At the start of 2021, Warner Bros. was the talk of Hollywood for its decision to start a year-long experiment that would come to define its box office performance: The legacy studio would release 17 films simultaneously in theaters and on its nascent screaming service, HBO Max — though none finished in the top 10 top-grossing films of the domestic box office.
The experiment proved to be a double-edged sword. While Disney, Sony, Universal and even MGM found big blockbuster success in spite of the pandemic, HBO Max likely put a ceiling on Warner’s ticket sales. Only two of the studio’s films grossed over $100 million in North America — “Godzilla vs.