As 'Wild Robot' Flies to PVOD, Shorter Windows Are Not Hurting The Box Office

Record-breaking box office for 'Deadpool & Wolverine' did not prevent a record-breaking PVOD debut, while legs for the likes of 'Twisters' and 'Fall Guy' were strong even by pre-COVID standards.

Fandango at Home has announced that last weekend’s top VOD offering was Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Once again, the films leading the VOD charts (YouTube, iTunes, Amazon, etc.) are *mostly* A) the biggest box office hits (Despicable Me 4, It Ends With Us, etc.), B) modest theatrical wins (Speak No Evil, Trap, etc.) or C) straight-to-consumer reboots of previously theatrical properties (Hellboy: The Crooked Man). Meanwhile, theatrical successes have continuously exhibited legs, even after the PVOD release, which would have been impressive in the 2010s.

Time will tell if shorter windows and PVOD transactions will be an accidental theatrical savior, giving non-event flicks like Lisa Frankenstein and theatrically underwhelming near-misses like The Fall Guy a more tangible financial cushion and commercial justification than we have seen since the early 2010s.

Conversely, or concurrently, it may prove to be a slow-moving phantom menace that slowly acclimates audiences to wait a little longer until that buzzy movie comes home that much sooner. Just because the earlier windows haven’t impacted the box office yet doesn’t mean that there won’t be long-term damage as a generation that never knew even a 90-day window (let alone a 5-7 month span between theatrical and home video) comes of age. However, the “damage” is primarily theoretical thus far.

However, for now, it seems to be a mutually beneficial arrangement whereby commercial risks must go to theaters to capitalize on PVOD revenue, thus giving multiplexes more and a greater variety of theatrical products. Meanwhile, new milestones and long box office legs suggest a new normal where success in one arena does not cancel out and may even abet success in another.