While the number 1 exhibitor AMC has traditionally been flexible about theater windows despite their pubic uproar against Universal last year, the chain’s CEO Adam Aron today speculated what the landscape would look like if we came out of this pandemic.
‘What we have learned from the Universal Agreement is that each studio seems to have different desires and needs. I expect that there will be customized agreements that will develop the studio for the studio, and it will differ per circuit, ”Aron said about how the majors change their distribution patterns for films.
Aron’s comments come after Disney CEO Bob Chapek on March 1 during a Morgan Stanley conference where he exclaimed, “I’m not sure there’s going back” about the way movies were released. Chapek covered his base by also saying, “But we definitely do not want to do anything like cut off the legs of a theater exhibition.”
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One simply has to look around to see an example of what Aron is talking about: This past weekend, Disney unveiled the scene + date Disney + PVOD release of Raya and the last dragon (which involved charging the streamer $ 30). AMC was able to enter into an agreement with Disney to play the film, but the number 3 chain Cinemark, Harkins and Cineplex could not. Warners plays its 2021 theater day and date for free for its HBO Max subs during the first 31 days of a photo shoot, while Universal has a 17-day theater window before taking home a title on PVOD.
Continues Aron, “In the last few years, AMC has indicated in private conversations with every major studio that we are prepared to be the most experimental film theater track in terms of window strategies that were different from the traditional norm.” It’s true: AMC was the only main track to play Paramount’s 2015 movies Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse and Paranormal activity: the ghost dimension in a truncated experimental window that gave the chain a share of the early PVOD revenue from the photo.
‘But we always put down one marker: if we were to adjust windows, it would have to be good for AMC shareholders, not bad for AMC shareholders,’ ‘Aron explained,’ and where we could not trade in studios on shorter windows no, we resisted them with all our might. ”
In general, regarding the whole shrinking window trend, Aron beams during the summit of the call’s Q&A session: ‘This is an area where I feel really good.’
Aron remains positive about the box office to return to pre-pandemic levels and cites NRG research on the increase in moviegoers’ confidence in returning.
Aron also called for his own internal ‘scientific’ poll among his Stubs members. In a 2.4K survey surveyed, the response was that the movie is the biggest number 1 activity that people are looking forward to out of 15 possible activities after pandemic. Movie spending remained 43% more popular than going to a friend’s house, 47% more popular than eating in a restaurant, 79% more than attending a concert, 138% more than attending a sporting event, and 257% more popular than shopping.