It looks like consequences are still coming from WB’s deal with HBO Max a year later. After a year where they decided to release movies on streaming and in theaters on the same day, several directors and studios had burned their bridges with WB including Syncopy’s Christopher Nolan. Now they just lost the studio behind Dune and the Godzilla films.
According to Variety, Legendary Entertainment has formalized a deal with Sony after cutting ties with WB Picture. With the new multi-year deal, Sony will be in charge of distributing and marketing Legendary’s upcoming movies, the most anticipated being the sequel to Denis Villeneuve’s Dune.
With the new partnership, Sony and Legendary promise to keep an “ongoing commitment to theatrical distribution as a driver for other ‘downstream’ windows and the theatrical window’s long-term value for films.”
No doubt the streaming model has definitely thrown a huge curve ball at the movie industry, and it was only made worse with the pandemic closing down theaters and forcing everyone to stay indoors and watch movies at home.
Admittedly, there are still pros and cons to both systems, and some argue that we could come up with a better way to navigate the streaming wars. With content being hoarded by studios that want to keep things in their own platform, the consumers have been finding a harder time to just enjoy content as easily as they did during the heyday of Netflix.
For now, watch out for Legendary’s Dune: Part Two which is set to release on Nov. 3, 2023.
