Film's path from premiere through cinema, TV, streaming to home video — each window has distinct licensing and revenue splits. More contracts than shooting days.
The chronological release of a film across various platforms determines its commercial success at least as much as the quality of the material itself. Each stage of distribution — theatrical, pay-TV, free-TV, streaming, physical media — has its own time windows, territorial restrictions, and licensing fees. A producer or distributor must consider this sequence for months before principal photography begins, as each contract influences the next stage.
There's little awareness of this on set, but post-production is almost entirely dictated by it. Edited versions must be prepared for theatrical release — while simultaneously keeping a TV version in mind, which may have different editing requirements or need to meet censorship ratings. The DCP goes to cinemas, and in parallel, masters are created for various television formats (16:9, 4:3, different frame rates). Streaming platforms have yet other codec requirements — some demand Dolby Vision or HDR mastering, others only accept standard DCP. This means you need multiple color-graded versions and multiple sound mixes for different speaker standards.
The financial shares are tiered. A big-budget film might generate 40% of its total revenue from theatrical distribution, streaming deals could account for 30%, TV licenses 20%, and physical media 10%. Smaller or independent productions see these ratios completely differently — streaming often acts as the primary funder, and theatrical release becomes a prestige event. International agreements complicate everything: a film might premiere theatrically in Germany while simultaneously launching directly on streaming in other EU countries. Windowing — the temporal separation between stages — is negotiated with increasing aggression. Some streaming services demand 45 days of exclusivity after the theatrical release, others demand 6 months.
In practice, this means that when planning key scenes or the VFX budget, you must always keep the most likely primary distribution platform in mind. A film for Netflix has different requirements than an arthouse film for film festivals. The distribution chain is not an administrative byproduct — it shapes the aesthetics and technical decisions of the entire production.