_________The word windfall has appeared in 155 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Dec. 3 in “Warner Bros. Says All 2021 Films Will Be Streamed Right Away” by Brooks Barnes and Nicole Sperling:LOS ANGELES — In a startling move that marked the biggest challenge yet to Hollywood’s traditional way of doing business, Warner Bros. announced on Thursday that 17 movies — its entire 2021 slate — would each arrive simultaneously in theaters and on its sibling streaming service, the underperforming HBO Max. … As it moves to bolster HBO Max, WarnerMedia is almost assuredly giving up hundreds of millions in box office revenue, which means that some of its big-budget movies ($200 million or more in production costs, plus tens of millions of dollars in marketing spending) will lose money, regardless of their reception by audiences. But AT&T is mostly interested in the financial windfall that it stands to make in the longer term by turning HBO Max into a success.

Source: New York Times December 18, 2020 06:56 UTC