There was an article last weekend in The New York Times that stated the obvious, Old Hollywood was dead. They were right. We are witnessing the purposeful erosion of the theatrical experience by a group of companies who seek only to create a one to one relationship with the consumer. I think if we are to be honest with ourselves, we should really come to the simple fact that Hollywood as we know it has gone away. This amalgam of companies would wrap themselves in the cloak of great cinematic tradition recalling days of Bogart, Wayne, Monroe and Stewart a couple of times a year. The fact is that the present controllers of publicly perceived studios have no interest or respect for this tradition.

In short, they are calling themselves something that they are not. They are no longer dream factories, or a collective expression of the American experience, they are a cadre of MBA’s and CPA’s who are passionately involved with technology with little love for story telling and a profound disrespect for the audience. Under the law now, corporations end up having a legal personhood. Unfortunately for all of us non-corporate persons, the very nature of the large corporation is amoral and, in many cases, full blown sociopathic. They exist only to make money, regardless of the societal consequences or industry implications. Now I think and believe passionately that small business is the opposite of these large corporations, especially the ones who use the machinations of Wall Street. To further compound this problem, large corporations have legal protections from the consequences of their misdeeds that would make any evildoer ecstatic. By our legal system, giving large corporations personhood is the equivalent to letting loose thousands of sociopaths, possessing trillions of dollars in funding, and an immunity from criminal prosecution to become part of the process. With the removal of the Paramount Decree the Justice Department is allowing these media behemoths to avoid the question, “Well you own the pipe, how can you also own the content?” It was not about letting “studios” own theaters it was about Comcast owning the whole ecosystem. The “studios “have convinced politicians to allow them to have a predatory relationship, and in turn they like many other sociopaths want everything. Why would a studio want to own a circuit of theaters? Ask yourself this. They do not want to own theaters…it is about the pipe into homes and not the marquee.

In short, Hannibal Lecter is now at the helm of the motion picture infrastructure and he is cracking open a bottle of Chianti.

There is no winning with these people. They will slap you on the back at Cinemacon and call themselves “partners in exhibition” and then repeatedly make business moves which will diminish your business. It is tragic on many levels and concerning on all.

A study was done and the question was asked how long does a movie have to be in the theaters in order to provide prime economic impact for streaming. Numbers were crunched, spreadsheets created, and a number was arrived at, two to three weeks or 14 to 21 days. Enter Adam Aron and the Universal deal. What exhibitors must know is that everything that will be done by the studios going forward is to solely support streaming. From now on, the most prudent thing you can is think of “the studios” in these terms. You have become nothing but an advertising medium for them….that’s it.

There is another side to the rise of the dominance of the streamers, their actions and consolidation is strangling the makers of middle level and low budget products. I know a group of filmmakers who made a really good movie, a movie that spoke to people and was skillful in its execution. The budget of the movie was close to $500,000. Netflix offered $150,000 for all English language rights. So since this was an English language movie they told the filmmakers, all your movie is worth globally is $150,000. I believe they had no choice but to take the offer. I have seen Netflix also pay as little as $7500 for North American markets.

A glass ceiling has been created for the business and the art of motion pictures. Prices for products have rapidly decreased as a result of the consolidation of control. The VPF further restricted independent distributors from gaining access to what should have been an explosive celebration of cinematic free enterprise as a result of the digitization of the projection process. It was a purposeful repression of the market. Middlemen cropped up to handle the processing of VPF fees and an iron curtain was draped around the business of exhibition. Markets were controlled and growth was stymied.

The streamers have discovered that what really makes money for them is bingeable series. If these streamers have their day, and it is most likely they will, the next victim will be the form of the feature length motion picture.

This whole digital exercise whether it be digital projection or streaming had been an attempt to control in total the cinematic market. In the process this need for control by those people who falsely drape themselves in the history of the movies has slowly strangled both the business of exhibition and the business of production. The number 7 movie last week on Netflix was a French language movie which features an attractive nude female in repose in the artwork. No major release theatrically is in the top 10.

The studios, to be brutally honest, are no more. Filmmakers are running toward streaming as it would seem that is where the money is. I would make the argument that as VPF’s fall off and it becomes increasingly evident that there is a true vacuum within theatrical markets, a deep opportunity exists. The Paramount decree is gone, the studios are abandoning their commitment to theaters and the industry is being forced to rebuild as a result of COVID. Within all this confusion there is a deep opportunity to re-align and to re-invent.

Hordes of people are spending Friday and Saturday nights in parking lots and farmer’s fields watching movies from the 80’s. Right now there are about 1400 drive-ins in some form of operation. It is time to firmly grasp the ideals of free enterprise. This business has been invented and re-invented so many times; it is time to go back in time and have theaters start producing movies for their own screens.

It is time to liberate once and for all theaters from the devices of Hollywood.