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jimisawesome

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Everything posted by jimisawesome

  1. Did I miss the DGA buying Regal? Or the SAG giving a loan out to AMC? Or anyone using their social media to create a TikTok dance for CinemaSafe? Naw instead you had industry press publishing articles on how going to see Tenet was Russian Roulette. Angelina Jolie come up with a distribution network for a vaccine? Boo hoo they got 90 minutes but give these gossiping agents any more and this would have leaked like the Titanic. Why does everyone think come April 4th everything is back to normal? How especially in Hollywood with all the Agents with MBA's from Warton, Booth, Stanford or Harvard can they not see the condition of the theater chains? Do they think the CEOs of Regal and AMC are lying about being out of money in January? That these statements are what a bluff because it is so good for the stock price or negotiating any deals with creditors and vendors. If the theaters survive it will be almost single handedly because WB released Tenet and WW84 while Disney released nothing, Sony released nothing, Paramount nothing and Universal the Croods. What is WB supposed to do here? How long are they supposed to carry these films? There is an uncertain future where there is a very good chance that we lose a third or more screens by the summer and its not out of the question its over half. You have governors keeping theaters closed while allowing indoor dining and he is the hero that Hollywood is giving a special Emmy too.
  2. There really has been nothing to suggest this will be anything but an isolated group here and there. You would have expected to see some of this get out of the house and do something sometime between Tenet opening until now and there just was not huge bumps as markets reopened and it would be easier to spot as grosses are low and with the exception of Tenet and Croods 2 these are movies that would see a boost from walk up and see movie to see a movie. The obvious counter argument is people are still scared and Tenet and Croods are it which is fair but if you are a studio you can hope for this but you can't plan for this.
  3. They should be pissed at themselves for moving it to Xmas instead of just staying with the October date. No one at the studios wanted to have the hard conversations until now and they are just starting to grasp there is no coming back to pre Covid. With todays covid package talks don't be surprised to see even more moves towards streaming. Theaters are not getting stimulus and there is no hint at all they will get one after inauguration either.
  4. There is a better chance of there only be 500 theaters open in June than there is in Dec. Texas, Florida and Georgia are just not going to shut down again. And theaters are not magically going to be around in June either. It's extremely unlikely they get the carve-out in any stimulus. Its even more unlikely that the stimulus arrives in time. And what white knight is out there? AMC has been looking for 8 months now with no luck and the clock is about to hit midnight. My point here is waiting for later in the hope things get better is pure wishful thinking given all the information we have today. Anyone in the studios operating under the assumption that Regal and AMC are operating 80% of their theaters in June are delusional and costing their shareholders millions. And this is me being extremely optimistic that Regal and AMC can find a white knight or financing and not just move to Chapter 7. There is a very real chance that all but a handful of their locations (Disney Springs and City walk) are closed for good.
  5. A lot has changed over the last 6 weeks. COVID numbers are even worse than predicted. The election basically ended the worst possible way to save theaters. AT&T has seen the writing on the wall wait to June and a very good chance half or more of theaters are bankrupt and shut down. Maybe they can eek out more money by waiting but really how much more compared to getting what you can now and using the movie to drive subscriber growth with maximum free publicity.
  6. Smart move by AT&T. Yeah they probably going to make 50-100 million now but how is that different than the 10-100 million that they will make in June? At least now they have the buzz around adding it to HBO Max that might drive subscriber growth and the theater owners hate WB the least in the extremely long shot they do survive. Studios are delusional if they think everything is going back to normal. Normal already was accelerating attendance decline.
  7. Great post. And to get more into the weeds on the election and why it was bad for the Arts and Cinema. Joe Biden has always been a deficit hawk and the leaked names for economic positions with 1 exception (Janet Yellon) follow along with being deficit hawks. Nancy Pelosi is a Peterson disciple, for those that don't know what this means she is one of the biggest deficit hawks in DC. And Mitch McConnell is better at politics than anyone else in DC which means he is going to lead Senate Republicans into another 2 years of being the party of no. Even if a miracle occurs and the Democrats win both GA runoffs that just places them at 48-50-2 and no the 2 are not Bernie and Angus King, its Sinema and Manchin who are already singling they will be more than willing to work with Republicans every chance they can. Throw in the infighting that is occurring where the so called moderates are trying to purge the left wing out of power if not the party. This is the environment I see and to show an example of this roll back, just look at what Chuck Schumer proposed a few days ago with Student Debt relief at 40,000 and yesterday Biden has the number down to 10,000 already. This one is very telling because this is an extremely popular policy proposal not just with Democrats but across the board. Saving theaters does not have anywhere close to this level of support. It would take a whole lot of people doing things that are out of character for them to see theaters getting saved. The industry is never going back to 2019. It's now how much of it can be saved. I fully expect at least 4 if not 5 of the 12 AMC in my market to shut down even if things trend towards best case.
  8. I don't think its going to be likely but I think there is at very real chance that the biggest movie does less than 50 million say about a 1 in 6 chance. Even in the absolute best possible case, I don't see how AMC and Regal don't close 10% or more of their theaters. What I think is a likely case is we lose 30% of theater locations before summer due to cost cutting and bankruptcies of some of the smaller chains. Its not a long shot at all that AMC and Regal both file along with a bunch of smaller chains. If its just AMC or Regal maybe there is a white knight that will come in, but with both you are looking at only the best locations being kept as theaters. Throw in the public changing their entertainment habits and changes of behavior due to COVID and bam its the end.
  9. What am I missing? Do these reporters and Studio Execs follow at all what is going on with NATO, AMC, Regal and any number of smaller chains? AMC and Regal have not made it a secret they are going to run out of money in the next 8-12 weeks. Or is there some secret money that the theaters are about to get that no one else knows about including the theaters? I mentioned earlier this is about the worst possible election outcome for theaters to get a carve out in the next bailout. WW84 does not have the potential to gross 1 billion in 2021 not anymore. The industry keeps acting like this is a pause and come April everything goes back to normal. They are not grasping reality yet because they are still producing 200+ million dollar movies instead of putting a stop on everything. They would put together a fund or buy equity into the theater chains instead of hopes and prayers that the Senate will pass anything.
  10. ^That is going to happen, at this point the Theaters have to know that WW84 is the only slight chance they have to avoid bankruptcy so they will take the 3 week window. WB is smart to do this because there is a very good chance that WW84 is the last movie to make even 50 million in the next few years after everyone goes bust.
  11. Are they happy with 40% of expected Box Office or will they risk 10% box office for the chance at 80%. Moving the date to next year is not a decision its pushing the decision off to an even more uncertain environment.
  12. This. It seems most of these studios are acting like come April everything goes back to normal. There does not seem to be an ounce of downside in their decision making process at least publicly. When going back to normal is the absolute best case scenario and should be considered the long shot at this point.
  13. If this happens the theater owners better tell Universal good luck with Peacock.
  14. In the worst case JW3 will hit a billion even if that is a couple years away. The more interesting question is if there will be another 500 million domestic movie and 200 million dollar domestic opener. For that matter 400 million and 150.
  15. Enjoy this movie in theaters overseas while those of in NA have to wait for it on Peacock
  16. Trick question this is like saying which of your children is your favorite in front of them. The correct answer is the are all equally awesome in their own special ways.
  17. Bond very well might be the last blockbuster to ever play in over 2500 locations in NA so might as well get what ever they can from the box offices before 30% of theater locations close for good.
  18. I just hope an American actor plays Bond next with how many times a British actor has played American Icons.
  19. The answer is Booksmart. 96 RT and 84 metacritic give me a break. The movie had 0 laughs. No one in the theater filled with about 50 people laughed for what was supposed to be a movie like Superbad. The school is made to look like a zoo with kids running wild and over the teachers yet they are all going to Yale and Stanford and no real mention of class. The two leads are unlikable people with a huge sense of entitlement all the while super judgy. I truly felt like I was being punked by reviewers after seeing the movie.
  20. As been said Airlines Industry is much different and include a lot of business travel that is just not replaceable by other means. But more importantly the Airline Industry is to important to fail so will always have a government backstop. The airlines directly employee 400k throw in another half million for the airports plus the thousands that work for Boeing or their suppliers. Its a 200 billion dollar plus a year industry in the US. You also have billions spent by cities and states on air ports and other infrastructure. The theater business is about 11 billion with attendance falling every year. 2020 would have been a down year from this and not much reason to believe 2021 would match 2019 either. Most of the jobs in the sector are starter jobs without much political protection. You have the distributors that seem somewhat indifferent to theaters. All of this is a long way to say there are important people that care that Airlines live while they don't care about theaters. It does not break the laws of physics that theaters could be more popular 15 years from now. That said the trend is not in that direction. Ticket sales are down since the peak and the trend line is clearly down. As stated above 2020 in a COVID free world would have continued this trend and been down and probably dramatically from 2019. But, more troubling is the industry is holding on now because of the big franchise films. The problem is the big franchises seem to be ending faster than they are being replaced. The Disney Live Action remakes have what Little Mermaid left of the popular movies. WHo knows what happens with Star Wars going forward. Avatar could be huge but it will be nearing 15 years when the next one is released it could be no one cares or its just a regular big franchise not a mega franchise. Even with Marvel their next few up are not exactly the A listers. 3 of the most popular brands are retired and what happens with Black Panther. GotG3 and CM have not started filming. Fast and Furious is coming towards the end. I can go on and on To use your example, The music industry is 80% streaming. Physical sales are now about 10% of the market split almost evenly between Vinyl and CD. In this example CD is the closest we have to multiplexes and they can't survive being 5% of the industry. Without Covid there might have been time to come up with new business plans or at least it take a while for this change to finalize. But, we don't live in that world we live in the COVID world that is accelerating trends. We have movie review sites and podcasts telling people not to go to the theater despite what many public health officials are saying about the risk. Theaters can't survive if their busy weeks are capped at 30 or 50 or even 80% capacity for more then a year or two without huge concessions from the distributors. AMC already needed an emergency loan just to reopen and they have a lot of debt they need to service without much in the way of cash flow. Could someone come in and save them? Sure but they are going to face the same problems and they are going to have to shave locations to make it work too.
  21. For the most part yes, the theater going experience will not exist in the US. You will have some art house type theaters with A24 type movies being released but that is about it. COVID came at the perfect time to wipe out theaters. AMC is holding on by a prayer right now. WB was the only major study that seem to give the slightest care about theaters staying alive and they are getting killed for it in much of film press and twitter. You have public health officals saying dont go to theaters publically and they are giving years not months as a timeline. The major chains are going to be closing any non profitable theater over the next 6 months and even closing theaters with smaller profits. They will stop renovations to save capital which will further give people a reason to stay home. Not just that but a lot of theaters are attached to malls which are getting killed and don't bring the foot traffic they once did. There is no Avengers level movie coming up and now who knows what happens with Black Panther 2 the biggest current franchise. The last Marvel Movie being Endgame gives marvel fans a perfect stopping point from needing to see Marvel movies in theaters going forward.
  22. And to give examples of this from just last year alone, Charlies Angels, Little Women and Book Smart. No one showed up to Charlies Angels at all. Little Women was still a big hit yet how many think pieces where there? And it kind of was smart to keep audiences away from Book Smart because if more people saw that movie the WOM would have exposed it.
  23. What no love for Monicaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
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