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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1384448
All of a sudden Universal’s offer for “dynamic windowing” looked like a helluva’ sweet deal. Universal offered a “realistic” windowing deal plus an undisclosed portion of the PVOD income for a “certain period of time.” Today, NATO (National Association of Theater Owners) doesn’t want to think about how they went ballistic when Cinemark’s Mark Zoradi, AMC’s Adam Aron and Universal’s chair Donna Langley first announced their revolutionary PVOD deal. Studios were in awe and skeptical of the potential results. But with “reasonable” pandemic-tempered ticket sales globally and an estimated $100M in VOD transactions, Langley quickly set about talking to the cinema owners to prove something good could come for all parties if they just had a … conversation. For Universal, it wasn’t just their streaming move, they were planning several moves ahead – theater, PVOD and sales to other studios/services, AVOD, whatever. It was tough for other studios to strike the same arrangements with AMC, Cinemark and movie chains around the globe because as one studio executive noted, “Universal enjoys ‘favored nation status’ since it was the first to come to the proverbial table.” And like politicians at a cocktail party, M&E executives may smile and mingle but … they have long memories! Disney, Paramount, Universal, Warner, Columbia, Sony, Dragon, Atopia, Changchung, Wanda, Gaumont, Pathe, Saga, 14 Reels, Balaji and thousands of other studios around the globe have been struggling to regain profits while completely rethinking, reinventing their organizations and focus. Universal’s approach to change has been one that considers its partners while also focusing on the changing consumer demand for enabling people to see a movie in a variety of ways. Universal’s Donna Langley noted that when she was able to take her children to a theater, they often wanted to see it again; and being able to stream the film to their home set was a fast, reasonable way to let them experience the movie again. AMC’s Aron supported Langley’s assessment and even (perhaps reluctantly) said that there are and will continue to be times when getting the full theatrical experience isn’t possible and that transaction or subscription viewing was a sound alternative. While Aron signed a one-time agreement with Warner for WW 1984, he felt the company’s decision to move of all 2021 films to simultaneous theatrical/streaming release was simply a way for the AT&T subsidiary to have production partners and filmmakers to subsidize the HBO Max startup. Abruptly making the change “seems” right, given the health of the world today; but what happens when people are sufficiently vaccinated to protect society and folks actually look