Universal’s Sudden Windowing Shift Shows Exhibitors Are Making Their Voices Heard | Analysis

With movie theaters fighting on multiple fronts to keep their businesses afloat and the box office steadily recovering, one constant plea they’ve stated is the need for longer and more consistent theatrical windows from Hollywood.

On Thursday, Universal answered that plea.

Effective immediately, the 17-day minimum theatrical window deal that Universal reached with theaters during the pandemic will be replaced with a 31-day minimum for all of its films on the 2026 slate, starting with this weekend’s Colleen Hoover adaptation “Reminders of Him.”

In 2027 that window will expand to 45 days for a slate that will include DreamWorks’ “Shrek 5” and “Cocomelon: The Movie,” Mike Flanagan’s take on “The Exorcist” and a live-action/CGI remake of “How to Train Your Dragon 2.”

“Universal remains a theatrical-first studio. That’s proven by the breadth of our slate, our commitment to our filmmakers and the ongoing investments we make in the creative community,” NBCUniversal chairman Donna Langley told The New York Times on Thursday. Universal declined further comment for this story.

It’s a notable change for a studio that has been one of the most aggressive in experimenting with windowing and audience viewing habits coming out of the pandemic, driving consumers to rent or purchase new release movies digitally or, eventually, stream them on Peacock.

In 2020, Universal struck a deal first reached with AMC Theaters to give it the option to release a film on PVOD (premium on-demand) as early as 17 days after release, with the window expanding to 31 days for films that opened to at least $50 million domestically.

Langley and other Universal film execs said the experimenting was necessary to gauge how viewing habits had changed longterm after the pandemic, particularly with cost-conscious customers who were more averse to going to movie theaters because of the spread of COVID and increased ticket prices.

In 2024, Universal insiders pointed to the success of DreamWorks’ “The Wild Robot” on both PVOD and in theaters — it grossed $144 million domestic — as a sign that the model was working, earning home platform revenue from families who were trying to budget their entertainment spending while still legging out at the box office.

But theaters have grumbled that Hollywood’s window experiments — which brought a permanent end to the pre-pandemic standard of a 90-day window — have created a general assumption among moviegoers that films will be available on their TV screens faster than before, making them less likely to see films in theaters unless they are absolutely certain they will get their money’s worth from whatever the studios are offering.

And the other problem, of course, is that moviegoers can never predict the theatrical run of any given movie because the windows are all over the place for various Hollywood studios.

“The average consumer has no idea which studio is attached to which movie. How many know that the Spider-Man MCU movies are coming from Sony rather than Disney?” said Daniel Loria, SVP of Content Strategy and Editorial Director at The Boxoffice Company. “When one studio is working under a significantly shorter window than the others, it’s harder to explain to people why a certain movie is available at home faster than others.”

After all this experimentation, it seems that Hollywood studios are coming to a conclusion that Cinema United argued before they started tinkering: longer windows mean more home revenue — at least for the mainstream movies that do find theatrical success.

This was seen over at Disney in late 2022 following the return of Bob Iger as CEO. Without any fanfare, the studio quietly instituted a 100-day theatrical window for all of its movies starting with “Avatar: The Way of Water,” with little to no advance advertising of their streaming release on Disney+.

Sony Pictures has not made public slate-wide commitments to specific window lengths, but chairman Tom Rothman has made multiple public comments in favor of longer windows including at CinemaCon, promising to work with theatres on exclusivity lengths and ticket prices. Since 2022, the studio has released 29 films that have had windows of at least 45 days, including “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” “Anyone But You” and “Bad Boys for Life.” Its films usually show up on Netflix, courtesy of a Pay-1 licensing deal, around 100 days after they first hit theaters.

And over at Paramount, which is looking to close its acquisition of Warner Bros., CEO David Ellison has pledged a minimum 45-day window for all of the studio’s theatrical releases. While that merger brings its own set of existential dangers for theaters, Universal’s commitment now puts all of Hollywood’s legacy studios on record through either word or deed to keeping films in theaters longer.

“What Donna and the team have found is that, through the experimentation, that the right water level is this window,” Matt Strauss, chairman of NBCUniversal media group, said at a Thursday press event for Peacock, which has the Pay-1 window for Universal’s films. “The bigger films weren’t coming to Peacock for several months after the initial theatrical exhibition, so I don’t think it’s going to have any material impact on us.”

But there will still be some variations from Universal. Focus Features will be exempt from this pivot and will stay on the 17-day window structure due to the factoring of PVOD into the financial model for some of its films and the slow nationwide theatrical rollout of awards contenders like “Hamnet.”

Some Universal films will also have theatrical windows well above 45 days, namely Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” which is expected to have a minimum 100-day window like the one the filmmaker negotiated with Universal to bring his 2023 Best Picture Oscar winner “Oppenheimer” to the studio.

Regardless of the details, Universal’s shift was met warmly by Cinema United president/CEO Michael O’Leary, who last year publicly called on all Hollywood studios to adopt a 45-day minimum window.

“This is a positive and welcome step by Universal. There is a growing recognition that a meaningful theatrical window remains foundational to the cultural and financial success of our entire industry. We remain committed to working closely with Universal and all of distribution to strengthen the moviegoing experience for fans the world over,” O’Leary said.

It’s also worth noting that Universal isn’t the only studio that has signaled shifts in the windowing debate towards the theaters’ side. Before his company dropped out of the Warner Bros. acquisition race, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos pivoted hard on his longtime opposition to lengthy theatrical windows, which in a December conference call he said are “not consumer friendly.”

But a month later, as scrutiny intensified on Netflix’s bid to acquire Warner Bros., Sarandos pledged a 45-day theatrical window with a subsequent PVOD window for all of Warner’s films, going so far as committing to it under oath at a Senate committee hearing. And even after dropping out of the Warner Bros. bid, Sarandos hinted that his changed stance on theatrical may open some doors for Netflix in the space.

Loria sees it as a sign that O’Leary and exhibitors are making their voices heard about how important theatrical exclusivity is to the future of their business, and are finding success in influencing the conversation.

“Whether or not you believed Sarandos was truthful about that commitment to windowing, that was the hard question that even politicians were asking him,” Loria said. “Those were the promises he had to make to try to convince people that Netflix’s entry into theatrical would be a good thing. Now you have Universal lengthening their windows, and that’s a sign that after all this time, Hollywood knows it still needs a robust theatrical market for their business to make sense.”

Lucas Manfredi contributed to this report.

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