The Denzel Washington Equalizer trilogy is now streaming on Max, all three movies are there. This happened on July 1. You know, Robert McCall, ex-spy, vigilante, all that. It’s a big deal for Max to get these films, especially with how the streaming market is right now and like everyone is fighting for content.
Warner Bros. Discovery, the company that owns Max, they reported their first quarter 2024 results back on May 9, 2024. Their global direct-to-consumer subscribers, that’s like Max and Discovery+ combined, hit 99.6 million at the end of Q1. That’s an increase of 2.0 million subscribers from the previous quarter. They are really pushing for growth, like they want to reach 150 million global subscribers by the end of 2026. Max alone had 95.8 million global subscribers in 2023, and 54 million of those were in the US. By Q2 2024, Max had over 50 million US subscriptions. The average revenue per user for their direct-to-consumer segment was $7.83, which is up 4%.
But, you know, the overall picture for WBD, it’s a mixed bag, it’s always a mixed bag. Total revenues for Q1 2024 were $9,958 million, down 7% compared to the prior year. And they had a net loss of $(966) million. Adjusted EBITDA, that was $2,102 million, a 20% decrease. A big part of that decline, and this is where it gets interesting for us, was because of the gaming division. The success of Hogwarts Legacy in the prior year quarter, that was huge, but then Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League in the current quarter, it just did not generate the same kind of revenue. That’s a direct impact, like a $200 million impact to EBITDA for the quarter. Studio segment revenue was down 13% to $2.82 billion, and adjusted EBITDA for that segment dropped 70% to $184 million. Games revenue, it declined significantly. So, while they’re getting these movies on streaming, the content creation side, especially in games, is having some issues.
The Equalizer films themselves, they did pretty well in theaters. The first movie, The Equalizer from 2014, it made $192.3 million worldwide. The opening weekend was $34.1 million. Then The Equalizer 2 in 2018, that one opened to $35.8 million, which was actually more than the first film’s opening. It pulled in $190 million globally. And The Equalizer 3, the most recent one from 2023, that had a global opening of $60.6 million. Domestically, it was $34.5 million over three days, and $42 million including the Labor Day holiday. That was the best global launch for the whole Equalizer series. So, these movies have a proven audience, a very consistent audience, which is good for a streaming service looking for reliable content.
It makes you wonder, like, how much does exclusive content really move the needle for subscriber numbers in the long run? Especially when the company is still dealing with revenue challenges in other areas, like the gaming side of things. I mean, they are trying to fix their debt situation too, WBD repaid $1.1 billion of debt during Q1 2024. They ended the quarter with $43.2 billion of gross debt. That’s a lot of debt to manage, and content is expensive, very expensive.
I bought NVDA stock, NVIDIA, on July 12, 2024, at $129.03. I’m holding it until it hits $200 or if I need the cash for something else, whichever comes first. It’s a long play, you know, AI and gaming chips, that’s the future. But these streaming numbers and movie performance, it’s a different kind of market, a very different kind of market.
