You reap what you sow. Welcome to Hell.

[EmpireCity]

Hello, old friends.  Hope you are all healthy and happy as can be in this time of pandemic.  Speaking of, pandemic or not, the industry was largely headed for a self-made hell for the last 7-10 years. 

 

The good and bad news is that theaters will survive.  The good is obvious.  The bad is murky.  Mostly the industry will need to be bailed out by studios and large tech companies like Amazon, Apple, Netflix and others.

 

It is already happening.  There are things in the works that will blow your mind.  Amazon will absolutely own one of the larger chains and likely a smaller dine-in type chain as well.  It will be a loss leader to drive Prime membership similar to what they have done with Whole Foods.  Studios with resources will either move on their own or with strategic partners to cut out the middle man.

 

The very, very bad of the industry is that at least for the next year or longer programming will be the definition of stale.  

 

My personal prediction is that pretty much EVERYTHING is moving from 2020.  Not such a bad thing as with many productions shut down or delayed, the content can slide into 2021 and fill large gaps. 

 

The win/win for the studios and consumers is that straight to VOD/streaming/PPV or whatever you want to call it is here to stay. Mid-budget movies are thriving.  Creative freedom to take chances that aren't considered failures because the opening weekend wasn't large enough is a thing of the past.  It allows things like The Old Guard, Greyhound, Extraction and others become actual hits.  

 

Forget 2020 and gear up for 2021.  The industry will be back, it will take some time and look different, but theatrical is here to stay.  

[charlie Jatinder]

I think industry will survive, question is whether theaters will survive. There was a big film released in Korea yesterday, it averaged 25 person per show and Korea has almost gone over COVID with less than 500 active cases. Endgame averaged roughly 125 person per show on its best day, which is I think close to capacity, so a big film, in the most theater-going per captia country of the world, had an attendance of 1/5th of the best in recent time, I don't know how can cinemas survive at that.

 

Worse still, the majority numbers come from one chain, rest were even more shittier.

[EmpireCity]

22 minutes ago, charlie Jatinder said:

I think industry will survive, question is whether theaters will survive. There was a big film released in Korea yesterday, it averaged 25 person per show and Korea has almost gone over COVID with less than 500 active cases. Endgame averaged roughly 125 person per show on its best day, which is I think close to capacity, so a big film, in the most theater-going per captia country of the world, had an attendance of 1/5th of the best in recent time, I don't know how can cinemas survive at that.

 

Worse still, the majority numbers come from one chain, rest were even more shittier.

 

Theaters will survive.  They might sit empty until late spring or summer 2021, but they will survive.  Once there is a viable vaccine (and sounds like that is at best late fall 2020 or early 2021) on any level things will return to normal shortly after.  

 

The buildings are there.  The equipment is there.  Most have either been upgraded or are newer.  Revenue producing kitchens and other options are there.  

 

The theater companies and current owners as we know them might not survive, but someone with hordes of cash sitting on the sideline will step in and get them for pennies on the dollar.  Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Disney, Warner Bros. and others all have incentive to buy them for various reasons.  

 

Billions of dollars sit out there waiting to pounce.  They are waiting for Chapter 11 or outright shut downs to happen and then when the time is right they will step in.  

 

Look back to the 1920's for an indicator.  The world came off a terrible 2-3 year pandemic that killed far more people, but once it was gone and people felt comfortable entertainment boomed and people were ready to go out and gather in groups.  It is how we got the roaring 20's.  It is coming again.  

[Eric Duncan]

@EmpireCity, would be curious to know if you still think simultaneous PVOD/theatrical releases will be a common occurrence? I doubt Marvel or Jurassic World would get this, but I think having it for something like King of Staten Island or Greyhound would at least be a nice, vinyl-esque alternative and give at least a bit of variety for theaters.

[EmpireCity]

Don't forget that data is king.  Amazon didn't buy Whole Foods because they wanted to own physical grocery stores so they could become brick and mortar grocers, they did it so they could tap into dynamic real time data.  

 

What they have learned about consumer behaviors that they can feed into their database and algorithms is pure gold.  The same principles will apply to theaters for the big tech companies.  Data that they can get and analyze from buying a theater chain like AMC or Regal or Alamo Drafhouse or Studio Movie Grill is invaluable.  As a secondary measure, they can use it as a further data proving ground as a loss leader or subscription driver.  

 

There is a reason that Wal-Mart's big move this week is to get into a subscription model.   

[EmpireCity]

6 minutes ago, Eric Skywalker said:

@EmpireCity, would be curious to know if you still think simultaneous PVOD/theatrical releases will be a common occurrence? I doubt Marvel or Jurassic World would get this, but I think having it for something like King of Staten Island or Greyhound would at least be a nice, vinyl-esque alternative and give at least a bit of variety for theaters.

 

I think that PVOD/theatrical/streaming simultaneous releases are here to stay on many levels.  The first is that NATO and their membership will have no real leverage over the studios.  Second is that if what I am talking about above happens and large tech companies scoop up theaters that they will be more than happy to have a hybrid model.  

 

I don't think that this will include blockbuster movies.  Marvel, Star Wars, DC, and large tentpole movies will always release in theater first and then have a rollout after as they currently do.  I think it will still stick to the 2-3 month window for digital and 3-6 months for streaming/physical.  

 

Even Netflix is happy to release simultaneously in theaters.  They have been doing that for 2+ years.  I think Apple and Amazon would do the same under this model.  

 

Disney will always support theatrical, but they will put their "risky" movies on streaming only. 

[Barnack]

12 hours ago, EmpireCity said:

The same principles will apply to theaters for the big tech companies.  Data that they can get and analyze from buying a theater chain like AMC or Regal or Alamo Drafhouse or Studio Movie Grill is invaluable. 

That suggesting they already do not have a lot of data from movie theater audience if they want them, anyone that pay a movie ticket with something else than cash is pretty much already tracked no ? And that is almost all of it by now.

 

There is a lot of benefit to a membership model outside data that would be missing if you just track credit card purchase by people and just group for the cash one, Club Price-Costco was build on those back in the days.

 

I do think that you are right about big tech not knowing what to do with their cash reserve to use it in that industry in 2020-2021, it is a natural fit, price will be good, some synergy to a lot in some case, competing with the studios for them.

 

I think you prediction around blockbuster/Disney sound true, they will use Hulu-Disney+ branding when they will not support theatrical in a very natural way, that will not even be perceived much (specially if the pandemy stay a long time with us).

[IronJimbo]

13 hours ago, EmpireCity said:

 

Theaters will survive.  They might sit empty until late spring or summer 2021, but they will survive.  Once there is a viable vaccine (and sounds like that is at best late fall 2020 or early 2021) on any level things will return to normal shortly after.  

 

The buildings are there.  The equipment is there.  Most have either been upgraded or are newer.  Revenue producing kitchens and other options are there.  

 

The theater companies and current owners as we know them might not survive, but someone with hordes of cash sitting on the sideline will step in and get them for pennies on the dollar.  Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Disney, Warner Bros. and others all have incentive to buy them for various reasons.  

 

Billions of dollars sit out there waiting to pounce.  They are waiting for Chapter 11 or outright shut downs to happen and then when the time is right they will step in.  

 

Look back to the 1920's for an indicator.  The world came off a terrible 2-3 year pandemic that killed far more people, but once it was gone and people felt comfortable entertainment boomed and people were ready to go out and gather in groups.  It is how we got the roaring 20's.  It is coming again.  

All part of Jim's master plan

 

Dec 2021 be ready

[CloneWars]

I want to say that I think if Movie Pass launched this year with the $9.99 deal, they would actually do okay. The could drive business to the smaller theaters playing legacy content, and I think theaters would be more likely to cut deals with MP considering the state of cinema right now. Anyway, I just hope that subscriptions are here to say. If Amazon truly buys a chain, I think it's a likely possibility they would offer a good subscription service add-on for Prime members.

[EmpireCity]

I knew it was coming, but today was the official death of 2020 and movie theaters as we have known them for the last 100+ years.  

 

Don't expect to see a major release movie in the domestic market until Spring 2021.  Given that theaters are already begging for a Congressional bailout, the situation is dire and congrats to whoever has deep pockets and picks them up at a rock bottom discount bargain later this year.  

[NCsoft]

On 7/16/2020 at 1:51 PM, IronJimbo said:

All part of Jim's master plan

 

Dec 2021 be ready

Since it's Dec 2022 now, those "billions of dollars waiting to pounce" better pounce even harder 😉

[DAJK]

1 hour ago, EmpireCity said:

I knew it was coming, but today was the official death of 2020 and movie theaters as we have known them for the last 100+ years.  

 

Don't expect to see a major release movie in the domestic market until Spring 2021.  Given that theaters are already begging for a Congressional bailout, the situation is dire and congrats to whoever has deep pockets and picks them up at a rock bottom discount bargain later this year.  

Just curious, do you have any information on Canadian chains, or other international chains? Do bailouts/closures work the same way in other countries as the US (especially Canada, which is where I'm interested in lol). 

[Hatebox]

Isn't Covid just going to quicken a process that was already happening? Ie. mid-budget movies utterly screwed and theaters mainly catering for just a handful of anointed blockbusters?

 

That was already a lousy state of affairs but I agree that in the scheme of things the pandemic doesn't change much on that front.

[eddyxx]

On 7/16/2020 at 1:51 PM, IronJimbo said:

All part of Jim's master plan

 

Dec 2021 be ready

2022

[Eric Duncan]

https://deadline.com/2020/07/universal-amc-theatres-theatrical-window-crush-pvod-agreement-1202997573/

 

Well uh...there you go.

[wildphantom]

I think @EmpireCity is dead on with much of this forecasting. 
 

You look at the state of things, and who is sitting pretty - waiting to muscle in and take over at the top of Tinseltown? Yep...Amazon, Apple and Netflix. 

Disney saw it coming and have managed to stay with them.  Their purchases of Fox, Marvel, Lucasfilm etc were genius.  Imagine if they hadn’t got Disney+ off the ground?!

Warner Bros have some big brands themselves, but nothing like the Mouse. 
 

but yeah, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Disney. They’re going to end up running the theatrical show before too long you’d think. Almost like old Hollywood, with different names. 

 

Would not surprise me to see a couple of the studio majors get into bed with these guys in the next couple of years.