Call this a "duh" declaration, but the era of regularly occurring day-and-date access via subscription streaming to top-shelf theatrical movies appears over, at least for now, following the unsurprising successful Memorial Day Weekend debut of Paramount Pictures' Top Gun: Maverick at 4,735 theaters in the U.S. and Canada.
Actor Tom Cruise's biggest box office debut to date, the long-awaited sequel to 1986's biggest theatrical hit pulled in $127 million domestically over the official three-day holiday frame, and $282 million across the globe, matching lofty projections.
"The success of the movie is a big win for theatrical moviegoing and sets a solid tone for the rest of the summer season with Universal's Jurassic World Dominion and Disney's Lightyear scheduled for June," read a report released Monday by Bloomberg Intelligence.
Bloomberg said that full-year domestic box office receipts could reach $7.5 billion, a 66.4% jump from 2021. That's a still quite a drop-off from the $11.32 generated at North American theaters in 2019, the last year before the pandemic. But it's definitely a sign of a recovery.
This increased pulse for theatrical exhibition comes as a "nation-building" sentiment on behalf of the streaming business seems to be ebbing -- virtually all major distributors have signed exclusive theatrical window arrangements with the top exhibitors, on none of them seem willing to sacrifice box-office dollars for SVOD subscriber growth right now.
Notably, of the 10 biggest domestic openings over the last two pandemic years, dating back to mid-March 2020, only one was a day-and-date release. With the Delta strain and COVID resurgent last July, Disney-Marvel's Black Widow debuted simultaneously in theaters and on Disney Plus Premier Access for $29.99 a viewing.
The biggest grossing release from Warner Bros.' all-day-and-date 2021 film slate, Godzilla vs. King Kong, ranked 17th overall over this 26-month timeframe.
