This is how show business works these days.
Graphic novelist ND Stevenson’s Nimona is
acquired by 20th Century-Fox during the summer of 2015, it goes into
production during the summer of 2017 with a theatrical target date of early
2020.
Along the way 20th Century-Fox is acquired
by Disney and the film is postponed, postponed, moved, postponed and eventually
canceled.
In April of last year, the news surfaced that Netflix
had team up with Annapurna Pictures and the project was being resurrected with Nick
Bruno and Troy Quane brought on board to direct.
On June 23, the film opened in a few theatres around
the country — Netflix is mums the word on box office results — and the early buzz
was off the charts (Rotten Tomatoes at 94 percent), with some saying the Nimona was
the best animated film of the year.
Netflix began streaming it on June 30, which means
that a pristine film master was served-up, and within hours it was available
for fans to enjoy on Blu-ray.
Yes, the “helpers” (we no longer use pirate or bootlegger
to describe such activities) are good, slick and fast. They can take a streaming event and turn it
on a dime.
Netflix is unlikely to release it on either DVD or
Blu-ray, so the void is filled by “helper” sources and your average consumer
doesn’t realize that the source is not legit — the packaging is pro and they’ve
likely been there before to snap up copies of Mandalorian and Prey
(surprise, not physical media … legitimately).
A multi-million-dollar animated production skips
theatres (where it would have been a hit) and then bypasses home entertainment
packaged media to go directly to streaming.
Two lucrative revenue sources are blown away to stream baby stream.
Netflix did the exact same thing with Extraction
2 a few ago (see analysis here – Link), which might
have cost stockholders some $70 million in unrealized profits. Was that duplicated with Nimona?
Yup, that is how show business works these days!