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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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Frank Cox
Film God
Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011
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posted 10-07-2016 04:55 PM
Netflix CEO: Movie theaters are 'strangling the movie business'
quote:
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings thinks the state of film is a "real tragedy" and that movie theaters are "strangling the movie business," he said at The New Yorker's TechFest on Friday.
Netflix has long faced off against the giants of the movie theater business, who have largely refused to show Netflix's original films in theaters because of Netflix's commitment to making them available to stream on the same day they appear on the big screen.
That could be changing — but only a little bit.
Netflix recently came to a deal with iPic Entertainment, a luxury theater company, to screen 10 of its films as they become available online. Ted Sarandos, Netflix's head of content, characterized this as a “substantial” portion of Netflix’s original movies for the year, according to The Wall Street Journal. That's good news for Netflix, but the company's relationship with the powers that be in the movie industry has been generally ice cold.
On Friday, Hastings came down hard on these theater owners, saying there had been no innovation in the movie theater business in recent years, even as TV has been shaped by the rise of cable and internet networks. "Money" and "innovation" has flooded to the TV industry, Hastings said. Not so with film.
The movie theater business has seen flatline revenue, Hastings said. Part of the problem is that small movies, such as many Netflix has snagged from places like Sundance, would be better distributed both at home and in theaters.
That's a convenient position for Netflix to take, but Hastings said the movie studios feel the same way. Each movie studio would like to "break the oligopoly" of the theaters, but "they don't know how," he continued. If they collude to face the theaters, it's anti-trust, but if they are the ones to take the first step, their films will get killed. That means they just go along with the status quo.
"It's a bad dynamic," Hastings said.
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 10-08-2016 04:13 PM
NATO Chief Sounds Alarm Over Netflix Deal With iPic
Senior Film and Media Reporter
Brent Lang
The National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) is sounding the alarm over a recent deal between Netflix and iPic, in which the luxury-theater chain will screen 10 movies simultaneously with their release on the streaming service.
The lobbying organization represents the country’s theater chains and has been a staunch defender of traditional release windows that keep films exclusively on screens for roughly 90 days before they debut on home entertainment platforms. In a statement, NATO chief John Fithian warned that while iPic was free to make its own decisions, “We all should tread lightly and be mindful that over the years, the film industry’s success is a direct result of a highly successful collaboration between film makers, distributors and exhibitors.”
Netflix has a different model than most major studios. It is primarily interested in releasing its films online and is willing to forgo a theatrical release. The pact with iPic gives the company a theatrical foothold on 15 U.S. locations. That will be particularly important for Netflix films that need some kind of theatrical run to qualify for awards. IPic will release the war thriller “The Siege of Jadotville,” starring Jamie Dornan (“Fifty Shades of Grey”), on Oct. 7. That will be followed by Christopher Guest’s mockumentary “Mascots” on Oct. 13. This summer, iPic first tested showings of Netflix’s “The Little Prince.”
Fithian goes on to note that theatrical distributors such as Roadside Attractions have flirted with day-and-date releases on films such as “Arbitrage” and “Margin Call,” only to move away from the model when they determined that there was more value to releasing a film exclusively in theaters.
“Simultaneous release, in practice, has reduced both theatrical and home revenues when it has been tried,” Fithian said in a statement. “Just as Netflix and its customers put a value on exclusivity, theater owners and their customers do too.”
Fithian and NATO have been on the defensive over windowing in recent weeks. Last month, he reproached Fox CEO James Murdoch for suggesting that theater owners were being inflexible about the length of time between a theatrical debut and its home entertainment premiere. He noted that exhibitors and studios, including Fox, have worked together on altering release patterns. The organization and its members have also had to contend with Screening Room, a startup backed by Facebook guru Sean Parker and entrepreneur Prem Akkaraju, that wants to release major studio films in the home on the same day they open across the country.
Variety article
(Mike again)
The whole, "Theatre industry is stuck in the past" crap is wearing thin, too. Uh, let's see...digital projection, digital satellite distribution (which saves the studios a ton of money), 7.1 and Atmos type sound, ever-cushier seats, ever bigger screens, online ticket purchasing, in-theater dining, 3-D, D-Box, descriptive audio and subtitles, sensory-friendly showings, etc etc etc, most of which has happened in the last 10 years or so. What the hell else are we as an industry supposed to do? Outside of give up the biggest thing WE PAY BIG DOLLARS FOR, which is exclusive access to product for 90 whole days.
The line in the article that I bolded is the relevant line. Netflix is so transparently self-serving. They just want the theaters to promote their stupid movies so they'll have more of a high profile. They have obviously now realized that they make more money on movies from other studios that have a built-in audience by the time they debut on Netflix. They've realized that, without the theatrical run, their movie has no chance of developing that audience. So now they've managed to talk iPic into giving them the theatrical run, but it's not going to work because it's no different than the theater showing a football game or "Game of Thrones" on the big screen.
The other thing that irritates me about articles like this is, the headlines always paint theater owners as whining little brats. "Theater owners upset about..." or "Theater owners complaining about..." or whatever. Why don't they make it, "Netflix CEO threatening to destroy movie industry"? It also drives me crazy that NATO doesn't use stronger language against this kind of crap, but on the other hand whenever THAT happens, then the news paints NATO as the whiners.
Looking at the comments on the online versions of some of these articles is the most telling. There are a lot of supporters of theaters, but also a lot of theater naysayers, many of whom have incredibly wrong information. One guy posted that "Most of the theaters are bankrupt anyway, so why is there a long wait for the BluRay?"
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 10-08-2016 04:50 PM
quote: Mike Blakesley
They've realized that, without the theatrical run, their movie has no chance of developing that audience. So now they've managed to talk iPic into giving them the theatrical run, but it's not going to work because it's no different than the theater showing a football game or "Game of Thrones" on the big screen.
Their main competitor, Amazon, which isn't actually all that cash-strapped, realized this already. That's why they decided to give their own high profile "Amazon Studios" content a theatrical exclusive release...
quote: Mike Blakesley
Looking at the comments on the online versions of some of these articles is the most telling. There are a lot of supporters of theaters, but also a lot of theater naysayers, many of whom have incredibly wrong information. One guy posted that "Most of the theaters are bankrupt anyway, so why is there a long wait for the BluRay?"
Most of those naysayers don't have a clue how the system works and how those big budget Hollywood productions are actually paid for, neither would they care anyway.
The biggest trap the move industry could fall into, is trying to cater to the will of those people. It's exactly those kind of people who want it now, don't mind what quality it is delivered in as long as it's cheap or even free. The market is huge in absolute numbers, but there's almost no value in that market and the only content that's worthy for that market is either the stuff that's (almost) free to produce or content that has been milked dry to the bone already.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 10-09-2016 01:28 AM
quote: Mike Blakesley
I don't understand why the movie studios can't just take five minutes and google "What happened to the music industry?" and read one of the million article that will pop up... then ask themselves if they want to reduce their own industry to a shadow of its former self.
Ironically, the music industry has been forced to turn to the live theatrical event as a way of making money, after consumer resistance to the way it's trying to sell recorded music (streaming/micropayment/subscription model rather than one-time purchase of offline media with an in perpetuity license for personal listening) resulted in slumping sales.
The extreme example is U2, which literally gave the recorded version of its last album away (not only that, but forced it on people who didn't want it, through the deal with Apple to push it to iGadgets), but charges several hundred bucks a ticket if you want to go see Bono deliver a political rant and then shatter several limbs while attempting his latest circus act.
About the only sector of recorded music that appears to be experiencing real sales growth right now is deluxe edition vinyl LPs, mainly of rereleases of iconic albums from the '60s through the '80s, marketed at the wealthy middle aged, and appealing either to geekery or nostalgia.
So yes, the lesson for the movie industry to learn from that is that if you try to downgrade or eliminate the theatrical element of the distribution cycle, the consumer will smell a rat.
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