At the end of November this year, a Netflix movie tested its power in 600 theaters, which was also a part of word-of-mouth marketing. Although the 600 theaters only accounted for 10.3% of the 5,798 theaters in the United States, it entered the top three box office in the United States for the week, and the box office revenue is estimated to reach 15 million U.S. dollars (approximately NT$450 million), just after the two Disney movies “Black Panther: Long Live Wakanda” and “Strange Adventure”.
This movie is the sequel to “Turn and Turn”, which broke through the experts’ glasses and sold well in 2019.
In 2019, even though the starring role was 007 Daniel Craig, the movie costing 40 million US dollars was not favored, but after its release, it received overwhelming praise. Both critics and audiences on the Rotten Tomatoes website gave more than 90% freshness. It grossed $165 million domestically and $312 million worldwide, 800 percent of its production budget–a massive hit for the film industry.
After Netflix bought the intellectual property rights
Last year, Netflix purchased the rights to the sequels of two “Turn Around” movies from filmmaker Lionsgate Entertainment for more than US$450 million. The website has also received a super high rating of more than 90% freshness from film critics and audiences at the same time.
It was shown for only one week, and The Hollywood Reporter said that even in limited theaters in five days, it still earned at least 13 million to 15 million US dollars at the box office, and entered the top three weekend box office charts in the United States. Insider quoted Sean Robbins, an analyst at Box Office Pro, as saying that if Netflix directly releases the film in US theaters, it could have a box office of 40 million to 60 million US dollars.
But it is a pity that Netflix will be released after only one week of release, and will be released on Netflix on December 23rd. I hope word-of-mouth marketing will help us enter the Christmas holiday in the United States and make more people subscribe to Netflix──especially now that the Netflix subscription plan has just launched .
But analysts don’t think so. Streaming, film, and media-related analysts have spoken in almost different media, saying that Netflix’s move is tantamount to giving up tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars in wasted cash; after all, Netflix has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase the sequel rights before making this movie , if it is released through official channels, it will definitely make Netflix a lot of money.
（Source：Rotten Tomatoes）
Doesn’t Netflix understand how much money it makes in theaters?
On October 6th, Netflix announced that “Fighting Returns: Unraveling the Cocoon” will be trial-screened in 600 theaters during the Thanksgiving holiday, and then it will be streamed on Netflix on December 23rd. Many see “Back and Back” as part of Netflix’s broader test plan of how much a theatrical release would benefit Netflix and how it would affect streaming subscribers.
Although the box office and evaluation of “Front Turning: Peeling the Cocoon” has excellent performance, analysts believe that the lack of large-scale global release is a loss for Netflix.
Of course, some people hold this view-this kind of testing is crucial to Netflix, and it is necessary to know the possible impact of these actions, and then evaluate various solutions that may be beneficial to Netflix.
However, if the “test” really wants to find the “meaning of the test”, it must be on a larger scale, which means more films and more screening modes-it doesn’t make much sense to only do one or two tests and lack a control group.
Maybe someday, but not now
In terms of the current level and scale, rather than saying that Netflix wants to know the impact on streaming services after the movie theaters are released, it is more like a marketing technique to test the feasibility of movie theaters at the same time-after all, no one in this world can predict whether a new movie will be popular. , unless there is a sequel to a classic like “Turn Around”.
In order to appease subscribers, CEO Ted Sarandos made a special statement on the October conference call: “Our business at Netflix is to entertain subscribers with self-made content; there is no doubt that we only make movies for subscribers.”
But don’t forget that Netflix also said before that it would not launch an subscription plan, but now is definitely not the time to offend users; the test screening marketing effect has been achieved, and then we will see what movie sequels Netflix will buy, for Netflix may want Face the various possibilities first.
(Source of the first picture:Netflix）