Paramount Bypasses a Weakening Theatrical Market for the Upcoming ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ Sequel

Paramount Pictures is having a rough year at the U.S. box office with Gemini Man and Terminator: Dark Fate both bombing and no big franchise films premiering for the holiday season, so it’s no surprise to see corporate parent Viacom looking to the future as it nears the completion of its merger with CBS.

The Beverly Hills Cop sequel currently in development at Paramount will skip a theatrical release and premiere exclusively on Netflix, Viacom CEO Bob Bakish said this morning during his quarterly call with investment analysts. The announcement comes only a day after Viacom’s $200 million deal to make Nickelodeon originals for Netflix.

Next year should be better theatrically for Paramount Pictures with A Quiet Place 2, a new SpongeBob Squarepants movie and Top Gun: Maverick, but the theatrical business is a tiny part of Viacom’s overall film/TV production business — only nine theatrical films in 2019 — and will be an even smaller part of a merged ViacomCBS.

“Demand for content from third parties is incredible,” Bakish said. “We have deep libraries and extensive production capabilities. At the moment we have 750 series ordered to or in production — not to mention a library of over 140,000 television episodes and over 3,600 films. I strongly believe this level of volume is sufficient to supply both our needs and third parties.”

The U.S. box office is down 6.4% year to date, according to Box Office Mojo, but franchise films — especially Disney’s franchise films — dominate the market. There’s not a single original comedy or drama in the 20 highest-grossing films so far this year, while Sandra Bullock’s Bird Box and Adam Sandler’s Murder Mystery on Netflix has become massive hits without a theatrical release.

Big-name talent is increasingly OK skipping a theatrical release. Disney+ premiered Anna Kendrick and Bill Hader holiday comedy Noelle this week. Netflix has the Ryan Reynolds action thriller 6 Underground on December 13. Apple TV+ will premiere Samuel L. Jackson historical drama The Banker in January. Melissa McCarthy is making a comedy for HBO Max.

Netflix makes perfect sense for Beverly Hills Cop. Eddie Murphy’s Dolemite Is My Name is a Netflix original that’s getting both great reviews and Oscar buzz, Murphy’s Delirious stand-up special is currently on the service, and Netflix will lead into the new Beverly Hills Cop with the first three films in the franchise.

Scott Porch writes about the TV business for Decider and is a contributing writer for The Daily Beast. You can follow him on Twitter @ScottPorch.