Salem's Lot Moves To Streaming

The latest adaptation of a Stephen King novel finally has details about how it will be distributed after about a year of silence from Warner Brothers. The new adaptation of Salem's Lot will be foregoing a theatrical release and instead release exclusively on Max.

This seems like a baffling choice considering the recent history of Warner  Brothers at the box office. Arguably their biggest box office success of last year was Evil Dead Rise which had a tiny budget and modest box office return. Warner Brothers' recent track record of never releasing completed movies or moving films originally slated for Max to theatrical if it seems like it could make money, this seems like a bit of an oddity. Since there is no publicly reported budget but the movie has not been cancelled, I'd assume its somewhere between $10 million and $60 million, probably closer to the higher end. This would put the movie in a position where it could potentially not make back its budget if it was released theatrically while also cheap enough where citing it as a reason to get Max would be a worthwhile place to put it.  Considering Malignant cost $40 million, it is certainly a possibility that this movie cost more.

I don't think we know enough about the movie to say this is an indictment of quality. Based on the actors involved this could have been interesting to see in a theater but I see this more as a post-WGA/SAG strike move to bolster the release slate for Max in the back half of 2024. They have House of the Dragon as a hybrid with HBO and they have The Penguin, The Girls on the Bus, and Creature Commandos but they are severely lagging behind in solid scripted programming.  This would add a little depth to the end of the year to help them add subscribers.

Salem's Lot releases on Max at some point in 2024.