The official trailer for Trolls World Tour has arrived. When Universal announced it was making a sequel to its 2016 animated hit Trolls (itself, based on the popular Troll dolls), most people probably expected the followup would come and go without much fanfare. Then, the coronavirus pandemic took a turn for the worse in March, forcing theaters to shut-down just a month before Trolls World Tour was scheduled to arrive. But rather than delaying the movie, Universal announced it would be making it available to rent on-demand on its original release date.
In addition to earning respectable reviews, Trolls World Tour was a financial success for Universal and generated more revenue in three weeks of release on PVOD than the first Trolls did after five months playing in theaters. Warner Bros. has since released their animated reboot Scoob! using the same approach, and it's speculated other movies originally scheduled for this summer (like the new SpongeBob movie) will end up following their lead. For better or worse, Trolls World Tour could end up having a massive impact on how films are distributed in the future, even after the pandemic has abated.
For their latest Honest Trailer, Screen Junkies has set their sights on Trolls World Tour - and as you would expect, it doesn't take long for the video to address the elephant in the room that is the movie skipping theaters. Take a look, below.
Obviously, the Honest Trailer has a lot more to work with than just Trolls World Tour going directly to PVOD. Whether it's the bizarre nature of the Trolls universe (where everything from inanimate objects to tears have faces) or the way it recycles themes about the sins of the past from Frozen 2 and Thor: Ragnarok, the video pokes fun at many aspects of the movie, even while highlighting its messages about tolerance and critique of cultural appropriation. It also takes a moment to call attention to the Universal vs. AMC controversy, which resulted from the latter announcing it will no longer show the studio's films in theaters in response to them planning to send more titles straight to streaming in the future. Universal, for its part, has since clarified its PVOD movies will complement its theatrical releases going forward, and will most likely work things out with AMC down the line.
That said, it's obvious Hollywood will never be the same after the coronavirus and, odd as it might seem, Trolls World Tour will have played a role in bringing about those changes. Mid-budget films are increasingly likely to be sold to or produced for streaming services in the future, and the gap between movies playing in theaters and at-home will only continue to narrow. The industry was already moving in that direction before the health crisis, so all the pandemic has really done is speed things along. Theaters will eventually reopen in larger numbers when it's deemed safe enough to begin showing films again, but when they do they're going to have to adjust to this new normal - one Trolls World Tour was in the right place and right time to help usher in.
Source: Screen Junkies