{"id":454705,"date":"2026-02-07T15:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T15:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/454705\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T15:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T15:42:09","slug":"send-help-almost-went-direct-to-streaming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/454705\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Send Help&#8221; Almost Went Direct To Streaming"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>            <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/send-help-almost-went-direct-to-streaming.jpg\" data-caption=\"20th Century Studios\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" class=\"entry-thumb td-modal-image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/send-help-almost-went-direct-to-streaming.jpg\"   alt=\"\" title=\"send-help-almost-went-direct-to-streaming\"\/><\/a>20th Century Studios<\/p>\n<p>The Sam Raimi-directed dark comedy\/survival thriller \u201cSend Help\u201d is looking to conquer the box-office once again.<\/p>\n<p>The title is on track to hold the top spot for a second weekend and grossed $34 million in its first week \u2013 not bad for a $40 million budget film.<\/p>\n<p>Turns out, though, that the 20th Century Studios title was originally set up at Sony Pictures, not a huge surprise, as Sam Raimi\u2019s Ghost House Pictures production company has primarily released titles through them.  So why isn\u2019t Sony releasing this one?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/creative-content\/movies\/send-help-sam-raimi-interview\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Wrap<\/a> reports that in the wake of COVID, Sony began eyeing a potential streaming premiere for the film which is when Raimi put his foot down, picked up his movie and took it to 20th Century Studios.  Raimi tells the outlet:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe studio, at the time, said, \u2018We can\u2019t make this as a theatrical film. We could make it as a lower-budget, controlled streaming film\u2019.  I don\u2019t mean to be a snob, but I\u2019m designing this as an audience experience.<\/p>\n<p>I wanted the interaction of the theater to make it work, because I know that flavor, and I need that. I design my movies to play upon the audience in the theater. I really do. I think it\u2019s a different approach you take.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sony itself is coming off a rough run \u2013 they sent \u201cKPop Demon Hunters\u201d direct-to-streaming, where it became a smash success but was seen as having left money on the table.  Several recent cinema releases have either underperformed or flopped, even ones with critical acclaim like \u201c28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,\u201d though the studio does have a guaranteed hit with a new \u201cSpider-Man\u201d this Summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"20th Century Studios The Sam Raimi-directed dark comedy\/survival thriller \u201cSend Help\u201d is looking to conquer the box-office once&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[137872,88,206],"class_list":{"0":"post-454705","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-bigslider","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}