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Trolls World Tour Is the Most Controversial Movie of the Decade
Springtime is here, the school year is ending, and summer is right around the corner. We usually get our first summer blockbusters in May, but this year is going to be very different. Marvel’s Black Widow was slated for release on May 1st, and Fast and the Furious 9 was expected on May 22nd. Like many other movies, their theatric releases have been postponed.
When will the cinemas open again? We don’t know. In the meantime viewers can spend their movie budget streaming Trolls World Tour. Rather than postpone the release, Universal opted to go digital. Movie cinemas aren’t happy.
Yes, Trolls has become the face of cinematic controversy. Not because of the content in the film, but because it bypassed the big screen and went straight to the small screen.
Movie theaters have not taken kindly to Universal’s decision to push Trolls World Tour to a paid video on demand (PVOD) release. AMC CEO Adam Aron recently stated the chain would ban Universal’s movies because of the company’s decision to skip the “theatric window.” This is the margin of time when a movie can only be viewed in theaters, before it is release on other formats. Cineworlds, owner of Regal Cinemas, has issued a similar warning. They stated they won’t show movie who skip over this window.
This could spell bad news for Universal, or good news for customers.
The Success of Trolls World Tour
On the surface, the PVOD release of Trolls World Tour is reasonable. All movies are postponed, but there’s demand for new movies right now. Especially from the younger crowd who have been out of school for almost two months. So Universal made the decision to give people Trolls!
Unlike Disney’s decision to push Onward to an early release, Trolls was not exclusive to one service. Amazon listed the rental for $19.99 upon its April 10th release, and you can rent the movie for the same price on other services like iTunes, Google Play, or YouTube. A 48 hour rental costs more than a single movie ticket, but people still rented it.
Truth be told, the Trolls World Tour audience was never going to buy just one ticket to the movie. Most viewing parties are going to include child and a…
