10 Days That Changed the Movie Industry
A Series of Events Between April 19 and 29 Marked a Changing Narrative for the Movie Industry More than Two Years after the Start of the Covid-19 Crisis
It’s risky business to predict the historical impact of events while they’re happening. Yet in the span of 10 days, we’ve witnessed a significant shift in the narrative surrounding the movie industry, a shift that might very well mark the beginning of a new era, a renaissance for cinemas.
Trees Don’t Grow to the Sky
In just one night, Netflix’s market capitalization took a $50 billion plunge after it announced a loss of 200,000 subscribers on April 19 — a loss it projected will plummet to 2 million in its second quarter. The company couldn’t account for such a loss, considering the sky-high rate of home entertainment consumption during the heart of the crisis and nationwide lockdowns.
Netflix attributed said attrition to rampant password sharing, competition in the streaming landscape, and the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. To compensate for its losses, Netflix announced a potential move from its historical model to an ad-based one. Such a departure, however, signals more than just Netflix’s attempt to recover from a major blow. It is the beginning of a new development stage in which the streaming giant will need to innovate, and movie theaters may play a pivotal role in this innovation.
CinemaCon 2022
On the heels of a major backslide for streaming’s golden child, studios and exhibitors from around the world gathered in Las Vegas for CinemaCon. This year’s convention looked staggeringly different from the muted one that took place last August and may very well have been the most important CinemaCon to date, as it seems to have dramatically shifted the discourse on moviegoing in a post-pandemic era.
If CinemaCon’s large attendance didn’t prove that the tables are turning for the cinema industry, then perhaps the response to a speech given by National Association of Theatre Owners president and CEO John Fithian did.
On Tuesday morning at the Caesars Palace Colosseum, Fithian made a statement that earned thundering applause. Simultaneous release is dead. Its killer? Piracy. “When a pristine copy of a movie makes its way online and spreads, it has a very damaging impact on our industry,” Fithian said. Just hours after his declaration, Fithian asserted that theatrical runs are the driving force behind box office successes — that they create awareness and even drive the streaming business.
Studios at the convention had no intention of refuting Fithian’s claims, all of which highlighted the importance and uniqueness of the theatrical experience on a large, especially premium, screen. Just two days after Fithian’s resounding declaration, Top Gun: Maverick screened at the Colosseum theater and drew cheers, applause, and praise. Jerry Bruckheimer, producer of the original Top Gun and the upcoming sequel, told attendees he always thought that Top Gun: Maverick was a movie for theaters. “You felt it today,” he said during a panel shortly after the screening. “It’s a communal experience.”
After two years, during which a number of reports depicted moviegoing as a thing of the past and movie theaters as a medium that refuses to adapt, CinemaCon showed a very different image of the movie industry by highlighting exactly what movie theaters represent.
Even in the week’s less exciting news, one could find notes of optimism. In a recent interview, AMC CEO Adam Aron said that movie theaters would start to make what they were making in 2019 by 2024, but that they’d have to continue to be flexible to survive. Indeed, it will take time for theaters to get back to pre-pandemic box office levels, but it’s no longer a matter of if so much as when.
Diversity of Content Brings Promise
Given that our industry is all about content, it would be a mistake to omit the lineup of big-budget titles with exclusive theater releases, like Disney’s highly anticipated Avatar 2, a film expected to galvanize 3D and premium formats in general and whose trailer will also screen exclusively in cinemas starting this week. That’s remarkable news considering Disney has repeatedly disappointed movie theaters by pulling new films from their auditoriums to put them on Disney Plus.
What’s particularly encouraging about the theatrical lineup is the diversity of content. Between titles like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Avatar 2, and Top Gun: Maverick, then Damien Chazelle’s musical Babylon, Pixar’s Lightyear, and Universal and Illumination Entertainment’s Minions: The Rise of Gru, there’s great promise for audiences of all ages and tastes.
Even greater is the potential for the rise of a new era for cinemas. We won’t know for sure until after the box office numbers for Dr. Strange are in, followed shortly by the Cannes Film Festival, an event whose partnership with TikTok hints of greater promise for our industry. The road to recovery will undoubtedly be long and difficult, but we now see a long-awaited alignment of stars: a mix of strategic aspects (the release window adjustment, market consolidation), symbolic ones with catchlines like, “Can movie theaters save Netflix,” and a final spark from films like Top Gun: Maverick, a cherished franchise whose return coincides with the resurgence of cinema.
