Much of the talk about film exhibitors and their struggles in the COVID-19 pandemic era has been U.S.-centric. Beyond stories about events such as some foreign markets re-opening or closing their theaters, not that much has been written about the exhibition sector in global markets as compared to the seemingly day-by-day coverage of the decisions impacting AMC, Regal and Cinemark domestically.
A new report in Variety has now gone into that somewhat. The piece looks at how the delay of major releases due to the ongoing pandemic issues in the United States are having a detrimental impact on cinemas in countries which have otherwise been able to successfully contain and/or minimise their outbreaks.
Europe’s cinemas slowly began reopening mid-June with exhibitors under the belief they’d have major new titles ready to show off in July and August. But the successive delays of “Tenant,” “Mulan” and others along with the straight-to-PVOD approach of “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run” has left them in a precarious position.
The trade indicates there is growing resentment among some international cinema operators that the global exhibition business is being imperilled over concern for domestic releases. A U.K. senior exhibitor says:
“If the exhibition community doesn’t have any new movies in the next few months, there will not be an exhibition community. For most, if not all big studio movies, between 70%-80% of all box office is offshore, and it feels like that’s been forgotten.”
Comscore exec Lucy Jones says more than 35% of European cinemas have reopened halfway into the summer season and there is a “huge appetite” for new global tentpoles, but as countries aren’t in sync with their exits from lockdown there’s headaches in regards to launching any potential global marketing campaign.
Once source says the issue isn’t so much international going ahead of the U.S., it’s by how much. Films like “Tenet” and “Mulan” could well open in Europe and Asia first before hitting the United States, but the issue is now knowing when the U.S. market is going to open up as anything more than a two week delay and piracy becomes too great a concern.
France has also been an interesting test case. Box-office surged to superb highs in the first week of cinemas being back, but since then numbers have stagnated and are down over one-third from what it usually would be this time of year.
More to come no doubt.
