经济学人下载:好莱坞巨变--迪士尼,华纳加入流媒体战场(1)

Business 

商业版块

Cinema and streaming 

大荧幕和流媒体

Big bets on the small screen 

大举押注小荧幕

Hollywood is pivoting to home entertainment 

好莱坞正在转向家庭娱乐领域

If any industry could use help from Wonder Woman, it is cinemas. Lockdowns and a dearth of new releases have reduced worldwide box-office takings by about 70% in 2020. Thankfully for theatre owners, the corseted crusader will charge to the rescue on Christmas Day, giving audiences a reason to go back to the movies. 

如果说有哪个行业需要从《神奇女侠》中获益，那就是电影业无疑了。疫情封锁，加之无上新大片，2020年的全球票房缩水了70%左右。谢天谢地，这位身穿紧身衣的女战士将在圣诞节当天前往救援，给观众们一个重返电影院的理由。

Yet in a plot twist, AT&T, the telecoms giant that owns the film’s producer, Warner Bros, has announced that “Wonder Woman 1984” and the 17 feature films on Warner’s release slate for 2021 will be made available on its HBO Max streaming service on the day they are released in cinemas, which historically have had an exclusive run of a few months. Purists are aghast. “The future of cinema will be on the big screen, no matter what any Wall Street dilettante says,” declared Denis Villeneuve, whose sci-fi epic, “Dune”, is among the affected films. 

然而情节出现了转折，《神奇女侠》的制作公司华纳兄弟所属的电信巨头美国电话电报公司（AT&T）宣布，《神奇女侠1984》及华纳2021年上映名单上的17部影片将在影院上映当天在其流媒体服务平台HBO Max上同步播出，而在以前，影院要先独家放映几个月。纯粹的电影工作者为此瞠目结舌。丹尼斯·维伦纽夫宣称：“不管华尔街的那些外行人怎么说，电影业的未来只寄托于大屏幕。”丹尼斯·维伦纽夫的科幻史诗巨作《沙丘》也受到了波及。

Warner is not the only studio shifting its focus to the small screen. In July Universal Pictures, part of Comcast, a cable company, did a deal with AMC, the world’s largest cinema chain, to give theatres just 17 days before its films are made available online (AMC will get a cut of streaming revenues). Paramount Pictures, owned by Viacomcbs, has sold several films to Netflix this year rather than release them to empty auditoriums. And on December 10th Disney, Hollywood’s biggest studio, signalled that it, too, sees its future in streaming. 

华纳并不是唯一一家将重心转移到小屏幕的电影制片厂。今年7月，有线电视公司康卡斯特旗下的环球影业与全球最大的连锁院线AMC达成了一项协议，在其电影院线播放17天后上线网络平台（AMC将因此分得一部分流媒体收益）。维亚康姆旗下的派拉蒙影业今年已向Netflix出售了几部电影，而没有选择在观众席空荡荡的电影院里上映。12月10日，好莱坞最大的电影制片厂迪士尼也表示，它未来也将转向流媒体领域。