Covid-19: Big shifts in the entertainment industry

We are going to see the rise of new consumption habits, shift in bargaining power across the value chain, and eventually the rise of entirely new business models.

Minecraft reverse-engineered Disney, starting from a virtual world, creating character IP, and eventually licensing them to physical amusement parks. Can companies like Disney, coming in from the other side, enter Minecraft's turf?

For example, what would an amusement park look like with social distancing? What core elements of the amusement park experience can you reconstruct in a virtual world? What hybrid experience would that then lead to in a post-Covid19 world where distancing ceases but users have been conditioned?

The crisis again shows us that in a connected world, data infrastructure is more critical than transportation infrastructure.

This isn’t your average temporary channel shift. The “window” is the one big moat protecting theatre revenues. By eroding the “window” even for a bounded period studios will get to test success of movie releases on streaming platforms and use that to negotiate post-lockdown. Though theatres won’t go away, their negotiating power certainly will.

Studios are already moving titles to streaming channels.

The closure of major theater chains across the country is driving studios to break what's known in the industry as the "window" – the three-month period between when a movie hits the big screen, and when it's offered for video on demand purchase or rental, and then on streaming devices.