Like every other studio executive, Ms. Langley is involved in the complicated calculus of determining what movies fit where in a world where the theatrical box office is down 45 percent from what it was in 2019. It is “a box office that is in decline,” Ms. Langley said, with theatergoing in 2023 expected to still be down at least 15 percent from its prepandemic level.
She described the three films that she chose to put straight on Peacock as “movies we love that a decade ago would have been no-brainers” to make and release in theaters.
But audiences have more choice now about when and where they watch films, and it can be more difficult to convince them that a film is worth seeing in a theater.
“We still want to make these movies, because we believe in the stories, we believe in the storytellers and we think that these are great pieces of entertainment,” Ms. Langley said. “We have the ability to be able to avail ourselves of our streaming platform. And we think that they are events, actually, to be released into the home, very specifically for the Peacock audience.”
Peacock is buying the films from Universal Pictures, a portion of the $3 billion it intends to spend on content in 2022, ramping up to $5 billion in the next couple of years.
Ms. Langley said that while 2023 would feature three straight-to-Peacock films, she hoped to release seven to 10 films that way in the coming years, films that would all be developed and produced by the same Universal creative team that is behind the “Jurassic Park” and “Fast and Furious” franchises.
“Peacock’s future depends on having good content, and our future depends on having flexibility in our distribution models,” Ms. Langley said. “So our agendas, ultimately, are aligned. So, yes, there’s debate about any one particular title or something they might want that we can’t deliver or vice versa, but that’s the stuff of working inside a big corporation.”
