We’re now well into August, and there’s still no sign of the movie industry returning to any sort of normality in the near future. The vast majority of theaters have had their doors locked since March, with release dates being shifted on a regular basis, and as a result, VOD sales and subscriptions to streaming services have shot up, while drive-ins have also experienced a massive resurgence in popularity.
The most high profile and expensive blockbusters of the year are all sitting on a shelf waiting for the all-clear, with the notable exception of Disney’s Mulan, which is generating plenty of controversy by heading exclusively to Disney Plus for a one-off fee, while some big names are seeing their latest efforts going straight to digital with almost no fanfare.
In fact, this weekend brings three movies starring three world-famous actors heading exclusively to VOD, and they couldn’t be any more different. Waiting for the Barbarians sees Johnny Depp starring alongside Robert Pattinson in a literary adaptation that originally premiered at the Venice Film Festival last year, and with little to no buzz surrounding this one, it could very well be forgotten entirely by the time Monday morning rolls around.
The Tax Collector, meanwhile, isn’t exactly receiving rave reviews and currently sits on a 20% Rotten Tomatoes score, but the crime thriller certainly possesses the curiosity factor given that it sees Suicide Squad director David Ayer return to the genre that built his reputation, while audiences will also be interested to see if the story was really worth Shia LaBeouf getting his entire torso tattooed in the name of realism.
Lastly, Seth Rogen’s An American Pickle is now available on HBO Max, with the comedian pulling double duty as both a man who spent 100 years trapped in a vat of pickle brine and his descendant that tries to introduce him to modern society. On paper, these three movies couldn’t be more different, but there’s no doubt going to be a lot of folks that watch all of them over the course of the weekend as viewers continue to devour any original content they can get their hands on.