THB #93: The Batman (no spoilers)
| March 6, 2022
I realize that most of my thinking on what may be a very significant moment ended up in tweets. so I gathered them for a more complete picture.
12/3/20
11:10am
Jason Kilar will be out of his job by 2022.
Waiting on NATO response. But here we go… WB passes Universal as most experimental. Netflix, which is cutting back on spending, set the trap for the studios and Kilar is the only sucker to bite so far. HBO Max isn’t ready for this.
11:17a
The only real question for NATO in response to WB’s suicide move is whether to refuse to play any WB movies, starting with Wonder Woman.
If there is no unique compensation for playing WB’s films under these rules, NATO members are likely better off shutting the door.
12:07p
Keeping the doors open at 15% of normal grosses is not keeping them alive. And this stands to reduce the post-pandemic box office by at least 10%.
They need to get PPP and close down for 4-6 months is what they need.
12:10pm
For the record… AT&T stock is up .17% on this seismic news. Wall St is saying, “Fuck off until you prove something.”
Meanwhile, AMC is off 18%, Cinemark is down 19%, IMAX is down 8%.
12:18p
Here’s what happens next on the Warner Bros move…
Every AMC 15 becomes an AMC 4 with only 4 premium screens with higher prices. The extra space can’t be rented.
HBO Max adds 5m subs HBO subs (65m dom). No stock movement. HBO Max expands internationally before the end of 2021.
12:40p
“streaming is no longer an ancillary profit stream for big entertainment companies. It’s the business, period.“
Yeah… except for the revenues.
12:42p
This is bigger than Roku.
But it is another sign that WarnerMedia is way out over its skis on this. No Roku. No international. And don’t count on any of these movies playing in movie theaters domestically. And they will certainly have a France problem
12:45p
AT&T stock has gone from being up a tiny amount to being down for the day.
I feel like I am watching Paramount trying (and failing) to tweak their stock price a decade ago.
12:59p
By the way… this unilateral move by WB is profoundly stupid by design.
You push to streaming (& theatrical?) for a month and THEN try to get a theatrical going? Is this the lesson they learned from Tenet?
Whoever analyzed their way into rationalizing this will be the 1st fired.
1:20p
Killer Kilar: “Having this release model… we believe economically first and most importantly, it’s the right thing to do for fans, it’s the right thing to do for exhibition, and the right thing to do for talent, considering the circumstances.”
But he didn’t bother asking them.
1:24p
Killer: “The revenues that are generated by the box office of course, & the other is the value of the consumption on HBO Max from existing subscribers & what we anticipate to be more subscribers coming into HBO Max who choose to do so because of the presence of these films.”
Huh?
1:27p
Killer: “we believe that the marketing investment works better if eyes were out there talking about these great films title-by-title-by title, that that marketing can benefit not just the theatrical experience”
OMG… he thinks he is Netflix & doesn’t understand theatrical at all
1:50p
I bet the other studios are almost as appreciative of Killer Kilar’s big move as the theater owners.
As a quarter of the market, he can come close to sinking everyone’s business.
NATO can call his hubris. And there may be real pressure to dump this before summer. Tick Tock.
1:56p
Remember… HBO has 160 million subscribers worldwide already.
They are not playing from far behind Netflix. They don’t need to change everything instantly. They haven’t rolled out Max overseas… and if they don’t by March, they should all be fired for seeking failure.
1:58p
This was a unilateral move by a sub-model guy who doesn’t understand theatrical. It is not good news for any other studio. It is not good news for exhibition.
He needs to get his own house in order.
2:06p
Kilar’s fantasy thinking is that international will be theatrical and GREAT!
This is proven wrong, for now, with Tenet. As you say, even Canada isn’t open yet. Closures across the globe.
They don’t have any needle-movers until summer. So they have time to fuck it up worse.
2:32p
And as a friend points out… how will this notion of launching on streaming affect VOD and PVOD?
It’s not the largest revenue source… but it means a lot to a lot of bottom lines.
3:29p
Everyone can refuse to play WB films. We will see if that is the tactic. Exhibitors could try to do a deal to get paid a high percentage for everything. Or just shut them out.
3:30p
By the way… Killer Kilar’s tears for theatrical may be because he is legally required to distribute to theaters before any streaming.
New contracts may not include that. 2 year old contracts probably do.
3:34p
“Kilar also noted that international movies — which generates the bulk of box office revenue — will be first released in theaters with normal windowing rules. HBO Max will debut globally next year.”
If it takes him a year, he will be unemployed when it happens.
3:41p
New streamers have a growth window of 3 or 4 years before they will mature. Lots can be hidden in that.
Kilar is making a lot of statements of facts that he doesn’t actually control. A lot. And I think it will kill him before 3 years. Maybe in 2021.
4:34p
By the way… as stupid as the WarnerMedia plan is, they are still creating windows in the US and sticking to traditional windows in the rest of the world.
So if you are saying windows are dead, you are factually incorrect.
4:44p
“Under a traditional model, big-budget movies like “Dune” would need to gross hundreds of millions of dollars at the domestic box office to turn a profit.”
False. Domestic, international, VOD, DVD, streaming, 1st pay-TV/Streaming, int tV & dom streaming would need combined $450m
4:62p
I’ve said for many years… we are heading towards a single window for everything forever under a subscription. Once a film goes to post-theatrical, it’s value will be booked “forever” in all but a small % of titles. So how to differentiate? Theatrical will be the only separator
4:56p
People, inc professionals, are all excited… “Movies will premiere on my TV!! Yay!” But they get distracted from the next reality.
The plan is maximum subs, smallest spend possible.
We aren’t there yet. But it should take less than 5 years to get there. Then it won’t be cute
5:33p
If (super-analytics about audience interests) really worked so well, studios – inc Netflix – would do better than 50% success.
Having the entire history of film and TV at your fingertips is great. People still want to leave the house. There have been just 40m frequent moviegoers in America for decades
5:43p
There is a uphuge cost to operating brick and mortar. Studios take exhibition for granted. They have taken 5 or 6 significant revenue streams and are whimsically taking it down to one that cannot be measured economically.
Good luck with that.
5:47p
The studios killed VHS rental by making DVD sell-thru priced. The studios killed DVD by oversaturating the market & price cutting. Studios took the “free money” from Netflix and let them launch streaming without competition for 5+ years.
So today… the studios are always right.
5:59p
HBO Max is domestic only, even though HBO has a 90m sub footprint outside of US. And likely very few non-HBO sign-ups domestically.
They need to get their house in order first before trying to set the world on fire.
12/4/20
8:50a
Piracy is real. But the industry, overall, has moved on. They work on it constantly. Hard. But it’s a given.
The Tenet launch happened because “theaters are open overseas.” But they didn’t deliver, even at reduced expectations.
This is all about fear & incompetence.
9:05a
The deafening silence from NATO (exhibition) is likely Fithian trying not to do what Kilar did yesterday… acting unilaterally.
My guess is that they are negotiating a deal for theaters of over 80% from WB and whomever else wants to run this new “system,” creating a new window.
10:24a
HBOMax is not taking out Netflix. Netflix is not able to block Disney or Warners or Amazon (or Peacock, though on a slower track) from matching their worldwide reach in the next 5 years.
We need to be able to discuss the future without everything always invoking absolutes.
10:26a
Streaming is the future… of television. It has been for years. It isn’t a debate.
Movie theaters have major value now & moving forward, though yes, studios can kill theatrical. It is a symbiotic relationship. Studios won’t buy theaters in numbers. Theaters won’t become studios
10:28a
The longer that National Association of Theater Owners remains silent on this – almost 24 hours now – the more likely that Warners’ pronouncement yesterday will not proceed as they said.
Not saying WM won’t push the button. But by announcing w/o negotiating, WM gave NATO power.
10:33a
I’ve said it a million times. Streaming has a natural cap. I don’t think it has more than 250m – 300m worldwide.
Netflix is just under 200 million.
HBO is just under 150 million
Amazon Prime has 170m members.
So in 5 years, when the streaming wars calm… where is more money?
10:43a
One has to wonder if NATO is being cock-blocked from slamming Warners and pulling out of WW1984 agreements by Regal, even though Regal isn’t open to play the title.
Lots of negotiation. This event is not over.
AT&T stock price still up minimally. Theaters stock dropping less.
10:52a
The other thing that could be slowing the NATO response to WarnerMedia is the money that seems to be coming out of the chute from Washington in the next two weeks.
No one wants to upset that apple cart, which is suggested to be $15 billion. Blocking Warners could become a thing.
11:26a
The funny thing about the “seismic” Warners unilateral announcement?
CNBC isn’t covering it. A little yesterday. Talking more about Disney’s rally.
12:11p
I understand that people love Christmas and we are all bored & really, really want to open presents & find something new and exciting.
Yes, this could kill theatrical. Yes, this could end up strengthening theatrical. Both are possible.
Puppy-like love of change is for suckers.
12:12p
Mark this… if the Warners trajectory is changed – and none of this is FOREVER until theaters start closing – all the people who jumped up and down like children will find a way to say it is still happening, it’s just been slight delayed.
People don’t like changing their minds.
12:15p
And yeah, I can be resistant to changing my mind as well.
But I have explained the math a lot of times. It’s not a whim. It’s billions of dollars & many unknown effects caused by breaking windows.
I disagree with Moffett Nathanson on a lot, but we agree on the math here.
So…
12:23p
Theatrical, as an emotional issue, has changed for me over the last few years.
Media has been bashing theatrical forever, but it keeps growing. $40b in 2019. But media loves “reporting” change more than understanding #s.
You are right. The content fights will outlive change.
12:27p
The story is cable/satellite.
AT&T has all but dumped DirecTV. Comcast will either find a solution or take a massive loss as cable actually dies (still over 80% in US). Disney will lose on the transition.
All that said, real people only want more & better TV for less $.
12:32p
This isn’t about subs, ultimately.
It’s about stock price. And it has already been rejected by Wall Street.
Kilar moved without negotiating, completely disregarding the many partners involved with every film, including exhibitors.
HBO Max is US only… so this is stupid.
12:34p
The only part that may not be suicidal is that the line-up is relatively cheap. They will save some risk on marketing.
But we don’t know what the theatrical situation will be, here or abroad.
Like the Tenet miss or the Mulan miss, this is an experiment & one never knows. But…
12:37p
The problem for a guy like Kilar, who is a baby in the movie business, is that he is boldly taking wild swings that have ways of showing losses, but few ways of showing success, if there is any.
If he has to change course, no one will trust him because he acted unilaterally.
1:08p
That’s why the media response amuses and irritates me. They called Warner names for the launch. They have watched a bunch of veterans fired. And now… this is EVERYTHING.
It’s like the people who kept telling us about “the new Trump” and how he was going to learn his lesson.
1:09p
I believe that the public is less intensely focused on the details than we in the media are.
Honest, watching CNBC and waiting for them to be worked up over this has created perspective for me. Until they have to act, no one much cares outside of the bubble.
4:12p
The one thing I object to, even in a well & deeply reported piece like that specific CNBC piece, is the idea that it’s all about battling Netflix.
Netflix is not the definer of any other streamer’s success. Consumers will end up with the 4 or 5 new “networks.” Just do your thing
5:36p
My last thoughts on Killer Kilar for the weekend. I expect WW84 agreements to be honored. I expect Kilar will spend Dec digging out of the cesspool he created with non-exhib partners. And I expect there will be a pricey accommodation or a exhib blockade of WB after New Years
-30-
May 1, 2022
"Netflix, the great disrupter whose algorithms and direct-to-consumer platform have forced powerful media incumbents to rethink their economic models, now seems to need a big strategy change itself. It got me thinking about the simple idea that my film and TV production company Blumhouse is built on: If you give artists a lot of creative freedom and a little money upfront but a big stake in the movie’s or TV show’s commercial success, more often than not the result will be both commercial (the filmmakers are incentivized to make films that will resonate with audiences) and artistically interesting (creative freedom!). This approach has yielded movies as varied as Get Out (made for $4.5 million, with worldwide box office receipts of more than $250 million), Whiplash (made for $3.3 million, winner of three Academy Awards), The Invisible Man (made for $7 million, earned more than $140 million) and Paranormal Activity (made for $15,000, grossed more than $190 million).From the beginning, the most important strategy I used to persuade artists to work with me was to make radically transparent deals: We usually paid the artists (“participants” in Hollywood lingo) the absolute minimum allowable by union contracts upfront, with the promise of healthy bonuses based on actual box office results—instead of the opaque 'percentage points' that artists are usually offered. Anyone can see box office results immediately, so creators don’t quarrel with the payouts. In fact, when it comes time for an artist to collect a bonus based on box office receipts, I email a video clip of myself dropping the check off at FedEx to the recipient."
Jason Blum Sees Room For "Scrappier" Netflix
| April 30, 2022
"As a critic Gavin was entertaining, wry, questioning, sensitive, perceptive"
Critic-Filmmaker Gavin Millar Was 84; Films Include Cream In My Coffee, Dreamchild
April 29, 2022
| January 24, 2022
DP/30 Audio: Bombshell, Jay Roach
| December 13, 2019
DP/30 Audio: The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Jonathan Majors
| December 4, 2019
DP/30 Audio: The Mustang, Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre
| December 4, 2019
$40B worldwide, $10B domestic. That $40B was last year and the year before. That money is gone. What will theatrical be next year, or the year after? A mask reduces risk by 90%, and a vaccine reduces risk by 90%. What is the change in risk that will bring people back to theaters 8 quarters from now? Why shouldn’t Warner try to monetize its inventory in some way, even as the virus becomes more and more dangerous? Look at the epidemiology. There is nothing more dangerous than theatrical and concerts. Theatrical will be the very last thing that returns to normal, assuming that $40B ever returns.
Moreover that $40B worldwide (currently non-existent) is half the gross of game sales worldwide (existent), and game sales are growing exponentually. And…… games sale grosses are not eaten up by massively expensive publicity campaigns. $10B domestic is a tiny fraction of TV revenue, which, again, do not require massive publicity expenses. You could not buy an NFL franchise with the profits from theatrical.
“Hollywood box office dinosaur rages at asteroid”
As someone who is battling Covid-19 I can tell you I’m not stepping foot inside a movie theater anytime soon and neither should anyone else.
Love your thoughts on this, It is all incredibly shortsighted.
The theatrical window and experience should not be trifled with.
Haven’t they already been trifled with plenty? So the trifling should stop here for good? I loved being able to watch Freaky at home and I was happy to pay for the privilege. Seems like a good thing to me.
Amblinman… please make an argument other than “shut up, you fucker” at some point. Your dinosaur schtick is lazy and not remotely connected to anything I have written on this subject. If you disagree, great. But put something up besides, “It’s the future, boomer!” Supporting the latest trend does make you young… it makes you a sucker.
“That money is gone.” Based on what? There is a pandemic for a year and change and “that money is gone.”
As for the math… yes. Never have disputed any of that. And streaming, which is still shy of $40 billion, will become the biggest revenue stream, as broadcast and cable have been for decades.
The question is…why would one preclude the other? Why throw away revenue? And why assume that the value of theatrical is not one that brings value in every other stream?
The problem with most analysis of all this is that it becomes personal. You love having access to Freaky. Great. But it means nothing in terms of generating the maximum revenue.
The reality is that adults are, generally, rarely driven by time constraints in the theatrical window… or the VOD window. Happy to wait. VOD is not ever going to be a major chunk of the revenue stream.
Not going to fight your notion that we won’t return to movie theaters in the next 2 years.
But do you know what the marketing spends are on video games? Not much different (according to what I have read) than movies for the big ones.
No one is saying movies don’t make a ton of money in theaters. We get it. No one is saying this is the end of movie theaters. It isn’t. But with 2021 looking very dubious for theaters, the idea that we aren’t seeing a major shift that sticks, that this is just a blip that is gone by 2022, well that’s just plain foolish. This is more than just anecdotes. Change is taking place. People will go back to movie theaters. I will be one of them at some point. But the times they are a-changing.
At the very least the theatrical window will never be the same.
thanks for the response. my age is showing…. I don’t see a lot of gaming advertising.
without going into a long public health explnation, vaccines or no vaccines, until we see massive testing and contact tracing following a huge decrease in daily new cases, it won’t be safe to go to theaters, at least in the judgement of many people. I want that to happen very soon….. but I do not see that happening for a long time. I am really surprised such a campaign wasn’t in place months ago.
Warner has always been my favorite studio, but they have a history of goofy decisions. The AOL merger. The Time merger. has always felt weird, as does the relationship with AT&T.
I still say that it makes sense to use their film inventory to promote streaming, given the uncertain immediate future.
If I ws a board member of a studio, after Nolan’s rant, I would stop spending my PR money on making directors famous. Disney doesn’t, and they make a lot of money on their movies.
Didn’t Soderbergh just say that no studio is going to spend big money on P&A in 2021 when they know theaters won’t be anywhere near back to normal? And just sitting on all these movies until 2022 isn’t the answer because then you have a glut of product and not enough dates. And then you’re also just hoping that everything is normal in 2022 and that doesn’t seem like a guarantee. Nolan is dumb.
Christopher Nolan is extremely out of line. I would like to see what his career would’ve looked like if WB hadn’t gone out on a limb and given a then nobody like him the crown jewel of Batman.
The previous movie was Batman Forever, which killed the franchise. So it was a tarnished jewel that needed serious polishing.
Brain fart. Batman & Robin was the previous movie. It was so awful I forgot its name.
In Nolan’s defense (that is hard to type) WB was probably happy with the job he did on Insomnia before they gave him the Batman Begins job. Not sure if he was a nobody in 2005, coming off of Memento and Insomnia.
Gunn and Villeneuve, among others, apparently weren’t even consulted. That’s what Nolan was getting at.
And Disney don’t endeavor to make their directors famous because the IP factory leads the artist, rather than the other way around. That’s why with the odd exception (Taika Waititi, Rian Johnson) Disney mostly hire interchangeable hacks. I don’t picture the likes of Nolan, Villeneuve, Gerwig etc. in Disney’s immediate future.
He’s not dumb for pointing out the problem with not consulting filmmakers. He is dumb for insisting on having Tenet released in theaters while a pandemic raged and acting like saving movie theaters is more important than public health. He has blinders on about the world we are living in.
A lot of those filmmakers are hired guns who are paid well into the seven figures. Patty Jenkins was so washed up she couldn’t find work for over a decade. Who directed Godzilla vs Kong? Some overpaid hack, that’s who.
Denis is great but none of his movies make money. Lana Wachowski has been dropping more bombs than the Air Force.
Adam Wingard directed Godzilla vs. Kong and he is hardly a hack. You’re Next and The Guest are absolutely brilliant.
Disney mostly sells their brands, actors and directors not so much. On the other hand. Netflix, in part, seems to be embracing the star system… selling stars, and star filmmakers. But stars seem less and less important. They are as common as litter in today’s vast media landscape.
Without a lot of knowledge, my reaction to the loss of back-end revenue, is that we are mostly talking about more money for millionaires. People with back-end deals elicit about the same lack of sympathy from me as the exhibitors.
At 10:36pm ET on December 10, 2020, Box Office Mojo lists 429 theatrical release movies for the year. Box Office Mojo lists 910 theatrical release movies for the year 2019.
twenty years ago, a mile up the road, there were two shopping malls, 5 departments stores, 14 movie theaters, restaurants, a couple of cafeterias, more than a hundred shops, etc…. thousands of jobs. Places where teens could go after school, or where you could spend a day shopping, meeting friends and eating.
Now there is a Walmart and an Amazon distribution center. Ten terrible movie theaters. Had fun staying home and streaming Dr Who. over what used to be the big shopping and movie weekend. Now I do not have to drive a half hour to a half-decent movie theater to see good films. In fact I could not have found anything like Lovers Rock.
Seems to me that the screaming about the theatrical window is more about the privileges of the village in LA than the real lives of audiences. I can watch Dune at home and if I like it, go see it again at the theater, but only if it is safe. Works for me. Sorry, Denis.
But the theatrical window IS about the real lives of audiences, Bob. I’m hardly the biggest fan of Avengers Endgame (it’s an overstuffed, indulgent exercise in box-ticking, and in narrative propulsion terms it’s a tortoise compared to the greyhounds that are Raiders of the Lost Ark or Aliens), but there was something very special about that gathering of like-minded souls all coming together in a social setting. There’s a social value in moviegoing as a community marching in communal lockstep, convening at a particular location at a particular time, that’s lost in the impersonal isolation of streaming. I remember exiting an opening day screening of First Man a couple of years ago and just sharing a brief nod with a complete stranger on the way out. It was just a second, but that nod just said to both of us ‘yeah… that movie was something alright’. ‘Yeah, you and I are kindred spirits’. That’s what I’m missing the most right now.. That’s the power of movies shown to a packed house (okay, the screening of First Man wasn’t packed, but you see the point). And that’s something that needs to be protected.
Except these days, pre-pandemic, how often is that the experience? My only pleasant moviegoing experiences in recent years are when the theater is empty. Those are rare. Crowded theaters means I paid 15 bucks to sit next to loud people on phones. It’s never clean. Staff doesn’t care or do anything. If I want popcorn and a drink It’s another 15 bucks. A good theatrical experience isn’t common. I used to live in movie theaters but lately I prefer watching at home. I think that’s true for a lot of people. That said, movie theaters aren’t going to disappear and I’ll be back in one sooner or later. There’s no denying that this is a period of change, though. It happens.
Dave: “The problem with most analysis of all this is that it becomes personal.” Your entire analysis of this from day one has reeked of professional flopsweat from someone that insists their binkie will still be there when we all get back. You keep saying things will simply revert to what you’re comfortable with because reasons and you know stuff that we don’t. That’s it. That’s always your argument. (Please don’t bring up video games/hollywood comps. Holy god you don’y know aaaaaanything about that.)
When you finally get something right in this string of L’s, I’ll be happy to take you up on your plea to argue with you.
Lemme know how WW84’s definitely-not-going-to-streaming-box-office looks and breaks down.
also, the industry as preeminent cinema pop-art has been committing slow-motion suicide for yonks now.
production costs skyrocket. profit margins narrow. ticket prices climb. mid-level flicks squeezed. the marketing machine flips from post-prod romancer to pre-production driver. risk-averse bean-counters flood production slates with big-budget CGI spectacle and mid-level remakes/non-originals. hire mediocre, bland film-makers with no real above and beyond artistic talent for writing/directing who they consider ‘safe, who then make bland, forgettable drivel for the most part. (tony scott is dead.)
independent film-making with flair and originality takes up some of the slack but receives limited mainstream theatrical distribution. occasionally something breaks out. marginalised talent turns to less risk-averse small-screen production. people in the industry sound warning bells. the public becomes inured to this paradigm: spend a chunk of cash on tickets/transport/snacks for the latest mid-level middling remake or stay home and stream something snuggled up with a blankie and snacks from the dairy for $3. the bean counters – as they’re wont to do – double down on narrow thinking. local 10-theatre cinemaplex now has ‘avengers 18’ showing on 8 screens, mid-level movies on 2 with sessions at 4:50 pm and 10:15pm. the bean counters rationalise: but the mid-level stuff isn’t making bank! yeah no shit. a downward spiral into the covid-19 floor.
Well said Leah. One of the saddest developments recently in this regard was the news of A24’s deal with Apple. To me that was the biggest white flag of all this year. There’s something that I find very cherishable about the fact that movies as straight-up nuts as The Lighthouse and Midsommar exist to be available to patrons on a thousand-plus screens nationwide. Those days were numbered even a year ago and are almost certainly over now. Even Uncut Gems went straight to Netflkx in Europe.
amblinman… you are still throwing out propaganda with one shot of fact at the end. And as noted repeatedly, my “can’t touch” list has barely been touched, except by experimental releases, all of which have flopped.
You keep offering up the idea that YOU think I am anxious, so therefore I must be. I’m not. My track record remains better than any journalist in the industry in the arena of transition. I don’t have a binkie. I have math. Simple. If you want to keep making everything about what you “know,” go to town. You’ll keep being wrong and looking for ways to position my analysis as a Loss because 2 out of 10 guesses are wrong. I can live with that without giving it a second thought.
None of this is simple. I always qualify things with the fact that I am not in charge of the detail work. Content owners, distributors, and exhibitors are.
And if you want a guess on WW84, it is that the theatrical will flop and HBO Max won’t add 5 million non-HBO household subs as a result of the release. Do you have an opinion, other than the idea that I am wrong?
Dr Wally… A24 rarely has a foreign stake in their movies. And A24 has had a similar deal with DirecTV for years.
Screaming about the theatrical window is a number of things. There are aesthetic arguments. And there are financial arguments.
Media only really wants to talk about “talent” screaming because it marginalizes the financial issues. The same way media never acknowledges that Netflix is not significantly profitable and Disney will lose money on Disney+ for another couple years, at least. Not sexy.
Your smart rant here makes perfect sense and makes sense of your position on some other things.
I think some of it is wrong… but can’t argue your points… except for the Avengers on 8/10 screens thing… that is a design that exhibitors adapted in order to satisfy the studio demand to shrink windows and the fact that a film will open on 8/10, then drop to 5/10, then 3/10 actually makes space for exhibitors to give screen time to “arthouse,” though in the US, arthouse has become a slice of mainstreamed arthouse. But also, arthouse has narrowed its own path by going day-n-date for most titles, so their audience doesn’t expect to have theatrical at all outside of the top 10 markets.
Are we shifting to an era where it will be harder and harder to know exactly how many movies perform financially? I suppose in some respects we’re already there since PVOD numbers generally aren’t released, or we only get numbers if they are good and a studio/distributor wants to brag. I wonder if that’s what will continue for the foreseeable future, or if that changes at all as more and more movies hit PVOD. If you’re a streaming service or studio releasing PVOD titles I guess it’s a bonus to not have people pick apart the financials. And on that note how will we define success and failure in this era? For say WW84 to be considered a success, how many new subscribers does HBO Max need? Is new subscribers a permanent metric now? Will those numbers even be publicly available? Granted a lot of this has existed for quite some time now but it really seems like the ground is shifting in pretty substantial ways right now, and to me it seems like permanent shifts, not temporary ones. But I suppose time will tell.
Locally, where we have multiplexes and art house theaters, it is far more likely that the art house theaters play blockbusters than the multiplexes play art house fare. And it has been like that for a long time.
Aren’t we up to a third of the “untouchables” becoming streaming premieres after the HBO Max announcement? Mulan was already a Disney+ release. Soul is a Disney+ release. WW1984, Dune, and The Conjuring 3 are HBO Max releases. Coming to America 2 is an Amazon release. That’s 6 of 18 untouchables going the streaming route. Wouldn’t be surprised if the number increases before all is said and done.
—Would state governments in the United States, and provincial ones in Canada, supply money for independent movie houses? Enough for the health of the movie theater companies, I mean, without these two countries respective central governments providing relief money.
Movie theaters across Wisconsin, including Marcus Cinemas and Flix Brewhouse in Madison, are splitting $10 million from the COVID-19 Movie Theater Grant Program.
Gov. Tony Evers said Tuesday that 54 movie theater operators across the state are getting the awards as part of the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The grants are being administered by the Wisconsin Department of Administration.
The program provides eligible theaters in Wisconsin average awards of $14,600 per screen. The money is designed to be put toward pandemic-related measures, such as improvements to allow appropriate social distancing, cleaning and sanitizing, and personnel costs to provide COVID-19 safeguards.
https://madison.com/wsj/entertainment/movies/10-million-in-covid-19-relief-awarded-to-movie-theaters-in-wisconsin/article_3770c278-8dc5-563a-bff6-9de710624570.html
Time is Running out to Save Live Music VenuesBy Reena Diamante Texas
Dec. 16, 2020
In the summary of the latest bipartisan relief bill, lawmakers included an unspecified amount of funding for independent live venue operators, which would include eligible independent movie theaters and museums. Separately, McConnell’s latest revised stimulus bill proposal set aside $15 billion to establish a grant program for venues by the pandemic.
–Although there must be some people with the name “Texas,” the original website made clear that the name is “Reena Diamante” writing in the state of Texas.
By Reena Diamante Texas
What’s in a name? For some, it’s pride in the Lone Star State — the windswept plains, the tacos, the cowboys — that leads parents to dedicate their children’s names to where they live. Texas June Smith, a resident of Sweeny profiled by The New York Times, is one of those people. At the suggestion of a doctor, her mother named her “Texas” after the state and “June” after the year she was born.
“Meet a woman named Texas”
The clock is ticking for a live-music industry that’s struggling to survive the coronavirus pandemic.
If Congress fails to include funds specifically directed to aid independent live music venues in the coronavirus relief package, up to 90% of those venues could close for good within weeks.
https://journalstar.com/entertainment/arts-and-theatre/l-kent-wolgamott-time-slipping-away-to-save-music-venues/article_ec02154c-cb88-567f-a20b-442046ab094f.html