Day-and-date release

Day-and-date removes the exclusivity that theatrical economics were built on. A studio with a streaming service to grow may value a subscriber signup as highly as a ticket, and releasing everywhere at once serves the subscription business directly. An exhibitor has no equivalent upside: the same film is available, for free-at-the-margin, to anyone who already subscribes.

The response from exhibitors has ranged from reduced terms to outright refusal to book. Some of the largest circuits declined day-and-date titles entirely during the period when studios pushed hardest, and the practice has since retreated somewhat towards short exclusive windows rather than none.

Independents often take these titles, because a day-and-date film is still a film and a dark screen earns nothing. If you do, programme it as an event rather than as a run: fewer performances, better ones, and a reason to be in the room that a sofa cannot supply. A Q&A, a double bill, an introduction, a themed night.

The value being sold is not access to the film — the audience already has that. It is the occasion. That is a genuinely different marketing job and it is one your own channels do better than any distributor campaign, because it depends on knowing which of your regulars turn out for that kind of evening.