|
|
This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
|
|
Author
|
Topic: LA Times: Small town cinemas want new films sooner
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dennis Benjamin
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1445
From: Denton, MD
Registered: Feb 2002
|
posted 10-20-2014 01:18 PM
An article along the same lines as this thread:
LINK
By
Erich Schwartzel and
Ben Fritz
Oct. 19, 2014 2:47 p.m. ET
5 COMMENTS
When Mickey Altman opened Viva Cinema in Houston in 2013, he thought the theater was a blockbuster investment. A 42,000-square-foot complex designed to appeal to the region’s growing Hispanic population, it featured eight auditoriums, a cantina serving Mexican dishes and a party room.
But it turned out he was lacking a key ingredient: Popular new releases.
AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., the nation’s second-largest exhibitor, told major Hollywood studios that it wouldn’t play most new movies at its location about three miles away if they also played at Viva Cinema.
It was no contest: The studios agreed to AMC’s exclusivity requests on title after title, leaving Mr. Altman’s theater with scraps. Viva opened in May, when “Fast & Furious 6” was driving ticket sales. Viva’s marquee movie? Two-month old animated comedy “The Croods.” Time and again, Viva had to play out-of-date movies, such as “World War Z” in September, when it had been released in June.
Related
‘Fury’ Chases Off ‘Gone Girl’
“They controlled our destiny,” Mr. Altman said of AMC.
Viva closed last November, after Mr. Altman said he lost millions of dollars in business on the theater.
From Atlanta to the San Diego suburb of La Jolla, more cinema operators say they are being blocked from booking hot new releases.
Called “clearance” in industry parlance, the exclusivity practice allows theater chains to tell Hollywood studios they will screen a movie in a particular market only if nearby competitors can’t.
‘They controlled our destiny.’
—Mickey Altman, independent-theater owner
Once widespread, clearance practices faded in the 1990s as the industry came to be dominated by a few large multiplex operators. But in the past few years, a small but growing class of independent movie-theater companies has risen, targeting specific groups such as Latinos and affluent customers. The owners of several of these cinemas claim their growth is being hampered because too often they can’t get the best movies.
“The use of clearances had been slowing in the movie industry,” said Jack Foley, a veteran studio distribution executive. “But recently they’re making a comeback.”
The practice affects millions of Americans by limiting where they can see popular movies. According to theater operators and distribution executives, the tactic has been used particularly aggressively by the nation’s three largest theater chains—AMC, Regal Entertainment Group and Cinemark Holdings . Collectively, they control about 42% of the nation’s movie screens.
The big chains argue that the trend merely follows the rules of the road for the exhibition industry and that in competitive areas, exclusivity requests are to be expected.
A spokesman for AMC said the company requests exclusivity on certain titles for only 28 of its 341 locations. In the majority of cases, he said, it is competing with locations owned by fellow titans Regal or Cinemark—not the smaller newcomers.
In a statement, Regal said exclusivity agreements allow studios to “cost-effectively distribute their movies [and] allow exhibitors to compete for film content.”
Cinemark didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The renewed use of these arrangements has generated lawsuits and even government scrutiny: Two theater executives said they recently spoke with the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, which has been seeking information on the issue. The practice isn’t the subject of a formal DOJ investigation, according to people familiar with the matter.
Defenders of the practice point out that it is ultimately up to the studios whether to grant a theater chain’s request for exclusivity. Distribution executives—the people at studios who book movies into theaters—say they typically would prefer to play a new release on as many screens as possible. When clearance requests force them to choose between multiple theaters in a market, executives say they go with the location they believe will generate the highest ticket sales—regardless of its owner.
But independent operators maintain they are too often on the losing end of such battles.
Cobb Theatres, which operates 20 theaters including one near two AMC locations in Atlanta, sued AMC in January in U.S. District Court in Georgia, accusing the theater chain of violating antitrust law and using its “world-wide and national circuit power” to “deny their competitors... fair competitive access to films so as to drive them out of business.”
AMC declined to comment on pending litigation.
Cinépolis, a major Mexican cinema company with luxury locations breaking into the U.S. market, estimates it has walked away from one-third of the 200 sites it has scouted for theaters because of clearance concerns, said the chief executive of its U.S. operation, Adrian Mijares Elizondo.
Exclusivity agreements have traditionally been most common during booms in building or renovating theaters. To protect their investments, theater owners sometimes seek to limit nearby competition, usually within a radius of three miles or so.
In recent years, a number of independent exhibitors such as iPic Theaters, Reading International Inc.’s Angelika Film Center, and Landmark Theatres, owned by billionaires Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner, have been building new high-end locations that compete for moviegoers willing to pay sometimes more than $20 a ticket, plus extra for gourmet food and drinks delivered to their seats.
AMC, meanwhile, isn’t sitting still. Fueled by cash after being acquired by China’s Dalian Wanda Group Corp. in 2012 and a public stock offering last year, it is in the midst of a $600 million effort to upgrade 1,800 of its 5,000 auditoriums with leather recliners and other amenities.
Exclusivity, as AMC points out, doesn’t always involve a David vs. Goliath scenario. Regal, for example, is currently trying to “clear” a theater under construction by Cinemark in a coastal Los Angeles neighborhood, according to people familiar with the situation.
Independents are trying the tactic against each other, too. Landmark is currently engaged in one such battle against a soon-to-launch ArcLight Cinemas location in Bethesda, Md., according to people familiar with the matter.
Cinetopia’s Rudyard Coltman delayed his Overland Park, Kan., theater’s opening in May, because the big movie of the weekend wouldn’t have been available. ENLARGE
Cinetopia’s Rudyard Coltman delayed his Overland Park, Kan., theater’s opening in May, because the big movie of the weekend wouldn’t have been available. Catalin Abagiu for The Wall Street Journal
Still, theater operators like Rudyard Coltman often end up being the underdogs. Mr. Coltman delayed by a week the May opening of his Cinetopia 18 multiplex in Overland Park, Kan., after hearing from Time Warner Inc. ’s Warner Bros. that AMC had already requested exclusive rights in the neighborhood to “Godzilla,” the only major new release the weekend he’d planned to open.
While the studios haven’t kept every new release out of Cinetopia, they do alternate their biggest titles between it and AMC Town Center 20—a renovated multiplex about three miles away. Mr. Coltman said he has missed out on hits like “Guardians of the Galaxy,” keeping box-office revenues 30% to 50% lower than he had projected.
Hamid Hashemi, CEO of the iPic luxury chain, said he was in negotiations this July to build a new location in Dallas when AMC sent a letter to studios saying it would request exclusivity on certain titles if the theater was built.
That same day, Mr. Hashemi was told by studio distribution executives, Regal called to say it would seek films exclusively if he went through with plans to build a separate iPic theater in Houston. Mr. Hashemi added that such notifications make it harder to convince real-estate developers that leasing to him will be worthwhile.
Gerry Lopez, chief executive at AMC, said representatives from his company often talk with landlords eyeing potential development and will make it known if they think a site would be subject to clearance.
In a statement, Regal said exclusivity agreements allow studios to “provide consumers with the variety of movies that they enjoy,” adding it expects the practice to continue “for many years to come.”
Write to Erich Schwartzel at erich.schwartzel@wsj.com and Ben Fritz at ben.fritz@wsj.com
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
|
posted 10-28-2014 12:39 AM
I don't see how it is ever to a studio's advantage to give "clearance" to one theatre to the detriment of another. Even if servicing the smaller screen takes patrons way from the big chain, that doesn't hurt the studio -- it's still getting revenue from those patrons no matter what theatre they spend their dollars.
Surely a chain is not going to forego playing a big picture in order to "punish" a studio for not giving them exclusive on that title. I certainly do understand the reason why the REGAL or AMC try to throw their weight around to crush the competition, but I don't see why the studios would go along with it, especially as it doesn't help them in any economic way and in fact, it more than likely can hurt them, especially when their ad campaigns tout, "Playing in a Theatre Near You" and "Opening on Such-and-such a Date;" but then they make a move that causes a certain number of the public not to be able to find it at a theatre near them nor on the date that it is supposed to open -- just one more reason to cause them to wait for it to come to Netflix. So instead of the studio getting it's $9 from a theatre ticket sale, they get $0.75 from the Netflix take.
Why would a studio, after spending millions on promotion, kowtow to a big chain's demand that prevents at least some of the public from finding that title at their local theatre? It seems illogical...moronic even, ESPECIALLY given how the distribution models have moved completely away from tiered patterns and a pecking order hierarchy SPECIFICALLY because it makes economic sense to open pictures as quickly as possible and everywhere at once. Holding it back from screens at the behest of a monster chain is a throwback to cave man times; it is baffling why studios go along with it.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
All times are Central (GMT -6:00)
|
This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
|
Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM
6.3.1.2
The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion
and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.
|
Home
Printer-friendly view of this topic