‘Tenet’ Thrives On VOD As ‘News Of The World’ And ‘Croods 2’ Top PVOD Charts

Movies like News of the World, The Croods: A New Age and Promising Young Woman will benefit on VOD as audiences would have seen them in theaters if they were able to (safely) do so.

In today’s update in terms of “video on demand” (rent it for 48 hours for around $6), “premium video on demand” (rent it for 48 hours for around $20) and “electronic sell-through” (buy it on digital for around $20), News of the World is topping the charts at Fandango, Amazon and Vudu. The Tom Hanks-starring and Paul Greengrass-directed western opened in theaters on Christmas day alongside Wonder Woman 1984 and Promising Young Woman (more on that later). The film was a Covid-19 casualty in that Comcast sold the film’s overseas distribution rights to Netflix, so outside of American it’s a “Netflix original.” It has thus far earned $8.7 million in domestic theaters but I will assume that the Netflix deal at least accounted for the film’s $38 million production budget.

The film is tops over at Fandango and Vudu, which rank by overall revenue (as opposed to singular transactions), while it also rules on Amazon right next to, yet again, the first three seasons of Kevin Costner’s Yellowstone. The Paramount Network modern-day western has been on at or near the top of Amazon’s VOD lists for much of last year, or at least since I began checking these charts in the absence of conventional box office reports. It plays to the same demographics as Focus Features’ (very good) Diane Lane/Kevin Costner thriller Let Him Go and the aforementioned (pretty darn good) News of the World. If and when both films show up on Peacock, I imagine there will be much viewer overlap with the aforementioned Yellowstone.

The Croods: A New Age is in second place (among movies) at Fandango, Vudu, Google Play and Amazon. I can’t speak to raw PVOD revenue because Comcast won’t release them (gives Universal a Paddington stare). The DreamWorks Animation sequel earned $140 million in theaters worldwide on a $65 million budget and continues to sit near the top of pretty much every VOD chart. That seems to imply a profitable venture. The budget is the key here, as if this were as pricey as the first Croods ($135 million in 2013), we’d be having a different conversation. It’s the only “big” film thus far that’s been (in terms of actually making money) both a box office and PVOD success. Of course, The Croods earned $587 million worldwide, so theaters still matter.

By the way, Chris Nolan’s Tenet ranks sixth on both Fandango and Vudu, and it’s the highest-ranking title that isn’t a PVOD title. And it’s leading over at iTunes, Apple and other charts that list transactions rather than total revenue. In other words, if we were counting singular transactions as opposed to raw revenue (where you need three Tenet rentals to equal one Fatale rental or Batman: Soul of the Dragon purchase), the Chris Nolan flick would likely be topping all of these charts. That’s not a surprise since there are plenty of folks who would have otherwise seen the John David Washington/Robert Pattison sci-fi actioner in theaters had they safely been able to do so. Now that it’s available to rent for $6 (or purchase for $20), well, there you go.

This is a key distinction in play that will be “in play” for much of the year as big movies get multi-tier releases or forsake theaters altogether. There’s a difference between a movie that audiences might have been casually curious about but chose to watch when it came to VOD or DVD and one that they absolutely would have seen in theaters had theaters been open and/or safe. I don’t think Tenet would have topped $1 billion last summer, especially having seen the film, but a (good enough) global cume of around $$550-$650 million (on a $200 million budget) was plausible. Let’s assume $165 million domestic, including $58 million worth of folks who did see it theatrically last September and October. That’s around $100 million worth of moviegoers who unwillingly settled for VOD or Blu-ray.

Some of those consumers will buy the DVD or Blu-ray, some will rent it digitally for $6. Tenet topped DEG’s “most watched at home” list for almost every week since its post-theatrical debut, save for Christmas when folks watched National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and Elf. Both of those modern holiday classics belong to Warner Media. We can debate whether Tom Hanks’ News of the World, Michael Eale’s Fatale or Gerard Butler’s Greenland would have been conventionally strong in theaters under conventional circumstances, but we damn well know Tenet would have been a genuine theatrical blockbuster. Its relative muscle in terms of at-home consumption (including physical media, which incudes the film’s IMAX aspect ratio) isn’t a surprise, even if it’s probably not going to make up for a $354 million global gross.

Promising Young Woman is another title where, relatively speaking, there are absolutely folks who would have sought it out in theaters had it been possible/safe to do so and were eagerly awaiting its PVOD debut. We’re not talking massive numbers here, but a $3 million domestic cume isn’t that far off from where Emerald Fennell’s buzzy/acclaimed rape revenge dramedy might have been in conventional times prior to its showing in the awards season. If Carey Mulligan gets a Best Actress nod, it could be sticking around the VOD charts for awhile. It was always fated to be more blogged about than seen. Meanwhile, Tenet, The Croods: A New Age, The War with Grandpa and Greenland are the only titles showing up on almost every major top-ten chart (Apple, Fandango, Vudu, Google, Spectrum, etc.).