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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Topic: Disney flexing its muscles by raising film rentals
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Jack Ondracek
Film God
Posts: 2348
From: Port Orchard, WA, USA
Registered: Oct 2002
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posted 04-19-2013 03:52 PM
quote: Mike Blakesley
Eh. Disney knows they've got us by the balls. Like some chain is going to not play the biggest movie of the summer?? Come on.
It's not unprecedented, Mike, though it doesn't happen often.
Years ago, Paramount got into a percentages snit with one of the chains. The result was Crocodile Dundee playing first run in our local dollar houses.
It happened again with one of the early Star Wars pictures. If I recall, Regal was involved in that one. It didn't play the first-run houses, and once again, the sub-runners made out like bandits. You wouldn't think a chain would pass up on an obvious hit, but they've certainly done it.
One owner tried very hard to get a friend of mine to buy his theatre, suggesting he was now a first-run house. Of course, once the chains & the studios made up, it was back to sub-runs and empty seats.
Bob , you might recall the "Charleston Cinema" being involved in this.
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 04-21-2013 09:42 AM
quote: Mike Frese
Based on my experience with the old VSDA (Video Rental Stores), an association can not spearhead a boycott. Even the chains can't call each other up and say "Hey let's skip this movie".
Well, that might be true in theory, but the MPAA sure seems to have figured out a way to avoid that problem -- ever read the Master Contracts from the studios? Funny how every one of them reads like a carbon copy of the other guy's. Funny how the way the rate structures and percentages are figured, it's as if you are booking from the same company; they are basically identical no matter what the studio. Besides, no need to call it a boycott, because you don't apply it to a specific title from a specific studio -- that MAYBE construed as conspiracy; the trick is to agree in general not to book ANY title from ANY studio that reaches that threshold of percentage/terms that all agree are unacceptable. Agree on that and you are not boycotting, you are just doing what the studios do -- setting contract paramaters that are acceptable to your business model. THEY all have the same business model, exhibitors can as well. The question is, who needs who more; which studios will break away from the MPAA trust and meet the terms demands of the exhibitors in order to have an outlet for their product. With the MPAA trust hold or will NATO? It's who's got the bigger set. Who will blink? All you need is one or possibly two of the big three to drop refuse to play at terms that they find unacceptable and the grosses for that title will be in the toilet. A distributor is not blind, and in today's production model, you have multiple entities invested in a title; they all understand the kind of money a theatrical run brings in -- they are like stockholders; none of them will let distributor risk not having their title play in theatres for want of a few percentage points. An animic theatrical run would decimate their profits. Plus you still have the Paramount Concent Decrees -- what are left of them or their enforcement -- which say that each title has to be treated separately from other from the same studio; in other words, you a distributor can't withhold Title B because an exibitor refused to play Title A. This is a decided protection if a chain or two decides they won't book, say, IRON MAN n
As for by-passing the theatres and selling product direct to video...as I said, good luck with that. Without the excitement of a theatrical opening and at least some big screen play, there will be very little excitement on the part of the majority of the public to see a blockbuster on an iphone or a tv set. If there is no theatrical run, all they have is a made-for-tv-movie, and we know how little money those brough in. We know that because the studios don't even bother making them any more. Or what they have is a Direct-to-DVD movie. Some producers do that....and you never even hear the name of those titles, much less hear about them making millions in rental grosses.
But why won't this ever happen? Louis said it best -- Lunatics Never Unite.
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