Netflix Becomes the New Streaming Home for Sony Movies
Unlike a lot of their competition in the world of major movie studios, Sony Pictures doesn’t have its own streaming service. Previously, Sony movies would go to Starz for streaming, as the result of a deal between the two company. Starting in 2022, however, Sony will instead send their movies to Netflix; the streaming service would get “an 18-month exclusive window for Sony films.”
For Netflix subscribers, that means they will get the first crack (after the films play in theaters) at titles like Morbius with Jared Leto as the Marvel Comics vampire, the Uncharted movie, and the upcoming Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 2. (Netflix already had a deal with Sony Pictures Animation, and recently acquired their film, The Mitchells vs. the Machines, for a straight-to-Netflix release.) According to the press release Netflix will also get the rights to “to select titles from SPE’s vast movie library.” In addition, the service gets first dibs on “any films [Sony] intends to make directly for streaming or decides later to license for streaming.” Last year Sony sold of a couple of its planned theatrical titles due to the pandemic, including Greyhound, starring Tom Hanks, which instead premiered on Apple TV+.
With most of the big studios now feeding movies to their own streaming platforms — like Disney+, Paramount+, HBO Max (Warner Bros.), and Peacock (Universal), the rights to the few remaining available blockbusters become even more valuable. Through its deal with Marvel, Sony has the rights to Spider-Man and his entire library of related characters — which, through this deal, gives Netflix the streaming rights to those characters as well, at least until Sony decides to launch its own “Sony+” or whatever.
Gallery — Every Spider-Man Movie, Ranked From Worst to Best: