Shifting Gears

On the web there are all kinds of predictions for the last days of cinema that for a variety of reasons simply are not true. Cinema will always exist but it will evolve into a couple of different forms. The truth of the matter is that we are in the middle of a hard time due to some questionable decisions and the lack of leadership in all aspects of the business. Speaking, though, in any form of absolute is simply not prudent.  When you think of it…absolutes are simply not to be trusted.

 In the past, the studios have forced exhibitors to act in a brittle, homogeneous manner that really placed the industry as a whole in deep jeopardy.  Exhibitors have looked solely at the studios as the source of their salvation, which was and is still a trust misplaced. The audience has changed; it has been reshaped by YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook. You have to react to this change and embrace it. The audience of today is inundated with digital messaging which comes at it like a firehose. Audiences are under siege and exploited. If you are going to market effectively your first question should be how do I present my pitch to my potential audience in the simplest and clearest way possible.

 I strongly believe that in order to rebuild audiences and to widen your audience base it is a good idea to look at implementing both repertory programs and film festivals. This may sound simplistic but I can tell you it works. If you send out a repertory schedule for say six months of movie screening and have it displayed in a calendar format, there is a high chance that your calendar of movies will find a place of honor on fridges across your community, because it simply acts as a calendar. People need calendars and embrace them. They constantly use them. That allows for messaging re-enforcement.

 A proper repertory program also allows you to see what works and what does not work within your market. You can experiment with your programming and further define what exactly your audience base can be. Once equipped with this information you can further define the movies you are going to show. You have to hold growth numbers and build from them.

 I have run film festivals and discovered that if I program correctly, I can reach out to folks who avoid Hollywood fare and long for the old days of moviegoing. I have seen John Carpenter film festivals, the Alfred Hitchcock Film Festival, and the John Hughes Film Festival do exceedingly well. Plus, it takes the binging phenomenon and places it in a movie theater. A festival will also create an impetus for audience members who would not be inclined to make the trip to your theater because of the distance to do so.

 It is becoming imperative that you, as an exhibitor, firmly walk away from the studios. AMC amidst their constant issues with debt and a soft box office (and plunging stock) have teamed up with horror powerhouse BLUMHOUSE to present a city by city horror festival. This is another example of a major circuit, advancing a direct relationship with a producer. The most significant one being the launch of the Taylor Swift “Eras Tour.” Blumhouse and AMC Theatres are calling this the Halfway to Halloween Film Festival. This is a five-day festival which began Friday, March 29 in 40 cities and 100 AMC cinema locations in the U.S.A. The festival includes 5 classic Blumhouse movies.

 From the times of Edison, this has been an industry of the almost pathological need for control. The Motion Picture Patents Company, initiated by Edison in December 1908 and was shut down in 1915 after it lost a significant antitrust. The Patents company was a trust of all the major US film companies and the leading movie distributors and the biggest supplier of raw film stock, who all conspired together to control every aspect of the emerging business of motion pictures. The independents who fought against the Patents Company would become the companies who we know today as the major studios.

 In 1938, the Federal government realized that another antitrust situation had arisen. The former independents, not the studios, who created the movies, had a stranglehold on the most talented writers, directors, producers, and actors. In plain terms, the studios were a monopoly, creating a de facto embargo on any growth in the business . By 1945, the studios controlled 17% of the theaters in the country, accounting for 45% of the movie-rental revenue.

 The Federal government made the assertion that the studios were engaged in illegal practices, which resulted in all the studios, led by Paramount, being sued in 1938 by the U.S. Department of Justice. Litigation continued for ten years.

 In May of 1948, the Supreme Court handed down the Paramount decree. The studios were forced to sign consent decrees legally preventing them from block booking and forcing minimum ticket pricing. They also were forced to sell their movie theaters. The studios contested and fought it until 1957.

 In  November of 2019, the Department of Justice started repealing the Paramount Decrees. The Decrees were formally repealed in August 2020 .  This is creating further issues for an industry in deep transition. As an industry and as a tradition we are in a state of deep flux. Who knows where we will end, but we are going to change significantly.

We are being hit simultaneously by business changes, technology innovation, the fallout from a pandemic, and a deeply shifting demographic landscape. While change has been a constant in the business of exhibition, we have never faced so many shifts all at one time.