Donna Langley on Universal Ditching Short Theatrical Windows: ‘We’re Trying to Undo the Training We’ve Done to the Audience’

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Universal made a deal with AMC Theaters that would allow the studio to release its films on premium video on-demand as early as 17 days after theatrical release, triggering an industry-wide experimentation with windowing that is now ending as Universal earlier this year announced a slate-wide 45-day minimum theatrical window. At Bloomberg Screentime, NBCUniversal chairman Donna Langley said that after speaking with several filmmakers, she agreed that it was time to put the focus back on the big screen again. “I began to feel that it was time to try and reestablish that moviegoing habit in our audience, and just the simple math of it is that we can’t really do that if we’re telling them that it’s available in the home in 17 days,” Langley said. “It was really about signaling to the audience and trying to undo some of the training that we’ve done to tell them to kind of wait and watch it on their couch.” Prior to the pivot, Universal had defended its PVOD windowing as a method of reaching various types of audiences, from moviegoers who were eager to see films on opening weekend on the big screen to more cost-conscious ones that were trying to save money on family movie nights. Sources at Universal had noted that the 2024 DreamWorks animated film “The Wild Robot” had legged out to $334 million at the box office even after it was released on PVOD after 17 days in theaters. But now Universal and other studios, including the soon-to-be-merged Paramount-Warner, are pivoting back to a general standard of a 45-day window to premium on-demand and 90 days to streaming platforms, and Langley says that she believes the latter is more important. “It’s the streaming window that I think is the one to really keep an eye on, and we’re all pretty consistent around that,” she said. “That’s the one that could, in my opinion, could really undermine the cinemagoing habit, because it’s sort of an all you can eat buffet.”