Trolls World Tour Biggest Digital Debut Ever, Setting Stage for More Kid-Friendly Titles Going Straight to VOD

Trolls World Tour ⭐️⭐️½

$50 million is the figure I saw several publications toting for Trolls World Tour, but nobody can confirm this figure. There is also the whole reality is that some people are renting it multiple times for their children because ever 48 hours you need to purchase it at $20 again to see it for another 48 hours.

Universal is pleased that all things are doing well in Trolls land on VOD.

Universal is reporting that Trolls: World Tour scored the biggest opening day and opening weekend for a digital title, with a figure 10x larger than Universal’s next-biggest traditional digital release (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom). It is top on every relevant digital platform, including Amazon, Comcast CMCSA, Apple AAPL, Vudu, Google/YouTube, DirectTV, Verizon Fios and FandangoNow.

‘Trolls: World Tour’ Breaks Records And Nabs Biggest Digital Debut Ever

I’ve written about this movie more than any other recently, and for good reason. If this makes it into triple digit millions not being released in the theaters, it could change the future of how new movies are released.

We may see a future — sooner than many think — where we can watch movies at home on VOD for a premium price ($19.99, lower or higher depending on title) and also watch in the theater. These are called day and date releases in industry speak.

A metric I’ve compared viewer interest and sales in the past is the number of Rotten Tomatoes audience reviews. This is more fun than scientific and dubiously accurate, but check this out.

Let’s use $50 million. According to Box Office Mojo, the Adam Sandler thriller film Uncut Gems made $50 million worldwide.

Over 12,000 audience reviews, 92% fresh by the critics and 52% rotten by the audience.

Now, let’s take a look at where Trolls World Tour sits. Given, a lot more people probably visit Rotten Tomatoes when theaters are open and we’re not in the middle of a pandemic, but the audience review numbers are dramatically different.

As of 4/16/2020 not many audience reviews for Trolls World Tour

Comparatively, let’s use Blake Lively’s movie The Rhythm Section, which bombed at the theater for a 3,000+ screenings.

So, what does this mean? Not sure, but clearly the number of people who leave audience reviews on VOD titles on Rotten Tomatoes is way down. I wish we could have had a simultaneous release in theaters, but if we hadn’t had the pandemic, Trolls World Tour never would have been a day and date release

The only thing that seems fairly certain is that more kids titles with sub $100 million budgets might be good to release day and date and/or if we’re still in the pandemic, then directly to VOD.