Yesterday was a turbulent time in the exhibition sector. Universal Pictures announced that “Trolls World Tour” had been such a success on premium VOD that its profit had outpaced in three weeks what the first film did at the box-office over five months – at least domestically.
As a result, NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell said that the studio planned to release more films day-and-date both theatrically and on VOD. That was soon followed by a sternly worded open letter from AMC Theatres CEO Adam Aron to Universal Pictures Chairman Donna Langley saying the cinema chain would no longer screen Universal films.
Overnight, reaction to the squabble on our message boards for example have been almost universally in favor of Universal with AMC’s overly dramatic stance branded as childish. Deadline reports that some in distribution and exhibition also think Aron simply over-reacted. However one source says: “this is war – I haven’t seen it this bad since Disney hiked rental terms up before they started releasing the Avengers movies.”
Universal has now responded to Aron’s letter with the studio saying they “absolutely believe in the theatrical experience and made no statement to the contrary”. However… “as we stated earlier, going forward, we expect to release future films directly to theatres, as well as on PVOD when that distribution outlet makes sense.” In addition, they say they are “disappointed by this seemingly co-ordinated attempt from AMC and NATO to confuse our position and our actions.”
Shortly after that letter was published, NATO (the National Association of Theater Owners) hit back with their own response taking severe umbrage with that last line and its accusation of AMC and NATO being in cahoots. NATO says: “NATO and AMC did not coordinate those statements in any way… Unfortunately Universal has a destructive tendency to both announce decisions affecting their exhibitor partners without actually consulting with those partners, and now of making unfounded accusations without consulting with their partners.”
The International Union of Cinemas (UNIC), essentially the non-military European NATO, say in their own statement (via Variety: “This combination of unusual circumstances should not be used as a reference to re-design a longstanding and proven release business model, which remains crucial in ensuring the ongoing availability of films to the benefit of audiences.”
AMC remains in a precarious situation with analysts believing the chain may go into bankruptcy, leading to the obvious question of whether AMC can really afford to refuse to play Universal’s future films – especially the triple punch of “F9: The Fast Saga,” “Minions: The Rise of Gru” and “Jurassic World: Dominion” next Summer.
Meanwhile some Summer titles are making the jump direct to VOD including Judd Apatow’s “The King of Staten Island,” Warners’ “Scoob!” and Disney’s “Artemis Fowl”.
