Coronavirus makes Universal go day and date for home starting friday! (1 Viewer)

[TravisR]

But that's assuming movies going to PVOD on exactly Day 18 happened with every release and in exactly that way.

This is an option. And the 17 days thing is a starting point. A movie might never go to PVOD at all. It may go to it but it maybe at the 45th day.

When the overwhelming majority of the box office of nearly all movies is made in the first two weekends, there's no reason to care about the rest of the run and all the reason in the world for studios to get it into homes of people who now wait for VOD while the movie and its ad campaign are still fresh in people's minds.

 

[Cranston37+]

A couple of important points made in Deadline this morning:

"Eric Wold of B Riley cautioned against assuming that the window was reduced from roughly three months to three weeks. 'We believe this would be too naive of an interpretation of the agreement - and view this as something that AMC has actually been working toward for a number of years. A singular theatrical window may not work for every film - and moving it along could be beneficial to both exhibitors and studios,' he wrote."

"Nathanson argued the template created by the AMC-Universal pact would mean 'exhibitors would benefit if the PVOD window helps de-risk future movie investments and leads to more green-lighting of movies, especially independent and mid-tier films.'"

"Nathanson sees the deal having an impact on another major logjam in the traditional system between theater circuits and Netflix and other streaming services. 'Maybe the biggest positive for theater owners could be using this new 17-day window to reach a similar agreement with Netflix and other SVOD services that are ramping up production of their own original movies,' Nathanson wrote."

"LightShed Partners analyst Rich Greenfield. 'Huge win for tech companies such as Netflix, Amazon and Apple as movie theaters refused to exhibit movies that did not, at least, adhere to 60 days before SVOD - those walls just crumbled.'”

 

[TravisR]

A couple of important points made in Deadline this morning:

"Eric Wold of B Riley cautioned against assuming that the window was de facto reduced from roughly three months to three weeks. 'We believe this would be too naive of an interpretation of the agreement - and view this as something that AMC has actually been working toward for a number of years. A singular theatrical window may not work for every film - and moving it along could be beneficial to both exhibitors and studios,' he wrote."

Once again, the bulk of money that nearly every movie makes is in the first two weekends so what incentive is there for theaters to continue carrying a movie after that or the studios to not move it to a larger waiting audience? Sure, there might be a handful of movies that they keep for a third or fourth week if they're still doing well but the inevitable home viewing is going to make those third and fourth weeks even smaller.

I'm not saying that movie theaters are going to close in a month but in a few years, there's going to be alot less theaters than there currently are.

You're a big digital guy, I'd think that you'd love that movie theaters killed themselves?

 

[Cranston37+]

A interesting point from Variety:

"Hollywood has made a point of backing comic book adaptations and franchise fare because it claims that the economics of the theatrical business are so brutal, they don’t reward creative risk-taking. The excuse from Hollywood, as of late, has always been that it’s too hard to build word-of-mouth for movies that are edgier or more challenging to market. Since it routinely costs tens of millions of dollars to advertise and distribute movies, it’s hard to make a profit on anything that doesn’t have a huge opening weekend. AMC and Universal’s deal would theoretically alleviate some of those pressures, enabling the studio to find alternate ways of earn money on a film that’s failing to catch fire at the box office. If better movies can come out of all of this tumult, that would be a win for studios, theaters, and audiences."

 

[Cranston37+]

And lastly a few from The Hollywood Reporter:

"Whether other studios and theater companies embrace this new AMC/Universal PVOD model remains to be seen, and certainly Universal needs broad theater company acceptance of this model to be able to release films into PVOD that early."

"While this agreement gives Universal the option to make any film available to PVOD platforms after 17 days, we do not believe every film would move to PVOD after 17 days. In our opinion, this agreement provides an out for Universal (as well as AMC) to move underperforming films out of the theater and into the PVOD window where they may perform at a higher level, and one which exhibitors can benefit from."

"If this arrangement was structured in a way that results in higher studio profitability or less studio risk, we could see more theatrical releases, and a more diverse slate of films, which could prove a positive for theaters over time."

"We find it hard to believe that Universal would move a film out of the theater (or provide a less expensive home option to consumers) if the film is performing well in theaters and still generating attractive box office revenues. And as for AMC, we believe this not only provides an opportunity to move underperforming films out of the theater (where they are taking up valuable screen real estate), but creates a new way for the exhibitor to share in the economics of the film as it moves to the next distribution window."

 

[Cranston37+]

The 2nd largest theater chain says no to doing a similar deal.

You kind of need everybody onboard to make such an arrangement work (unless you're ok showing your movie only at AMC theaters) so I can't see this happening just yet...

Cineworld Reacts To Universal-AMC Theatrical Window Crunching PVOD Deal: “We Do Not See Any Business Sense In This Model”

Cineworld Reacts To Universal-AMC 17-Day Theatrical Window PVOD Deal: "“We Do Not See Any Business Sense In This Model"

deadline.com

 

[TravisR]

The 2nd largest theater chain says no to doing a similar deal.

You kind of need everybody onboard to make such an arrangement work (unless you're ok showing your movie only at AMC theaters) so I can't see this happening just yet...

Cineworld Reacts To Universal-AMC Theatrical Window Crunching PVOD Deal: “We Do Not See Any Business Sense In This Model”

Cineworld Reacts To Universal-AMC 17-Day Theatrical Window PVOD Deal: "“We Do Not See Any Business Sense In This Model"

deadline.com

See what they say when they don't have Fast And The Furious. Even if it's for 17 days they'll do whatever Universal wants.

 

[Neil S. Bulk]

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I would think any major chain that decides not to play ball will ultimately lose out. Let’s say this Cineworld balks at playing Universal movies. The average consumer does not care about and barely notices things like which studio puts out what title. They do notice what is and isn’t available where they are. So if the next Fast and Furious is at all theaters except Cineworld, their customers will come to think of them as “the theater that doesn’t get everything” and in a world with a million entertainment options, people will move on to something else. It’ll be like the days of video stores where the kiss of death was to be known in town as the store that didn’t have things.

Everyone is welcome to posture all they want but when it comes down to it, theaters can’t refuse to show major motion pictures that their audiences want to see and still expect to have an audience. No one is going to support the theater over a misguided adherence to a 19th century business model; you tell people that Fast & Furious is at every theater except Cineworld and they’re not gonna say, “Those poor folks, let’s go spend our hard earned money that we’re lucky to have right now and risk our health to see a movie that we don’t want to see to support Cineworld.”

 

[Jake Lipson]

Greyhound came out on AppleTV+ on July 10. I can watch that anytime I feel like it because it's included with my subscription, and I am interested in watching it. But I haven't gotten around to it yet. I tend to get lazy on streaming films because they are just there. It requires less inertia on my part to press a button than it does to plan my day around an outing to the theater, so while I eventually get around to it, they don't really have the same urgency that a theatrical release does.

It's now July 29. I've already waited more than the 17 day window that Universal will now be required to abide by, and that's for something I can get for free, which I wasn't actually intending to wait on.

It doesn't matter if Universal can't announce the VOD date until after the second weekend. Once people start catching on that this is a thing that happens, they'll wait.

I hope Regal and Cinemark stand up to this garbage. But, like Travis, I suspect they will probably fold the minute that Universal has a big movie that they want to be able to show. If they don't have the big movie, the competing AMC in their marketplace will. AMC is the biggest chain in the United States. Unfortunately, that puts them in a position to dictate what is acceptable.

Universal's remaining scheduled releases for this year are Candyman, The Croods 2 and News of the World. None of those seem like they'r big enough to worry about. But something like The Fast and the Furious, Jurassic World or Minions? Yeah, all of the big chains are going to want those. And even if those titles are ones that Universal would leave in theaters longer, the chains will accept whatever allows them to play those films.

I'm very scared for the future of theatrical exhibition if this deal sticks.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

If you’re just scared for the future of theatrical exhibition now, you haven’t been paying attention in recent years. All of this was already moving in this direction; the pace is simply accelerating.

There’s simply no way that the world of movies could experience the changes it has experienced over the past couple decades without having some kind of profound effect. This was inevitable once it became possible for the average consumer to easily view films at the time and place of their choosing. Once you divorced the concept of watching a movie with needing a physical object, needing to leave the house and needing to follow a specific schedule, it was all going to change. The theaters had years to come up with a sales pitch to counteract that, and the best they could come up with was, “We’re going to keep raising prices, we’re not going to invest in maintaining and upgrading the quality of the majority of our screens, and for the handful of screens we do upgrade, we’re gonna charge you an arm and a leg for it. Oh, and by the way, we’re so desperate for business that we’ll no longer take steps to ensure that you have a pleasant experience while you’re here.”

Going to the movies has been losing its luster as a cultural pastime for years, brought on by rising costs, perceived indifference by exhibitors to customer complaints, and widespread availability of the same content at equal or better quality and cheaper prices with delivery methods more convenient to the consumer base.

 

[Wayne_j]

I would think any major chain that decides not to play ball will ultimately lose out. Let’s say this Cineworld balks at playing Universal movies. The average consumer does not care about and barely notices things like which studio puts out what title.

Around me AMC doesn't exist. The Universal movies would just not play at all in my area.

 

[Cranston37+]

Around me AMC doesn't exist. The Universal movies would just not play at all in my area.

You think studios would not show it's movies at most of the nations theaters in order to preserve the ability to have $20 rentals?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Around me AMC doesn't exist. The Universal movies would just not play at all in my area.

I think that’ll just play into what I was saying - people in your area will see all the advertisements for the new Universal blockbuster and then they’ll discover that even though the ad says “in theaters everywhere,” it’s not at your local theater - and I think the general response won’t be “Those jerks at Universal!” I think it’ll be “Our theater sucks, it doesn’t even get all the big movies” and that will just accelerate the trend of people looking elsewhere for their entertainment.

 

[Cranston37+]

Any discussion of possible new theater business models is now going to have to include this...

Federal Judge Gives Greenlight To Termination Of Paramount Consent Decrees

Judge clears Justice Department to terminate the 71-year-old consent decrees that have restricted major studio control over the exhibition process.

deadline.com

I guarantee you the first move will be a studio (or a consortium of studios?) buying AMC.

 

[TravisR]

I guarantee you the first move will be a studio (or a consortium of studios?) buying AMC.

I could see studios deciding to hold movies back from theatrical release for a little longer in order to make that happen easier.