Barbie streams on Max in the fall

The mega-success of Barbie kind of came out of nowhere — who could’ve guessed that a live-action adaptation of a toy brand would scoot its way to nearly a billion at the box office? Well, it seems we’ll have to wait a while before we get to watch the pastel pink movie in the confines of our homes.

Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav revealed during the company’s Q4 earnings call (via IGN) that the pastel picture is going to have some time to bask in the theater life before it finds its way to Max. As he said, the company believes in the “motion picture window.”

Zaslav capped it all off, saying that Barbie will go to Max in the fall. This would line up with a lot of new releases to streaming services, as most big productions have leaned away from high-profile films hitting streaming services while in theaters. It’s a lot easier to coax people into seeing a movie in theaters than convince people to see it in theaters when they have a — generally — cheaper, easier, and more relaxed option of watching it at home.

“We really believe in the motion picture window. Let this movie go to the motion picture window, play it up, build up that brand, then have it go into PVOD. Take it through these windows of economics that have worked forever, and we think work extremely well. And then put it on Max. And when it goes on Max, we think it’ll have a very good impact and that’ll be in the Fall.”

In 2021, Warner Bros. released its entire new slate to theaters — where available — and to then-known HBO Max on the same day. Now, of course, this was during lockdown, so for many productions, it wasn’t practical to release movies to theaters exclusively. As of late, though, many companies have returned to this traditional release window.