HBO Max Nears 12.6 Million Activated Subscribers As AT&T Defends Warner Bros. Release Plan
“We were going to be in a situation where the psyche of the population and willingness to go back into theaters, that’s going to be a prolonged recovery. The question is what’s best to deal with that — it’s a win-win-win situation — a win for us, win for customers, win for partners.”
While Stankey expressed remorse for the circumstances that brought this decision on and called the lack of theatrical business due to pandemic “unfortunate,” the executive defended debuting the films on HBO Max instead of licensing films to other streamers. It would be like giving “competitors additional arms,” Stankey said, which is why “we knew we needed to try something different.”
“Getting the product out into the market…is important,” Stankey said, arguing that the market will be “dictated by what consumers choose to do.”
As for the rest of Hollywood that WarnerMedia has angered — fromtalent, to studios, to agents— Stankey said," I know there’s a lot of noise out in the market, people with different viewpoints," but that happens “anytime you are going to change a model.”
However, WarnerMedia does have the support of at least one company: NBCUniversal. Speaking at a UBS conference (via Deadline), the CEOJeff Shellof NBCUniversal, whoseUniversal deal with AMCis admittedly just one step away from Warner’s HBO Max release plan, applauded Warner’s strategy, citing the “growing segment of the population that want to watch movies in a non-premium way which is at home.”
“I think that theatrical will survive and the more windows collapse, the more money that will be made in the movie business,” Shell said, adding “AT&T is taking a different strategy… but anything that collapses windows is good and theaters will be fine over the long term.”
