As the CEO of AT&T, John Stankey holds a lot of sway over the direction that the entertainment industry is headed thanks to both running the major telecom, and owning media companies ranging from HBO to Warner Bros. Pictures and many more.
With exhibitors facing potential bankruptcy in coming weeks and months, Stankey has revealed he’s not particularly optimistic about the future – especially in the wake of his own company’s experiment with releasing Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” in cinemas in the midst of the pandemic crisis.
Talking on an investor call (via Deadline) to discuss third quarter earnings, he says of the future of the film exhibition industry:
“That’s still one of the things we don’t have great visibility on. I can’t tell you that we walked away from the ‘Tenet’ experience saying it was a home run. We are expecting for this to be incredibly choppy moving into next year. We are not optimistic, not expecting a recovery into next year. As we move forward and see we will call the cards [about future plans].”
When a massive media company is that straightforward about there not being much hope, it will no doubt make already nervous exhibitors even more concerned.
