While I prefer seeing movies in movie theaters, I think we can all agree the pandemic in the United States is raging out of control. Even if the government starts rolling out the vaccine in the coming weeks, it will take a long time before everyone is protected and the world gets back to normal. I don’t think movie theaters will be operating at 100% before May.

In addition, just like Disney, which is prioritizing Disney+, WarnerBros. knows the future is streaming and only so many players will survive. Consumers are being offered far too many streaming choices and only the biggest players are going to remain in five years. For every streaming platform, now is the time to gain as many subscribers as you can so you will be one of the platforms that survive. While HBO Max has an incredible amount of content, they don’t have buzzed about series like Amazon’s The Boys or Disney’s The Mandalorian.

But the announcement that Wonder Woman 1984will stream on Christmas Day on HBO Max, and every WarnerBros. 2021 movie will also arrive on HBOMax the day it is released in theaters, I can see millions of people signing up for the service. While WB is definitely going to make less money on these movies by letting consumers watch them at home, in the long run, if they are able to get tens of millions of people to sign up and keep HBO Max, it might end up paying off.

Whatever happens, the entire movie industry has fundamentally changed and it might not ever go back.

With the news that the entire 17-film 2021 WarnerBros. motion picture slate is going to be released throughout the coming year in theaters and on HBOMax on the same day, the studio released a logo sheet which includes The Little Things, Judas and the Black Messiah, Tom & Jerry, Godzilla vs. Kong, Mortal Kombat, Those Who Wish Me Dead, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, In The Heights, Space Jam: A New Legacy, The Suicide Squad, Reminiscence, Malignant, Dune, The Many Saints of Newark, King Richard, Cry Machoand The Matrix 4.

While you may have seen some of these before, when you look at them all together in one place, you quickly realize HBO Max is going to have a huge year in 2021.