Cast iron cookware often evokes images of olden days and campfire cookouts, yet the classic culinary tool remains just as popular today as it ever was.

Theres a good reason why cast iron cookware has been around for so many years its incredibly durable and long lasting.

If youve never used cast iron before, you may have heard intimidating horror stories about how hard it is to use, clean, and store.

But once you know the basic principles of cooking with cast iron, theres a good chance youll find it just as easy to use and care for as many other types of kitchen equipment.

This article presents a general overview of cast iron cookware, its benefits, tips to get started using it, and more.

One of the main reasons cast iron has been held in high regard for so many years is that its nearly indestructible.

In fact, with a bit of cleaning and care, even cast iron cookware thats been neglected and left to rust can often be restored to a condition almost like new.

Whats more, cast iron thats been properly seasoned develops its own nonstick surface.

The best part is, unlike traditional nonstick pans made with Teflon or ceramic coatings, the nonstick surface on cast iron can be reapplied over and over again with a process known as seasoning.

The natural nonstick surface and sturdy nature may be cast irons most notable benefits, but the perks of the cookware dont stop there. Some other notable benefits of cooking with cast iron include:

You may have heard that cooking with cast iron is a natural way to add more iron to your diet.

Its in fact true that cooking with cast iron might add some iron to your meals, but exactly how much depends on a number of factors like what youre cooking, how long its in the pan, and how well your cast iron is seasoned (1, 2).

If youre looking to treat a condition like iron deficiency anemia by cooking with cast iron, you should know that the research on this topic is still very limited, and the amount of iron added to your diet by cooking with cast iron is likely negligible.

Using cast iron to get more iron in your diet may be most effective when used alongside other therapies like supplements and dietary changes (3).

Cast iron cookware is long lasting and with proper care it maintains its own natural nonstick coating. Its also versatile, affordable, and readily available in all kinds of shapes and sizes.

Cast iron cookware is suitable for many types of cooking but especially:

Some foods commonly prepared with cast ironware are:

Cast iron works wonders for many foods, but there are a few cases where you might want to avoid cast iron cookware, such as when youre boiling water or letting something simmer.

The reason is that your food may absorb more iron flavor than youd like if its cooked in cast iron for an extended period of time.

Further, acidic foods like tomatoes, lemon juice, wine, and vinegar are likely to absorb the iron flavors of cast iron, which may be undesirable at times. Theyre also harsh on cast iron cookware and might remove some of your pans natural nonstick coating.

Cast iron works best for browning, sauting, baking, and frying but should be avoiding when boiling and simmering. Meats, vegetables, and baked goods work really well in cast iron but acidic foods like tomatoes should be limited.

There are four fundamental steps to caring for cast iron cookware:

Compared to tossing a pan in the dishwasher, caring for cast iron may seem like a lot of extra work at first glance.

But once youve run through the process a couple of times, you might decide the extra few minutes you spend caring for your cast iron is worth having a sturdy nonstick piece of cookware that can be used over and over again.

Here is an overview of each step in caring for cast iron cookware:

Seasoning cast iron protects the cookware from rust and creates a natural non-stick surface. Its arguably the most important step to caring for cast iron.

Seasoning works by coating cast iron in liquid fat-like oil and heating it up past the smoke point until the fat polymerizes. When fat polymerizes, it turns from liquid into a slick, hard solid that the porous iron cookware absorbs creating a nonstick surface.

Virtually any type of cooking oil can be used to season cast iron but keep in mind that oils with strong flavors, like avocado or sesame seed oil, may subsequently flavor your cookware and the foods you prepare in it.

Many people like to use a basic vegetable or canola oil because theyre affordable, easy to find, and have a neutral flavor profile.

Whichever oil you end up using, be sure to heat your pan past the oils smoke point so polymerization occurs.

To season cast iron cookware:

Cleaning cast iron after each use is ideal to prevent rust and maintain a nonstick coating. Because cast iron tends to absorb flavors easily, it also helps ensure that the next dish you make wont taste like the one prior.

Some people choose to completely avoid using soaps and abrasive sponges to clean their cast iron out of fear it will damage the nonstick seasoning. For these reasons, its also usually best to wash cast iron by hand instead of using a high-powered dishwasher.

In actuality, a little scrubbing and a small bit of soap probably wont do much harm, but you definitely wont want to overdo it or youll likely end up needing to re-season your cast iron quite often.

An easier option might be to use a bit of salt which provides just enough abrasion to remove any residue and leftovers without damaging the nonstick layer.

Or you can try a tool called a chain mail thats made of linked rings of stainless steel or titanium. Theyre also great for cleaning cast iron yet leaving the nonstick layer unscathed.

To prevent rusting, before you store your cast iron you want to be absolutely certain youve removed all food residue from the pan and dried it completely.

After youve washed cast iron, you can dry it with a towel, by heating it in the oven, or even on the stovetop.

No matter how well you maintain your cast iron, it will need to be re-seasoned from time to time.

If you choose to dry your cast iron with heat such as in the oven or on the stovetop, it also makes for a good opportunity to add a thin layer of oil and heat the pan up to the oils smoke point to maintain the nonstick coating.

If you start to see rust or notice that your pan is turning lighter in color, its a good sign that its time to re-season.

To care for any type of cast iron: (1) season it properly (2) clean it regularly (3) store it safely (4) re-season it as needed.

Investing in a set of cast iron could mean having a durable set of nonstick cookware that lasts nearly forever.

Learning how to properly care for it is critical to maintaining the lifespan, but once youre comfortable with the process its fairly easy to incorporate into your usual kitchen cleaning routines.

Thankfully, cast iron is relatively affordable and readily available at retail kitchen stores.

Or if you want to test out cast iron yourself before buying a new piece, check your local second-hand shop and try re-seasoning an old piece to make it like new again.

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Cast Iron Cooking: Tips, Benefits, Maintenance, and More - Healthline

Robert Downey Jr. is channeling his Iron Mancharacter Tony Stark with his latest philanthropic venture aimed to help save our planet. Downey Jr. just announced that he is investing in Motif Foodworks a food tech company working to improve sustainability in the food system. Through his investment firm FootPrint Coalition Venture (FPCV), the actor will help propel Motif into the forefront of the alternative protein industry.

Motif Foodworks developed a heme-binding myoglobin protein called HEMAMI. The companys proprietary method expertly replicates the texture, aroma, and taste of traditional animal meat using exclusively plant-based ingredients. The food tech company's mission lies indeveloping a plant-based meat alternative that will appeal to all consumers, eventually helping promote an inclusive sustainable food system.

The Boston-based company is behindAPPEXTEX aproprietary technology that copies the texture and taste of traditional animal products. This technology creates an innovative meat alternative that intends to appeal to meat-eaters worldwide. The heme, which is most notably used in Impossible Foods products, provides a bleeding plant-based meat that mirrors traditional meat products.

If plant-based foods are going to make a real impact on sustainability, we need an approach thats both delicious and nutritious, Downey Jr. said in a statement. By focusing on both better tasting and healthier options, Motif is not only making a difference in products today but reimagining the future of tomorrows plant-based foods.

Downey Jr.s recent investment follows Motif'ssuccessful Series B funding round last year. The company secured a $226 million investment package, which would be allocatedtowards improvingits signature technologies and expandingits distribution capabilities. The company currently has plans to debut three plant-based meat products to foodserviceproviders, retailers, and distributors across the United States.

Whether on the store shelf or a menu, were focused on making our customers plant-based foods so desirable that people actually crave them, Motif FoodWorks CEO Jonathan McIntyre said in a statement. We couldnt be more excited to have Robert [Downey Jr.] and FootPrint Coalition on board as an investor and a partner in our work to grow the category.

The three products include the Motif MoBeef Plant-Based Burger Patties, Motif MoBeef Plant-Based Ground, and Motif MoPork. The burgers will be the only product available until later this year when the company is set to release the grounds and pork selections. Motif also revealed that it plans to release its Motif MoChicken next year, entering the rapidly expanding plant-based chicken sector.

Motif will unveil these innovative plant-based products with the help of Chef Chloe Coscarelli at the Flavor Forays Championship BBQ and Cook-Off at the National RestaurantAssociation Show in Chicago. Coscarelli will cook withthe Motif meat products during the competition on May 22.

With our Motif MoBeef, Motif MoPork, and Motif MoChicken options, chefs, retailers, and distributors can offer the absolute best plant-based experience, with umami, mouthwatering flavor, and a meaty bite that consumers have been asking for from products in the category, McIntyre said.

Downey Jr. is betting big on the plant-based world. Other than Motif, the major celebrity invested in a vegan cheese company that makes dairy-identical cheese using soybeans. Nobell Foods secured $75 million dollars with the help of FPCV, putting the company's total valuation at $100 million. The companys innovative product uses a proprietary technology that extracts proteins from soybeans to replicate dairy caseins to give its plant-based cheese a creamy, cheesy texture.

Earlier in 2021, Downey Jr. also invested in a vegan bacon company MyForest Foods (previously known as Atlast Food). The $40 million dollar investment round helped MyForest Food expand its production capabilities and distribution range. The company known for its mushroom-based bacon plans to build the largest mycelium production facility in the United States with the help of this funding package.

For more plant-based happenings, visit The Beet's News articles.

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Why Robert Downey Jr. Believes Vegan Meat Can Save the Planet - The Beet

Brits are being warned to avoid using a hotel room to hide valuables as there are better hiding places - and lip balm containers could be part of the solution

Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Brits heading on holidays abroad this summer are being urged to avoid hiding their valuables in some of the obvious places that thieves know about.

Leaving valuables such as jewellery and money in your hotel room can be quite risky, but taking everything with you while out and about isn't exactly ideal either.

So, where is the best place to hide them?

Well, for a start, forget those bedside tables.

Travel website Hotels & Discounts has warned that "many people believe that their valuables are safe deep in a drawer" yet this exactly where you shouldn't keep them, reports the Express.

Sign up to the Mirror's travel newsletter for more tips, holiday deals and news.

The closet, under the bed, in the fridge, under the mattress and the laundry basket should be ruled out too, as well as any bags or suitcases in your room.

The website adds: "forget about the in-room safe", as it's one of the most obvious places in the room.

That doesn't exactly leave holidaymakers with a whole lot of choice, but the good news is that there are some crafty solutions that could help you keep your valuables safe, and it involves stuff you've most likely got lying around in your house.

Travel platform Skyscanner has previously shared some of its best packing tips, including how to store your belongings safely in a hotel room.

Their travel experts advise: "To avoid the worst-case scenario of being robbed, its best to be inconspicuous: dont flash cash or expensive jewellery. If youre worried about valuable stuff in your hotel room, hide it in an empty suntan lotion container. You could also use empty lip balm containers to hide rolled-up notes. You could also consider getting travel insurance."

Image:

ABTA also has some useful tips for staying safe on holiday. For example if you're staying in a villa rather than a hotel, the travel authority suggests that you ensure your valuables are "locked within the safe(s) and arm the security system when leaving the property".

They also recommend that you keep your valuable items on you for any changeover days, and ensure that you keep doors and windows locked when the villa is unoccupied, as well as during the night.

Looking for more hacks? We've got you covered with our travel tips guide whether that's packing ideas, how to beat jet lag or even simple tricks to make travelling with children that little bit easier.

Got a great holiday tip of your own? Let us know in the comments below.

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How to avoid being robbed on holiday as Brits warned 'Don't use hotel safe' - The Mirror

A group of participants at a previous SHRED CANCER event

STERLING, Va. (PRWEB) May 19, 2022

PROSHRED Security (PROSHRED) will be celebrating the ninth anniversary of their annual nationwide Shred Cancer Event. The first of the events will take place on Saturday, June 4, 2022, and will continue through to the end of August 2022 in partnership with The American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR). Community members are invited to bring their personal information to be securely shredded while raising funds for cancer research.

The event will be held in many major metropolitan PROSHRED markets throughout the country over the next three months. Event times will vary by location. To view event locations and timings, visit https://www.proshred.com/shred-events/

Individuals may bring boxes of documents or multi-media to one of PROSHREDs on-site shredding trucks to dispose of unwanted personal information safely and securely. The event is free to attend, however we encourage a donation of $10 per box that will go directly towards funding AICRs cancer research and education programs. Several locations will host additional events and raffles.

Generous support from millions of individual Americansand not government or industry grantshave allowed AICR to fund emerging research and to continue our programs for educating the public about what practical steps we all can take every day to live in a world with less cancer. The funds raised by the PROSHRED community makes a significant impact on the health of millions of Americans. American Institute for Cancer Research

Jeffrey Hasham, Chief Executive Officer of PROSHRED, commented, "We at PROSHRED consider ourselves very fortunate to be able to contribute to AICR's critical cancer research. The work of AICR has resulted in a greater understanding of the relationship between nutrition, exercise, and the prevention of numerous cancers over the last 30 years. We hope that by working together, we can increase awareness and proceeds for AICR's dedicated work. We hope to see a great turn-out at our Nationwide Shred Event on Saturday, June 4, 2022; together, we can Shred Cancer."

Commencing in 2014 on National Cancer Survivors Day, PROSHRED has contributed over $190,000 to cancer research. This year AICR and PROSHRED have set a goal to raise $50,000 for research.

Event locations and other details are available at aicr.org/events/shredcancer/.

About PROSHRED SecurityPROSHRED shreds and recycles confidential information and proprietary materials for thousands of customers in the United States in all industry sectors. PROSHRED is the pioneer of mobile document destruction and is both ISO 9001 and NAID AAA certified.

It is PROSHREDs vision to be the system of choice and provider of shredding and recycling services throughout North America. Today, PROSHRED serves over 41 markets in 26 states in the United States. For more information, please visit, https://www.proshred.com.

About AICROur Vision: We want to live in a world where no one develops cancer that is preventable.

Our Mission: The American Institute for Cancer Research champions the latest and most authoritative scientific research from around the world on cancer prevention and survival through diet, weight, and physical activity so that we can help people make informed lifestyle choices to reduce their cancer risk.

We have contributed over $107 million to innovative research conducted at universities, hospitals, and research centers. Find evidence-based tools and information for lowering cancer risk, including AICRs Recommendation for Cancer Prevention, at http://www.aicr.org.

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A long-tailed weasel in the North Bay. (Photo by Becky Matsubara from El Sobrante, California, Wikimedia Commons)

Erica Spotswood, the science director of the San Francisco Estuary Institutes Urban Nature Lab, got her dissertation studying seed dispersal on the French Polynesian islands of Tahiti and Moorea. A kind of low-growing fruit tree named Miconia calvescens had arrived in Polynesia from Central America sometime in the 1930s and rapidly spread across the tropical islands, leaving ecological devastation in its wake. The Global Invasive Species Database lists Miconia calvescens as one of the worst invasive species in the world; in Hawaii it is sometimes called the purple plague while in French-speaking Tahiti it is le cancer vert. Spotswood wanted to better understand how the tree moved so quickly across the islands.

Her studies looked specifically at how birds might spread seeds and allow Miconia calvescens to cross otherwise impassible ridges and cliff faces. She found, generally, that native Polynesian fruit doves had switched their diet to eat more Miconia calvescens, accelerating the invasion. But underlying the study were bigger questions about islands and nature. A volcanic Pacific island like Moorea or Tahiti has a unique ecological history: it rose lifeless from the bottom of an ocean thousands of miles from the mainland and then, over hundreds of thousands of years, plants and animals found it, settled and radiated into new species. An invader like Miconia disrupts an intricate evolutionary process.

Relative to mainland tropical forests, tropical islands have low terrestrial biodiversity. (Whats in the water is another story entirely.) Spotswood came away from her time in Moorea nonetheless impressed at what biodiversity islands do have. Every species of land bird, every amphibian and insect and plant, comes from a founder that managed somehow to cross an ocean to get there. These are not things, generally speaking, that land birds, amphibians, insects, and plants do. Its almost mind-boggling that you have that many species given how hard it is for anything to get there, Spotswood says. As a result, she says, ideas about how to conserve island biodiversity have to take into account the role of these different factors of how difficult it is for life to arrive, how essentially random that arrival might be, and how long it might take.

For the last five years at SFEI, Spotswood has focused on nature in the cities of the Bay Area. The Urban Nature Lab has published reports on reintroducing oak trees to Silicon Valley, on better managing Bay Area sports fields for nature, and on monitoring and categorizing city species. Of late, Spotswood and her colleagues have worked with ecologists at the Presidio Trust in San Francisco on how to make the Presidio a safe harbor for quail.

Quail went officially extinct from San Francisco in the last few years, but the trajectory toward extinction was clear for much longer. You can see the species winking out, Spotswood says, in the last eBird record for quail in each of the citys parks: Ocean Beach in 1978, Bernal Heights in 1987, Sutro and Lands End in 1995, McLaren Park and Lake Merced in 1998. The slow disappearance, park by park over a matter of decades, fits a pattern ecologists sometimes call an extinction debt, in which a species is still present in an area but, because of background change, ultimately doomed.

The last quail was seen in the Presidio in 2006, and the debt finally paid off when the last quail in San Francisco disappeared from Golden Gate Park in 2017. Over the last 15 years though, ecologists at the Presidio have remade the 1,500-acre urban park into a more hospitable place for a variety of wildlife. Bees, butterflies, coyotes, foxes and fish have returned. Its become something like the opposite of the extinction debt, Spotswood says. Maybe you could call it a discovery debt. More animals might thrive in the Presidio than currently live there; they just need to find it.

Presidio Trust ecologists Lew Stringer and Jonathan Young considered helping that rediscovery process by reintroducing quail to the Presidio directly. But before they did so, they wanted to know if it would actually work. Spotswood and SFEI had the idea that you could use eBird data on where quails are found in urban parks, and match that with the different characteristics of those parks, to build a statistical model of what kinds of city parks work for quails.

Of course lots of different factors play a role in making a park successful for small ground birds vegetation, cover, predators. But in the analysis, led by SFEI environmental scientist Kelly Iknayan, two stood out as particularly important. One was the size of the park. You might consider this akin to a measure of how big the island is. The other, more of a surprise, was the distance from the park to the edges of town. In other words, how big is the ocean around the island. Is it the ability for a park to be colonized for quail to get to that park? Iknayan says. Or was it the ability for the quail to stay in the park?

According to their paper, published in fall 2021 in the Journal of Applied Ecology, the Presidio is plenty big enough to be home to quail. Quail are ground birds, meaning they can fly but generally choose not to. A quail, alas, cannot or does not walk across the Golden Gate Bridge; repopulation from Marin is out. So the closest land distance from the Presidio to a current quail population is across the pavement of the city to the quails of San Bruno Mountain and Milagra Ridge. That is a long, long way for a quail to walk.

If they can get there theyre likely to stay there, Spotswood says. But the probability of them getting there is low. In a sense its the same phenomenon as a remote oceanic island. If the thing can get there, if the island is big enough and has good habitat, whatever arrives there will be able to stay there. But if for whatever reason it goes extinct, the probability it will be reintroduced is very low.

Finally, at last, we have crossed our own ocean to the point of this story. On May 5, a water treatment worker spotted a long-tailed weasel running through a stand of coyote brush in the Presidio. The sighting seemed to Presidio Trust restoration ecologist Jonathan Young like the first great hint of an answer. A long-tailed weasel hasnt been officially documented in the Presidio since the 1950s. Theyre vanishingly rare in San Francisco, with only one other record in the community science platform iNaturalist. How did the weasel get to the Presidio?

It ran. From somewhere not in San Francisco. The other iNaturalist sighting of a long-tailed weasel from San Francisco is on the Great Highway last November. Young thinks this might just be one bold explorer weasel with a yearning for travel. That it arrived safely in a place where it might be able to live thats exciting, Young says. This animal walked across the city, navigating the sea of pavement to safety in the vast urban park. It suggests to Young that with slight improvements to the various corridors connecting the Peninsula with the north edge of the city, more species might follow.

The traditional more hands-off [approach] for wildlife restoration, is if you build it they will come, but if its isolated and they cant fly there, theyre not getting there, Young says. Thats why this weasel is such a cool story. We built it, they came, and hopefully theres more.

Its a proof of concept, he adds. If a weasel could do it, I think its possible a quail could do it too.

The Presidio Trust, SFEI, and others are working on a project funded by the State Coastal Conservancy to study the wildlife corridors along the western side of the city. Part of what makes the weasels successful journey exciting is that it suggests the improvements might not need to be on the same scale as the $87 million mountain lion crossing over eight lanes of the 101 freeway in Los Angeles.

Instead Sunset Boulevard, the tree-lined strip that runs north-south from Lake Merced to Golden Gate Park, might be enhanced to make its greenery friendlier to migrating ground birds (and weasels). Iknayan says there are nearly three acres of open space per block along Sunset that might be improved for animal movement. The citys Slow Streets program and Great Highway closure could also be adapted to favor the occasional animal passerby.Iknayan thinks scientists could even get to the point of fine-tuning the corridors so that the quails are able to disperse and find an optimal genetic mix between populations in the various larger parks.

Its important to not just say, Were stuck with the Presidio as it is, so well overcome that isolation by just reintroducing the birds every 10 years, Spotswood says.

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Urban parks can act like islands, separated completely from each other by cars, roads, and buildings full of predator cats and rats. The seas around them limit how much nature can return. But humans can knit islands together. The history of Polynesia is one, as the Tongan and Fijian writer Epeli Hauofa once put it, not of what the Europeans saw as isolated islands in a far-off sea, but our sea of islands, places connected by cultures and cosmologies and well-known navigation corridors, seen in the totality of their relationships.

So its only one photo of one weasel. Young technically hasnt even seen it himself. Still, it reminds him that the Presidio might be reconnected to all the other urban islands in San Francisco and beyond.

Its just so cool to see this little creature made it all the way up here, on this kind of loose corridor that with a little attention could be a bigger corridor, he says. Which ultimately ties down to the whole Peninsula.

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First Long-Tailed Weasel in a Century Seen in the Presidio - Bay Nature

Robert Pattinson in 'The Batman'

David Zaslav made a bunch of news yesterday during the press rounds for Warner Bros. Discoverys annual television upfront presentation. He got a profile n the Wall Street Journal where he frankly came off as a money > relationships executive. He openly criticized the decision to spend $33 million on Clint Eastwoods relatively non-commercial Cry Macho and his actions over the first month, almost immediately pulling the plug on CNN+ and canceling an in-development HBO Max movie based on DCs The Wonder Twins, seems to at the very least paint him as someone not willing to give in to sunk cost fallacy thinking. However, he also committed to the notion of Warner Bros. releasing 20-25 movies in theaters per year while downplaying HBO Max originals.

Zaslav seems to understand what Ive frankly been saying for two years, namely that streaming is not an all eggs in one basket business and that putting a film in theaters increases its eventual streaming viewership. With Sonys Tom Rothman singing the praises of old-school theatrical windows (the copious films sent to streamers over the last two years notwithstanding) and Paramount having their best theatrical year in a generation (concurrently with Paramount+ rising in terms of pop culture awareness), even Netflix is on the verge of committing to conventional pre-streaming theatrical engagements. Ive been saying since last May that theaters can be an asset to those with a vested interest in the streaming marketplace, a way to separate the metaphorical wheat from the chaff.

When Zack Snyders damn good Army of the Dead gets a week in theaters, with all the free publicity that entails, while Joe Wrights bought-from-Fox Woman in the Window gets quietly tossed onto the platform, thats a qualitative judgment. Ten years ago, putting your theatrical movie in IMAX was a way of saying you meant business. Today, putting your streaming-centric title in wide theatrical release even for a month could arguably do likewise. Bob Chapeks Walt Disney seems to be among the holdouts (along with Amazon, which to be fair got burned in summer 2019 with a few high-profile theatricals like Late Night that bombed), with their theatrical slate comprised almost entirely of MCU movies and animated titles (presuming Turning Red is the last Pixar flick to go straight-to-streaming).

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To be fair, many of Hulus seven summer releases, from The Valet (a Samara Weaving/Eugenio Derbez rom-com) tomorrow to Prey (Dan Trachtenberg and Patrick Aisons Comanches versus Predator prequel) on August 5, were intended for Hulu and/or the kind of nobody sees this in theaters flick (like Emma Thompsons Good Luck to You, Leo Grande) that has faltered commercially specifically because of streaming competition. Still, Encanto, which got a theatrical release, is pulling higher Disney+ viewership than Turning Red which did not. Well see if Lightyear follows suit. The industry at large may be understanding, at least in the long run, that at least some of the increases in streaming subscriptions and streaming viewership were due to 1.5 years during which nobody could safely leave the house.

Theatrical and streaming can supplement and complement each other rather than act as zero-sum enemies. The Batman earned $369 million domestic and then nabbed allegedly huge HBO Max viewership, while Spider-Man: No Way Home got a conventional 88-day window and then still set records on its electronic-sell-through (priced to buy VOD) debut. Sing 2 (from Comcast which is the only biggie with a normal-sized summer movie slate) was on PVOD for most of its theatrical lifespan and still legged to $163 million domestic (more than The Secret Life of Pets 2 in summer 2019) and $407 million worldwide (not far off from Pets 2s $430 million cume). Even Free Guy pulled solid HBO Max/Disney+ viewership after a shockingly successful $122 million domestic/$332 million global theatrical run.

Again, this isnt theaters good and streaming bad, although I do believe that now even streaming comedies and niche flicks risk being buried by IP-specific franchises. If you subscribe to every major service and every major service has their big IPs (Marvel for Disney+, DC for HBO Max, Star Trek and Halo for Paramount+, etc.), then you once again can subsist entirely on a diet of prepackaged, nostalgia-tinged IP shows. However, as weve seen via momentary popularity for older third-party titles on Netflix (the latest forgotten biggie being U.S. Marshals) and momentary interest in The Last Duel and Death on the Nile on HBO Max and Hulu, the potential for streaming viewership creates a fail-safe for less surefire theatrical releases, hence Sonys big-bucks first-pay window deal with Netflix.

Mortal Kombat

Studios should remember both the sheer revenue generated by a successful theatrical release and how a successful run can help rather than hinder their streaming-specific goals. This brings us back to Warner Bros. Discovery. We dont know if Zaslov is genuine in his reported intent to insist/gently prod WBD to offer up 20-25 theatrical movies each year, and we dont know to what extent his alleged preference for data over gut instinct is A) overblown and B) likely to have a detrimental effect on what gets green-lit. However, Denzel Washingtons The Little Things was a strong performer on HBO Max, and Mortal Kombat pulled year-high viewership for the streamer to the extent that it got a sequel despite grossing $85 million worldwide on a $55 million budget.

Would those titles have performed as well if they were streaming-only titles? Id argue, and the data implies that the answer is no, just as more folks watched Mulan than Lady and the Tramp on Disney+. There may be value in some just a movie releases as glorified theatrical loss leaders for the sake of eventual streaming rediscovery. Or, at the very least, a well-liked theatrical wont pull less streaming viewership by virtue of being in theaters first. This may just mean that the new boss noticed that big theatrical flicks like The Batman play better on streaming than Kimi. However, Warner Bros. cannot make enough DC flicks, Conjuring spin-offs, Wizarding World movies, MonsterVerse films and Looney Tunes flicks to fill up a 20-25-movie slate.

By default, were going to have some just a movie biggies (Ready Player One) or one-and-done tentpoles that may or may not spawn franchises (The Meg, Oceans Eight) that may or may not win Oscars (A Star Is Born). One reason Ive defended WB over the years is that A) they shouldnt be defined entirely by the DC Comics movies (canceling Wonder Twins means they arent just randomly producing DC flicks for the sake of DC) and B) they did release/will release a slew of varied theatrical movies on an annual basis. A 25-movie slate means, by default, the Dream Factory cannot go 100% tentpole. Hopefully, their rivals, including Netflix (currently considering a 45-day pre-streaming theatrical run for Rian Johnsons Knives Out 2) follow suit.

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Warner Bros.' Recommitment To Theatres Hints At Return To Normalcy - Forbes