At the end of 2020, WarnerMedia made big headlines when they decided to release their entire 2021 release slate day-and-date via streaming on HBO Max and theatrical simultaneously. The decision was made because the COVID-19 situation made theatrical exhibition an uncertainty and with the Delta variant, WarnerMedia wanted to have their bases covered by providing options for their customers. While they seemed confident in their decision, WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar has admitted that he believes he rushed into the HBO Max day-and-date simultaneous release strategy.
“The Hollywood Reporter“, Kilar spoke to Vox Media’s Code Conference about the overall state and outcome of the strategy and stated,
“I will be the first one to say, and the responsibility rests on my shoulders, that, in hindsight, we should have taken the better part of a month to have over 170 conversations — which is the number of participants that are in our 2021 film slate. We tried to do that in a compressed period of time, less than a week, because of course there was going to be leaks there was going to be everybody opining on whether we should do this or not do this… We said from the start that we were going to treat every single film as a blockbuster, from an economic perspective, for participants, that we were going to be fair and generous, we were going to do the right thing. The good news is we did, and we worked our tail ends off to do that. And we’re now in a very good situation.”
While I personally enjoyed the option for folks to choose, it’s fair to say plenty of naysayers are happy to see Kilar admits he may have rushed.
