3:07 PM PDT 3/20/2020
by
Mia Galuppo
,
Borys Kit
The comedy was set to hit theaters on April 3, but was pulled from release by Paramount due to growing coronavirus concerns.
A week after being pulled from its April 3 theatrical release amid growing concerns about the coronavirus, The Lovebirds is flying to Netflix.
The comedy, starring Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani, was set to be released via Paramount. The studio recently pulled the release of A Quiet Place II and Blue Story.
The Lovebirds, directed by Michael Showalter, follows a couple (Nanjiani and Rae) on the brink of a breakup. The pair subsequently become embroiled in a bizarre and hijinks-filled murder mystery. (Valence Media, the parent company of The Hollywood Reporter, also owns MRC, which produced The Lovebirds.)
As Hollywood grapples with the closure of U.S. theaters — including the indefinite closure of the nation’s two biggest chains AMC and Regal — all of the majors studios have postponed their theatrical releases. And many are sending recent releases to VOD and digital services weeks early.
Warner Bros. movies Birds of Prey and Just Mercy are headed to digital, along with STX’s The Gentlemen and Sony’s Bloodshot. The Vin Diesel-starrer opened just last Friday, March 13, will be available for digital purchase on March 24.
These moves came after NBCUniversal announced on March 16 that it would be breaking the window between theatrical and home entertainment, with recent Universal releases including The Invisible Man, Emma and The Hunt being made available digitally for 48-hour rental periods as early as this Friday. Universal’s Trolls World Tour, which was due out April 10, will be available digitally that day, as well as in whatever theaters may remain open on that date.
The Lovebirds marks the first studio movie that was pulled from a theatrical release that was placed at a non-studio streaming service. But Paramount does have a stand partnership with Netflix— a multipicture film deal that Paramount CEO Jim Gianopulos said would comprise “a small number of titles”. The studio has previously released former theater-bound The Cloverfield Paradox with Netflix.
