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    The state of cinema(s)

    I thought we might have a thread on this already, but I couldn't find one so apologies if I'm treading on anyone's toes. This is about the business of movie exhibitors, though I guess it could cover production too. The inspiration was the news that AMC is (or rather will be once it reopens) boycotting Universal after it revealed how well the Trolls World Tour digital only release went. Seems like a move that will hurt AMC more than Universal, but maybe they don't have anything to lose at this point. Funnily enough, as someone who has long been bearish on brick and mortar cinemas, I actually think the talk about its inevitable doom in the wake of coronavirus is a little overdone. Certainly there'll be pain in the near to medium term, and probably a lot of insolvencies, but I'd be surprised if attendance this time next year was down more than 10%-15%. Assuming they're showing Universal movies of course.

    #2
    I've really got to hate the multiplex experience (Odeon, etc), but luckily we have a couple of independent digital Kino's and an arts centre nearby where you can avoid the snack-munching masses. But I definitely go less these days.

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      #3
      Unfortunately it's going to be the small and/or independent cinemas that are likely to suffer most from the lockdown and subsequent reduction in capacity/wariness of some of the audience which will surely occur when they are allowed to reopen. My two local options are Everyman cinemas and I hope they will be able to weather it all but I'm not sure.

      I'm desperate to go back to the movies, it's what I am missing most after sporting events.

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        #4
        Oddly, after years of only going to the cinema with the kids to see kid movies, L and I started going to one of those premium places by ourselves on Sunday mornings. We were loving it, going at least every second weekend. We'll defo be back at it once the lockdown clears.

        The AMC news doesn't surprise me. They came to Toronto and tried charging $13 a ticket back when $10 was a stretch. They finally folded their tent and left. Tower Records tried the same thing back in the day. Like seriously....no local market research on pricing?

        I'm with GY. I think people will treasure having a 'third place' to get out to more than ever. Maybe even drive-in movies will see a spike in business.

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          #5
          I think Germany is continuing, and possibly even expanding, drive-ins during their lockdown.

          I have a friend in film distribution who says that, pending what time of year that the industry can reopen, they may be tried at some sites in Britain too. The burgeoning number of outdoor screens here will probably be boosted to.

          I've no doubt that people will want to go back to the cinema when this is over, it's how many venues survive to service that demand and can afford to continue if capacities are cut by up to 75%, which seems distinctly possible.

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            #6
            Originally posted by Ray de Galles View Post
            I'm desperate to go back to the movies, it's what I am missing most after sporting events.




            Yes, I really can't wait to watch any old shite at the cinema as soon as the lockdown is over.

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              #7
              Good thread, thanks all.

              Bring on some backdrops not involving a bloody bookcase

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                #8
                Based purely on anecdotal evidence, I think the cinema industry has finally got the idea that if they are to charge a premium, the experience needs to match.
                So now I have a choice of a totally refurbished old school cinema or a new Vue. Both offer different types of experience.
                The Vue is £8 a ticket and the seats are all huge leather electric recliners in every screen. Popcorn of course costs more than gold. But given for a comparable seat at my old nearest cinema was £14 and the popcorn cost the same, I'm pretty happy.
                The refurbed.place is £12 a go but has a bar and is proper art deco style etc. So for the money to you get a more grown up experience and vibe.

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                  #9
                  It appears Trolls World Tour may be the Franz Ferdinand assassination moment in the corporate battle that ends the theater business as we know it. It's not the end. It's not even really the beginning of the end, but in five years when the movie business looks radically different than it does now, let alone five years ago, this will be in the opening chapter of the books written about it.

                  The theater owners are talking big, but I don't see how they have much leverage.

                  https://variety.com/2020/film/news/a...rs-1234592899/
                  Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 30-04-2020, 14:40.

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                    #10
                    Really weird hill for AMC to die on. Notwithstanding that they may be filing for bankruptcy any day now, too. Distribution models are changing every year; you think you're going to hold back the tide by picking a fight with one studio?

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                      #11
                      Easier to do it with Universal than Disney, I suppose.

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                        #12
                        What fillums are Universal then?

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                          #13
                          So when people say that picture houses will die, do they mean that we won't be able to watch fillums properly at all, but only on a telly? Or what?

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                            #14
                            Originally posted by hobbes View Post
                            Based purely on anecdotal evidence, I think the cinema industry has finally got the idea that if they are to charge a premium, the experience needs to match.
                            So now I have a choice of a totally refurbished old school cinema or a new Vue. Both offer different types of experience.
                            The Vue is £8 a ticket and the seats are all huge leather electric recliners in every screen. Popcorn of course costs more than gold. But given for a comparable seat at my old nearest cinema was £14 and the popcorn cost the same, I'm pretty happy.
                            The refurbed.place is £12 a go but has a bar and is proper art deco style etc. So for the money to you get a more grown up experience and vibe.
                            A few places have got that message, especially in wealthy cities, but I don't think most of them have. The advent of better sound and so-called "stadium seating" saved the theaters around the time DVDs became a thing, but that was about 20 years ago and the theaters I'm familiar with haven't really changed since then. Same overpriced concessions. Same annoying kids kicking the seat. Same basic experience. Add "same people coughing on you" and that puts it over the edge.

                            Part of me wants to see them get their comeuppance for gouging us on prices for so many years, but the decline of theaters, as well as the end of DVDs as a revenue maker, is going to mean that certain kinds of films - mid-budget comedies, for example - just don't get made.

                            And, as I've said before, many of us think that most films without big action or big scenery is just as good at home. Sometimes it is, but home - even one like mine without kids - offers so many distractions and temptations to look at one's phone during a slow part. At the theater, especially if you've paid $12 to be there, you're committed and it forces you (the proverbial you) to sit and pay attention and I've found that is more often rewarding than not. I don't know if I would have really got into Parasite at home because reading on the smaller screen would give me a headache I know for certain that I would have turned off Uncut Gems because it was giving me a panicky feeling, but I'm glad I stuck with it at the theater.

                            There's some anecdotal evidence that streaming services get that, which is why Netflix films always have to have "something shiny" going on, to use Amanda Dobbins' term.

                            On the other hand, TV or, as we should call it, "serialized narrative video" has never been better, so we have that going for us.

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                              #15
                              Originally posted by TonTon View Post
                              What fillums are Universal then?
                              Trolls World Tour, apparently. https://www.universalpictures.com/upcoming-films]Here's their slate.[/url]

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                                #16
                                Part of me wants to see them get their comeuppance for gouging us on prices for so many years, but the decline of theaters, as well as the end of DVDs as a revenue maker, is going to mean that certain kinds of films - mid-budget comedies, for example - just don't get made.
                                Maybe you have a different definition of mid-budget to me, but this seems to be something that streaming services are willing to fund. Apart from that Sandler deal, they've mainly been focusing on stand-up specials so far (which are in themselves cheap, but not when you pay $20m for Chris Rock), but if traditional studios withdraw (even further) from comedies, then I think the streamers will step up. Not to mention that several of the studios are now also streamers.

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                                  #17
                                  Two things that I think are going to be huge once all the dust settles is a) which production etc. companies are still in business, and b) how bad are cuts to the culture sector going to be when the time comes to pay the bills raised during the pandemic. Even (or especially) big budget, big time, big screen films are awash in subsidies and tax breaks and what have you.

                                  As a small link in the chain between producers and their subsidies I can sense the panic when I make my weekly allocated trip to work, and see the pile of stuff needing to be done growing. Stuff is hurtling out of post-production whilst it still can, because who knows what the world will look like in six months?

                                  Am going to be a big old pretentious snide dickhead and make mention that there's a number of small local cinemas that I am far more worried for the future of than any of this AMC/Universal stuff.

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                                    #18
                                    It's also helpful to know a couple of things: when you see that X movie did $100 million at the box office, that's split 50/50 between the studio and the distributor/cinema. So the movie actually did $50 million.

                                    Then, when you see that a movie had a budget of $25 million, the promotional / marketing budget is 50 to 100% of that number again. So, a $25 million Valentine's Day romcom that gets a lot of promotion is now actually a $50 million movie, which means it has to do $100 million at the box office just to break even.

                                    So if you see a $150 million picture like Call of The Wild that did $107 million at the box office, it probably lost around $150 million. If not a bit more.

                                    Rule of thumb.....halve the box office and double the production budget. Them's your numbers.

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                                      #19
                                      Originally posted by TonTon View Post
                                      So when people say that picture houses will die, do they mean that we won't be able to watch fillums properly at all, but only on a telly? Or what?
                                      More or less. Small screen with your mates, not big room with 300 strangers.

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                                        #20
                                        It is kind of amazing to think that - perhaps - Trolls World Tour will be a defining moment in cinema. Trolls freaking World Tour (and yes, we rented it and the kids enjoyed it)

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                                          #21
                                          Oh, yeah, back to TWT: my point on the 'numbers' above is that Universal keeps all $100 million dollars. Pretty strong incentive to go direct-to-consumer, especially for a kids' flick.

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                                            #22
                                            More for TonTon than anyone else, but I would bet a good deal of money that that London will have proper picture houses for fillums for as long as he and I are around.

                                            That New York too.

                                            And that Paris will have considerably more, given the State's position on le septième art

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                                              #23
                                              Originally posted by Ginger Yellow View Post
                                              Easier to do it with Universal than Disney, I suppose.

                                              Here's Universal's current plan. https://www.universalpictures.com/upcoming-films

                                              As you can see, they have release dates for films without titles. That's how it works. Nothing there that theaters are desperate for, I suppose, but then not having some of the animated ones, for example, will piss off a lot of AMC's customers. Ultimately nobody would win if it came down to theaters actually boycotting Universal, but Universal is in a much stronger position.

                                              This is probably all just saber-rattling. Universal didn't say specifically which films they want to put online at the same time as putting them in theaters or even that they'd put them online simultaneously with theatrical releases. But AMC has decided to make a thing out of this. It does indeed seem like they're picking a hill to die on.

                                              It's unlikely that they'll actually end up boycotting Universal's movies.. What is more likely is that we'll see them negotiate a contraction of the so-called "windowing" period. Right now, the standard is that theaters will not show a movie unless the studio promises that it won't be available outside of theaters for 90 days, as I understand it. I think the 90-day standard has been around since the Golden Age of VHS and video stories, but it might have been longer back then. Or, at least, it was longer for bigger films. I'm not sure.

                                              And some filmmakers contracts also stipulate that the film must have a certain level of theatrical release. That may be part of the reason why Warner Brothers is pretending to be very optimistic that it can release Christopher Nolan's Tenet in theaters in July. (https://www.indiewire.com/2020/04/te...th-1202228096) Disney is still planning to release Mulan in July too.

                                              Probably their best hope is that they can release those in some theaters and the numbers will be underwhelming, but then the studios will find a way to shorten the window and they'll end up on HBO Max and Disney Plus, respectively, a lot sooner than either studio would have imagined.




                                              Disney isn't going to give up on theaters because they pretty much only make blockbusters right now. They do Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, the series of CGI+live remakes of their animated movies and, perhaps, more Pirate movies or something else like that. They have the Searchlight brand now and perhaps some others which might shift more to direct-to-streaming, but they've got a lot of theatrical releases lined up for the next few years.

                                              But they're clearly not as "all in" on theaters as they might like the theater owners to think. Disney+ is a success and they own a big piece of Hulu (it's turned out that a lot of the "adult" content they had planned for Disney+ is just going to be on Hulu instead). The Mandalorian is a big hit and the animated Star Wars shows are fairly popular so there will be more of those. Meanwhile, there's been a downward trend in revenue from the theatrical Star Wars films. They all still made a ton of money, but the trajectory from The Force Awakens to The Rise of Skywalker is not what they want. Part of that is because the critical and fan response to TROS wasn't very good, but Solo was pretty good and yet didn't do nearly as well as they'd hoped. There are a lot of reasons for that, but all indications are that more of these "big IP" things will be on streaming services and they'll do fewer regular films. They also have a bunch of Marvel series planned (not clear when any of those will be out because production is now stalled), but much of the future of the MCU will be on Disney+ (or Hulu). Warner seems to be shifting the same was with DC comics stuff.



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                                                #24
                                                Originally posted by WOM View Post
                                                Oh, yeah, back to TWT: my point on the 'numbers' above is that Universal keeps all $100 million dollars. Pretty strong incentive to go direct-to-consumer, especially for a kids' flick.
                                                It doesn't keep all of it unless it's doing the distribution itself. If it's on iTunes, say, they only keep 70%.

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                                                  #25
                                                  Originally posted by Ginger Yellow View Post

                                                  Maybe you have a different definition of mid-budget to me, but this seems to be something that streaming services are willing to fund. Apart from that Sandler deal, they've mainly been focusing on stand-up specials so far (which are in themselves cheap, but not when you pay $20m for Chris Rock), but if traditional studios withdraw (even further) from comedies, then I think the streamers will step up. Not to mention that several of the studios are now also streamers.
                                                  That is definitely happening. Netflix has brought back the 80's style teenage rom-com, for example.

                                                  Meanwhile, Longshot, for example, which is fairly funny and has Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen bombed. Same with Booksmart which is arguably even better. They're getting a second life on-demand and HBO, etc, but that was not the plan. So most of these types of films will only be funded by Netflix et al in the future and will have a limited or perhaps no theater release.

                                                  That would be ok, except I get the sense that streaming services seem to be going pretty cheap with these and, from what I can tell, not willing to take as many risks. So they wouldn't be willing to pay for Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron and they'd probably tell Olivia Wilde that her lead character in Booksmart needs to be "hotter" and could she tone down the drugs and gayness?

                                                  They do seem to be willing to take bigger swings with dramas if they can smell an Oscar. Netflix made Roma which is in black and white, in Spanish, about Mexico in the 70s and is kind of a downer. They didn't do that because they they thought it would boost subscription numbers - not on it's own. They did it for "prestige," which is still, apparently, worth a lot in Hollywood. Everyone knows the Oscars are kind of a sham, but their importance hasn't diminished much. The let Scorsese make The Irishman three plus hours. They made A Marriage Story. But their bread-and-butter is still old shows like Parks and Rec which they're going to lose soon, and cheap stuff, including reality garbage.




                                                  Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 30-04-2020, 17:19.

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