It’s the new pesto…
At the end of last week Sony announced it planned to bring Spider-Man: No Way Home back to theaters September 2nd for the Labor Day weekend. Not only that, but this is a new “fan cut” titled “The More Fun Stuff Version.”
This edition reportedly contains new scenes as well as extensions of existing scenes. Considering the original release was two-and-a-half hours long, it will be interesting to see the running time on this new version.
The news comes just a couple weeks after Sony tried something similar, bringing Morbius back to theaters in early June after its initial April release, though the return added less than $100,000 to its existing domestic total, keeping it in the $73m range.
By contrast, No Way Home grossed $804m before going on to strong numbers on home video/digital.
Morbius’s rerelease was explained as a way to hopefully capitalize on the memeification of the movie, though that obviously didn’t turn out well. Bringing back No Way Home, on the other hand, seems more like being out of ideas.
sony’s currently glowing
Back in April Sony was the belle of the ball, credited for saving the box office thanks to hits like Spider-Man, Sonic The Hedgehog 2 and Uncharted. The studio topped that off with a “victory lap” at CinemaCon where it touted its success and reaffirmed its commitment to theatrical releases, a commitment that surely has little to do with it being the only major player without its own streaming platform. That’s why it has a deal with Netflix allowing the streamer to snatch up some titles.
The remainder of 2022 looks a little less optimistic, with July’s Bullet Train, September’s The Woman King and October’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Part 1 looking like the surest box-office bets. And since April theaters have been packed with audiences turning out for Doctor Strange 2 (Marvel/Disney), Top Gun: Maverick (Paramount) and now Jurassic World: Dominion (Universal).
twice as nice
Bringing popular (however you want to define that term) movies back to theaters seems like the logical extension of a business that has been in massive flux for the last two decades as studios evolved in response to changing consumer trends and preferences. It also appears to be a reaction to how the whole industry was thrown for a loop during the pandemic.
Theatrical attendance essentially zeroed out for a year and a half following March, 2020. In that time Warner Bros. went all-in on HBO Max, Universal, Disney and Paramount all experimented with streaming exclusives or hybrid releases and so on. And each time the studios genuflected in the direction of theater chains and promised they were still the prettiest in the room.
As people started coming back to theaters it became clear that franchises, sequels and other existing IP were cementing their dominance in the world of ticket sales. Yet at CinemaCon there seemed to be agreement that tentpoles alone couldn’t keep theaters afloat and that a broad-range of mid-level features were needed.
they’re back…again
If rereleasing major titles becomes a trend adopted by other studios, the idea that there’s any serious commitment to anything less than blockbusters becomes even more difficult to swallow. Such rereleases used to be exceedingly rare, saved only for titles like Avengers: Endgame that were major events. If this tactic is more widely adopted then it becomes less “satisfying public demand” and more “we just want to supplement home video revenue and fill a hole in our release schedule.”
The test, to my mind, will be if titles like Top Gun: Maverick and Jurassic World: Dominion are back on the big screen in two or three months. Right now, as stated earlier, Sony seems to be the only studio actively doing this, but if another joins in we will officially have a trend.
And then all best are effectively off, as box-office totals become less a moment in time and more a moving target studios can impact at will.
Cinematic Slant 