
Other offerings will include the sorts of movie stars that rarely make appearances on TV or VOD films, like Will Smith, Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. These are all movies that were filmed with the big screen (or even IMAX) experience in mind. Kong, Mortal Kombat, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It and the first Dune movie next year. has plenty of franchise fare that will now head straight to HBO Max, including Wonder Woman 1984 this December, then The Suicide Squad, The Matrix 4, Godzilla vs. Major theater chain AMC is aggressively pushing back against Warner Bros.’ plan.

Though Warner Media has said the simultaneous release experiment, a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, will last just one year, cinephiles worry that if audiences get used to seeing expensive, top-tier movies at home, they may give up on the cinematic experience entirely. Motivating people to venture out to the cinema, even once there is a vaccine next year, will become a much harder sell when they can stream the same content from their couches. Movie theater stocks plummeted following the announcement, and with good reason.

had previously said it would release this year’s Wonder Woman 1984, arguably their most anticipated movie of 2020, simultaneously on streaming and in theaters on Dec. announced on Thursday that it plans to release all 17 of its films planned for 2021 on HBO Max and in theaters simultaneously, including major would-be blockbusters like Matrix 4, In the Heights and The Suicide Squad.

Warner Media and HBO Max might have just rung the death knell of the moviegoing experience.
