  We’ve just had to get a little creative in finding the new releases.  Before we jump into part one of my Winter Movie Preview, let’s check the pulse of the movie industry.

State of the Movie Industry

Just when the industry started to see a glimmer of hope this summer – theaters starting to reopen, a resurgence in drive-in theaters, some new films keeping their release dates, and even an event film (Christopher Nolan’s Tenet) opening across (most of) the country – unfortunately, things have gone backwards the last few months.  A resurgence in cases and deaths across the country has left us with the stark reality that we are not out of the woods (not by a longshot) and this is likely going to be a rough winter.  With the light at the end of the tunnel in the form of vaccines with a high effectiveness rate and distribution ready to roll, it feels like we may get back some sense of normalcy (hopefully) by the Spring. 

Parts of the movie industry, like most of the country, are hanging on by a thread.  Major releases have (for the most part) been scuttled for the rest of the year – either moving to 2021, being sold to streaming services, or becoming part of innovative moves to test out new distribution models.  For theaters, as with most businesses, it will come down to how long they can last with very little cash flow.  If they can, the 2021 release schedule is loaded, which should help attendance once people feel comfortable going back to theaters.  Film studios are testing out the best ways to get their product to market, with streaming services becoming an attractive alternative to a virtually nonexistent theater model.

The Players

The company in the driver’s seat is Netflix and that’s because it is flush with cash to spend on content, it has both a production arm and a streaming service, and has one of the best brands in the industry.  There is no need for Netflix to push their product to a theater when they can deliver it directly to their 195 million subscribers.  Disney is probably a close second in terms of competitive advantage given their enormous library and brand loyalty.  The launch of Disney+ a year ago has been a tremendous success, with the company recently deciding to release one of its biggest films of the year directly to the streaming service on Christmas, bypassing theaters altogether.

Two other big names in the mix – Apple and Amazon – both have film divisions and a lot of cash, but they have been focused more on acquisition of products, rather than cultivating them in house.  For instance, Amazon reportedly paid $125 million to Paramount Pictures for the sequel to Coming to America.  Paramount is part of ViacomCBS, which does have a streaming service (CBS All Access), but it is a nascent service that doesn’t have a lot of content or subscribers, certainly not enough to launch a movie as big as this one.  Earlier this year, Paramount sold the rights to Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 to Netflix, where it will likely be in the mix at the Academy Awards.  There are plans to rebrand CBS All Access into Paramount+ in 2021 and leverage the strong Paramount film library to compete with the other streaming services on the market. 

Two other companies are taking different paths and I’m interested in seeing how it works out.  The first is Universal Pictures, which is owned by Comcast.  Now Comcast has a streaming service (called Peacock), launched earlier this year mostly through packages for customers of the Xfinity cable service.  I would consider this a lukewarm service, with not a lot of great content, so it’s not surprising that Universal is not pushing new films to Peacock for streaming.   Instead, Universal has struck deals with Cinemark and AMC theaters that gives the studio more flexibility on how quickly a movie can be available on demand after a theatrical run.  Previously, a film had to be in the theater for at least 90 days and with this deal, it could be as low as 17 days, depending on the success of the film’s box office receipts.  Universal just tested this arrangement with Let Him Go, a Western drama starring Kevin Costner and Diane Lane.  After a few weeks in the theater, coupled with strong reviews, it was released to video on demand and despite its steep rental price ($20), it was very successful.   

The second company taking a new approach is Warner Bros. Studios, owned by AT&T, and the parent company of HBO, which launched a new streaming service (HBO Max) earlier this year.  I previously covered how the launch of this service was a bit of a disaster, despite the fantastic content library available on the service.  That being said, the original programming has been a little lukewarm, although we really liked the recent limited series The Undoing and are enjoying The Flight Attendant, which just premiered a few weeks ago.  One advantage Warner Bros. has with HBO Max is access to the DC Comics film library, including the recent Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman movies, which brings us to a big move announced a few weeks ago. 

After several delays, Wonder Woman 1984 will be released on HBO Max and in theaters on Christmas.  It will only run on the streaming service for 30 days, but will continue in theaters for a period of time before it follows the traditional rental timeline.  Surely this move is designed to get more subscribers to HBO Max after it’s lackluster launch, and with a marquee title like Wonder Woman 1984, it just might work.  And just when you thought you’ve seen it all, Warner Bros. doubled down on this move by announcing yesterday that ALL of its 2021 slate will follow the same model as Wonder Woman 1984.  Some of the titles on the list of 17 films include a few of the most anticipated films scheduled for 2021 – Dune, The Matrix 4, Suicide Squad, the Sopranos prequel The Many Saints of Newark and Lin Manuel Miranda’s musical In the Heights.  This move will allow HBO Max to space out their releases over the course of the year (following the Netflix model), with an eye toward developing the brand loyalty that its competitors currently have.  For theaters, while they have to compete with a streaming service for the first month, at least they can bank on big releases coming soon, instead of continued delays.

As someone interested in both films and the business aspect of the industry, it’s certainly been interesting to see how all of these large companies, owned by much larger corporations, navigate the trickiest year ever seen in their industry.  With so many players in the game, there is a strong demand for content creation and companies will need a strategy to get the content to their customers.  I suspect there will be enough for companies to have a hybrid strategy where large tentpole films will still go to theaters after we get to a steady state post-pandemic, but mid-level films and indie films will likely go straight to streaming.  Regardless of how this plays out, there are plenty of avenues for content to be delivered. 

On to the Winter Movie Preview

I hope you have enjoyed my preview posts from earlier this year and found some recommendations to add to your list.  Here are a few films on my radar for release in the coming months that you may want to check out.

For the Music Fan:  The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart

I’ll start by saying that I don’t consider myself a disco fan.  My formative music years were in the 1980s, so the disco era was before my time, but I certainly appreciate the success of the Bee Gees and the impact they had on 1970s culture.  So, while I wouldn’t consider myself a “fan,” I like some of their songs and will definitely check out this film.  After all, I love to learn about musicians and really enjoyed the Linda Ronstadt documentary that was released last year.  Speaking of music films, yet again, Taylor Swift continues to demonstrate her tireless work ethic.  She dropped a surprise film on Disney+ last week with a performance of her new album Folklore, including conversations with her two collaborators on the songs throughout the film.  I love to hear musicians talk about their craft, especially ones as talented as Swift.  I recommend that one if you are a fan of her music.  The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart will be released on HBO Max on December 12^th.

Treading Lightly – Let Them All Talk

There are only a handful of directors working today who get the “blank check” treatment from me – meaning, I will likely watch any film that they release.  Steven Soderbergh is on that short list for me, so my ears perked up when I heard he has a new film coming this year, and I decided to add it to my list.  That being said, I was very disappointed by his last film, 2019’s The Laundromat, so I am treading lightly with this one.  Let Them All Talk features Meryl Streep, Candace Bergen, and Dianne Wiest as friends who go on a trip together.  Streep plays a famous author struggling to finish her latest piece of work and navigating her relationships with her friends while on the trip.  Apparently, the screenplay consisted mostly of outlines and ideas, with Soderbergh encouraging the actors to improvise their dialogue.  I’ll give you one more chance Soderbergh, but don’t let me down.  Let Them All Talk premieres on HBO Max on December 10^th.  

A Timely Story – One Night in Miami

It’s hard to find someone who is on a better run right now than Regina King.  On the heels of winning the Oscar for 2018’s If Beale Street Could Talk, earlier this year she won an Emmy for her performance in the excellent HBO limited series Watchmen, and now her feature film debut will be premiering soon.  One Night in Miami, based on the stage play, is a thoughtful exploration of race issues in the 1960s told through the framing device of a fictionalized meeting in Miami among Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown.  I was fortunate to catch this film as part of a recent virtual film festival and liked it a lot.  If you’re looking for an action film, this is not the one.  Instead, it’s a wonderful exploration of what four famous Black Americans are facing at a point in time, while coming at their opinions from four very different walks of life – a political activist, a boxer, a singer, and a football player.  The four lead actors all deliver very strong performances, particularly Kingsley Ben-Adir as Malcolm X and Leslie Odom Jr. (who played Aaron Burr in Hamilton) as Sam Cooke.  Expect this one to get some attention come awards season, particularly for King’s direction.  One Night in Miami opens in select theaters on Christmas, before premiering on Amazon Prime on January 15^th.

This Is Not A TV series – Small Axe

If you have Amazon Prime, you may have noticed a new addition to the TV show library, but I am here to set the record straight – Small Axe is not a TV show.  It is an anthology series of five films directed by Steve McQueen (Oscar winner for 12 Years a Slave) about West Indian immigrants in England spanning the 1960s through the 1980s.  The films explore many aspects of the lives of the characters and are receiving strong reviews based on early screenings.  The films are being released on Amazon Prime each week between November 20^th and December 18^th, shortly after premiering on the BBC in the UK.  It’s for this latter reason that Small Axe will not qualify for the Academy Awards and instead will compete for the Emmys.  It’s also probably why Amazon is putting it in their “TV Shows” category. 

The first film in the series, Mangrove, is the story of a group of residents in a neighborhood who rise up and protest the constant harassment and racist behavior of the local police force, culminating in a courtroom trial.  The film features a number of actors that you likely won’t recognize, but that doesn’t diminish from the quality of the film.  The performances are very powerful, particularly by Shaun Parkes who plays the owner of the Mangrove restaurant, a frequent gathering location of the neighborhood residents.  The second film in the series, Lovers Rock, is a completely different film – a short 70 minute burst of music and fun, set during one night at a house party where young adults enjoy dancing and looking for love.  I thought this film was good, but not as great as Mangrove, which is one of the best films I’ve seen all year.  Given McQueen’s talent, I’m really looking forward to the next three films in the series.  Small Axe will be released in weekly installments beginning November 20^th on Amazon Prime. 

This Week’s Moment of Happiness

This has been a very long post, so I’ll keep this one brief.  As the days get shorter and the news gets bleaker, I’ve been finding myself searching for new ways to stay distracted.  As I’ve been working on my list of the best films of 2020, I’ve decided to revisit a few of my favorites to help decide where I want to rank them.  This past holiday weekend, we revisited Hamilton on Disney+ and watching a collection of amazing performers felt like a much needed warm blanket.  It was a reminder of the brilliance of music and story coming together and that one day soon we will be back in theaters to celebrate the brilliant creation of art on stage and screen.

That’s it for this week.  I’ll be back next week for part two of my Winter movie preview, with more movies on my short list, and then I’ve got something fun planned before taking a week off ahead of Christmas.  Thanks again for reading and if you’d like to be notified of future posts, you can subscribe here.