Netflix grabs rights to ‘Crouching Tiger’ sequel
A new battle in the war for our eyeballs has just been scheduled for August 28, 2015. The Weinstein Company announced a deal to release the sequel to the hit art-house martial arts film “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” simultaneously in Imax movie theaters and on Netflix.
It’s a shot across the bow of the major movie theater chains — Regal, AMC and Cinemark — who control most of the theaters in the United States and demand an exclusive, 90-day “window” before their films move to smaller screens on television or online.
“Anything that starts to erode or challenge the 90-day window could be disaster for them,” says Sam Craig, director of the Entertainment, Media and Technology program at NYU. According to Craig, if just 10 percent of theatergoers stayed home, it would mean a loss of more than a billion dollars in ticket sales.
“No one has approached us to license this made-for-video sequel in the U.S. or China, so one must assume the screens Imax committed are in science centers and aquariums,” says an AMC Theatres statement.
Other movies have attempted to debut online and in theaters, but this deal is the first to include Netflix, and the first to include a film that could have just as easily debuted in theaters, according to BTIG media analyst Rich Greenfield. “I think if movie studios see the success of what Netflix and Imax do, I think others will follow,” says Greenfield.
If they do, theaters will only be able to differentiate on the basis of the theatergoing experience — something they’ve been attempting to do for years. Regal Cinemas ran trailers in which action films gradually shrank to a small rectangle in the middle of the big screen, while a narrator intoned: “If you want action this big you can’t have a screen this small.” But consumers with smartphones increasingly watch videos even on the smallest of screens, and hardware options have arguably made home viewing more theatrical.
“The exhibitors are right: It is a different experience,” Craig says. “But you get a lot of people that have 60-inch HD screens and surround sound, and maybe they would be just as happy watching it at home.”
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