In the wake of Universal Pictures’ historic agreement with cinema giant AMC Theatres, NBCUniversal’s CEO Jeff Shell participated in a second-quarter earnings conference call on Thursday to address concerns that have arisen since the announcement.
Shell says the premium video-on-demand (PVOD) only launches of both “Trolls World Tour” and “The King of Staten Island” had exceeded expectations and have had a “significant positive impact” at the studio.
As a result the studio pursued this deal which allows their movies to screen at AMC Theaters’ U.S. locations and then can be made available on PVOD after just 17 days of playing in cinemas, including three weekends. The deal, which initially covers AMC’s U.S. locations, shatters the traditional theatrical window of around three months before studios can make movies available in the home.
Financial terms of the deal remain undisclosed but AMC is expected to share in the revenue from premium VOD. Shell says the main appeal of PVOD is to reach the “growing segment” of people who do not go to cinemas and it is a “complement rather than a replacement for a robust theatrical release… together we [Universal & AMC] can build a new, more attractive business model for us both.”
Shell says it is increasingly difficult to get the same returns on movies over the first two windows and so the new deal would help both studio and cinemas on that front. The deal isn’t expected to lead to Universal increasing its film slate, but could allow movies to return to cinemas “more quickly” amid the pandemic. He also emphasises that the 17-day window is a minimum period, meaning films that do well in cinemas will continue to play there longer before coming to PVOD.
The comments come as NBCUniversal has also pledged to “more rapidly shift our resources and investment from linear to streaming” as viewership is rapidly shifting away from linear to on demand services and which NBCUniversal can now tap directly into via its Peacock SVOD service.
After just two weeks of being fully available, Comcast says Peacock has drawn around ten million signups to date. Shell says: “across the board we’re better than expectations. We didn’t expect this many signups. We didn’t expect people to come back as frequently as they’re coming back and we didn’t expect people to watch as long as they’re watching when they come back.”
Source: THR
