I have been following Philip Anschutz, the Qwest entrepreneur, with interest for several years as he snaps up US cinema chains and invests in media ventures such as Walden Media (producer of the forthcoming The Chronicles of Narnia movies from CS Lewis). The ability to eliminate existing print and distribution charges for feature films by online delivery to digital projectors in cinemas is a game-changer ('The average total cost per movie with 3,000 prints will fall from US$6 million to US$42,000'). But with the rise in broadband, home cinema, DVD sales, pay-per-view and new low-cost distribution technologies, its just not clear that cinemas will survive in their present form.
The San Francisco Chronicle's Tom Abate says:
As one of the four big release dates -- along with Memorial Day, Christmas and New Year's Day -- Thanksgiving week can draw 40 million Americans into theaters, far exceeding the average weekly attendance of 25 million to 30 million, he said.
Impressive as those numbers may sound, the theater industry will sell fewer tickets during this peak week than it did during any seven-day period in the 1920s -- when the U.S. population was just a third of what it is today.
For discerning moviegoers, however, the real story this Thanksgiving isn't what's on the screen. Rather it's the changing nature of the $9 billion theater industry, whose biggest box office days are in the past, and whose future is uncertain in an age of DVDs, 24-hour cable and high-definition television.
I wonder where these competing forces will lead us? Personally I do not think it is an 'either or' scenario. I think both will evolve into newer forms. Cinema for the big screen shared experience is too hard to beat. And home theatre is a compelling use of thechnology for entertainment.
... for decades, producers who release new films have had to spend millions of dollars to make thousands of prints and deliver those canisters nationwide.
Switching to digital projection would cut costs and save time as well as make theaters venues for new forms of live entertainment, "like beaming in a Rolling Stones concert,'' Holden said.
But theater owners say neither they, nor ultimately their patrons, should pay the estimated $100,000-per-screen conversion cost, when Hollywood would be the prime beneficiary of any film-to-digital switch.
Indeed, theater owners see themselves as caught between moviegoers -- who gripe about prices, commercials, even sticky floors -- and moviemakers, who take most of the box office in a film's first few weeks, while producing titles with life expectancies measured, also, in weeks.
Recent Comments