It's a Barbie world at movie theaters, as Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie's Barbie has become the hit of the summer, earning stellar reviews and a massive box office haul. One of the big next questions though is when we are going to be able to stream Barbie at home. Early word indicates that we may have to wait a bit.
Barbie released exclusively in movie theaters worldwide on July 21, helping launch the internet sensation event of Barbenheimer alongside Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer. Since then, Barbie has taken in more than $800 million at the worldwide box office (as of August 2), which already makes it the second biggest movie of the year behind only The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
Warner Bros. Pictures clearly wants to see how big Barbie can be in theaters, as it has revealed it won't be releasing Barbie on its streaming service Max until sometime in the fall (an exact release date wasn't shared.)
The Wrap shared quotes that Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav gave during a recent earnings call about why Barbie is going to have to wait to make her streaming debut:
"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 to Max, we think it'll have a very good impact and that'll be in the fall."
A couple of quick explanations on some of the things Zaslav mentioned. The "motion picture window" is the time that a movie plays exclusively in movie theaters. There isn't a hard or fast rule, but the general time frame nowadays is 30-45 days. Sounds like the plan with Barbie is to take it up all the way to the 45 day window, which would be right around September 5. But that doesn't mean September 5 will be when Barbie is available to stream.
That's because Zaslav also mentions PVOD, which stands for premium video on-demand. This is when movies become available to rent digitally for around $20 (you can also purchase them digitally for a bit more). It's clear Zaslav intends to give Barbie a significant run there as well before making it available to Max subscribers at no extra cost.
With all that in mind, if you want to have an idea on how long the timeline could be for Barbie to make its streaming debut, The Super Mario Bros. Movie could be the closest comparable. After premiering in theaters on April 5, the movie just premiered on streaming on August 3, four months after its release. If that's the case with Barbie, then we may not see it on streaming until November (which would be the fall).
So, if you're interested in seeing what the fuss is all about, the only way to watch Barbie in the immediate future is at your local movie theater.
