HBO Max Chief: Don’t Blame ‘In the Heights’ Bad Box Office on Streaming Release

Tim Baysinger
·1 min read

HBO Max chief Andy Forssell insists that the disappointing box office returns for last month’s Warner Bros. musical “In the Heights” had nothing to do with its simultaneous release on his streaming platform. “It’s so hard to gauge how much did COVID have to do with it, especially with the COVID situation changing week by week, people’s willingness to go to a theater,” Forssell told TheWrap after WarnerMedia parent AT&T reported its second quarter earnings (which you can read about here). “I just know ‘In the Heights’ did really well on HBO Max — it did sort of lower end of the range of our expectations at the box office.” For the record, director Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway musical opened to a modest $11.5 million in theaters in early June — and has grossed a total of $29 million since opening. Forssell defended the company’s overall strategy of making Warner Bros.’ big-screen movies available on the streaming service for no extra cost. “We all tend to want to draw these conclusions, but I think it’s very different title by title, and really hard to be confident that you can draw a conclusion,” he said, noting that...

Read original story HBO Max Chief: Don’t Blame ‘In the Heights’ Bad Box Office on Streaming Release At TheWrap