Tom Lesinski, the CEO of in-cinema advertising firm National CineMedia, says he expects the movie business will make a strong comeback in the fourth quarter of this year and PVOD experiments like “Trolls World Tour” will be “few and far between”.
Appearing as part of J.P. Morgan’s annual media and tech conference (via Deadline), Lesinski says: “I think studios want to have their movies showcased in theaters, where they belong. I’m sure there will be tests that go on, few and far between.”
He adds he expects “movies will come back slowly” with the July openers like “Tenet” and “Mulan” being “the beginning of the rebirth” before you “see consumers really embrace the experience” in the mid-late Fall. One reason for that? Lack of fresh streaming content as “people get to the end of their queues” and are sick of feeling cooped-up:
“The television business is going to be in rerun mode and news mode for a long time, while movies continue to be fresh. If movies flourish, especially in the fourth quarter, we may wind up getting more than our fair share of advertising.”
Lesinski doesn’t seem fussed by the PVOD experiment, saying discussions on changing the traditional 90-day theatrical window have been happening for over 25 years and Comcast is a “big broadband and cable business that supports streaming” and thus has more incentive to alter them.
The comments come as Comcast CFO Mike Cavanaugh also appeared at the conference and says he sees PVOD opportunities happening on a “title by title” basis going foward at Universal but is aware “there is obviously a lot of industry stuff to work through to bring that to fruition”.
He’s also aware the success of “Trolls World Tour” was in part a “function of the world we have where theatres are closed” and stressed that big films are lined up awaiting theatrical release next year saying “[it’s] probably a two year story until we get back to releasing big movies”.
