(Forewarning, I’m biased because I’m in the film industry. And also just prefer seeing movies at the theater)
This IS actually gonna ruin the movie theater industry. What Universal (and other movie studios, U is just the most vocal about it) wants to do is simultaneously release movies to theater and digitally. They want to have their cake and eat it too– get the profits from the cinematic experience of the theater while raking in the digital rentals. The exception they would make to this is blockbusters, which they would only release in theaters.
Now why is this a problem? It fucks over the movie theater, and thereby the movie theater consumer.
Movie theaters cannot exist on blockbusters alone. They need the steady stream of butts in seats throughout the year to keep going. As most of us have experienced, the prices of tickets and concessions have been climbing to keep theaters open in the face of digital streaming. The dual release would make those prices skyrocket. We’re talking $25+ a ticket. $100+ for a family of four, before tax or concessions.
“Well I won’t go to the movies, I’ll just stream from home.”
1. Not everyone can do that. Plenty of people don’t have reliable internet access and streaming/downloading isn’t an option for them.
2. We are teetering on the edge of another film industry oligarchy. In the old days of Hollywood, banks would buy up studios and movie theaters both, and shut out the indie competitor from showing their films at all. They then were able to hike up the price of a ticket because only certain theaters were connected to certain studios. So Studio “A” would only send their films to “A” Theaters, creating a false scarcity that drove up the price for the consumer. Also hella illegal. The film industry got monopoly busted hard, and now the studio and theater are purposefully kept separate.
In streaming services, we have an echo of that model. Studios are creating their own streaming services and vice versa (Disney+, Amazon Studios etc). One of the few things keeping them in check is the movie theater industry, which acts as an equalizer– all tickets cost the same, regardless if it comes from an indie studio or the Big Five. The second we lose theaters, the streaming services are going to jump in price, I guarantee it.
3. The theater isn’t just about the movie. It’s about the communal experience of going out with friends, family, strangers. Making a night out of sitting in a cool, dark room. Staring up at a giant screen, enraptured by the film for those 90 minutes. You don’t get that experience at home.
So what are the movie theaters doing? AMC, movie theater monopoly and my immortal enemy, has fired back at Universal– if they want to dual release, no AMC theater will show Universal films. Ever.
Universal has of course backtracked and said that they have no concrete plans to implement the dual release, they’re just thinking out loud, blah blah blah.
As much as it pains me, I’m on AMC’s side on this one. Because AMC is the only theater chain big enough to make good on that threat and hold off studios. Because we all go to the theater at least a couple times a year, and it shouldn’t cost the price of a grocery trip to do so. Because the theater, as flawed as it can be, makes cinematic experience accessible to the masses.
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