‘The Lost City’ Is Finally Streaming Now ‘Free’ (if You Already Pay)

 The Lost City hit cinemas on March 25, and it has been available only in theaters since. And the COVID-19 pandemic, with its profound disruptions to new movies, has unhinged standard practices for when and where new movies start streaming. 

Now, every studio and streaming services is carving out its own rules, and it’s difficult to keep track of how long you’ll have to wait to stream a film — and how much it’ll cost when you can. 

Where is The Lost City streaming? 

The Lost City became available to stream on Paramount Plus early Tuesday in the US and Canada. It’ll be available to stream in Australia, the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Italy later this year. 

The movie is distributed by Paramount Pictures, which is owned by the same parent company as Paramount Plus.  

The Lost City is sticking to Paramount’s recent track record of keeping its live-action movies in cinemas exclusively for 45 days before reaching the streaming service. 

But Paramount doesn’t always switch a film over to streaming like clockwork. Its previous theatrical release, Jackass Forever, landed on Paramount Plus almost exactly 45 days after hitting cinemas, while the movie before that, Scream, took roughly a week longer at about 53 days. So don’t count on Top Gun: Maverick — the next highest-profile Paramount movie to come — to be steaming exactly 45 days after it lands in theaters May 24. 

Paramount has been releasing some movies to stream on the same day they hit theaters, but these have typically been family- and kid-oriented films, like Clifford the Big Red Dog and The Paw Patrol Movie. 

Is it ‘free’ to stream? 

Paramount Plus requires a paid subscription, so nothing on the service is literally free — unless you watch it while you’re signed up on a free trial. Paramount Plus offers a seven-day free trial standard for all new members. 

But for Paramount Plus subscribers, the movie is part of the library at no added cost. The service has never charged an extra fee to watch a movie there. And even though Paramount Plus has two different tiers, it has never “paywalled” a movie behind the higher-priced membership level. 

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