Happy Thursday everyone! This is Paul Bernardo with another installment of Paulie’s Perspective! I hope you are all doing well and today we take a look at some thoughts from Tony Vinciquerra, Sony Picture’s CEO. Sony is releasing Venom: Let There Be Carnage on October 15, and as of now, it is tracking huge.
Tony Vinciquerra, CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment is deciding to release the movie Venom Let There Be Carnage two whole weeks early because the film studio says they have confidence in people now going to the movies even though the Delta Variant seems a bit strong, Tony says the one clear takeaway from the Labor Day release of Shang-Chi and The Legend Of The 10 Rings is that these days, even though we’re still under a pandemic, if people have interest in a movie they will mask up and they will take their family and they will go have a movie night. The pandemic does not seem to be keeping people away from the theater as much as it did last year. So Sony is releasing Venom Let There Be Carnage two weeks early because they have confidence that it’s going to have a very strong showing, it’s going to have a big box office weekend, and it is expected to make lots of money.
Tony, the Sony Pictures chief, also said recently that he feels there are too many film studios right now making too many projects especially with the streaming battles going on right now. “I think we may see one or two less studios over the next five years”, Tony has stated. Sony is one of the few enterprises that do not have their own streaming services. They are pretty much creating content and selling to the highest bidder. Sony is also big in the gaming industry. They have about 10 projects in the works with PlayStation alone, and about nine other game projects in development stages.
Sony is releasing Cinderella with singer Camila Cabello and releasing Bullet Train with Brad Pitt and Bad Bunny who is signed under the Sony label. Tony says one of his big concerns right now is China. They are not welcoming American films at this time. China has always been a huge box office boost to Hollywood films, especially of the Marvel Universe. Tony also says the window for theatrical releases will most likely be shorter in the future. He expects movies to be out between 45 and 60 days and no longer. They will be going to streaming services earlier than usual, they will be released on Blu ray earlier than usual and this business model is thanks to the pandemic. A lot of movie studios wish to get back to theatrical release, talent is not happy nor are studio executives, with straight to streaming releases but they all feel there is a place for that. Especially for content that will not do so well in theaters but could do amazingly well with streaming audiences. So it seems like just another tier of revenue that movie studios have an option to use.
When asked which genre came out of the pandemic unscathed, Tony said horror films have been the most successful throughout the pandemic, and surprisingly not so much comedies. Marvel products have also done extremely well during these trying times. Tony Vinciquerra and Sony look forward to better days ahead, he also looks forward to using the new business models and the new options to release content to the masses to see which will fade away and which will stay.
I know everyone loved the first Venom. I am very much looking forward to Venom Part 2, even with the pandemic, I’m sure there’s going to be a huge turnout for this film. Sony Pictures may have lost Spiderman but Venom I feel is something they are treating very well and it is content that is performing very well and I’m sure there will be more to come and maybe even some spin offs. Thank you for reading this week fans, I can be reached as always at paul.bernardo@me.com and I shall see you next week.
