Is Brad Pitt’s F1 Movie Racing to a Streaming Release Soon?
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Apple’s summer blockbuster, F1: The Movie, has proven to be a bigger hit than anyone could have hoped for. It’s Apple’s top-grossing film of all time — by a considerable margin — reaching nearly $300 million at the box office during the first 10 days of its run, and blazing past the $500 million mark by the fifth week of its release.
Ticket receipts have now seemingly levelled off; despite an IMAX re-release earlier this month, F1 sits at just under $591 million worldwide following its eighth weekend in theatres. That suggests it won’t be long before it moves out of theaters and onto streaming services, and a new report from WhenToStream, which tracks such things, is giving us a hint as to when we can expect this to happen: this Friday, August 22.
It’s important to keep in mind that this is all still just speculation, as there’s been no official announcement from Apple. WhenToStream also hasn’t cited its sources, so this could also be based partially on informed speculation: movies typically hit PVOD services about 45 days after their theatrical releases, so F1 is already slightly past its due date.
However, even if this is true, don’t expect F1 to hit your Apple TV+ library on Friday — or any time soon after. As with Apple’s previous big-screen releases, the streaming move will start with premium video on demand (PVOD) services such as Amazon Prime and iTunes, where it will be up for rental or purchase for anyone willing to pay more for early access (movies on PVOD services are typically rented for upwards of $20 for a 48-hour viewing period).
The PVOD period for most movies typically runs about 6–8 weeks, which means we can estimate an Apple TV+ release sometime in September. A post on the Blu-ray forum suggests it may also come to physical media in October.
Still, there’s reason to suspect that F1 may still have some time left to make more money on the big screen. While domestic box office sales are down from the first few weeks, the weekend take is still hovering at just under $3 million domestically. That’s a drop from the first weekend in August, where it pulled in $4 million, but the third weekend only saw a 7.4% drop from the second, undoubtedly helped by Apple’s IMAX re-release. A couple more weeks in theatres might help F1 hit the $600 million threshold.
F1’s box office take leaves it among the top ten highest-grossing films of the year, trailing closely behind Superman($595 million) and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning ($597 million), and outpacing The Fantastic Four: First Steps ($469 million) and Captain America: Brave New World ($415 million).
However, all three of those were dwarfed by Jurassic World: Rebirth ($829 million), A Minecraft Movie ($955 million), and Disney’s live-action Lilo & Stitch remake, which grossed a staggering $1.03 billion. However, it’s a foreign film, Ne Zha II remains in the overall top place for the year, with $1.9 billion in worldwide box office take — although it only earned a relatively paltry $20 million of that in the US.
Meanwhile, F1 has turned out to be more popular internationally, taking fifth place outside of the US with $407 million in foreign revenue, beating out Mission Impossible ($399 million), How to Train Your Dragon ($364 million), and Superman ($254 million).
[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]
