'Scream' hits theaters, Netflix raises prices

Yahoo Finance's Allie Canal details the opening box office numbers for the theatrical release of "Scream", the success of hybrid theatrical-streaming movie releases, and Netflix raising its prices for subscribers.

Video Transcript

ADAM SHAPIRO: When the first "Scream" movie came out, let's just say the stars of that film, are now eligible for AARP cards. But why-- you got something good, why not do it again and again and again? Ali Canal is here with fame and fortune because they're going to do it again and "Scream Six" or is it "Scream Five"?

"Scream Five". Yes, it is back for round five. I'm a big fan of this franchise. I absolutely love these movies, so I'm certainly going to see this in theaters. It's making its debut today. According to Comscore, is projected to make between $25 and 30 million within that opening weekend. And it's going up against some pretty heavy hitters. We have "Spider-Man No Way Home", which just continues to dominate the box office. That movie has earned over half a billion domestically, with the potential to reach $750 million when all is said and done.

So there's some question marks here of whether or not "Scream" can overtake "Spider-Man" at number one this weekend. But if it does, it's certainly good news for the box office. This is a theatrical exclusive. Once it's done its theatrical run, it will then go to Paramount Plus to stream. And that's something that a lot of studios have been talking about. Especially with the rise of the omicron variant, a lot of studios have recommitted themselves to that model of theatrical first, followed by streaming.

And we did get the chance to speak with IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond earlier this week. He said despite all of these scary headlines that we've been getting about COVID, that's actually not the biggest risk factor at the box office. instead, he cited the streaming component and studios' lack of faith in the theatrical experience. So here's a closer look at what he had to say.

Ironically, one of the biggest problems is some studios who don't have faith in the theatrical release, as you know, during '20 and '21, they took a lot of movies and they put them on day and date streaming and a result of that was they lost-- they didn't have good box office performance. And even in streaming, as you've seen from the streaming numbers, people didn't sign up for streamers for movies.

ALEXANDRA CANAL: And so Gelfond is not a fan of the day and date release strategy, that hybrid release strategy, that we saw through 2021. Experts that I spoke with said it was very hard to really determine how successful a film was when they had that hybrid format. It's really difficult to measure a streaming view with a box office ticket. And some of the data surrounding that is still a little murky.

But speaking of streaming, we got the news just an hour ago, that Netflix will be raising monthly prices on their plans in the US and Canada starting today. Their standard plan will now cost $15.49. That's up from $13.99 in the US. And across the board, depending on the plan, Netflix says it could rise between $1 and $2.

Now, the stock, it did pop on that news, rising nearly 4%. Investors love that pricing power. And it speaks to the larger story here, that consumers are gravitating towards streaming platforms. No matter how much they cost, they're going to want to to sign up and watch the content that's available. So I agree with Mr. Gelfond that streaming is definitely a risk for the box office heading into the new year, but I don't think we're going to see as many hybrid releases as we did in 2021.

ADAM SHAPIRO: All right, Ali. And by the way, you can save some money. If you don't want to go pay to see "Scream", just watch this movie on HBO, "View From Above". Even Gwyneth Paltrow says worst film ever made. Although I love the Cleveland connection. Everybody have a great weekend. We are going to do it again on Tuesday. Markets closed Monday. See you later.