criterionforum.org

Lemmy Caution wrote: Sat Sep 05, 2020 6:25 am I'm just speculating, but the release date of Sept 11 (besides any unfortunate symbolism that hopefully is accidental) sounds like one of those typical Chinese decisions which is designed to dampen the CH audience for a major US film, and then some Chinese blockbuster will likely be released just before National Day to scoop up the lion share of holiday ticket sales. I could be wrong, but that's exactly how things regularly work here in China. Give Mulan a nice enough window, but save the prime holiday-going audience for Chinese films.

This is definitely the idea. A National Day release wasn't going to happen, the last import to get one was The Foreigner in 2017 and that (unlike Mulan) was a genuine Chinese co-production. To make it totally obvious what's going on here, a domestically-produced animated film called Kung Fu Mulan announced a National Day release several weeks ago, when the Chinese date for Disney's version was still TBD.

My original thought had been that a September 4th release would've been best for the film to minimize piracy from Disney+, but I hadn't considered that puts it in direct competition with Tenet, which is the first "real" new release from Hollywood since theaters reopened, as opposed to something that was supposed to come out in the spring and got shelved in China because of the pandemic. Plus The Eight Hundred is still going strong (its third weekend in theaters and it still beat Tenet), so Mulan could benefit by letting it have more time to play itself out. With National Day never on the table, September 11th might be the best date it could've gotten.

The US market has gone full Catch-22. Theaters need studios to release their blockbusters to attract audiences, but studios won't release their big blockbusters until audiences show up to theaters.

The 30% of theaters that are closed represent more than 50% of the business, ergo it’s the last holdout states that are actually to blame for lackluster numbers. Assuming the interest would be in proportion, the numbers would be approximately 175% at least of where they are now, which would still be an environment to release movies like Death on the Nile or The King’s Man that the studio is trying to dump a little but is just trying to make a return. Mulan’s estimated to be a bit of a gigantic bomb, unlikely to bring back half the return of Tenet worldwide even including the Disney+ US rentals. Without product, people will not slowly become convinced to return to the movies. In an environment where things are still being put out, the number of potential people would continue to grow (by maybe just 2-3% a week) as people grow more and more accustomed to the idea which would have created a more healthy environment for the next A-tier movie.

Meanwhile, because of the anticipated return in NY going on for weeks now, I know theater owners are absolutely making plans for an immiment reopening and feeling absolutely kneecapped by there seemingly being no threshold that will get them open despite restaurants, casinos, and haunted houses getting the OK. And the open theaters in NJ have deliberately been booked (the two metro-accessible theaters in Jersey City and Hoboken are only playing the four wide release movies, and Tenet has sold out almost every weekend and evening show) to avoid overlap with NY for indie fare despite that it’s not looking clear that those options will become available.

Has there been any reporting on how well virtual screenings have been doing, either for distributors or the theaters?

captveg wrote:The US market has gone full Catch-22. Theaters need studios to release their blockbusters to attract audiences, but studios won't release their big blockbusters until audiences show up to theaters.

We're having this discussion in France, and it's... hard culturally speaking. Blockbusters are representing only a negligible amount of the movies released in here, Ze country of diverse cinema as we like to proud ourselves to be, but we became so dependant to them than these 2.5% of movies have become the alpha and omega of the theatrical market.

This means we're still having about 97% of "products" out there, and these movies are actually faring quite similarly than last year's equivalent productions (which wasnt a given considering the theaters can only accept 50 to 70% of their full capacity because of distanciation), but the theatrical economy has been turned into something that seemingly isn't viable without those missing 2.5% movies.

I don't want to enter into the viewers discussion, because yeah, the viewers want to see movies they want to see, but from a theatrical and distribution point of view, it seems to me we're just getting the results of decades of putting all the eggs in the same basket.

With Disney moving nearly all of their tentpole films (aside from Pixar's Soul) out of 2020, a large amount of theaters are about to close again without any new populist product to show until late November, many for good I imagine.

Theaters that opened a month ago expecting support from the studios in the form of actual MOVIES to show be like...

I almost wonder if indie cinemas not dependent upon major releases might come out of this--IF they come out of this--better than the multiplexes whose entire business model is based upon huge opening weekends for tentpole films.

whaleallright wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 9:18 pm I almost wonder if indie cinemas not dependent upon major releases might come out of this--IF they come out of this--better than the multiplexes whose entire business model is based upon huge opening weekends for tentpole films.

I'm not in the business so I have no hard data to go on, but the indie near me has a weekly podcast, and they've stated that they're doing marginally better than usual because their biggest draws are the retro titles, rather than the new indies/foreign films that are coming out. They've "sold out" (of their 50 person max capacity) of movies like The Thing, They Live, the Bruce Lee films, Empire Strikes Back, etc. I saw Come and See last week and if it didn't hit 50, there were at least 40 people there. And they've assured people on their twitter/facebook/instagram feeds that they're going to be around a while, even if Ontario has to go into a second hard shutdown for a while.

Smaller theaters are also doing not too bad in France. They still are suffering a 30% drop in attendance, but the bigger circuits that are usually concentrating the tentpoles (currently not being released) are taking a 70% drop so there's that.

However, the big circuits are able to get multiple copies of the "bigger modest" movies, which impacts the indies who have to wait 2-3 weeks until the circuits let go of some of those. Since we're still getting about 10 new releases per week, the turnover combined with this isn't good for indies and might compensate for the limited drop. Fortunately, the bigger modest movies are getting copies like they would never have had on a normal year (650 screens instead of 400), but still.

Regular retro showings don't look to be doing better than last year, but special retro events are packed/sold out, though the current health restrictions mean they're only operating at half their capacity, so sold out means 50% full.

At this point I'll be surprised if the vast majority of US theaters don't go through some form of Chapter 11 restructuring.

How indie theaters are doing in the UK and the US ? (Real not cynical question)

Everyman, a UK indie chain, posted numbers the other day that showed year-on-year for the first six months of 2020 revenues basically halved (£28.9m to £15m), leading to a 90% fall in earnings before interest, tax etc (£6.6m to £0.5m).

They have low debts and good credit facilities so liquidity was maintained and all of their sites (35) are now open. They're going to face the same issues as all screens in that the big ticket movies are being delayed, but I suppose indies have a higher proportion of screenings given over to arthouse and smaller-budget fare that might continue to be exhibited.

I suspect one-off independent cinemas are faring worse as they'll struggle to overcome the cash flow shortage.

Thanks for the info. I'm curious about it because indeed, I also suppose indies are able to keep their usual viewers coming since the smaller movies and indies are still being released. As I wrote above, it's not working too bad in France in this regard, but I don't know if we're an exception.

The Fanciful Norwegian wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 2:01 am Regal to close all of its U.S. and UK locations

Things are still up in the air but this isn’t what’s happening. Deadline is reporting 2/3+ of US venues will still be open “as normal” and around 1/6 will have reduced operations and it’s only the remaining 60ish theaters (which are all in markets with other Regals) will be fully closed for the time being. The original Times article did not mention the US at all and Variety reported official word without any kind of sourcing despite all the other trades saying they couldn’t get a comment from anyone at the company.

Driving by my local theater today and seeing a completely empty parking lot was really upsetting. My local theater (AMC) isn't exactly the bastion of high art but nobody was there. It's a sober experience thinking about these closures.

Ribs wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 8:02 pm

The Fanciful Norwegian wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 2:01 am Regal to close all of its U.S. and UK locations

Things are still up in the air but this isn’t what’s happening. Deadline is reporting 2/3+ of US venues will still be open “as normal” and around 1/6 will have reduced operations and it’s only the remaining 60ish theaters (which are all in markets with other Regals) will be fully closed for the time being. The original Times article did not mention the US at all and Variety reported official word without any kind of sourcing despite all the other trades saying they couldn’t get a comment from anyone at the company.

Sadly, this is now confirmed - all Regal, Cineworld and Picturehouse sites closed until next year. https://deadline.com/2020/10/cineworld- ... 234591201/

Dune is delayed. Wonder Woman 2 seems like the last one remaining for Christmas day, but obviously that will move too.

That's it folks. That's a shutter on movie theaters for 2020.

I agree Wonder Woman 1984 is unlikely to be out this year, but the Dune delay was inevitable from the moment WW1984 was pushed back to Christmas. They're both from WB and they were never going to release two ~$200 million movies so close to each other.

Disney still has two "midrange" titles from 20th Century (Free Guy and Death on the Nile) set for December, and yesterday they put out a teaser for the former insisting it'll be out then. But neither of these are going to do anything like the business needed to convince theaters like Regal to reopen. Soul is still nominally due next month but a move to Disney+ feels like only a matter of time.

Free Guy is some Ryan Reynolds garbage. Literally no one is going to leave their home and go see it in a pandemic. And Death on the Nile's core audience is older audiences.

I think the safer younger audience that they need to make something a hit would have been Tenet, WW, Dune, Bond, Soul, BW, Mulan etc. with lets say West Side Story added in perhaps.

Tenet bombed and everyone else is spooked.

Large scale movie watching is untenable without a vaccine. You need one large scale disaster to get the government to get in and it will all be downhill from there.

I think the only path forward might libral Hollywood begging government for a bailout for movie theaters. For once they can use their influence to make a meaningful difference rather than empty plaitudes.

I wonder what the two big Canadian chains (Cineplex and Landmark) will do. The independent theatres seem to be doing relatively ok off indie/foreign/retro fare, but the chains rely on Hollywood product as much as the US chains do.

Nasir007 wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 8:54 pm I think the only path forward might libral Hollywood begging government for a bailout for movie theaters. For once they can use their influence to make a meaningful difference rather than empty plaitudes.

They've been doing this since the pandemic began and an open letter signed by a bunch of big shots (including Eastwood, Cameron, Scorsese, and Bay) came out a few days ago. It doesn't matter in the short term because there's not going to be any bailouts or stimulus as long as Republicans control the Senate. I suppose there might be if Trump wins, but there won't be anything specifically for the industry. But any bailout is unlikely before late Q1 or so, and any theaters that can't make it until then without big tentpole business (or any business at all, in the case of the closed theaters) are probably finished.

The Fanciful Norwegian wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 9:12 pm

Nasir007 wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 8:54 pm I think the only path forward might libral Hollywood begging government for a bailout for movie theaters. For once they can use their influence to make a meaningful difference rather than empty plaitudes.

They've been doing this since the pandemic began and an open letter signed by a bunch of big shots (including Eastwood, Cameron, Scorsese, and Bay) came out a few days ago. It doesn't matter in the short term because there's not going to be any bailouts or stimulus as long as Republicans control the Senate. I suppose there might be if Trump wins, but there won't be anything specifically for the industry.

That is true. gop would have absolutely zero or if possible less than zero interest in bailing out movie theaters. In some ways, you can rationalize that, why should they be interested. Literally, all of Hollywood hates them and movie theaters are kinda a proxy for Hollywood. But then again, it is a significant revenue generator.

gop honestly doesn't seem to give a fuck. They genuinely feel they have done enough and think the deficit is too high. Let's wait till Jan 3rd. The new congress will pass something and then biden will sign it after jan 20th.

I think it might be advisable for movie theaters to shut down till then.