‘Wicked’ Made $100M On PVOD, Says Universal Distribution Chief As Windows Debate Rages – CinemaCon

deadline.com:

Wicked made Universal in the neighborhood of $100 million on PVOD, cash it can use to make more movies, which will ultimately help exhibition, said Peter Levinsohn, Chairman, Global Distribution, NBCUniversal Entertainment & Studios as the debate over exclusive theatrical windows dominates CinemaCon. “We are a theatrical first company,” he said at at an industry panel at Las Vegas gathering alongside Regal Cineworld CEO Eduardo Acuna, FI and Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski and Neon CEO Tom Quinn.  “Theatrical is the foundation, it’s the underpinning of every single thing we do.

It’s where the brand is created, and it is the proxy for value of all of the ancillary windows,” Levinsohn said. But “we need to be with consumers, and the consumer is not going to go to see every single movie in the theater.” He said over the last few years the studio has fine-tuned its windowing, “which has made us more profitable, particularly among the small to mid-range films … [which] has allowed us to make more movies.

And there’s no question that we have by far the biggest slate in the industry. And we’re only able to do that because of the improved economics.” He noted that NBCU moves films on-demand more quickly than to streaming, which it considers “substantially more disruptive” to the ecosystem and where it remains “conservative.” Acuna was not convinced, saying the average customer doesn’t know the difference between transactional, subscription or streaming.

They just think the film is coming soon to their home for free, and that trains them to wait, which is squeezing box office.