I talk to theater owners almost every day. I cannot imagine the stress and the level of anxiety they are experiencing. This morning I was reminiscing on how excited I got regarding the upcoming Christmas releases. In 1985 movies like A Chorus Line, The Color Purple, Clue, A Room With A View, Enemy Mine, Out of Africa, Spies Like Us, Fraternity Vacation, House, Young Sherlock Holmes. and Murphy’s Romance hit the screen. I personally do not expect Wonder Woman 1984 to stay where it is….so then there is The Croods: A New Age. It opens November 25th. Then it’s the doldrums until Christmas Day.

There are lines forming out the door with banks hearing the business cases of theaters in hope of securing a loan or at the very least suspending loan payments. Washington could with one wave of a pen alleviate a lot of the suffering theaters are enduring, but as per usual, that city on the Potomac seems to be focused on drama and arm waving. Nothing much is getting done. What is very concerning to me is that the only legislation where movie theaters are mentioned is in the Save Our Stages legislation where movie theaters were hastily added at the last minute. I would have thought given the economic engine that movie theaters represent that some unique bill would have been put forward by some intelligent congressman or senator. NATO should have moved heaven and earth to make sure somehow advocating a direct bail out was on the docket.

“Congress can save cinemas by including $15 billion for grants for independent venues in a COVID-19 relief package,” the National Association of Theater Owners announced in a November 9 press release touting the Save Our Stages Act. “Without industry-specific assistance, movie theaters simply will not survive the economic impact of the pandemic.”

“Save Our Stages” is the brainchild of the National Independent Venue Association, who represents over 2000 music and performance spaces throughout the USA. Formed at the onset of the COVID-19 shutdown, National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), now represents more than 2,900 members in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. These independent venues and promoters were the first to close and will be the last to fully reopen. NIVA’s mission is to preserve and nurture the ecosystem of independent live music venues along with promoters and festivals throughout the United States. The NIVA Emergency Relief Fund raises money for the most vulnerable venues to keep them afloat while we wait on Congress to pass the Save Our Stages Act. Although I am generally annoyed at NATO, I do think they are trying but they are not leading.

Senators Chuck Schumer, Ben Cardin, and Jeanne Shaheen expanded their bill, initially 10 billion expanded to 15 billion in order to include movie theaters as part of the Save Our Stages initiative and the Save Our Stages initiative is woven into the current iteration of the COVID relief bill.

NATO’s ideal scenario is a $15 billion grant program for arts-related businesses that have suffered financially due to the coronavirus pandemic. This would include grants of just under half of the companies’ earned revenues in 2019 in order to provide temporary liquidity. Notably, the four largest theater companies would not be eligible as “the grants cannot be used by big publicly traded companies,” said John Fithian, he went on to say “A significant percentage of our members, probably around 70% of our mid and small sized members, will either confront bankruptcy reorganization or the likelihood of going out of business entirely by sometime in January, that’s assuming we don’t see a big uptick in business, but on our current trajectory things are looking very bad. We have to have this happen in the ‘lame duck.’ It’s that desperate. If that doesn’t happen, we’ll keep pushing for something in February, but a lot of companies will have gone bankrupt by that point.”

It is obvious that the focus of the present administration is not on the alleviation of suffering on the part of the citizenry. I am not too optimistic given that the Save Our Stages initiative is spearheaded by three Democratic Senators and that this more than important piece of legislation will be given an easy go of it. If this industry is forced to wait for the installation of a new administration this lack of support will probably equate to a deep culling within the business of exhibition.

The markets this week got a tad perky as a result of Pfizer releasing information regarding the successful testing of their COVID vaccine. AMC’s shares rose 80 percent and other circuits had similar increases. The world’s largest exhibitor suffered a brutal 90.9% drop in revenues during the most recent earnings period, with sales clocking in at $119.5 million. Losses hit $905.8 million or $8.41 cents a share. In the prior-year quarter, a time when cinemas were open around the globe and world-altering pandemics were largely the stuff of Hollywood thrillers, AMC logged revenues of $1.3 billion on a net loss of $54.8 million or 53 cents a share. Revenues for the third quarter were in line with Wall Street’s expectations. However, losses missed the consensus analysts’ projection of $4.66 per-share, according to Zacks.

AMC, which has had its locations closed for the bulk of the year, has slowly tried to reopen its venues with little success and amid chatter that it might be on the verge of bankruptcy. Earlier on Monday, the cinema chain announced it was raising $47.7 million in cash to stay open — its shares plunged on the news.

It appears now that a vaccine may be available in April according to Dr. Anthony Fauci. While many feel that Hollywood will be sitting on a backlog of products, the reality is that most tentpoles or would be tentpoles will have been sold off to the streamers. This week both Disney and Warner even more firmly pointed their ships towards streaming. As part of this movement a huge series of layoffs begun at WarnerMedia with the aim of refocusing the company around growing HBO Max, the company’s flagship streaming video service. Disney CEO Bob Chapek went forward with an aggressive reorganization of the streaming division. Previously independent divisions have been consolidated into one, Media and Entertainment with one of Chapek’s protege from his time in the parks division, Kareem Daniel is heading this new consolidate division, Chapek and Disney focus are firmly on streaming.

We have to remind everyone that a movie theater’s magic is the ability to grab the audience’s focus by losing the remote control, to seduce someone into a compelling story, staring at the screen until you almost become part of the action. A large movie screen is a tractor beam into another world and another reality. I once spoke to a special effects master who told me that he had a study done; a movie viewed in a collective environment like a movie theater had five times the emotional impact as watching a movie alone. I firmly believe that.

This Christmas I will spend time watching movies. I will probably attend a lot of movies at the Historic Artcraft Theatre. The snow will drift down as I exit this storied movie theater and as flakes dance in front of me against the soft glow of a marquee set against a winter’s night.It will reconfirm to me that there is no better way to see a movie.

Book these movies this holiday season.

A Christmas Story

White Christmas

Holiday Inn

Christmas Vacation

The Bells of St. Mary’s

ELF

It’s A Wonderful Life

The Bishop’s Wife

Christmas In Connecticut

Scrooged

Reclaim the Holidays. Share the past and secure the future.

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