There are lots of reasons why a movie might not make it to theaters. Maybe they couldn't find distribution, or the plan from the start was an at-home release. Or perhaps...it was a quality issue.
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00:00There are lots of reasons why a movie might not make it to theaters.
00:04Maybe they couldn't find distribution, or the plan from the start was an at-home release,
00:07or perhaps it was a quality issue.
00:11Sometimes a movie performs so poorly and becomes so poisoned by terrible word-of-mouth that
00:16studios or distributors will pull it out of theaters abruptly to end the embarrassment.
00:21Check out this roundup of box office disasters, because you probably didn't see them in theaters.
00:27Hollywood makes so many movies out of familiar properties because name recognition equals
00:31free marketing.
00:33It's much easier to get filmgoers on board with something they already know than to sell
00:37them on a new concept.
00:38That's how G.I.
00:39Joe and Transformers became successful movie franchises.
00:42Ironically, though, another fondly remembered cartoon show and toy line from the 80s became
00:47one of the biggest film flops of all time.
00:50Gem and the Holograms, a live-action, modernized version of the property about an all-female
00:55rock band, opened in October 2015 in more than 2,400 theaters.
01:00But the filmmakers didn't stay true to the source material, thus alienating the only
01:04people who'd actually want to go see it.
01:07The result was an abysmal rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an opening weekend of just $1.37
01:12million.
01:14In week two, revenues dropped to a mere $388,000.
01:18And that's when Universal pulled it out of theaters completely and pretended it never
01:21even existed.
01:22We were just talking about you.
01:29Yeah, we know.
01:30We heard everything.
01:31Inspired by the interactive audiences of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, screenwriter Ken
01:36Visselman conceived of a film where kids were encouraged to yell out their thoughts to the
01:41characters on screen.
01:42The result was the Oogie Loves in the Big Balloon Adventure, which was mostly a generic
01:47kids movie with some brightly colored characters named Gooby, Zoozy, and Toofie.
01:52Plus there were special appearances from stars kids love, like Cloris Leachman and
01:57Toni Braxton.
01:58Parents had little interest in paying for their kids to yell at a screen for 90 minutes
02:02when they could do that at home for free.
02:05During its first weekend, the Oogie Loves earned just $448,131 at over 2,000 theaters,
02:13accounting for multiple showings at each location that works out to an average of about two
02:17people per screening.
02:19It somehow did even worse in its next two weekends before the marketing visionaries
02:24at Ken Visselman Presents mercifully removed it.
02:27Oogie Loves!
02:28Oogie Loves!
02:29In June 2015, a movie with the generic and bland title of United Passions hit theaters.
02:39It's a mockish story of the rise and greatness of FIFA, the universally reviled worldwide
02:45governing body of soccer.
02:48It's so extremely pro-FIFA that it's no surprise the organization provided most of the film's
02:53$22 million budget.
02:55It's a bad movie on its own merits, but it also fell victim to extremely bad timing.
03:00Its release came just days after the arrests and indictments of more than a dozen FIFA executives
03:06on corruption charges and the resignation of FIFA president Sepp Blatter.
03:11The director publicly regretted having made the film and even called it propaganda.
03:16United Passions played to 10 theaters in the United States, where it earned a grand
03:21total of $918.
03:23It then dispassionately disunified with theaters after just one week.
03:28Released in August 1981, Honky Tonk Freeway is a pleasant enough ensemble comedy that
03:34seems tailor-made to run on a low-wattage local TV station on a Sunday afternoon.
03:40It's about a small Florida tourist trap of a town named Tee Claw that's home to a small
03:44zoo and a water-skiing elephant.
03:47The mayor bribes a state official to ensure that a new freeway will include an off-ramp
03:52to Tee Claw, thus vastly improving the town's fortunes.
03:56The off-ramp doesn't get built, so the residents come together to paint the whole town pink
04:00as a publicity stunt.
04:02All of that non-action is intercut with the stories of various individuals about to wind
04:07up in Tee Claw, including bank robbers, hitchhikers, a family, and some nuns.
04:13Directed by Academy Award winner John Schlesinger, this whole affair somehow costs $24 million
04:20— $6 million more than The Empire Strikes Back.
04:23The total box office haul of Honky Tonk Freeway was just over $2 million.
04:28It was gone from theaters without a trace within a few weeks.
04:32In the 2000s, Uwe Boll carved a niche in the film industry as the go-to guy to turn video
04:38games into movies.
04:40Even when he lucked into working with great actors, the results remained unimpressive.
04:45Efforts like BloodRayne and Alone in the Dark contributed heavily to the universally acknowledged
04:49notion that video game movies are always terrible.
04:53But one that rises above — or sinks below — the rest is Postal.
04:58This 2007 flick took the kill-em-all action of the Postal games and added a plot in which
05:03the guy who played Farkas in A Christmas Story is the title Postal Dude.
05:08The film includes dozens of gruesome deaths, Boll playing himself getting shot in the groin,
05:14and a supposedly comic scene lampooning the events of 9-11 — not shown here.
05:20While that all seems like the plot of a direct-to-video movie or possibly a fever-induced nightmare,
05:26Postal somehow got itself a wide theatrical release scheduled for May 2008.
05:31But just before its release, nearly all of the distributors that had lined up pulled
05:35out.
05:36Postal didn't open on 1,500 screens — it opened on four.
05:40That's right, Postal was so bad that it got pulled out of theaters before it even arrived.
05:47Had Gigli not starred two of the biggest celebrities of the era who were in a high-profile romance
05:52at the time, it would've been just a weird and forgettable movie, not a legendary flop.
05:57Ben Affleck plays a stereotypical gangster goon with an unpronounceable name assigned
06:02to kidnap the Baywatch-obsessed, developmentally disabled brother of a federal prosecutor.
06:08Things go awry, so the bosses send in a more capable operative, Ricky, played by Jennifer
06:13Lopez.
06:14Then the two fall in love, even though Ricky is gay and Gigli is a raging misogynist.
06:19That plot — and the off-screen Bennifer antics — led to an unofficial competition
06:24among critics over who could say the meanest things in their reviews.
06:28The Wall Street Journal called it,
06:30"...the worst movie — all right, the worst allegedly major movie — of our admittedly
06:34young century."
06:35Somehow, Gigli cost $54 million to make, but it unsurprisingly bombed, bringing in just
06:42$6 million.
06:43After three weeks in theaters, it moved to its final resting place in the grocery store
06:48DVD bargain bins.
06:50Madonna is certainly one of the greatest and most influential pop stars of all time.
06:55That goodwill has very little to do with her forays into acting.
06:59She's basically the Meryl Streep of the Razzie Awards.
07:02The Oscars of bad movies have dishonored Madonna a remarkable 16 times for stinkers like Shanghai
07:08Surprise, Body of Evidence, and Swept Away.
07:11The last one seemed like it might be a little better than the usual Madonna movie, as it
07:16was written and directed by Guy Ritchie.
07:18He's the acclaimed filmmaker behind Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, who also happened
07:23to be Madonna's husband at the time.
07:25That didn't seem to do much good, however.
07:27The Desert Island rom-com suffered a critical drubbing and took home four Razzies.
07:32Audiences didn't like it, either.
07:34It played in American theaters for three weekends to a total of less than $600,000 before the
07:39distributor swept it away.
07:42In the late 2000s, a science fiction allegory about respecting nature and the dangers of
07:47colonialism hit theaters.
07:49It utilized cutting-edge CGI and animation technology to render lifelike but exotic humanoid
07:54creatures.
07:55But we're not actually talking about Avatar, which pulled in a record $2.7 billion at the
08:00worldwide box office and played to packed movie theaters for months on end.
08:04Nope.
08:05This is the story of Delgo, a movie at the other end of the box office spectrum.
08:10With the protagonists fleeing their resource-ravaged homeland for another, this 2008 animated feature
08:16bore a similar look and premise to Avatar, but it had far from the same success.
08:21Created by the small Fathom Studios, development began in 1999, when CGI animation was still
08:27something of a novelty.
08:28By the time of its release in 2008, Delgo's style was old hat, and not particularly well-executed.
08:34Plus, its lead voice actors, Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt, had lost their
08:40A-list status.
08:41While Avatar broke just about every box office record, Delgo broke one, too.
08:47It earned $511,000 at 2,160 theaters during its first weekend, bad enough to make it the
08:54worst wide-release opening weekend ever at the time.
08:58It doesn't rank among the worst second weekends of all time, though, because Freestyle Releasing
09:03yanked Delgo out of theaters just seven days after its release.
09:07Awkward androgyny, annoying American idols, and the unsuccessful undead — all of these
09:12things have spelled box office poison so severe that movies were prematurely pulled
09:17from theaters.
09:19There have been many movies based on Saturday Night Live sketches, some of which have been
09:23very critically and commercially successful, like Wayne's World or The Blues Brothers.
09:28However, many of them have been box office disappointments, and maybe the worst was 1994's
09:34It's Pat, centered on Julia Sweeney's androgynous character from her early 90s tenure on the
09:39sketch show.
09:40What can I say?
09:41I'm a very sexual being."
09:44The movie follows Pat's romantic relationship with the similarly genderless Chris, played
09:48by Dave Foley, while their neighbor Kyle, played by Charles Rockett, resolved to figure
09:53out the character's gender once and for all.
09:55None of the one-note jokes translated well to the big screen, and as of June 2024, the
10:00film has a rare 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
10:03Fortunately, the film didn't have much of a presence theatrically to be pulled from
10:07in the first place.
10:08It's Pat only opened in 33 theaters across the country, raking in just under $61,000
10:14during its opening weekend, before being dropped.
10:17Sweeney later appeared on Showtime's Work in Progress, and expressed regrets over playing
10:21the problematic character.
10:23"'I feel terrible.
10:24I didn't mean it to be mean.
10:26I think I was really naïve, I think I was, but now I'm like, ew."
10:31Winning American Idol during its first season was a career-maker for Kelly Clarkson, who
10:35went on to become not just a successful pop artist, but also a daytime talk show host.
10:40That career trajectory wasn't without its bumps, though, and one of the biggest bumps
10:44was from Justin to Kelly, a musical rom-com in which she co-stars alongside American Idol
10:49runner-up Justin Garini.
10:51Clarkson was opposed to starring in the movie, knowing from the start that it wasn't going
10:55to work.
10:56She told Us Weekly,
10:57"...I cried for a solid hour on the phone with the creator of American Idol and pleaded to
11:01be let out of the contract."
11:03"...No, I didn't, I didn't think I'd be doing a movie, no."
11:07Clarkson's instincts were right, as the film only grossed $2.7 million on its opening weekend,
11:12against a budget of $14 million, and lasted just two weekends before nearly 2,000 theaters
11:18pulled it from their rotation.
11:20Critics weren't exactly positive about the film when it was released in 2003, just as
11:24Clarkson had expected.
11:25As Time magazine wrote about the film,
11:27"...in the most generous light, it is the worst film so far this century."
11:32Nicolas Cage is no stranger to starring in critically-panned films, with two of the most
11:36noteworthy examples being Ghost Rider and The Wicker Man.
11:40"...Oh, no, not the bees, not the bees, ahhhhhh, I don't have my eyes!"
11:47However, the 2011 action flick Seeking Justice is one of the lesser-known Cage bombs, likely
11:52due to its limited time at the box office, grossing just under $250,000 in its opening
11:58weekend and getting pulled from theaters within three weeks.
12:01It's a strange premise that never pans out.
12:04Cage plays Will, an English teacher whose wife is brutally assaulted one night, resulting
12:08in Will enlisting a hitman's clandestine group to hunt down his wife's attacker.
12:12In his one-and-a-half star review, Roger Ebert's only commendation for the film was to praise
12:17Cage's acting, but saying that the rest of the movie was made up of preposterous scenes,
12:21pointing to the confusing logic of how this secret organization worked.
12:25While Seeking Justice may not be Nicolas Cage's most outlandish role ever, its short time
12:30in the theaters made it one of his most forgettable.
12:34Director Robert Luketick has pumped out some major hits, with his most notable projects
12:38including the 2001 comedy Legally Blonde and the heist flick 21.
12:43However, his 2013 thriller Paranoia wasn't his most inspired project, according to critics.
12:48The film's all-star cast includes Liam Hemsworth in one of his first starring roles as Adam,
12:53a corporate inventor turned spy.
12:55The New York Times called out his performance, saying,
12:58He ambles through the role like an obedient robot.
13:00They also compared the film's direction to a deluxe perfume commercial, but Variety expected
13:05more from its theatrical results, writing,
13:16The filmmakers would have probably killed for a moderate opening weekend compared to
13:20what it got.
13:21Against its whopping $35 million budget, Paranoia only grows $3 million in its first weekend.
13:28Before getting pulled from over 2,000 theaters after its second weekend.
13:32Ultimately, it made just $17 million worldwide, still under half of its budget, making it
13:37one of the biggest box office bombs of 2013.
13:41David Koepp is one of the most successful screenwriters of all time, having penned films
13:45like Sam Raimi's first Spider-Man and the first Mission Impossible movie.
13:49However, his stints behind the camera have been less successful, with the most infamous
13:53example being Mordecai, starring Johnny Depp as a corrupt art dealer in Extreme Debt who
13:58turns to theft, putting him in the crosshairs of law enforcement.
14:02In a review for The Hollywood Reporter, Mordecai was described as,
14:05"...stuffed with star names and classic farce ingredients, but its fatal flaw is an almost
14:10surreal lack of jokes.
14:11It's ultimately a frightful, crashing bore."
14:14Steady yourself.
14:17Its opening weekend gross of $4 million might not sound like much of a failure until you
14:21look at the film's astronomical $60 million budget.
14:25It ultimately made back less than $50 million in its worldwide theatrical run.
14:29Its domestic theatrical run, at the very least, didn't last long.
14:33Mordecai was pulled from 2,000 theaters after its second weekend, and had disappeared from
14:38all others by President's Day weekend of 2015.
14:42Director Michael Mann's impressive repertoire includes iconic films like Heat, one of the
14:47best crime movies of all time, and more recently, the Adam Driver-led Ferrari.
14:51However, his 2015 thriller Black Hat was one of that year's biggest box office disasters,
14:57making just below $20 million throughout its entire theatrical run against a budget of
15:02$70 million.
15:03It was dropped from nearly 2,500 theaters after its second weekend, remaining in theaters
15:09for just three weekends in total.
15:11Reviews were divisive.
15:12The Los Angeles Times praised Mann's direction, but questioned the casting of Chris Hemsworth
15:17as a hacker recruited by the FBI to assist in the capture of a cyber-terrorist, saying,
15:22"...the sullen cast he gives to the role testifies to his lack of comfort as much as anything
15:27else."
15:28Other reviewers felt it would be unmemorable in comparison with the rest of Mann's career,
15:31though Mann felt the film's failure was due to a lack of preparation.
15:35While some critics liked Black Hat enough to put it on their year-end lists, its failure
15:39at the box office was ultimately blamed on poor marketing strategy, as well as box office
15:44competition with American Sniper.
15:46Its negative reception also led to its Australian theatrical release being canceled by Legendary
15:51Pictures, which was probably a blessing in disguise for Hemsworth.
15:56Ben Affleck has been a part of some hugely successful films, both in front of and behind
16:00the camera.
16:01But he's also been responsible for the occasional box office dud, like the 2016 crime movie
16:06Live By Night.
16:07Affleck directed, wrote, and starred in Live By Night as a bootlegger turned gangster in
16:13mid-1920s New York City, with co-stars including Zoe Saldana, Sienna Miller, and Brendan Gleeson.
16:20After a limited release in December 2016 that made just over $33,000, Live By Night made
16:25its wide theatrical debut in January 2017 and was dropped from over 2,600 theaters by
16:32the end of its third weekend.
16:33It ultimately ended its theatrical run weeks later, with only $22.7 million gross against
16:39a budget of $90 million, resulting in Warner Bros. losing upwards of $75 million as a result.
16:46Reviewers mostly found it a disappointment compared to Affleck's other work.
16:49Variety wrote,
16:50"...it's like seeing the ghost of a terrific movie.
16:52All the pieces are in place, yet as you're watching it, there doesn't seem to be quite
16:56enough."
16:58If you want to watch a great movie based on Mattel toys that performed well at the box
17:01office, go see Barbie.
17:02But if you want a bad time, check out Max Steel.
17:05The action figure franchise received many adaptations across film, TV, video games,
17:10and comic books, but it was its live-action foray into movie theaters that seemed to
17:14doom the potential of the franchise.
17:16Released in 2016, the film centers on Max, a teenager who fuses with an alien named Steel
17:22to become a superhero known as, you guessed it, Max Steel.
17:25The movie is one of the few films on Rotten Tomatoes with a 0% rating, with IGN calling
17:30it
17:31"...undoubtedly one of the most unfocused and lifeless films to appear on the silver
17:35screen this year."
17:36Other criticisms questioned making yet another superhero film during a time of the genre's
17:40oversaturation.
17:41It makes sense why the company later approached 2023's Barbie with a little more care and
17:46reverence towards their own IP.
17:48Unsurprisingly, Max Steel wasn't an attention-grabber with movie audiences, grossing only $6 million
17:53at the box office, against a budget of $10 million, and it was dropped from almost 2,000
17:58theaters after only its second weekend.
18:012016's Collide was a record-setting film, but for all of the wrong reasons.
18:05The action movie had the second-largest second weekend drop in box office history, getting
18:10pulled from 1,000 theaters between its first and second weekend, and then dropped from
18:14theaters entirely.
18:16By the end of its short-lived theatrical run, Collide only grossed $6.8 million, with a
18:21reported budget of $29 million.
18:23The film stars Nicholas Hoult as a money-runner who agrees to a high-stakes drug theft to
18:27secure funds for his girlfriend's kidney transplant.
18:30The impressive supporting cast includes Felicity Jones, Ben Kingsley, and Anthony Hopkins.
18:35Unfortunately, the A.V. Club wrote that the film was
18:38"...unexceptional, a hodgepodge of corny voiceover, and repetitive, anticlimactic plotting."
18:44The film nearly avoided a release altogether when its distributor, Relativity Media, filed
18:48for bankruptcy in 2015.
18:50In the end, it didn't even matter, because no one saw the movie anyway.
18:55Relativity Media's bankruptcy didn't just affect Collide.
18:58The Disappointment Room was also a future box office bomb caught in the crossfire.
19:02The film was finally released in September 2016 under a new distributor, only for it
19:06to plummet at the box office.
19:08Despite having a budget of only $15 million, the film's entire theatrical run only grossed
19:13$5.7 million worldwide before leaving theaters, with over 1,500 theaters pulling it by the
19:20end of its second weekend.
19:22The watcher-goers didn't miss much.
19:23Led by Kate Beckinsale and Mel Rado, the film centers on a family that moves into a house
19:28with a mysterious locked room that forces them to confront terrifying visions of their
19:33past.
19:34The result was another movie that earned a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
19:37While Variety commended the efforts of Beckinsale in the lead role as a woman descending into
19:42psychosis, they were less enthused by the rest of the film, writing,
19:45"...somewhere around the two-thirds mark, however, the movie skids off the rails as the storyline
19:50becomes once less mysterious and more illogical."
19:53"...f— you two."
19:56Sometimes a movie is so bad that it takes on a life of its own outside the movie theaters.
20:00"...here you go."
20:01"...that's me.
20:03How much is it?"
20:04"...it'll be $18."
20:05"...here you go.
20:06Keep the change."
20:07"...hi, doggie."
20:08This is a rare case for Morbius, a Spider-Man villain played by Jared Leto who was given
20:11a movie of his own, released in April of 2022.
20:15It flopped both critically and commercially, with Collider writing,
20:18Morbius prioritizes action over substance, doing little to establish character arcs,
20:23dynamics, and backstories in favor of focusing on action sequences, fights, and flashy CGI.
20:29For most films, a disappointing box office performance and scathing reviews would be
20:33enough to let it be forgotten.
20:35However, Morbius ended up gathering a cult following online through memes, incorrectly
20:39deeming it the most financially successful movie of all time.
20:42In typical tone-deaf corporate fashion, Sony misinterpreted these jokes and decided to
20:47re-release the film in June 2022 to capitalize on its online appreciation.
20:52The film's re-release didn't go according to plan, grossing only $310,000 compared to
20:57its opening weekend numbers of $39 million.
21:00After just one weekend of its release, nearly 1,000 theaters pulled it from its rotation
21:05for good, while the rest finally stopped showing Morbius after three more weeks.
21:09It's no secret that Warner Bros. has struggled to capture the magic of the Marvel Cinematic
21:14Universe.
21:15The 23's The Flash might be their biggest failure in that department, as the film's
21:18release was marred by controversy surrounding its star, Ezra Miller, who played Barry Allen,
21:23a.k.a. The Flash, in the movie.
21:25As a result, WB targeted the marketing towards its supporting cast, including Sacha Kaye's
21:30Supergirl and Michael Keaton's reprisal of Bruce Wayne.
21:34"'He's Bruce Wayne as Batman?'
21:36"'Really, not so much anymore.'"
21:38Unfortunately, the film had more than Ezra Miller to worry about, as reviews and online
21:43discourse surrounding it were ominous towards the future of the superhero film genre.
21:48Vulture's review was particularly dismal, claiming,
21:50"'It's all a gaudy retread.
21:52Sell audiences the pain and joy they've already experienced.
21:55Ignore the present.
21:56Dim the future.'"
21:57There was also criticism reserved for the embarrassing CGI moments, including digitally
22:02resurrecting deceased actors like Christopher Reeve, Adam West, and George Reeves.
22:06The film predictably bombed at the box office, grossing just $271 million at the end of its
22:12theatrical run, against a budget of $222 million.
22:16Despite opening in over 4,000 theaters, nearly 2,000 dropped the movie after two weekends.
22:22After the Fourth of July weekend, The Flash rushed out of even more theaters.
22:26"'It hurts.
22:27You know where it hurts?
22:29In my d----.
22:30Okay, I know.'"
22:32Audiences expecting to see the big-screen collaboration between Comedy King Judd Apatow
22:36and Saturday Night Live's Pete Davidson got a rude awakening after Universal pulled the
22:40film just two days before it was set to release.
22:43With most theaters still closed nationwide and few new releases available in the country's
22:48handful of open indoor and drive-in establishments, audiences are starved for new movie material.
22:54So it's no surprise that those who purchased tickets for Thursday night and weekend screenings
22:57of Davidson's semi-autobiographical dramedy were angry when they discovered their tickets
23:02had been refunded.
23:03News of the cancellations first came on Thursday before the movie's opening weekend, when establishments
23:08like the Warwick Drive-In in New York and Rustic Tri-View Drive-In in Rhode Island began
23:12posting their refund policies and announcing the next screenings.
23:16In response to faulty information circulating online prior to the movie's release, Apatow
23:20took to Twitter to try to clarify the situation.
23:23In an all-caps announcement, the Freaks & Geeks and Pineapple Express producer tweeted,
23:28"'The King of Staten Island' is only opening on VOD Friday.
23:32It is not opening in theaters."
23:34In response to a Twitter user who pointed out that it was scheduled to appear at their
23:38local theater, Apatow replied,
23:39"'It won't be playing there.
23:41It is a mistake.
23:42It is only on VOD.'"
23:44So what happened?
23:45"'No one told you about VOD?'
23:48What is that?''
23:49Variety reports that the screening cancellations weren't the fault of theater owners, who were
23:53also in the dark about the move.
23:54One anonymous independent theater owner even told the outlet that there was not immediately
23:58any explanation provided about the abrupt reversal, and that the studio merely, quote,
24:03"'changed their mind.'"
24:05Insiders at the studio confirmed this to Variety, revealing that the last-minute decision to
24:08pull The King of Staten Island from theaters was the result of a major mix-up linked to
24:13Universal's controversial video-on-demand release strategy.
24:16"'You make everyone around you feel crazy.'"
24:18Speaking on the basis of anonymity, Universal Studio Insiders confirmed to Variety that
24:23the company's original release intentions were focused exclusively on a VOD release.
24:28It was an internal misunderstanding among executives that led to the film wrongly being
24:32sold to around 100 theaters nationwide, before studio leadership had to reach out to theater
24:37owners and request they not screen the film.
24:40The move angered some, with one Twitter user sarcastically tweeting,
24:44"'Real class act, Universal!' in response to Apatow's tweets.
24:48An unnamed screen operator shared that disgruntled ticket holders had passed along similar sentiments
24:53to them.
24:54The source told Variety,
24:55"'This caused a considerable amount of ill will with consumers who bought tickets online
25:00showing up for the Thursday 7 p.m. show.'"
25:03That wasn't the only misstep Universal made around the release of The King of Staten Island,
25:07either.
25:08Another anonymous theater owner revealed that before Universal abruptly yanked one of its
25:12latest films from playing on the big screen, the studio negotiated questionable ticket
25:17sales terms with theaters.
25:19Reports indicate that the studio pushed for profit-sharing terms that split ticket earnings
25:23evenly with cinemas, something that's traditionally only done with major releases.
25:28In a time when theaters are being hit particularly hard due to industry-wide closures, some viewed
25:33the ask as too demanding, especially as the film, which would have mostly screened at
25:38drive-ins, would have also been available to rent at similar ticket costs online.
25:43As one independent theater owner put it, they wanted 2019 terms in 2020 conditions.
25:48This is a new landscape.
25:50The incident with The King of Staten Island isn't the only thing Universal has done lately
25:54that's made distributors angry.
25:56Following the VOD release of Trolls World Tour, NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Schell implied
26:02the studio was seriously considering on-demand as a new distribution stream post-pandemic.
26:08The comment sparked a heated back-and-forth in the press between the studio, the popular
26:12cinema chain AMC Theatres, and the National Association of Theater Owners.
26:17At the time, Adam Aaron, AMC Theatres' chair CEO, declared in a letter that the company
26:22would no longer play any Universal movies in any of our theaters in the United States,
26:27Europe, or the Middle East, putting major tentpoles like F9 in jeopardy after they were
26:32delayed to ensure a proper theatrical release.
26:35Patrick Corcoran, vice president and CCO of the National Association of Theater Owners,
26:41also called the Comcast-owned studio out, stating,
26:44"[Universal has a destructive tendency to announce decisions affecting their exhibitor
26:49partners without actually consulting with those partners.]
26:52It was largely believed that things were still tense between the three entities until Variety
26:57reported that during a recent earnings call, Aaron attempted to quell the flames from their
27:01public fight earlier this year.
27:03He told the outlet,
27:04"[Relations are warm with Universal.
27:06Relations with Universal have always been warm.
27:08There is nothing personal about this issue with Universal.
27:11This is just an issue about money."
27:13While things may have warmed, the response to Universal's latest move is looking more
27:17like the King of Staten Island mishap may reignite that fight.