I enjoyed the second trailer for Lana Wachowski’s The Matrix Revolutions, though despite my curiosity, I have no intention of seeing it in theaters. That’s because I abhor Warner Bros’ dual release strategy – releasing movies in theaters at the same time they premiere on HBOMax, the streaming platform owned by Warner Media (the parent company of Warner Bros) – and think that it undermines a crucial point of the movie-watching experience, which is, at least for a degree of time, exclusivity and novelty.

And I get it, there’s a pandemic going on.

And my answer to that is, So what.

Sony doesn’t have a dedicated streaming channel, nor does Universal, yet they’re not only not hurting, they’re doing pretty well because when you release movies that people are willing to see, they’ll go out to see them.

Though what bothers me most of all is that I don’t understand how Warner Bros is doing what they’re doing, and I’ve seen nothing that shows how they’re recouping budgets doing it. For instance, Denis Villenueve’s Dune has currently earned just over $382 million ($382,172,547) – which is interesting because Marvel Studios’ Eternals has recently passed its box office, pulling in just over $384 million ($384,328,707), which is worth mentioning because the latter has not received a streaming release. Now, that’s not to say that Eternals is more profitable than Dune – as far as I can find Eternals has a budget of $200 million, while Dune cost $166 million – though it’s likely to get awfully close, if not surpass it.

And The Matrix Revolutions is as far as I’m aware being released via this dual release strategy, so I have no intention of seeing it in theaters though what’s interesting is that it’s apparently being released in a similar time as Spider-Man: No Way Home, and that’s the dumbest move a studio can likely make.

Because Spider-Man: No Way Home is going to suck all the oxygen out of the box office.