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The takeway: Big budget blockbuster "tentpole" movies will still likely run in theaters for 90 days before you can see them On Demand or DVD. But mid-list movies? They'll be lucky to be in theaters for 30 days. Low budget movies? They may no longer even run in theaters, going straight to video.
The takeway: Big budget blockbuster "tentpole" movies will still likely run in theaters for 90 days before you can see them On Demand or DVD. But mid-list movies? They'll be lucky to be in theaters for 30 days. Low budget movies? They may no longer even run in theaters, going straight to video.
This is playing a bit too much to the tune of the big theater chains, who consider it a god (or Harry Warner, same thing) given right to have exclusive rights until the first-run audience is exhausted. They may well shrink to showing only the top-tier movies for which an extended theatrical run is judged most lucrative.
But there are thousands of smaller chains and independent theaters happy to have any new movie for a week, or ten days, just as there always has been. I'd expect that segment to grow slightly as the majors reduce seats by at least a third.
But there are thousands of smaller chains and independent theaters happy to have any new movie for a week, or ten days, just as there always has been. I'd expect that segment to grow slightly as the majors reduce seats by at least a third.
I'm all for independently owned theaters making a comeback. From your typing fingers to God's eyes.
This is playing a bit too much to the tune of the big theater chains, who consider it a god (or Harry Warner, same thing) given right to have exclusive rights until the first-run audience is exhausted. They may well shrink to showing only the top-tier movies for which an extended theatrical run is judged most lucrative.
But there are thousands of smaller chains and independent theaters happy to have any new movie for a week, or ten days, just as there always has been. I'd expect that segment to grow slightly as the majors reduce seats by at least a third.
No. Bluntly, you don't know the industry if you think that. That market segment of exhibitors used to be my customers. There are no longer thousands (which there never were anyway). The independent single location is an anomaly now. The small chains in the U.S. are also largely gone. I watched them die. Some locations might still look independent, but are owned by a Mexican company or others. Off the top of my head, there are probably somewhere between 50 and 100 small circuits at most in the U.S.
Back in the 1980s, the test for whether an independent could squeak by financially was "Is the location a county seat?" Not even that holds anymore.
Top tier movies are not always lucrative anyway. I've hosted many films that were playing to near empty auditoriums by the third and fourth week. An increased percentage of a weekly gross of $2,000 is diddly squat, and generally done to appease the distributor in hopes of positive future booking paybacks.
Top tier crowds give concessions a shot in the arm for a week or two, depending on the demographic they draw. They also give cache to locations that get the top bookings on a regular basis.
What is happening now is a reversion to the vertical monopolies that the major film companies had before divestiture. Congress doesn't care at this point about the danger of monopolies, but the testing of waters is all about dipping into them without raising too many waves and getting restricted.
The idea of theatrical releases not being "affordable" to production is so stupid that it isn't even laughable.
Well, allowing for casual discussion, I'll stand by my post. Yes, 50% of screens (about 20,000) are controlled by the big three. And of the remainder, a little over half are controlled by smaller chains that probably aren't much different from the majors. But that leaves around 5,000 screens in very small chains and single-screen houses.
And if the 90-day rule goes, I see a decline in the majors that can't make money any other way and a rise (either real or proportional) of the smaller theaters that can't get more than two weeks out of any one run.
I know how the business works; I grew up in theater lobbies and management offices and I've watched it fall to the lows of about 1980 and the (almost puzzling) rise back to dominance. Just because three giant bland box-runners have half the screens doesn't mean that's the whole story.
Not sure I really care about the movies one way or another. However, as a point of reference:
One reason the smaller, independent theaters are going out of business is because the 'film-in-a-canister' business model has rapidly been replaced by digital movie releases .... requiring highly expensive equipment change-overs. Our local, independent 6-10-screen theater would have had to spend $$several hundred thousand to switch .... so they closed instead.
Not sure I really care about the movies one way or another. However, as a point of reference:
One reason the smaller, independent theaters are going out of business is because the 'film-in-a-canister' business model has rapidly been replaced by digital movie releases .... requiring highly expensive equipment change-overs. Our local, independent 6-10-screen theater would have had to spend $$several hundred thousand to switch .... so they closed instead.
But that's actually to the advantage of smaller theaters, initial cost aside. They can show any film available via digital distribution, without waiting or paying for film transport.
(Just an aside, "tagging" films from theater to theater in a chain used to be a mildly profitable evening job, so that the same film set could be used for showings in different theaters.)
Look at sites, not screens. Also, recognize that most listings of theatres include shuttered ones. There are about 5,600 sites. Maybe 2000 of those are controlled by the majors. The small circuits with more than 4 sites are fewer than 50, and at fewer than 3 sites you have family operated and mixed used venues that have zero bearing on the economics of the industry.
For a site to survive, a lot of factors have to be supportive. I worked briefly at an old movie palace in New York state, where the cost of fuel oil in the winter ended up being the killer blow. MOST of the mom n pops run on a shoestring and by someone giving up any more wages than a token payment. They have no reserves greater than those needed to meet the average wax and wane cycle of distribution. Product is also critical to meet the demands of the local area.
Families that own the real estate outright may survive being closed for a couple of months. Leased locations and those with high tax and ongoing costs likely won't.
Further complicating things, megaplexes are almost all owned by the majors circuits. The multiplexes and singles are far less stable and more likely to shutter.
There is no question that there will be shifts and losses. Corporate structures will be able to take risks that mom n pops won't. A single lawsuit for a coronavirus death caused by a theatre can be a death blow to the theatre. Remember all the small amusement parks, roadside attractions, and kiddielands? Insurance costs killed those off. Without hold harmless legislation, theatres will begin travelling down that same road.
The combination of upcoming factors has the potential to cut movie theatres off at both the knees AND the head.
I wouldn't argue. FTR, I am looking at a Variety article of 2019 on numbers of sites, screens and owners.
I think it's all going to change quite a bit in the next year, for many reasons... and IMVHO, it will nearly all be changes in favor of the patron. For a change.
I'll leave it at that.
Ever read Harry Harrison's novella "The Proud Robot"? Relevant and amusing.
"Proud Robot" is a Kuttner work, although he and C.L. Moore often collaborated so deeply that finding who wrote what is impossible. I've been a fan of Kuttner since the 1960s. (If you liked Proud Robot, I recommend the Hogben series. Delightful romps.) Skimming the story again, I'm not sure what parallel you might be drawing. I suppose bootleg theatres might appear, since any license granted for home viewing is in essence a release to show the movie to guests. (That is a can of worms that will have to be sorted by high-powered lawyers.)
Pirated film, to the best of my knowledge, never played to audiences of any size. The money was in the distribution of the illicit video tapes. Few people would put up with the requirements of having a real pay-for-admission home theatre for more than a showing or two, especially considering social distancing.
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