Is there really a difference between movies that you would want to make for the box office versus those you would make for streaming? Traditionally, the answer has always been yes, with movies made directly for TV networks often being greenlit with a much more limited budget and level of quality that doesn’t even come close to competing with the big box office films. Thanks to the likes of Netflix and Amazon though we are seeing streaming services challenging big studios with higher quality and bigger-budgeted movies that are only available on the circuit for a short time before finding their way to home audiences via streaming.
Making movies for the big screen and trying to pull in large audiences to witness them still requires considerable effort and focus though, resulting in a different type of budget and film. At least that’s the opinion of Warner Bros. who have announced a new movie label, Warner Max, with the direct purpose of making movies for the new streaming service HBO Max.
According to Screen Rant, the new label will start out with “an initial target of eight to 10 mid-budget movies per year” with a mission to “create a new pipeline for filmmakers looking to make a particular type of film or connect with a specific audience that would be best reached in the streaming environment.”
There is no idea on exactly what type of moves they are planning yet, but it seems that Warner Bros. definitely feels that there is a separate type of movie that should be produced for the streaming market with an appropriately sized budget that perhaps isn’t going to try and push the numbers Netflix is currently pushing on their movie front. It will be interesting to see how the different approaches work for them. While Warner Bros. will still be able to bring their big-budget movies to the streaming service, they would only be out much later after a Box Office run and likely not be exclusive, like Netflix’s films.
Is Warner Bros. smart for targeting a different type of films for streaming services or do you think moves produced for either streaming or box office should be of the same quality to draw your attention?
Last Updated: February 7, 2020
