SpongeBob SquarePants movie skips theaters for streaming premiere

The SpongeBob movie: Sponge on the Run has decided to bypass its theatrical release in August to go straight to video early next year before appearing on CBS All Access on Monday, according to a Variety report. (Disclosure: CNET is owned by ViacomCBS.)

The Corona virus The pandemic forced Paramount to postpone the film’s release date in July to August 7, but it is now following the path of Trolls World Tour and Scoob! skipping cinemas and premiering services like Amazon and iTunes.

It is not clear how long it will take for these services to become available CBS All AccessAs part of the rebranding and expansion of the ViacomCBS subscription streaming platform, all seasons of the SpongeBob cartoon will also be shown.

SpongeBob films are lucrative titles for Paramount: the first film in 2004 cost $ 141 million worldwide, and Sponge Out of Water from 2015 increased that value to $ 325.1 million.

There is some evidence as to why Paramount chose the digital route. The digital release of Trolls World Tour in April brought in nearly $ 100 million in the first three weeks and is said to have brought Universal more than the entire original Trolls’ domestic movie segment. Scoob! Reports also went well when digital arrived in May and surpassed rents on the opening weekend.

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In contrast to the cartoon, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run is computer-animated with live action and will contain some celebrity cameos in accordance with its film predecessors (David Hasselhoff made waves in the first film).

As you can see in the trailer below, one of them is Keanu Reeves, who plays a character called Sage – “I’m made of sage and I’m a sage, so it works pretty well,” he says.