How Hollywood Is Rethinking Movie Marketing Strategy ... and Why It Is Helping Everyone Win

On the surface, if a movie with a $130M budget only makes $30M during its box office opening, that would quantifiably qualify as a flop. These are the approximate numbers for the Ben Affleck film Air, however the movie is widely being considered as a success within Hollywood. Why?

The answer to this question also explains the new economics of movie making in the streaming era. Essentially, the biggest shift is that theaters are no longer the make or break measure of success for a film. Instead, they are increasingly being used as "marketing vehicles" to gain widespread attention and public awareness of films that are destined to quickly move to streaming platforms.

In this model, everyone seems to win. Actors and filmmakers earn a more generous deal from a streamer. The theaters win because they get access to a film that would otherwise have gone straight to a streaming platform. The streamers get a new avenue to promote their film before making the long tail of their profits via streaming agreements. And consumers get to have a choice to watch a movie on the big screen, or wait to watch it for "free" (assuming a subscription) on a streaming platform. Could the future of the movie industry really be a model where everyone wins?