WarnerMedia’s experiment this year of a simultaneous theatrical and day-and-date strategy has apparently been pretty consistent with its results according to both statements from the studio and third-party analytics.
Namely the releases that have done the best in their theatrical run (eg. “Godzilla vs. Kong,” “Mortal Kombat”) have also done the best on HBO Max, while the ones that underperformed in cinemas also underperformed on streaming.
An exception to the rule appears to have arisen with last weekend’s “The Many Saints of Newark”. The prequel film to HBO’s iconic drama series “The Sopranos” performed poorly at the domestic box office, earning just $4.6 million in its opening weekend.
According to WarnerMedia’s metrics though, the film’s streaming viewership was through the roof with the movie not just the top-performing film title on HBO Max but also scoring more than triple the audience of the next most viewed title.
The film also reportedly outperformed other recent Warner releases in its budget range including “Reminiscence” and “Cry Macho”.
In addition, it had the knock-on effect of raising viewership for the now nearly 15-year-old “The Sopranos” – breaking HBO Max records for weekly viewing of a series, and nabbing the highest daily viewership in service history last Sunday.
Viewing of the series rose 65% in week-over-week viewing as ‘Many Saints’ became available.
Source: Variety