Will Packer on Switching to Streaming with Peacock’s ‘Praise This’

variety.com:

Angelique Jackson After making more than $1.4 billion at the box office, producer Will Packer has gotten into the streaming game with “Praise This.” The Peacock original marks Packer’s first time producing a movie that wasn’t destined for cinemas.

While the new distribution plan might seem like a reaction to the hit or miss theatrical business — or the kind of pivot that would happen after a box office bomb, which Packer has yet to suffer, by the way — that’s not what’s behind the change in strategy. “Malleable” is a word Packer has found himself using quite often in reference to the current state of moviemaking. “I’ve had a lot of success with movies that were moderately-budgeted breakout theatrical hits,” he tells Variety over tea at the Mandarin Oriental in New York City. “But there are some of my movies that were successful theatrically five to 10 years ago that I don’t think would have the same success today, because it’s a different environment.

That’s okay. Media always changes. You’ve got to be malleable and look at your ultimate goals.” Thus, the prolific producer — whose eponymous production company has seen 10 movies open No.

1 domestically, including “Stomp the Yard” and the “Think Like a Man” and “Ride Along” franchises – is diversifying his portfolio. “Within a 12-month period, I’ve had ‘Beast,’ which is a theatrical film; ‘Praise This,’ which is a streaming film; another streaming film [‘Dashing Through the Snow’], which is releasing later this year on Disney+; and then I am going into production, hopefully, this fall on a theatrical movie,” he says. “I’ve got to be able to make ’em in a variety of ways and I’ve got to be able to think of my audience.” Billed as a “cinematic musical event,” the Peacock