On HBO Max and In Theaters: The Suicide Squad, Cry Macho, The Many Saints of Newark, and Psycho

I find this particular phenomenon quite unique in my personal film viewing history.

For the duration of calendar year 2021, and because of COVID fears keeping crowds out of theaters(by choice or by dictate) Warners cut a deal with HBO Max(owned by the same parent):

Each month, a "major title" would premiere "day and date" "on TV" AND at movie theaters.

I have HBO Max. I"ve noted before that, in my home at least, it breaks down a lot on the internet signal but sometimes it works just fine and I elected to watch those "first run" movies exclusively at home for much of 2021: Wonder Woman 2, a Denzel mystery, Godzilla vs Kong.

I gotta say: watching these films on TV only, NONE of them really felt like movies. They felt like they weren't REALLY good enough for theaters.

Eventually, I watched The Suicide Squad at home, and then, going to a theater to watch something else(Jungle Cruise), dropped into the Suicide Squad theater the SAME DAY I saw it on TV and...it was a very, very, VERY weird feeling.

I was sitting in a theater seeing a movie I had just watched on TV.

Now it is fall, and Warners/HBO have two movies of particular interest to me:

Clint Eastwood(at 91) in Cry Macho.

The Sopranos Prequel "The Many Saints of Newark" with the late Jame Gandolfini's son Michael playing Tony Soprano as a teen. (Eastwood's 91 year old in Cry Macho and the Gandolfini casting are both "stunts" -- and with Eastwood, HIS stunt is the sole reason for the movie to exist.)

I've made my choice.

I paid up to see Cry Macho on the big screen at the theater FIRST (to support Clint a bit, this movie is NOT a money maker) and then watched it again the next day on HBO Max. The feeling was still weird, but at least I felt like --as I have with other films in my life -- that seeing the movie TWICE helped me "learn it" -- how it works, how it was made, how Clint is "covered," etc.

Next week, I WILL pay up to see the Sopranos movie on the big screen ...and then I will watch it one or more times on TV. "Sopranos" creator David Chase has said in an interview that fate conspired against him: He wanted The Many Saints of Newark to be a MOVIE, and here it is debuting on...HBO(its original home) right away. Life is unfair, David. You know that. You gave us that crappy ending...

I was thinking: how devastating it would have been -- in a "time warp" -- if Psycho had had a joint movie theater/HBO Max opening.

With millions watching Psycho on TV at the same time, fewer theaters would be jam packed with screaming full houses; and there might be NO lines around the block to generate excitement. And Hitchcock's "You can't enter the theater after Psycho starts edict" would be worthless at home on HBO Max, you could come in at ANY time.

And this: as we know, in the summer of 1960, Psycho played the East Coast in June, and the REST of America in August. A weird release that would not be the same with HBO Max.

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Bottom line: whereas Psycho benefitted from "old time movie theater promotion and distribution" the 2021 Warners/HBO Max slate has suffered from being "on TV or at the theater, your choice." A major hit to "how movies are sold." I will say that by seeing Cry Macho at the theater first, it at least FELT like a movie. And I hope that the Sopranos movie will feel like a movie, too -- even if it was a cable TV show first.

Bottom line: Warners says it will NOT repeat the HBO Max co-release pattern in 2022. Good! Bit we've got The Matrix 4 in December between now and then...