Freaky director slams Halloween Ends hybrid streaming release: “Stop gambling with filmmakers and their movies”
Christopher Landon, who says his film Freaky was "destroyed" after being released on VOD just a few weeks into its theatrical run, is begging studios to stop
Aux News halloween
David Gordon Green’s third Halloween movie, Halloween Ends, is now out in front of the viewing public, drawing fairly divisive notices for Green’s complicated, untraditional take on Haddonfield, IL, and its murderous relationship with its least-favorite son. The film is drawing some ire for the release strategy that’s been applied to it, too—which, like last year’s Halloween Kills, sees the movie arrive simultaneously in theaters and on the premium tiers of NBC-affiliated streaming service Peacock.
Specifically, the release plan has drawn angry comments from Happy Death Day and Freaky director Christopher Landon, who knows from disastrous hybrid release plans: Released in the very heart of the pandemic lockdowns—arriving in November of 2020—Freaky was in theaters for only four weeks before being made available on video-on-demand by the studio. Despite getting decent reviews for both its Freaky-Friday-as-a-slasher premise, and for starring performances from Vince Vaughn and Kathryn Newton, the film was a fairly brutal flop, bringing in just $16 million overall.
Which Landon, offering up a “rant” on Twitter today, points pretty squarely at Universal’s release strategy. “Stop doing this,” he writes, reference the release of both Ends and his own film. “Please. It doesn’t work. Studios: stop gambling with filmmakers and their movies to try and prop up your fledgling streaming services.”
Landon goes on to note that,
This happened to me on Freaky and it destroyed us. We worked SO HARD to make a fun movie. Blood sweat and tears. Months away from our families. And for what? They love to use the term: “two bites of the apple” but that’s just another way of saying “we’re gonna use your movie as a Guinea pig” for our Streaming service. Sorry. I begged the studio not to do this. Either circle the wagons and protect it for theatrical or just go all in on streaming. Don’t split hairs. At least the Halloween folks were made whole. We got hosed. So yeah…bitter subject. PTSD.
Landon ends his comments on a pithy, pissed-off note: “Dear studios: stop trying to suck two dicks at the same time. Honor the sanctity of the theatrical experience.”
It’s worth noting that while Ends isn’t exactly doing poorly this weekend—it’s on track to make about $43 million, against a $30 million budget—it is performing about $10 million under what it was expected to make, with plenty of critics eyeing the simultaneous streaming release as a possible culprit.
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….and next week will drop -78% from this weekend take.
Halloween Kills is why this isn’t doing as well as expected
Right? Maybe make a good movie and then complain if it doesn’t get a proper release.
Well you could release a movie like this in a theater, and have me walking out going “God what a piece of shit” and refusing to ever watch it again….or I can see it on Peacock, think it was surprising all right, and be willing to watch it again sometime.
Along with Halloween Kills not going over well, this movie is being poorly received and the embargo was not lifted until right when it was released. It was bound to lose money.
No one was going to see Freaky because of covid. Get over it man. The sequel to happy death day, which he also did, bombed with none of these issues.Kills did really well last year. Because people wanted to see that. They don’t want to see this.
Look at all these movies continuing to make money after months in the theater and available to rent or stream. Make stuff people want to see.
I was unaware Happy Death Day 2 U bombed. I didn’t like it nearly as much as the first film, but then I’m also not into Back to the Future 2 (which at least wasn’t part of a slasher franchise).
Bombed is a bit of an exaggeration by me but it’s another movie where non US territories saved the box office from looking terrible. It made 64 million while happy death day made 125 world wide. It’s numbers were poor in the US and it disappeared from theaters pretty quickly. I remember seeing it Saturday, opening weekend at a major theater and it was not very populated in there.
Sorry, but no. I saw Freaky in theaters, I loved it, but it was in theaters for 4 weeks before it hit streaming services. If it didn’t make money by then, it wasn’t going to happen.
I mean the fact that there’s not enough time for word of mouth to spread is a problem.
Word wasn’t the only thing spreading from people’s mouths at the time.
Well that goes to “releasing a thing before there was even a vaccine was not a good idea”
And there’s always one making things political…..
So people didn’t go see Freaky in theaters ‘cause it was released on VOD a month into its run, not because it was “released in the very heart of the pandemic lockdowns”?
Yes, please honor his severe and genuine PTSD for a 2020s Vince Vaughn movie flopping during the pandemic that killed millions. But NOT because of the pandemic, silly, it was only because of jackass movie execs who constantly fuck things up, rain or shine, plague or not.
I’m sure the movie was fine and could have had a chance, but this dude is embracing some serious alternate reality logic here.
I saw it (via streaming) and liked it a lot. It’s a pretty clever idea and genuinely really funny, with some good gore scenes. Not a four star masterpiece, but I had a good time with it and would have absolutely gone to the theater to see it if there had been a real release.
A lot of people are clearly not reading what the guy actually said. Guys, Landon -knows- that the pandemic was still raging and there was no vaccine at the time. Everyone on earth does. If you actually read his thread, he addresses that by saying that the studio should have delayed the movie until more theaters were actually open and people starting going back. You know, like the studios did with plenty of other movies.
It’s the day and date shit that doesn’t work. Even films like Dune, Matrix 4, etc under-performed because of it, let alone tons of smaller films, and this DOES affect not only the viewership of the films themselves but also the residuals and other payments. When he says the Halloween people were at least “made whole” unlike his team, that’s what he means – some deal was at least worked out with the Halloween cast and crew so that the people that worked on it were still compensated the way they normally would be, but that isn’t what happened on his film or plenty of others.
He has every right to be upset about that. It’s a failed strategy that, at this point, isn’t even necessary anymore and actually is hurting the people who work on the films in meaningful ways.
He misused PTSD, or PTSD has a pretty low floor and I’ve only ever experienced the ceiling on it. I absolutely do not deny that he got hosed, and studio suits can suck it. I kinda doubt that having your movie released poorly is a traumatic event, at least not compared to what I’ve been through and people I’ve known. I’m mostly talking about that specifically.
He sounds like Kyle in Party Down after his base jumping movie gets dumped in Asia as “Jumping Boys”
People use terms in an exaggerated way on social media all the time and many use PTSD to describe a more trivial event in their past that they prefer not to remember…this is such a silly complaint to me.
Freaky rocked (I love affectionate horror mashups like Happy Death Day), turning VV’s tiresome persona into something fresh and fun to watch. I’m sure VOD impacted it to some degree, but pre-vaxx America was also a super-tough marketplace.Cannot find any good reports on how horror fared in 2020, though there is some insight into 2021 results (a very different setting, post-vaxx).https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/30/candyman-proves-how-profitable-horror-movies-are-at-the-box-office.html
Fair enough, I guess, but it seems like this sort of thing should be worked out contractually before the movie’s actually made.
That’s possible with larger studios. But most films—especially horror films—these days are made by smaller companies and then acquired by studios and distributors after the fact, or sometimes close to production wrapping. The average filmmaker doesn’t really have a say in distribution. They’re told after the fact where the movie will show.
I saw it. I wasn’t impressed. Who’s begging who? It’s not the streaming services. Nobody has cash to waste on terrible movies at theaters.
I understand that it’s much easier to estimate “how much money this movie makes” in theaters, since box office receipts exist and even though some people aren’t going to the theater to see a particular movie, they still can choose to see Movie A instead of Movie B.But streaming services also make money, and they also need to keep the content faucet running to keep people from cancelling their subscriptions and it’s hard to estimate how many people are going to sign up for or not-cancel their Netflix subscriptions for Glass Onion, for example. There should be some part of this that’s “I just want to make a thing and have people see it” since the people for whom box office makes a difference probably aren’t you.Streaming absolutely needs to address the discoverability problem, since I’m sure there’s a ton of good stuff I can stream that I would enjoy greatly but I’m not watching it for whatever reason. Lots of people probably would have enjoyed Freaky and didn’t stream it.
Who paid to have Freaky made? Because unless Landon shelled out the money from his bank account, he should be happy he got paid to make a movie.If I produce anything at work and get a paycheck for it, I really can’t bitch that my company does what they want with the property they hired me to create.
As someone who as created and worked on numerous projects that were good but mostly unseen due to the top brass screwing up the landing, I couldn’t agree more. We made quality product, and someone else ruined it when it was their turn to take over and run with it. But the rest of us got paid and made a quality product on our end. In the end, we were happy because we otherwise would have nothing, including the paycheck.
Compensation for a large number of people working on a film (including director, producers, and above-the-line talent) can often be based on incentives and points on the gross of the film. If the studio decides to premiere a film simultaneously on a streaming service and in theaters, but only pays those incentives/points on the money from theatrical gross, while taking all the money from streaming service subscriptions for themselves, they’re intentionally diverting money that would have gone to creators into their own pockets.
Eventually the unions will fight for and win contracts which make it just as profitable for creators to have their work on streaming services as in theaters (thus removing the incentive for the studios to use these films as streaming service loss leaders) and this problem will be solved.
See also Scarlett Johansson’s suit against Disney that was settled because they undercut the theatrical gross of Black Widow, a large portion of which would have gone back to Johansson, with a simultaneous “premium” Disney+ release.
Various reasons I stopped going to the theatre as much, even pre-COVID:
* Too expensive
* Some of the niche films I wanted to see weren’t being shown closer than one theatre over an hour away
* Other patrons were extremely rude and were not allowing me to enjoy the movie in silence and peace like I had wanted
* Now that COVID is an issue, I am very selective on where I go and when because I am immunocompromised
I do want to see more horror films in particular, but I confess it is a genre I know absolute fuck-all about. I have not seen any of this gentleman’s films or any of the Halloween films, and would not know where to start.
Start with Halloween (79).
I rented Freaky on DVD from a Redbox. I don’t think I’ve seen any of Landon’s films in a theater, and he can’t blame VOD for that.I can understand why he might be upset about his film, but Halloween Ends has nothing to do with him, and I haven’t seen David Gordon Green complaining.
Is is possible to know how much Freaky made via streaming?
Can it even really be considered to make money then?
This is one problem with streaming: there’s no real way to quantify the gross. Not when the services don’t provide actual viewer numbers…which they tend to only do when the movie is supposedly very popular.“30 million people watched on Netflix,” sounds amazing. But that includes people who watch for like 20 minutes and then turn it off….which happens a LOT with streaming. It also means there could be a roomful of people watching. Or just one.But there’s no proof 30 million people would have paid 15 bucks apiece to see this one movie theatres. They pay that per month to see dozens of things on one service. The convenience of subscription and home viewing is obviously part of the appeal. Not only for audiences but, despite this guy being upset, the filmmakers, as well.
Plenty of “hits,” on streaming services would never have been greenlit by the average studio, nor have a chance in hell of being seen by tens of millions of people. Three overall income is undoubtedly less than what many movies would make in the old days…but with far more viewers watching the movie.
The Gross doesn’t matter with streaming. They’ve already been paid for the right to stream. If its something done in house, the word of mouth, popularity and uptick in subscribers when it drops is what they measure.
Movies don’t make any money via streaming (explicitly excluding PPV and VOD). That’s the problem. There’s this perception that putting theatrical movies on streaming services the same day and date as it releases in theaters will drive a lot of people to sign up for the streaming service, but we’ve yet to see that really happen. At worst, a ton of people watch it, but they were already signed up. They don’t buy the DVD because why would they? It’s on streaming. And the lack of revenue means no big press tour, which can further diminish how many people are actually aware of and watch the movie.It’s frankly a pretty dumb business model.
I saw the movie. And this isn’t about liking it or not, this is about the director’s argument in believing Universal/Blumhouse killed the movie by releasing in cinemas and on streaming. I’m agreeing with most of the posts on here. I believe in a case by case basis, and in this case, David Gordon Green points for his arguments are kind of weak sauce now. It didn’t bomb this weekend. The numbers are high enough that the studio can fire back and spin this to a reasonable counterpoint. It’s not their strategy for releasing the movie that resulting in poor word of mouth, it’s the quality of the film from a director that made bad choices in where the direction of the franschise should go.The budget for Halloween Ends was hovering around 20 something million. It’s had a 43 million opening. They were hoping that Halloween Ends would make about the same numbers as Halloween Kills on it’s opening weekend. It didn’t. However as tradition goes with horror films, Halloween wasn’t made on a huge budget. “Ends” is already set to make its money back, and make a profit by the time October is over. What the studio can say, is that out of the three Halloween films, this will be a profitable, but lowest grossing film in this trilogy. Considering both critics and “Halloween” devotees have savaged the film, Universal/Blumhouse can now counter with, “Unfortunately it seems this film will not be living up to Michael Myers fans who were disappointed. Fans love Halloween, they just don’t enjoy David Gordon Green’s Halloween.”Right now Universal/Blumhouse are going to give themselves high fives for still making money off of something terrible. And they won’t let it end like this. There will be more films, because one of the producers had a clause prohibiting Michael Myers to be killed. However, any future films will likely follow a separate continuity due to Michael’s obvious death.
Wait, you don’t think Michael Myers made it? I feel like there was a lot of gray area
At this point, it really doesn’t matter. They either retconn it, remake it, go full blown supernatural with it, even go meta with it. It’s a Halloween movie. There will be more. As for will it be a direct sequel to these last 3 movies? Probably not. The studio probably will go in a different direction given the reception of these last two movies.
Son of Michael Meyers…or..The Curse of Michael Meyers..,,Mikey son Stephen is alive as is Laurie’s son John…plus the remaining survivors with new characters. Sounds good to one like me who doesn’t want the eerie silent breathing masked killer gone yet!!
More realistically, the fact that Freaky was released on VOD a month after cinemas at a time when no one was going to cinemas because of an actual plague is probably the only reason most anyone saw it at all. Like, maybe Christopher Nolan is dragging lots of people to cinemas during the height of COVID-19 (and then just barely). But Christopher Landon?
I stopped taking my family to the movies after that psycho dressed up like batman and killed folks in the theater! I almost went to see the new Jurassic World on the silver screen this year on my birthday in June but watched it on a streaming service instead, thank goodness for that, the movie was trash, it would have been expensive to take 4 people out to see it and I would have been a nervous wreck trying to watch the audience and the film lol
I’m pretty sure the problem is that Halloween Ends is a pretty bad sequel to a bad sequel.
Wouldn’t a better alternative be to find a way to make VOD releases benefit the film creators instead of forcing people to always have to go to a theater for new films? Particularly when we’re still dealing with a pandemic? Or does it no longer matter now that the media isn’t covering the deaths as much?
No one’s being forced into a theater, period.
Counter-point: Fuck off.It got released on streaming 4 weeks after theatrical runs. Did he expect a huge influx of people to go see it in the 5th week? Cuz that’s how it works right…..the 5th week is when movies really make their money at the theater……As a filmmaker, you should care that people see your movie, not how they see it. Unless he personally put the money up for it (which we know he didn’t), he got paid to make pretend. Who cares where movies get released; theater, streaming or both. It’s suppose to be about “the art” isn’t it? Getting people to see and enjoy that art in whatever way they can?
It sounds like he is upset because his comp, and others on his movie, was based solely on theaterical performance and they didn’t get any credit for streaming performance. Which is fair. But it also sounds like the talent behind the Halloween movie got fairly compensated for a hybrid release model. And if that’s the case, why is there an issue? Streaming isn’t going away and a lot of people prefer to watch something at home vs going to a theater.