The National Association of Theater Owners has threatened Universal, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox and Sony that they will stop showing their potential summer blockbusters. The organization which represents national theater chains like AMC and Regal has taken this stance in response to the Studios agreeing to the new Premium Video On Demand service. The service will feature films 60 days after their theatrical release and goes into action this month on Direct TV.
From /film...
If films start showing up in the home 60 days after their theatrical release instead of 120 days later, which has sort of become the new standard, theater owners believe it will significantly cut into their grosses. The longer a theater holds a movie on their screen, the bigger percentage of the gross they get to keep and if they agree to 60 days, what’s to stop the studios from cutting it back to 30 days or day and date in the future? In the past, new films wouldn’t show up on video for 6-8 months but seemingly every year that window has begun to dwindle. That’s largely because the DVD market is a buy first platform, unlike VHS of the past, where rental was the thing. Studios believe people are more willing to buy a movie closer to its original theatrical window, so they’re working to dwindle that time frame down.
Paramount and Disney have not agreed to the premium video on demand service. Paramount has stated that one of their major concerns about the service is increased piracy.
If this "boycott" were to actually happen, what kind of effect would that have on the future of CBM's? With films like Warner Bros.
Green Lantern possibly never seeing a theater, how would the film fare? And could this be a stroke of luck for Marvel and Paramount if it comes to pass?
Films that would potentially fall under this "boycott" would be
Green Lantern, Harry Potter: Deathly Hallows II, and
X-Men:First Class just to name a few.
UPDATE: It now seems that the report at /film was false. Deadline has posted the following release from NATO...
Washington, D.C. (April 14, 2011)—The National Association of Theatre Owners does not and could not encourage its members to engage in any boycotts of any movies distributed by any company. Recent press reports to the contrary are completely false.
In an article published on April 13 in The Guardian, it was suggested that NATO indicated that cinema operators were prepared not to screen movies, and specifically referenced the coming Harry Potter film. No one from The Guardian contacted NATO before the original article was published. At our request, The Guardian did later change the article to remove the erroneous reference to the Harry Potter film.
Then later on April 13, the blog “Business Insider” entitled “Harry Potter 8 Dropped From Theaters?” suggested that NATO “is threatening to drop some of this summer’s biggest blockbusters” and that “screens under NATO are threatening to boycott upcoming studio releases, starting with Warner Bros. sure to be box office-gargantuan Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2.” Again, these stories, and others that have followed, are completely false and no one from the organizations responsible for the stories contacted anyone at NATO.
NATO has often articulated our concerns about the possible release of “premium VOD” movies in an early window. Our association issued statements on June 16, 2010 and again on March 31, 2011 regarding those concerns. But as our 2010 statement made clear, “individual theater companies must and will make decisions about release window changes in their own company’s interest.” NATO cannot and will not make those decisions for them.
John Fithian
President & CEO
NATO
Hawksblueyes: Thanks to
kurekurcubic and
dnno1 for the heads up on the updated information at Deadline..
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