Key Takeaways
- The pandemic and streaming popularity have led to a decrease in theater-to-streaming wait times.
- Certain studios prioritize streaming if a movie makes less than $50 million opening weekend, while bigger releases take longer to hit the internet.
- Predicting when a movie hits PVOD hinges on its box office success, its studio, and the time of year.
Some new movies wind up on streaming services after less than three weeks in the theaters, while others take months to show up. What determines how long it takes for a movie to show up online? It’s complicated.
How Long Do Movies Play In Theaters?
Ten years ago, you might remember waiting months for a new release to appear on a streaming platform or even just to show up on DVD at your local big box retailer. These days, it’s not uncommon to see a movie pop up on the internet in just a fraction of that time. Why the change?
As with many corners of the film industry today, the pandemic brought major upheavals to the business. This includes how long movies play in theaters. In the 2010s, you might expect an average wait of about 70 days. In the 2020s, that number has been cut in half: about 30–40 days, sometimes less, sometimes more.
By the end of 2023, the average theatrical window was 37 days. The numbers vary from studio to studio, however. Disney averaged a 62-day window in 2023, while Warner Bros. averaged just 30. Universal’s window was the shortest of all the major studios, clocking in at an average of 27 days.
When Do New Movies Come to Streaming?
While the COVID-19 pandemic is a large part of this, it also has much to do with the popularity of streaming itself. A decade back, streaming was very much still in its infancy. Now, it’s in its heyday. If a movie doesn’t make enough in theaters, it’s in the studio’s best interest to move up the streaming release date.
Universal, for instance, will prioritize streaming over a longer theatrical window if the movie opens to less than $50 million in its opening weekend. The studio’s bigger releases (remember Oppenheimer?) take much longer to appear. Christopher Nolan’s supreme Oscar-winner landed in theaters in July 2023 but didn’t show up on digital until November.
This trend continued into 2024. Night Swim, a critical and box office disappointment, hit theaters on January 5th and arrived on video-on-demand streaming platforms just 18 days later. Dune: Part Two, a hit in every measure of the word, was released in theaters on March 1st and didn’t hit the internet until April 16th—some 46 days later.
Watching Movies In Theaters at Home
The increasing popularity of streaming services also plays a part in all this. Recent Apple TV+ productions Killers of the Flower Moon and Napoleon played in theaters for about two months before hitting VOD, while Netflix releases The Killer and May December only played in theaters for two weeks before streaming.
No matter which way you slice it, the difference in the size of these windows is pretty staggering. Whether or not you can watch movies in theaters at home seems to depend on how well the movie’s doing, who’s putting it out, and what time of year it was released. If it’s a subpar January release, you’ll probably be able to watch it at home in less than three weeks. If it’s a big summer blockbuster, you may wait almost three months.
Regardless of when it pops up, you can depend on one thing: It’s probably going to go to premium video on demand (PVOD) before one of your streaming services, and you’re likely going to pay $20 or more to rent it online while it’s still playing in theaters. Even Apple TV+ will send movies to rental platforms weeks before making them available to stream for free for subscribers.
How to Predict When the Latest Movies Will Come to Streaming
While there’s no definitive answer to the question of how long a theatrical release waits before appearing on streaming, there are ways to predict when it’ll pop up on PVOD. If it was released by a major studio and didn’t go so hot in theaters, you’ll likely see it available for rent in just a few weeks. If it’s a box office smash from one of the big names, you’ll probably be waiting a couple of months instead.
