A futuristic digital interface displays movie posters for Tenet, Wonder Woman, and Black Widow against a dark background with neon lights.

This is, without much exaggeration, the biggest seismic shift in motion picture distribution since the widespread adoption of television: brand new tentpole films sent straight to streaming with absolutely no delay (cutting out traditional television networks and traditional home video entirely) meaning that theaters now will solely rely on the experience they can offer rather than exclusivity of content; moreover, WB and HBO evidently banked on increased subscriptions to HBO Max making up for potential lost box office proceeds. This represented a colossal shift in distribution and marketing, all largely driven by the realities of COVID and pandemic life. Things looked bleak for movie theaters, and indeed many chains declared bankruptcy and independent theaters pleaded for financial aid. On the creative end, American studios will likely have to reconsider their hyper-focus on extremely expensive Summer Blockbusters, as limited theatrical releases and streaming revenues proved insufficient to make films like TENET, Wonder Woman 1984, and Black Widow (2021) profitable. While many theaters in the United States reopened in August 2020, the results were deeply dispiriting; TENET, which many hoped would serve as a welcome-back event for eager customers, bombed at the box office, leading most other big titles to be delayed into 2021. This spurred the aforementioned moves by Disney and Warner Bros. into streaming as the pandemic hit its worst months in the country. The outlook for Mehr sehen