Pete Davidson and Judd Apatow's The King of Staten Island will be the first live-action Universal movie to skip theaters and release straight to streaming. With theaters currently closed down and everyone stuck at home because of the coronavirus pandemic, studios have started releasing a growing number of their films early on the home market. In select cases, they've gone so far as to scrap their planned theatrical runs, rather than trying to reschedule them at a later date in 2020. Universal was the first to do so earlier this month, making their animated sequel Trolls World Tour available to rent on-demand.
Following reports of Trolls World Tour making $50 million in its VOD opening weekend, Warner Bros. went ahead and announced they're going to similarly send their Scooby-Doo reboot SCOOB! straight to streaming on its original release date in May. Studios are sticking firmly to their plans to debut their biggest 2020 tentpoles (like Tenet and Wonder Woman 1984) in theaters later this year, but more and more are beginning to give serious thought to releasing their mid-budget films directly to VOD instead. Once again, though, Universal's beat them to the punch.
Today, the studio announced it's making The King of Staten Island available to rent on premium on-demand digital starting Friday, June 12, a week earlier than its previously-scheduled theatrical release date. Universal also released a special video (with Davidson and Apatow social distancing) and poster as part of the announcement, as you can see below.
Written by Davidson, Apatow, and SNL veteran Dave Sirus, The King of Staten Island is a quasi-autobiographical comedy featuring Davidson in his first lead movie role. The SNL comedian stars as Scott, a wannabe tattoo artist in his mid-20s who still lives with his mom (Marisa Tomei) and has been struggling with a case of arrested development ever since his firefighter dad died when he was kid, only to find his carefree world rocked when his mom starts dating a "loudmouth" firefighter (Bill Burr). Universal, as mentioned, had originally scheduled The King of Staten Island to open in theaters on June 19, prior to the coronavirus outbreak. However, with the rest of the release calendar wiped clean thru to mid-July by now, the studio has decided to make it available to those who're self-quarantining at home that month instead.
In reality, Universal's been wanting to release movies early on-demand since as far back as 2011's Tower Heist, long before the ongoing health crisis gave them an unexpected reason to try again. That being said, Trolls World Tour and The King of Staten Island are still expected to be the exceptions to the rule when it comes to the studio sending their movies straight to streaming. Universal, like the rest of Hollywood, knows they're dependent on theaters to make a profit on their nine-digits tentpoles; it's the reason why they delayed Fast & Furious 9 by a year, rather than making it available on VOD this spring. At the same time, they can get away with a streaming premiere for something less expensive like an Apatow mid-budget comedy. In fact, The King of Staten Island might even perform better on-demand than it would've in theaters.
Source: Universal