An Unlikely Savior Has Emerged At The Box Office

“Demon Slayer” has been doing this since 2020 when “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba — The Movie: Mugen Train” made nearly $50 million domestically when pretty much nothing was making any money at the box office. You want to talk about a savior? That was a meaningful amount of money when theaters needed it most. Similarly, stuff like “Christmas with The Chosen: The Messengers” ($13.3 million) helped fill in a gap in 2021. Mainstream Hollywood has provided less product to theaters in the pandemic era, and TV shows have helped fill the void on some level.

There is an argument to be made that more TV shows should be taking a chance on the big screen. It’s not hard to imagine a “Star Wars” show like “The Mandalorian” pulling in an audience for the season’s premieres and/or finales. Granted, Lucasfilm is now just straight-up making a “Mandalorian” movie, but that just further underlines the point here. Netflix could probably attract a lot of interest by releasing episodes of “Stranger Things” season 5 in theaters. The list goes on. Hardcore fans are willing to show up for these things. Perhaps most important of all: What do studios, streamers, or networks have to lose here, aside from a few extra bucks to the filmmakers for releasing a project across platforms?

This year’s box office was down 20% compared to last year before “Dune 2” arrived. Theaters need help, and there is growing evidence that TV could be used to provide at least some of that help. From my vantage point, it’s hard to see a reason not to explore this more in the near future.

I spoke more about this on today’s episode of the /Film Daily podcast, which you can listen to below:

You can subscribe to /Film Daily on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and send your feedback, questions, comments, concerns, and mailbag topics to us at bpearson@slashfilm.com. Please leave your name and general geographic location in case we mention your e-mail on the air.