One of the Biggest Movie Flops of the Year Is a Streaming Hit. Now What?

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Something interesting happened early last month when the film Road House premiered on Amazon Prime Video: People started talking about it. That may not seem like such a big deal for a movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal and directed by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Mr. and Mrs. Smith), but after years of star-laden, streaming-only action “hits” like The Gray Man (starring Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans, now streaming exclusively on Netflix), Ghosted (starring Ana de Armas and Chris Evans, now streaming exclusively on Apple TV+), and Shotgun Wedding (starring Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel, now streaming exclusively on Prime Video), it was refreshing to see a movie premiering online appear to capture the online Zeitgeist, however briefly. Yes, I am fully aware that the streamers like to tout numbers telling us that millions and millions of people “watched” those other movies. (Ghosted, which came out a year ago and is definitely a movie that exists, was reportedly Apple TV+’s most-watched movie debut of all time.) Maybe they did, but they’ve certainly never seemed too interested in talking about them.

We know this by now: Even beyond their obviously cooked numbers, the streamers have made a point of producing pictures that are nice to play in the background while you do the dishes or make dinner or argue about Shōgun on X. The streaming situation is different for series, which have a built-in imperative to capture enough of your attention to get you to watch the next episode; many of us believe that forcing movies without that serial impulse onto the small screen would lead to a devaluation of the medium as a result. Sure enough, the films that have been released pretty much exclusively to streaming seem to barely exist in the public imagination, regardless of whether they are among the best of the year or Heart of Stone (starring Gal Gadot and Jamie Dornan, now streaming exclusively on Netflix).

But Road House. People actually wanted to discuss Road House — to argue about it online, praise it, hate on it, or analyze its fight scenes (and deem them “phony” or “innovative” or whatever). This was an interesting development in light of director Liman’s fury at his film going directly to streaming and his subsequent refusal to do press around it. I was with Liman spiritually — I got to see Road House in a theater and felt that its frenetic, free-flowing fight scenes worked particularly well in that setting — but I also understood why a movie that was already a remake of a 1980s junk-food cult classic whose reputation had been gradually redeemed via home video maybe shouldn’t go out on thousands of screens. Road House felt like a movie that would have flopped in theaters, especially in today’s topsy-turvy marketplace. Instead, for at least a hot second, it became a movie that could legitimately be called a hit on streaming: According to Nielsen’s ratings, in the final week of March, Road House was the most-watched film on streaming.

And yet: It’s only been a month and a half, but the Road House release feels like ancient history today. Instead, my X timeline lit up this month with people talking about an ostensibly less successful film: Matthew Vaughn’s Argylle, which premiered theatrically in early February only to be chainsawed by critics and rejected by audiences. (For the record, I was mixed on Argylle: I found its twisty story tiresome but enjoyed its bizarre, inventive action scenes.) Vaughn’s ambitious action-disaster appears to have found new life on streaming: It premiered on Apple TV+ on April 12 and is apparently doing very well; it came in second in Reelgood’s rankings, right behind Fallout and ahead of Netflix’s Ripley reboot. Behind Argylle on that list, interestingly, are two more theatrical releases that are now streaming: The Zone of Interest and Poor Things (which has been on Hulu since right before the Oscars). Again, I don’t put much trust in any of these numbers, but much like Road House and unlike, say, Red Notice (starring Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot, and Ryan Reynolds, now streaming exclusively on Netflix), Argylle did seem to get people talking again.

So, here we have an interesting case study, albeit an unscientific one. On one side, an honest-to-goodness, streaming-only hit; on the other, an honest-to-goodness theatrical flop. And the streaming hit still can’t match the cultural footprint of the theatrical flop, which is getting multiple bites at the apple because it was in theaters first and a theatrical release buys you a curiosity factor that can’t be matched by faceless algorithms and cynical auto-play high jinks. (Once upon a time, this was what the DVD market was for: A movie would open in theaters and then debut on DVD several months later, ahead of eventual cable and/or network TV premieres, making more money and gaining viewers at each step.) Either way, it would be ironic if Argylle wound up having a redemption arc closer to the original Road House (a bust in theaters, critically reviled, slow retroactive acceptance thanks to its genuine strangeness) than the actual remake of Road House wound up having. Maybe Doug Liman was right after all. As many people smarter than me have been arguing for some time now, a film’s best chance at both financial success and staying power remains the theatrical release. It also happens to be the best way to see a movie.

On some level, Hollywood seems to be learning the lesson, which is why we’re now seeing once-meant-for-streaming titles like Monkey Man and The First Omen (and before that, Smile and Evil Dead Rise and Blue Beetle and many others) get theatrical runs. Interestingly, last June, Amazon said it intended to send Challengers straight to streaming in France as a way of protesting what it saw as that country’s draconian rules around streaming theatrical films; seven months later, they decided to release the film theatrically after all. These are all victories for the cinematic experience. But they have been rear-guard actions, films whose digital-release plans were reversed because of some good test screenings, or because an influential individual intervened (as Jordan Peele did with Monkey Man), or because the executives in charge belatedly came to their senses. Yes, opening a movie costs money, but that doesn’t mean a theatrical release should be a begrudging afterthought. Sadly, there are still people in charge at some studios who dream of the day when none of their films will have to open in theaters. The sooner that kind of thinking becomes not just uncool but downright unacceptable in Hollywood, the better.

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Bilge Ebiri , 2024-05-01 18:37:22

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