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AMC Theatres and Regal Cinemas are sticking to their guns, and will only play those Oscar best picture nominees who had a traditional theatrical release and respected the 90-day cinema window.
This morning in the wake of Netflix’s Roma earning 10 Oscar noms, leading exhibitor AMC promptly issued a statement that Alfonso Cuaron’s black and white Spanish film will not be included in its annual Best Picture Showcase which features all the Oscar-nominated titles in the category.
AMC’s statement is below:
“For more than a decade, movie-lovers have enjoyed the AMC Best Picture Showcase to catch up on the nominated films that played at AMC throughout the prior year. This year, Academy members nominated a film that was never licensed to AMC to play in our theatres. As such, it is not included in the AMC Best Picture Showcase.”
Regal Cinemas is also not playing Roma as part of their Oscar best picture showcase, but buried that lead in their press release this morning, simply listing that Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Favourite, Green Book, A Star Is Born and Vice were part of their Best Picture Film Festival. Regal’s Best Picture Film Festival runs Feb. 15-Feb. 24 with passes available on Jan. 23 at their box office or Regal mobile app for $35.
In an effort to give Roma a qualifying theatrical release and meet director Alfonso Cuaron’s wants for a big screen play of the film, Netflix rolled out Roma on Nov. 21 at the IFC Center in New York, and the Landmark 57 and Pico Blvd location in Hollywood. They expanded gradually to Academy voter markets for two weekends after that before streaming Roma worldwide on Dec. 14. Deadline hears that exhibitors were offered to play Roma after that period at a generous rental rate that worked in their favor.
Typically the big chains like AMC and Regal do not play day and date theatrical SVOD releases, or in this case something akin to the truncated one that Netflix executed.
We also hear that Cinemark will not be playing Roma however the chain has yet to confirm that.
