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This topic comprises 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5
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Author
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Topic: Movie theaters are 'strangling the movie business
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Martin McCaffery
Film God
Posts: 2481
From: Montgomery, AL
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 03-18-2017 09:31 AM
Here's Back:
Variety
quote:
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings: Movie Theaters Haven’t Innovated Beyond Popcorn
Senior Silicon Valley Correspondent
Janko Roettgers
Senior Silicon Valley Correspondent
MARCH 17, 2017 | 10:41AM PT
Asked about his company’s relationship with major theater chains, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings didn’t pull any punches on Thursday. “How did distribution innovate in the movie business in the last 30 years? Well, the popcorn tastes better, but that’s about it,” he quipped.
Hastings made these remarks during a Q&A session with reporters at the company’s headquarters in Los Gatos, Calif., where he suggested that new distribution models could do for movies what cable networks and online services have done for TV shows.
“What Netflix wants to do is to unleash film,” he said. “It’s fundamentally about growing the movie business.”
Netflix has come under fire from major theater chains as well as organizations like the National Association of Theatre Owners for not sticking to the traditional release window model, which lets movies debut in theaters months before they transition to home video.
On Thursday, Hastings pushed back against the notion that the company aims to bypass theaters. “We are not anti-theater,” he said. “We just want things to come out at the same time.”
Shunned by major theater chains, Netflix last fall struck a deal with iPic Entertainment, a small chain with 15 theaters. Under that deal, iPic will show 10 Netflix movies day-and-date with their online releases. This won’t give Netflix movies a huge theater audience, but the deal does allow the company to qualify its titles for the Academy Awards.
Hastings also used the Q&A to comment on a wide range of other issues, including net neutrality. He didn’t seem too concerned about policy changes in this area, despite the new administration’s intent to repeal rules that require internet service providers to treat Netflix’s traffic equal to that of other streaming services. “The culture around net neutrality is very strong,” Hastings said, arguing that consumers would still expect equal access.
Asked once again why Netflix doesn’t release any ratings for its shows, Hastings joked that withholding data would give his company “mystery and intrigue.” He added: “We haven’t released ratings in 10 years, and it hasn’t held us back.”
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 03-18-2017 01:48 PM
Reed Hastings is only pushing this day and date bullshit to keep the gravy train rolling on Netflix stock prices (currently trading at an all time high of 145.11 per share as of March 17). He is only looking at the movie business through the very narrow prism of his streaming business interests.
quote: Netflix Propaganda
“What Netflix wants to do is to unleash film,” he said. “It’s fundamentally about growing the movie business.”
In my opinion, I think the streaming services have largely hit their peak. I think the streaming industry is due for some kind of shake-up. Adding Hollywood movies, day and date released, into the Netflix lineup or playlists of rival streaming services probably won't grow anything. It certainly will not put more money into the pockets of movie studios and will only steal greatly from the theater business. Considering how badly home video sales of movies have been doing in recent years I would think the movie studios would try to do more to grow the theatrical side of the movie business.
Here's the main reason why this "golden age of TV" has peaked: there's already too much stuff to watch on TV. I don't have nearly enough free time to watch even 10% of the TV series and movies Netflix puts on its service. Every time I turn around there's yet some new series with 10-14 episodes per season to watch. It's a chore just keeping up with all the Marvel stuff. "Iron Fist? I just finally got finished with Luke Cage! There's a series called The Defenders coming out this Summer? What the fuck!?" There are only so many hours in the day people can spend watching TV.
Movies aren't going to do any better on streaming services, even if they're released day and date. There might be some initial curiosity and excitement from the public. But that will decline back into the ho-hum attitude present now. As it stands a lot of Hollywood movies get lost in the clutter of the app interfaces of these streaming services. As movie theaters die off almost entirely in a day and date release model, viewer interest in those "movies" would decline even further since they would only be 2 hour TV shows then.
Netflix' user interface sucks. It's a pain in the ass to discover interesting movies there unless you already have your mind made up on a specific movie title and know it's available to watch. You can't find a full list of everything that's on Netflix, much less know when it was added and when it will be pulled. There are so many TV series and other TV shows, stand up comedy specials, etc. that they literally bury a lot of movie titles. I can't say the user interfaces of Amazon Prime and Hulu are any better.
Cable/satellite TV is horribly over-priced, so all the cord-cutting is going to continue. It may accelerate as certain cable TV series like Game of Thrones draw to an end over the next couple years. The much lower priced streaming services will continue to be an attractive alternative, especially with residential Internet speeds in many areas now improving to speeds fast enough to stream 1080p HD on a fairly reliable basis.
It will be interesting to see what happens when the stock prices of Netflix and Amazon come down from current all-time high trends. People have been saying Netflix has been over-valued for years. A correction will happen eventually. Will Reed Hastings be banging the drum even harder for day and date movie releases? Will he increase subscription prices? Will Hollywood studios increase their fees to Netflix, Amazon, etc.? I would mention Hulu in this, but all of its stock is privately held.
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Martin McCaffery
Film God
Posts: 2481
From: Montgomery, AL
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 03-19-2017 12:03 PM
Well, in the US you run into the Paramount consent decree, which prohibits vertical integration. I doubt it would be enforced these days, and actually there have been erosions. Disney owns at least a few theaters. Regal and AMC own Open Road Films. There are other small distribs that own theaters, and may even dabble in art films (the Biograph and Key in DC many, many years ago, were big financial backers of John Waters; and KB made at least one blaxploitation film). God knows porn theaters invested in porn movies back in the day.
Basically, mass producing films is a huge capital investment. Any movie chain with that kind of capital is busy buying up other movie chains. Financial a handful of indie films a year may be within AMC/Regal's budget, but even they won't be able to load up a multiplex.
I'm sure the day will come when some studio will buy a big chain or vice-versa, but it will take a lot of blood letting to get it through, and still won't provide any security for other exhibitors.
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