WATCH: Talking “Argylle” and seeing big-budget films in theaters vs streaming them at home
Chatting with LiveNOW from FOX host Jeané Franseen about the current lack of enthusiasm for seeing movies in theaters and when/if that might change.
Spent a few minutes Sunday morning talking to LiveNOW on FOX host Jeané Franseen about the new Apple Original Films and Universal Pictures release “Argylle” and also about ongoing post-Pandemic apathy regarding actually “going” to the movies versus streaming them at home. Check it out:
https://www.livenowfox.com/video/1405865
A few points I didn’t get to during the chat:
“Argylle” cost Apple $200 million to produce, including $80 million to market the film (Universal Pictures picked up half of that cost). The film opened in over 3,600 U.S. theaters and only earned $6.5 million on Friday (including $1.5M from Thursday night previews).
Nielsen’s recent annual report on what Americans watched most on streaming “revealed” something you probably already knew: that U.S. consumers use their streaming channels to primarily do two things: 1) watch re-runs of older shows; and 2) catch up on movies they chose to skip seeing in theaters. The numbers supporting that conclusion will definitely mitigate any talk of “Argylle” being any sort of “box office bomb” despite the very soft grosses in its opening weekend. It was produced by a company who primarily creates content for its streaming platform — it will eventually make its way to that streaming platform and justify its existence and its cost at that point, not now.