by Thinus Ferreira
With the Justice League Snyder
Cut that is released worldwide today, TVwithThinus has reliably learnt that
while South African viewers will be able to watch it through Vodacom's Video Play video streaming service that acquired the film's licensing rights from WarnerMedia.
In the growing video streaming wars no
distribution deal has been put in place in time with any of the other local
streamers, cinemas, or traditional pay-TV options for viewers to watch the
redone version of the film.
WarnerMedia's video streaming service
HBO Max is releasing the highly-anticipated recut version of Zach
Snyder's Justice League film – a so-called "Justice League
Snyder Cut" – today, 18 March, as a 4-hour film.
Vodacom sources on Thursday morning
told TVwithThinus that it managed to secure a licensing agreement with WarnerMedia
and that the Justice League Snyder Cut will become available on its Video Play
streaming service but only from tomorrow, Friday 19 March.
The film is a 2021 director's cut of
the 2017 Justice League that Snyder had to exit prematurely due to
family reasons but had the opportunity to return to. The movie that is now much
improved according to reviews, follows the Justice League – Superman (Henry
Cavill), Batman (Ben Affleck), Womder Woman (Gal Gadot), Aquaman (Jason Momoa),
Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and the Flash (Ezra Miller) – as they try to save the world
from Darkseid (Ray Porter) and Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hinds).
HBO Max, that is available in the
United States and that is being made available in over 60 countries by the end
of 2021, is not launching anytime soon in South Africa or the sub-Saharan
Africa TV market – similar to Disney+, Paramount+ and Discovery+ that have
decided to skip South Africa and the continent in their global launch roll-out
plans.
South Africans have been left wondering
where they can get access to the new film release since it wasn't acquired
through any local subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) streaming services like
Showmax, Netflix South Africa or Amazon Prime Video, any traditional
direct-to-consumer (DTH) pay-TV offerings like MultiChoice's DStv or StarSat,
or through cinemas like Ster-Kinekor or Nu Metro, with no usual pre-announcement or marketing.
Meanwhile Sky in the United Kingdom
last week announced that it had signed an international distribution deal to
bring the Justice League Snyder Cut exclusively to Sky pay-TV
subscribers in Britain, Ireland, Germany and Austria.
Besides the UK, viewers elsewhere in
Europe and Asia are also able to watch the Justice League Snyder
Cut from today through HBO Go.
Insiders at M-Net and MultiChoice –
where M-Net has an existing output deal with HBO but one that doesn't really
include new HBO Max content – told TVwithThinus that the pay-TV operator has been
trying to secure the Justice League Snyder Cut for the linear M-Net
and M-Net Movies channels or for Showmax but that negotiations have been ongoing
and has so far not been successful.
The result – similar to what has been
happening with content like The Mandalorian and WandaVision on The Walt Disney Company's Disney+ streaming service – is that many South
African viewers would have been and are still very likely to become pirate viewers of
the Snyder Cut from today.
Consumers who would have paid to watch
and who are highly motivated to see the film or any Justice League or superhero
content, will again very likely be forced to deliberately venture
outside of the established content distribution value chain of HBO,
MultiChoice, M-Net and cinemas like Ster-Kinekor and will likely immediately
start to download or stream illegally ripped and torrent copies of the film.
This results in unrealised and lost
revenue for every company, from the bottom all the way to WarnerMedia at the
top, within the content pay-and-play value chain.
In an interview with the SnyderCutBR
YouTube channel Zack Snyder criticised WarnerMedia's bad international
distribution plan outside of the United States around his Justice League
Snyder Cut.
"There has been, you know, not
amazing work done with the distribution of the movie. I don't know why that is,
I honestly couldn't put my finger on it," he said.
