Whilst online entertainment has been leading the way in many different aspects over the past few years, the one industry that has managed to separate itself from others is within gaming as online services have continued to thrive. Some of the most popular are looking to replace land-based options as online casinos in particular have been on the rise with this list of casinos being a perfect example of those that had adapted to change with the allowance of credit cards deposits and similar options. There could be another form of entertainment on the way to fill that spot however, as big changes may be on the way to the movie industry that will change box office for good.
Some services like Netflix have been thriving for quite some time – putting out some of the best original series and movies throughout the past decade, and others are starting to catch up with the likes of Prime and Disney+ both carving ground too, but the one thing that has always been elusive to both is within box office releases, which traditionally have only ever found a big cinema releases before being widely available elsewhere, but with the past year has caused a major shift, and recent announcements could see the box office move to video on demand.
(Image from thekingdominsider.com)
Hollywood giant Warner Bros recently announced that their roster throughout 2021 including big names like The Matrix 4 and Dune would find a direct release to both cinema and streaming platform HBO Max at the same time, and others like Disney announcing their own reorganisation internally to focus more on Disney+ with their own big names like the Star Wars franchise and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. If successful, it wouldn’t be surprising to see other big studios follow in the same footsteps and move to a primarily online based release schedule, and away from the traditional cinema release schedule that is more well known.
That isn’t to say there aren’t challenges ahead, however, as it’s difficult to determine whether or not early success will be due to the ongoing restrictions throughout the pandemic, or if the changes will be successful simply because of a changing attitude towards online streaming as a whole. With many locations set to re-open in the coming months, early figures will start to tell a story of what can be expected moving forward, but it may take other studios committing to similar releases for a longer period of time in order to really show whether or not a more permanent change is worth it, and move away from a possible temporary change and into something more permanent.
