Now, before getting into the finer points of the argument that Greenstein and Panitch are trying to make here, we should clarify a couple of things. For one, some big movies did take the plunge before October of 2021, with “Godzilla vs. Kong,” “F9,” “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” and “Free Guy” ranking as just a few examples. That having been said, several of them were released on streaming as well, such as “Godzilla vs. Kong,” which added a safety net to the equation for Warner Bros. So Greenstein’s point of “no big movies” before October of last year is a bit off-base.

Setting that aside, the larger point being made by two of Sony’s top executives is actually a little difficult to argue with. Warner Bros. released all of its films in 2021 both on HBO Max and in theaters on the same day. They weren’t ready to fully commit to keeping theaters alive and they wanted one foot in both camps. Disney even did something similar with the likes of “Black Widow” and “Raya and the Last Dragon,” charging $30 for them on Disney+ Premier Access alongside their theatrical releases. The point is, the biggest studios in town were nervously dancing around going all-in on theatrical in 2021.

Sony, meanwhile, did take its biggest franchises to theaters exclusively last year and, after a downright devastating year and change for that side of the business, those films brought moviegoers out en masse. Looking over the 2021 box office, “Venom: Let there Be Carnage” grossed $506 million, “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” earned $197 million, and “Spider-Man: No Way Home” blew the doors off at the end of the year with a gigantic $260 million opening on its way to $1.9 billion worldwide.