With box office numbers for James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad disappointing the studio, Warner Bros has now announced that they’ll be moving back to theatrical exclusive movie releases instead of the current strategy of releasing films on HBO Max and in theaters at the same time.
Suicide Squad made just $26 million at the box office over the last weekend, and that’s not good at all for a film that had a budget of $175 million. The new deal will mean that AMC theaters (and probably other theater companies as well) will have a 45-day window in which they can screen new WB movies exclusively. That means films like Sesame Street, The Batman, Black Adam, Fantastic Beasts 3, The Flash, Aquaman 2, Wonka, DC League of Superpets, and many others are now guaranteed to hit the big screen for at least 45 days before moving over to any streaming platforms.