During the summer I like to head into my backyard after dinner and sit looking out upon the glorious summer view. It is green, it’s lush, and in the back my grape arbor sits framing the space. I have delusions that in fact I am in Tuscany and am enjoying the waning of the day. This particular evening, I was sitting with my wife and my son, enjoying the expanse of grass and trees and of course the stellar growth of my tomato plants when an explosive noise hits next to us. The elm tree at the side of the yard begins to shake at the top. Leaves start falling to the ground, followed by a cascade of feathers and down. A hawk has just killed one of the many birds that lives in our backyard. For a full three-minutes feathers float to the ground, giving testimony to the great act of violence that just occurred.
What hit me is the allegory between this raptor ending a life and the effect COVID is having on the business of exhibition.
For most of my life, I anxiously waited for the summer movie releases. When I was a teenager, I relished grabbing the Thursday entertainment section in our newspaper and opening it hurriedly in order to discover what was opening this weekend. Most of the time the ads were a quarter page but sometimes the ad was a full page. You had to go see those movies first. Those ads are no longer there, the local newspaper is diminished, and often its ongoing demise is evidenced.
When there are no summer releases and the public looks for entertainment in other areas then we have an industry altering set of events. The movie going audience has been abused probably since the arrival of streaming. The lack of neglect towards movie-goers has been nothing short of profound. It is a sad state. At one time you had a vibrant profound business, yes it had its cycles and its challenges, but you have a vendor to this industry which has purposefully diverted revenue from one industry to another. You have a vendor that will wave the antitrust flag, but when it suits them, they will embrace this foul business practice wholeheartedly.
When the push for digital arrived, I said to myself, self (we are very close) now here is an opportunity for theaters to diversify and really push forward a renaissance of movie going. Instead the theaters are marched into the VPF program, which is feudal by its design and implementation and basically limits the amount of experimentation and diversity a theater owner can implement. The studios knew that they would shift their focus and they knew that by implementing the VPF regime that they would be eliminating audiences. It’s frustrating and it’s maddening to look back on the opportunity lost. Countries like Norway and Argentina offered different and more progressive structures and as a result their local movie economy boomed.
Things are changing and changing fast in the business of exhibition. What is changing for the most part cannot be seen, but it can be felt. I get calls and texts from operators sharing their perspective on what is going down. A large amount of shielding for the large circuits is taking place on Wall Street. They are going to know that if they can make the slightest case for their ongoing continuance their institutional investors will find a way to try to protect their own equity. In most cases I believe using this downtime to re-invent is becoming an imperative. This call for revitalization and re-invention should be coming from NATO and the ICA, but all I hear are crickets. I was buoyed by the ICA’s response to the Department of Justice and the Paramount Decree. I was really impressed, but since then…nothing much.
With states shutting down I do not see any major releases happening anytime soon. I also spoke to some banking folks and they feel that this craziness will result in some major financial setbacks beginning in November followed by three years of rebuilding.
I have thought that many of the major circuits were built on eggshells. They were operating according to the convoluted needs of Wall Street and were not really reacting to the markets. I personally think this is the foundation of the problems this industry is suffering in regards to the increasing issue of lack of market connectivity.
I do not fool myself that my weekly musings really change much, but for some reason I have a deep sense of gratitude for what moviegoing has given me and what moviegoing has given to our culture and our society as a whole. I know I have spent countless hours witnessing masterful storytelling and seeing a deep celebration of the human experience. At its core moviegoing represents a primal collective need to learn and experience together as a community. At the heart of what I write is a fear that due to the machinations of shallow and self-serving forces this tradition will be made extinct. I deeply respect the independent operator because I feel they are the carrier of the movie going flame and tradition. I have had more than one independent operator express a sense of shock when witnessing the conversations at Cinemacon and other trade conventions, they uniformly say that “these people do not even seem to like movies”. I think this is an accurate observation. The truth in moviegoing lies with the hearts and the mind of the independent operators.
Lobby government for support; the loss of a local theater is tragic and will have deep economic impact. The death of a theater eventually leads to the death of a downtown core. It has been proven time and time again.
It really is a time to innovate, look at slapping a screen on the side of your building, to really focus on reconnecting with your audience again. Get them involved in your business. Bring in video gaming, start doing giveaways…fight and then fight harder. What you are protecting is in many ways sacred. Look to small independent distributors, look at alternative content….look at your town and yourself and you will find a way forward.
Protect moviegoing. It is so very important to our local economies, our culture, and our sense of self.
