CINEMA: MATRIX RESURRECTIONS
Le coproducteur porte plainte auprès de Warner Bros pour des recettes au box-office décevantes.

The Matrix Res­ur­rec­tions co-pro­duc­er, in a new law­suit, blames the film’s lack­lus­ter box office num­bers on a same-day stream­ing release. Accord­ing to the Wall Street Jour­nal, Vil­lage Road­show Enter­tain­ment Group today filed a law­suit against Warn­er Bros., the own­er of the HBO Max stream­ing plat­form. The law­suit alleges that the same-day release of The Matrix Res­ur­rec­tions and the post­pone­ment of the film’s release date con­sti­tut­ed a breach of con­tract. The law­suit also claims that mov­ing the film’s release date from 2022 to 2021 was an offer by Warn­er Bros. to increase HBO Max subscriptions.

The deci­sion tak­en last year by Warn­er Bros. to release a full slate of new movies simul­ta­ne­ous­ly on HBO Max and in the­aters has raised many eye­brows. In addi­tion to The Matrix, the oth­er 16 films in Warn­er Bros. simul­ta­ne­ous release strat­e­gy includ­ed Dune, Godzil­la vs. Kong, Mor­tal Kom­bat, King Arthur and oth­ers. The expe­ri­ence like­ly doomed their fate at the box office, as not­ed by The Wrap. Only two of the 17 films have made more than $100 mil­lion in domes­tic box office sales.

The Matrix Res­ur­rec­tions, which was released in Decem­ber, nor­mal­ly a peak time for box office receipts, grossed more than $37.2 mil­lion in domes­tic box office sales, accord­ing to Box­Of­fice­Mo­jo. This is a notable drop from a num­ber of oth­er block­busters with only the­atri­cal releas­es last win­ter, such as Spi­der-Man: No Way Home, which grossed over $748 mil­lion. at the domes­tic box office and the James Bond film No Time To Die, which grossed over $160 mil­lion at the domes­tic box office.

Vil­lage Road­show also alleges that Warn­er Bros. attempts to keep the com­pa­ny out of future movie and TV deals. “WB has also devised var­i­ous schemes to deprive Vil­lage Road­show of its con­tin­u­ing co-own­er­ship and co-invest­ment rights in deriv­a­tive works of the films it co-owns,” the law­suit alleged.

The Matrix law­suit is the lat­est dis­pute between Hol­ly­wood stu­dios and the media com­pa­nies that own the stream­ing plat­forms. Last year, Black Wid­ow actress Scar­lett Johans­son sued Dis­ney over the film’s simul­ta­ne­ous release strat­e­gy, which she said hurt her box office prospects and her own earn­ings. Johans­son then received an undis­closed set­tle­ment from Dis­ney last fall.