Little Women, Bad Boys for Life, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Jumanji The Next Level and Spider-Man 2Sony announced another big play in the streaming wars yesterday. After signing a deal with Netflix as their official first pay-tv window , Sony has now signed a second pay-tv window with Disney. The short version is that upcoming Sony theatrical releases will debut in theaters and then will premiere on Netflix.
As much as we discuss the buzzy and media-friendly Netflix originals, it’s often third-party content, be it television shows like, that notches the biggest general viewership for a given week. And theatrically-targeted movies are still a huge deal even in a streaming era. Consumers may not actually see these movies in theaters, but they prefer to watch films that were previously in theaters or intended for theaters over streaming originals. That’s why Disney’swas not.
All due respect to Crackle, but Sony does not have an A-level streaming platform. Rather than spend the billions of dollars to build one and engage in a mad cash for “content” in the hopes of thriving or even surviving alongside the current glut of services, Sony is making its own catalogue arguably the most valuable game in town by remaining a free agent. Once the Disney deal expires in 2026, Sony can either re-up with Disney or start a likely bidding war.
In a future where all Universal movies go to Peacock, all Warner Bros. movies go to HBO Max, all Paramount flicks end up on Paramount+ and all Disney movies end up on Disney+, then Sony’s rich back-catalogue makes it a prize catch. This may be enough to justify both theatrically-viable franchises and the theatrically-bound old-school “movies” . Those films, think, are increasingly risky in a theatrical environment where folks only go to the movies for franchise-friendly event films.
As with everything in the streaming wars era, this gets a big wait-and-see. But as the streamers realize that they need more than just buzzy originals, and that streaming consumers are as likely to binge an old favorite television show or long-forgotten studio programmer as consume “your latest streaming obsession,” the studios that have large libraries which aren’t permanently beholden to a studio-specific streaming platform may have the proverbial golden ticket.
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