Movie Theater Trade Group’s Rebrand Looks to the Future After Box Office Struggles

[Harold Hallikainen]

Movie Theater Trade Group’s Rebrand Looks to the Future After Box Office Struggles

https://www.movieguide.org/news-arti...ma-united.html

NATO no more. The theater organization rebranded as the movie industry moves forward.

The new name, Cinema United, is a far cry from the National Association of Theatre Owners or NATO, which many confused with the governmental agency NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization).

“It can be a little complicated having the same name as a multinational military alliance,” Cinema United president and CEO Michael O’Leary explained. “We felt that it was time to look at our name and do a rebrand.”

According to AP News, the organization represents more than 32,000 movie screens across the U.S. and over 30,000 screens in 88 countries.

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The group also unveiled a new moto: “Moviegoing is Our Mission.”

“We’ve had a challenging four or five years,” O’Leary said. “But with each passing day, we put those challenges in the rearview mirror a little bit more. Our focus right now is on the future. I think that we stand on the precipice of the next great era of cinema.”

Movie theater attendance has been in decline in recent years, first because of the COVID pandemic and, more recently, because of the 2023 industry strikes and streaming’s boom. In 2024, the domestic box office’s $8.7 billion take marked a 3.3% decrease from 2023 and a shocking 23.5% drop since 2019.

But Cinema United will keep its focus on the future.

“Cinema United is a celebration of who we are as an industry, but more importantly, where we’re headed,” O’Leary said. “The people we represent are constantly innovating and creating unparalleled experiences for fans who love movies on the big screen. Their passion, energy and commitment are the real power behind the Cinema United brand.”

“Cinema United will remind people of the magic of seeing a movie on the big screen,” added Bob Bagby, B&B Theaters CEO and chairman of the organization’s executive board. “Our industry is fully dedicated to ensuring that the theatrical experience remains the premier entertainment option for millions of fans around the world.”

READ MORE: ARE THEATERS RECOVERING FROM LAST YEAR’S STRIKES?

[Mike Blakesley]

I think this is a good thing. It'll focus some positive attention on the industry and we can get rid of the "NATO" logo which does indeed cause confusion, and/or jokes.

Every year it's the same thing - I get discouraged at this time of year because things are slow. When I get to thinking the bottom is dropping out, I just think back only 3 months ago when we were having sellout after sellout with "Moana 2." Things always pick back up. I'm glad "CU" will be promoting the positive angle.

[Tim Androes]

i wanna be first....CU At The Movies

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

While I agree that NATO was not the best acronym for the reasons they acknowledge...seriously, "Cinema United" was the best they could come up with?

It's better than Cinema United National Theatres, but this is so lackluster of a switch it is appalling. (I picture Patrick Stewart saying "I am appalled." in his signature Picard intonation.)

For an industry whose sole purpose is to provide imaginative entertainment, they really need to come up with a new name that doesn't sound like some mail-in ersatz University.

This is a lesson in branding done WRONG, without any real thought or creativity. Maybe we, for the rest of this thread, can suggest better names......

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

i wanna be first....CU At The Movies

I think a theatre chain used that in the 80's..I thought it was United Artists, but they used "Escape to the Movies":

[Ryan Gallagher]

I can’t wait to see Cinemas United vs Manchester United on the pitch. ;-)

[Mike Blakesley]

Maybe we, for the rest of this thread, can suggest better names......

When I first heard they were going to rename the organization, I started thinking about what I would name it if I was in charge. I couldn't really come up with anything. I always thought they should drop the "national" since they are a worldwide organization, but the word "association" is kind of stodgy, too.

I agree they really needed something more hip, but with the amount of money it takes to rebrand anything, we are probably stuck with Cinema United for the next 20 or 30 years.

[Bobby Henderson]

I've always thought the "NATO" brand was an obvious problem. But I don't know what purpose doing a name change serves at this particular time when there are more urgent concerns.

The executives and other "deciders" in the cinema industry need to be trying as hard as they can to convince the Hollywood movie studios that their business model isn't going to work without a theatrical platform. Changing a trade organization's name does little for that effort. The shitty situation movie studios have handed to cinemas simply cannot be sustained. Theaters are going to keep closing. Some parts of the US have already turned into cinema deserts, where people have to drive a half hour or more to find the nearest theater. That situation will spread if movie studios keep up current practices. If enough theaters close the entire platform will collapse due to supporting businesses ending production lines of industry-specific goods -such as cinema quality digital projectors.

A movie that doesn't have any sort of theatrical release is a TV show. Plain and simple. Without cinemas those movie studios will just be TV production companies selling content to broadcast networks or streaming services. Forget retail discs; that platform is sadly dying, thanks to more movie studio idiocy.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Well, if they don't start releasing some decent movies pretty soon, even this industry associan name change isn't going to matter!! Except for a handful of movies, last year was pretty dreary, and lots of theaters are also staying dreary.

[Mike Blakesley]

Summer of 2026 looks quite good. There's going to be a "Mandalorian" movie (Star Wars universe). I just wish the "mainstream" would start embracing original movies again. All they seem to come out for is sequels. How do we make a non-sequel (or non-superhero) movie into an "event" again?

There seems to be a huge amount of buzz for "Minecraft" next week, so that's a positive.

[Martin Brooks]

Summer of 2026 looks quite good. There's going to be a "Mandalorian" movie (Star Wars universe). I just wish the "mainstream" would start embracing original movies again. All they seem to come out for is sequels. How do we make a non-sequel (or non-superhero) movie into an "event" again?

There seems to be a huge amount of buzz for "Minecraft" next week, so that's a positive.

There were plenty of original movies released in the last few years and audience did not show up to see them. Everyone complains about the franchises, prequels, sequels, reboots, etc., but those are the movies that people actually show up for and it's been that way for at least the last 15 years.

Below is a list of 2024's top-10 films. The only thing original is Wicked (and that's from a Broadway show).

And here are a bunch of mostly "original" films, that audiences, for the most part, did not show up for. Many were flawed, but at least it was an attempt to make original films for intelligent adults: The French Dispatch, Last Night in Soho, Belfast, King Richard, Licorice Pizza, Nightmare Alley, Death on the Nile, Cyrano, Nope, Amsterdam, The Banshees of Inisherin, The Fabelmans, She Said, The Menu, Empire of Light, Babylon, Chevalier, A Haunting in Venice, Dumb Money, Killers of the Flower Moon, Maestro, Poor Things, Perfect Days, American Fiction, Ferrari, Ennio, Civil War and Fly Me to the Moon.

[Leo Enticknap]

I can’t wait to see Cinemas United vs Manchester United on the pitch. ;-)

Bugger! You beat me to it. I've lost count of the number of people at Cinemacon who have opined to me that it sounds like the name of a soccer team over the last few days. I'm guessing that this wasn't on their radar, because football clubs named for a city followed by some sort of differentiator from another in the same area is a more of a European thing (in the case of Manchester United, to denote that following a change of ownership in 1902, it represented the entire city, not just employees of the railroad company that it had started life as the in house team of). Here, they tend to follow the naming convention of basketball and [American] football teams, e.g. Colorado Rapids, Portland Timbers, etc.

Arguably the best soccer team name joke I can think of can be found in the movie Oh, Mr. Porter!, in which Irish Republican Army gun runners attempting to smuggle weapons by train masquerade as the "Buggleskelly Wednesday," the gang's leader explaining to the slightly suspicious stationmaster that "we always bring our own goalposts," and that they were so named because "we play our matches on Saturdays."

But my nomination for first prize for a rebranding debacle happened in 1992. At that time there was a shake up in British higher education. Before then, degree awarding institutions were divided into two categories: "real" universities, which were more academically focused, and polytechnics, which were effectively high level vocational training colleges. While many polytechnics offered world class teaching, the term developed negative connotations over time, such that by the late '80s, some employers jumped to the conclusion that a polytechnic graduate didn't have what it took to get into a proper university. As a result, the government gave the polytechnics the right to rebrand themselves as universities, and as far as I can remember, absolutely all of them did. For a few years afterwards, these schools were formally referred to as "Post-92 universities," or more commonly "polyversities." Three decades later, I would guess that these terms have now slipped totally out of use.

Most had to rename themselves radically, because there was already a "University of..." in their city, so that name was taken. In the case of Newcastle Upon Tyne, very pricey consultants were hired to do the rebrand. After exhaustive studies and focus groups, they proposed the name City University of Newcastle upon Tyne (note the capitalization). So the story goes, it wasn't until after millions had been spent and logos designed that at a departmental meeting well down the chain of command, a low level staffer piped up, "Err ... you do realize what acronym that forms, don't you?"

[Harold Hallikainen]

There were plenty of original movies released in the last few years and audience did not show up to see them. Everyone complains about the franchises, prequels, sequels, reboots, etc., but those are the movies that people actually show up for and it's been that way for at least the last 15 years.

Below is a list of 2024's top-10 films. The only thing original is Wicked (and that's from a Broadway show).

And here are a bunch of mostly "original" films, that audiences, for the most part, did not show up for. Many were flawed, but at least it was an attempt to make original films for intelligent adults: The French Dispatch, Last Night in Soho, Belfast, King Richard, Licorice Pizza, Nightmare Alley, Death on the Nile, Cyrano, Nope, Amsterdam, The Banshees of Inisherin, The Fabelmans, She Said, The Menu, Empire of Light, Babylon, Chevalier, A Haunting in Venice, Dumb Money, Killers of the Flower Moon, Maestro, Poor Things, Perfect Days, American Fiction, Ferrari, Ennio, Civil War and Fly Me to the Moon.

Louise and I did not see any of the listed top 10 movies (well, she did go see Wicked). We did see The French Dispatch, King Richard, The Banshees of Inisherin, Empire of Light, Killers of the Flower Moon, Maestro, Poor Things, Perfect Days, American Fiction, and Ferrari.

There ARE good movies out there. It's too bad audiences are not willing to risk to see something good.

[Randy Stankey]

There ARE good movies out there. It's too bad audiences are not willing to risk to see something good.

I've been saying that the way people watch entertainment has changed. It's not simply that they want to stay home and watch on TV. It's because they want the episodic format that goes on for a season's worth of entertainment. They want to talk with friends about the episode they watched last night. They want to binge watch episode after episode, all weekend long.

Movie theaters can't provide that. Sure, they can put up 9,000,000 sequels to some superhero franchise but people have to come back month after month to see them and they have to pay every time. It's not just because they can stay home. It's because they can pay one monthly subscription to see whatever they want, whenever they want, as much as they want.

People just don't want to watch single-episode, long-form movies, anymore.