Bigger franchises. Fewer slow-burn hits. Releasing movies is still a messy business

With a month left to go in an erratic, stomach-churning year for Hollywood, the box office finally started to show some life again with the triple-threat of “Moana 2,” “Wicked” and “Gladiator II.”

“Moana 2,” the animated Walt Disney Co. musical sequel, exploded with $221 million over the long Thanksgiving weekend, while all movies combined generated a massive $420 million in revenue in the U.S. and Canada during the five-day Wednesday-to-Sunday period.

The Turkey Day wins are helping theater operators make up some lost ground. Before last week, the domestic box office was down by more than 10% from the same time in 2023, according to Comscore. Today, the year-over-year decline is 6%. Still not ideal, but improving.

But the positive momentum shouldn’t give observers the impression that all is well in the film industry. Beyond Disney’s tentpole strategy making a comeback in the second Bob Iger era, there’s a pervasive sense that the movie business, and particularly film distribution, is still a bit of a mess nearly five years after the COVID-19 pandemic emergency.

The industry’s hyperfocus on creating blockbuster “events” has clearly worked out for the pink-and-green-hued and heavily marketed Broadway adaptations, computer animated cartoons and sci-spectacles, particularly those with “Part Two” in their titles. Everything else is leaving theaters faster than Moana and Maui’s outrigger canoe, giving the non-tentpole features little breathing room to find their audience.

Before the pandemic shuttered theaters, the average length of the theatrical window — the time between a movie’s release in theaters and its availability for home viewing — was 79 days, according to entertainment industry sources. This year, the average is about 40 days.

Thus, as my colleague Samantha Masunaga recently wrote, the “casual moviegoer” — the type of audience member who might go out and catch up with a recent release five or six weeks into its run — is becoming a thing of the past.

By the time your aunt and uncle, who don’t read the Hollywood trades and don’t have a Letterboxd account, hear about an interesting mid-tier movie from a friend or family member, it might be too late to see it in theaters. (That’s on top of the other persistent complaints about multiplexes, including pricing, the number of trailers and rude patrons.)

Edward Berger’s papal drama “Conclave,” for example, came out at the end of October and has generated Oscar hype and a solid $30 million for Focus Features and theaters. But it’s already available for a $20 at-home rental. “Conclave” is still playing in a limited number of theaters, but there aren’t a plethora of screening options, even in Los Angeles.

Such a release strategy probably makes financial sense for Focus and its parent company, Comcast-owned NBCUniversal. This way, they don’t have to restart the marketing campaign in three months. And having multiple ways to watch is certainly convenient for audiences. But it’s the type of release that shows how studio strategies may be changing consumer habits.

It’s still unclear what led Warner Bros. Discovery to make Clint Eastwood’s “Juror #2” a straight-to-streaming release, rather than giving what may be the 94-year-old director’s last film a full-blown theatrical bow. Despite widespread acclaim for the legal drama, the studio released it in only a handful of cinemas and declined to report box-office grosses. The company said it elected to wage a small theatrical campaign to create buzz for this month’s streaming debut.

According to the company, this had been the plan all along and the filmmakers were on board. Nonetheless, it’s a sign of the times that the studio didn’t think Eastwood’s target audience would’ve trekked out for the $30-million picture in today’s marketplace. The decision is all the more surprising given Eastwood’s track record — though far from perfect — of delivering late-stage successes such as “The Mule” and “American Sniper.”

Tech giants that had been gung-ho about getting their movies on the big screen have pulled back on their ambitions. In recent years, Apple and Amazon embarked on plans to invest $1 billion each on movies made for theaters as the box office appeared to be on the mend.

But Apple in particular has backtracked after a series of expensive commercial flops, including “Argylle” and “Fly Me to the Moon.” The company dramatically scaled down the planned release for the Brad Pitt-George Clooney two-hander “Wolfs,” a decision that angered director Jon Watts, who took the unusual step of publicly expressing dissatisfaction with his distribution partner to Deadline. Amazon, in contrast, has signaled it wants to increase its theatrical output.

With the studios’ sticking primarily with in-house intellectual property and some deep-pocketed players becoming increasingly risk-averse, it’s a challenging time for filmmakers trying to pitch nonfranchise movies.

Even if they have a strong script and impressive talent attached to a project, they say they’re placing more of their hopes on specialty distributors such as A24 and Neon, which recently secured a $200-million credit facility to expand its operations. Neon released the horror hit “Longlegs” and has done well with Sean Baker’s Oscar hopeful, “Anora.”

No doubt, the movie business needs blockbusters and I.P. That’s clear from the way “Moana 2,” “Wicked” and “Gladiator II” dominated the marketplace over Thanksgiving, with theater operators handing over as much real estate as they could to the big studio product. Around 75% of showtimes were dedicated to the top three pictures during the weekend, according to Boxoffice Co.

Disney has certainly figured out what works in this theatrical environment. Despite middling reviews, “Moana 2” became the latest blockbuster from Disney, which is having a huge year on the success of “Inside Out 2” and “Deadpool and Wolverine.”

The winning streak for family-oriented films has proven that movie night with the kids is still a major driver of business.

Just look at the $1-billion results from last year’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and this summer’s “Inside Out” sequel, as well as more modest successes such as DreamWorks Animation’s “The Wild Robot.” Still to come: “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” and “Mufasa: The Lion King.”

Remarkably, “Moana 2” was originally planned as a streaming series, but the company wisely pivoted. Gone are the days when it plausibly made sense to use animated movie franchises to boost streaming subscription numbers while skipping theaters.

For movies that aren’t such obvious hits, the sands for some studios are still shifting. There isn’t as much room for slow-burn hits as there used to be.

Stuff we wrote

Capitol rioter’s defamation suit against Fox News is dismissed. A judge granted Fox News’ motion to dismiss a lawsuit by Ray Epps, who alleged he was wrongly accused of being an FBI plant in the 2021 Capitol riot.

Investors slam Warner Bros. Discovery with lawsuit over loss of NBA deal. Investors are calling foul over Warner Bros. Discovery’s loss of its NBA media rights deal to NBCUniversal and Amazon. The company recently settled its lawsuit with the league.

Huge sports events are coming to streaming. Is the technology ready for prime time? Netflix’s Paul vs. Tyson boxing match had major technical issues. The company is working to improve the live TV experience for its viewers before two much-hyped NFL games.

Number of the week

Walt Disney Co. last week agreed to pay $43.3 million to resolve a long-running lawsuit brought by a group of female employees who alleged gender pay discrimination at the Burbank entertainment giant.

Disney did not admit fault as part of the settlement, reports The Times’ Meg James. The company has long rejected allegations that it paid women less than their male counterparts and has asserted that the case conflated the experiences of a small group of women to cast doubt on the company’s pay practices.

The case originated in 2019. In addition to setting up a fund to pay the plaintiffs, Disney agreed to hire an “industrial/organizational psychologist” to provide training to Disney executives. Disney also said it would hire an outside labor economist to perform a pay equity analysis of certain positions for three years.

“We have always been committed to paying our employees fairly and have demonstrated that commitment throughout this case,” a Disney spokesperson said in a statement. “We are pleased to have resolved this matter.”

Finally ...

Mike Schur’s “The Good Place” was one of my favorite modern comedy series. I’m pleased to report that his latest, “A Man on the Inside” on Netflix starring Ted Danson, is also highly entertaining and, at times, moving.