It’s Official - DCIP Gets $660 Million In Funding

Posted by J. Sperling Reich | March 10, 2010 8:36 pm

DCIP + Money.jpg

A boisterous cheer erupted this morning during the Inter-Society Digital Cinema Forum (ISDCF) meeting when the proceedings were interrupted with news that Digital Cinema Implementation Partners (DCIP) had just officially announced they had received their financing. Indeed, DCIP published a press release stating that they had raised USD $660 million in financing. The funds will be used to roll out digital cinema in North America’s three largest circuits; AMC Theatres, Cinemark and Regal Cinemas.

As we previously reported when it was still a widely circulated industry rumor, DCIP’s financing will come in the form of USD $445 million in senior bank debt, USD $135 million in junior capital and USD $80 million in equity from the theatre chains themselves. JPMorgan assisted DCIP in raising the money which is being supplied by a who’s who of financial institutions including Bank of America, Barclays Bank, Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, GE Capital, Morgan Stanley and the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.

There are sure to be tons of news stories generated by DCIP’s announcement, especially since it will allow media outlets to wave around the trendy “3D” phrase in hopes of attracting a few extra eyeballs. The reports will cite that nearly 14,000 screens throughout North America will be converted to digital by AMC, Cinemark and Regal who formed DCIP as a joint venture in 2007. (Truthfully, it’s probably more like 10,000 screens when all is said and done). No doubt they may even go so far as to pull press release quote from Travis Reid, DCIP’s CEO, which states:

“We are excited that with the continued support of our owners, studio partners and financial advisors we have completed this critical step in our process. Over the next few years, we’ll be aggressively implementing the transition to digital technology in theatres across North America. Guests will enjoy enhanced presentation and additional entertainment options at their favorite theatres as Exhibitors and content providers capitalize on the flexibility enabled by digital technology, including many upcoming releases using digital 3D. Having this substantial financial package and our studio partnerships in place, we’re pleased to launch this new era of technology to guests looking for an exceptional out-of-home experience.”

Check out the way Mr. Reid so adeptly snuck the word “capitalize” into that quote. Pretty slick. It’s funny though, because I always imagined his press release quote would read more along the lines of:

“Phew! That was harder then it needed to be and dare I say it’s about time we landed some money. Thankfully I will no longer have to answer questions every other week about when DCIP will be getting its financing.”

Since the mainstream media will take care of all the cheerleading about how 3D will soon be coming to a theatre near you, I figured it might be interesting to further explain the types of financing DCIP is getting. I mean what’s with all these terms like “senior debt” and “junior capital”? Does the senior debt have offspring named after it? And does the junior capital have a father with the same name? Read More »

Popularity: 1% [?]

Sphere It

Tweet This

Posted In: Integrators
Tagged: AMC Theatres, Cinemark, DCIP, J.P. Morgan, Regal Cinemas, Travis Reid

Comments

Bow Tie Cinemas Selects Technicolor’s Film Based 3D System

Posted by J. Sperling Reich | March 2, 2010 5:10 pm

New York City based Bow Tie Cinemas will be one of the first theatre chains to deploy Technicolor’s film-based 3D system. Technicolor 3D will be deployed at each of Bow Ties 18 theatre locations in Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, New York and Virginia and on 25 of Bow Ties 150 screens.

Rather than install digital cinema equipment which can run upwards of $80,000 (not counting any 3D technology), Bow Tie is choosing the less expensive option of equipping their existing 35mm film projectors with a specially designed lens which splits the projected images for the right and left eyes.

The system requires a special 35mm film print in which each frame has two images, one on top of the other. This over/under technique was first introduced by Technicolor in 1963 as Technicscope. According to Technicolor, advancements in film stock and digital intermediates improve the image quality delivered by their new system. Technicolor uses a special patent-pending digital process to enhance the image on the special film prints. We first reported on the system when it was announced by Technicolor back in September of 2009.

Bow Tie will need to install silver screens to increase the brightness of the images delivered by Technicolor’s 3D system, however those screens can also be used for digital 3D. Technicolor will be supplying the circular polarized glasses required to view the content in 3D. The first film Bow Tie will show using the system will be Dreamworks’ “How To Train Your Dragon”. Ben Moss, CEO of Bow Tie Cinemas was quoted in the press release Technicolor distributed earlier today: Read More »

Popularity: 8% [?]

Sphere It

Tweet This

Posted In: Digital 3D
Tagged: Ben Moss, Bow Tie Cinemas, Technicolor

Comments

“Avatar” Pirate Given A Pass Down Under

Posted by J. Sperling Reich | March 2, 2010 3:57 pm

Here’s a new twist on the old story of camcorder piracy and movie theft. A recent news blip published in Australia’s Herald reported an incident in which movie theatre personnel at a cinema in Glendale spotted a man video taping a showing of “Avatar”. The catch is, the man was 88-years-old.

The cinema manager got the gentleman to stop recording and called the police. When authorities arrived the man, who was wearing large glasses and got around with the aid of a walking stick, informed them that he was recording the film for his wife who was unable to make it to the cinema.

While awfully kind of the man to be thinking of his wife, he was informed that such activity is illegal. The police proceeded to delete the movie from the man’s camcorder and let him sit through the rest of the film. As the Los Angeles Times points out, he may not have been let off the hook so easily in the United States, senior citizen or not. In 2005, the Motion Picture Association of America sued a 67-year-old man for $600,000 after pirated movies were downloaded onto his computer via a peer-to-peer service.

I wonder if the 88-year-old Australian man will get any credit simply for knowing how to work the camcorder or for his willingness to hold it through a movie that’s more than two-and-a-half hours long.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Sphere It

Tweet This

Posted In: Piracy
Tagged: Australia, Avatar

Comments

Christie Releases Digital Cinema Trailer

Posted by J. Sperling Reich | March 1, 2010 12:50 pm

Surfing around the Internet last week I stumbled across a promotional trailer for Christie, the motion picture projector manufacturer. The new trailer (see below) can be found on Christie Digital’s YouTube channel. To date, it has been viewed 280 times since it was uploaded on January 14th. The trailer is 25 seconds long and promotes Christie’s line of digital cinema projectors powered by DLP chips. It seems 3D content was taken into consideration during its production.

With the conversion to digital the number of equipment manufacturers that can be found in any given projection booth has potentially doubled. This could potentially lead to at least two minutes worth of preshow for d-cinema vendors, promoting servers, projectors and 3D technology. This isn’t even taking into account satellite content delivery providers, integrators or theatre management system developers. And I’m sure I’m leaving someone important out.

Have a look at Chrisitie’s new trailer and let us know what you think.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Sphere It

Tweet This

Posted In: Equipment Vendors, Trailers
Tagged: Christie

Comments

Odeon, Italy and AMC Reach Deal With Disney On “Alice”

Posted by J. Sperling Reich | March 1, 2010 12:16 pm

Alice In Wonderland - Alice.jpg Executives at Walt Disney Studios must be breathing a huge sigh of relief having reached a deal with Odeon Cinemas in the United Kingdom and Italian exhibitors to show their upcoming tentpole release “Alice In Wonderland”. Additionally, Disney reached an accord with AMC Theatres to show the Tim Burton helmed film in North America when it is released on March 5th.

After announcing their plans to release “Alice In Wonderland” on DVD in June, just three months after its theatrical release rather than the usual four months, Odeon, the U.K.’s largest cinema chain, publicly threatened to boycott the film. So did exhibitors in Italy. AMC never made any public statements about a boycott, but delayed signing any agreement to show the film. Most of the details about the agreements were kept private by both parties, but according to a story in Variety, here is what we know:

In the U.K. Disney will not begin advertising the DVD until six to eight weeks after the film hits theatres.
In Italy, Disney will release three big movies during the summer, rather than waiting until fall. Traditionally, the summer box office grosses have been tepid compared with those in autumn. “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” will open on August 20th, while “Toy Story 3″ and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” will also open have summer playdates.
Disney has extended the release of “Alice In Wonderland” on DVD from 12 weeksafter its theatrical to 13.

In the U.K., assurances were given that the studio won’t begin advertising for the DVD until six or eight weeks after the theatrical bow. It’s likely that exhibs elsewhere asked for the same terms.
Read More »

Popularity: 9% [?]

Sphere It

Tweet This

Posted In: Distributors
Tagged: Alice In Wonderland, AMC Theatres, ANEC, Odeon Cinemas, Paolo Protti, Release Windows, Walt Disney Studios

Comments

More Rumblings About DCIP’s Financing

Posted by J. Sperling Reich | February 28, 2010 11:31 pm

Last week both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal reported that an announcement from Digital Cinema Implementation Partners about their financing was imminent. The opportunity to play 3D content will certainly be welcomed by AMC Theatres, Regal Cinemas and Cinemark, however from the way the two newspapers covered the story you might get the impression it was the only reason. The financing would allow Hollywood studios to “roll out more 3-D movies in the wake of the success of James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’” wrote the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times said the “money would allow future 3-D film releases”.

Both media outlets seem to have gotten their hands on some internal briefings or at the very least seen an early draft of a press release as they have updated some of the details from previous reports about DCIP’s financing. A more exact figure of USD $660 million was cited by both papers which is down from the original USD $700 million rumor which was first floating around. As well, the number of screens has been upped to 14,000 from 12,000 with the Wall Street Journal putting the number of actual theatre sites being converted at 1,100. The New York Times laid out the details as follows:

According to a draft announcement making the rounds in Hollywood, the new financing, arranged by JPMorgan and Blackstone Advisory Partners, would total about $660 million. Of that, $445 million is expected to come from senior bank debt, $135 million from what is described as “junior capital” and $80 million from equity contributed by the member theater circuits. Nine banks, including Bank of America and Citibank, are part of the lending group. Blackstone raised the $135 million from other investors.

I always find it amusing to see how mainstream media covers the transition to digital cinema in reporting such news. The Wall Street Journal piece states:

In a digital conversion, theaters rip out old celluloid film projectors, and stop receiving weekly shipments of large film canisters. They instead use fiber optic lines to transfer huge digital film files.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Sphere It

Tweet This

Posted In: Digital Cinema, Integrators
Tagged: AMC Theatres, Cinemark, DCIP, New York Times, Regal Cinemas, Wall Street Journal

Comments

Norway’s Film & Kino Selects Unique Cinema Systems For Conversion

Posted by J. Sperling Reich | February 24, 2010 3:29 pm

Unique Cinema Systems.png After completing VPF deals with six studios last June, Film & Kino has announced the selection of Unique Cinema Systems as an integrator for nine out of the ten sub-contracts it is awarding to convert cinemas across Norway to digital. Film & Kino put the contracts out to tender at the end of last year and numerous integrators, including Nordic Digital Alliance which won the tenth contract, had been vying to land a portion of the work. As well, by December of 2009 it seemed as if just about every equipment manufacturer had sent representatives to Oslo.

It was highly anticipated (at least by me) that Unique, based in Bergen, Norway and Dublin, Ireland, would wind up with a lions share of the contracts. After all, they are one of the few, if not the only, digital cinema integrators and deployment entities in Norway. According to Unique’s press release, the value of the Film & Kino contracts is estimated at NOK 300 million (EUR € 37 million or USD $50.13 million) and represents 300 screens.

Film & Kino had split the tender into ten different groups and then assigned each of Norway’s cinemas to one of the groups. Four of the groups were reserved for the four largest theatre chains in the country. Five of the groups were divvied up among each of Norway’s primary geographic regions and comprises of independent cinemas. The final group is for temporary cinemas, some of which are seasonal or travel between smaller towns. The contract for each of the groups was awarded separately by Film & Kino as well as individual committees made up of local participants with a working knowledge of the cinemas in their respective groups.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Sphere It

Tweet This

Posted In: Integrators
Tagged: Chris Olsson-Hagan, Dave Spilde, Film & Kino, Nordic Digital Alliance, Norway, Unique Cinema Systems

Comments

A Recap Of Disney’s Adventures With “Alice”

Posted by J. Sperling Reich | February 22, 2010 2:22 pm

Alice In Wonderland.jpg Surely Walt Disney Studios was hoping their upcoming release “Alice In Wonderland” would generate a lot of media attention before it hits theatres on March 5th, though they probably weren’t trying to create the kind of buzz the picture received over this past week. Theatre owners in North America and Europe protested when the studio announced it would move up the DVD release of the movie to early June, just three months after Tim Burton’s adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s classic is distributed theatrically.

The announcement was made on February 8th by Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger, during an earnings call and seemed to come as a surprise to many. A surprising number of newspapers, websites and radio shows beginning running numerous stories about the dispute just two days later and through the course of last week. In fact, the Los Angeles Times managed to sum up the latest battle over movie release windows rather nicely:

The flare-up illustrates how an arcane topic once only of interest to Hollywood executives can affect moviegoers around the world.

The L.A. Times, along with The Wrap, touched on the fact that studios have been meeting with key North American exhibitors (probably Regal Cinemas, AMC Theatres and Cinemark) to negotiate a deal on shortening theatrical release windows. These meetings weren’t done surreptitiously. In January John Fithian, President of the National Association of Theatre Owners, told attendees of the International Cinema Technology Association’s tech conference that theatrical windows would be changing to help studios maximize revenues from home releases:

“As a person who represents the cinema industry I’m not going to tell you that we’re very happy that that model is going to change, but it has to. But it has to change logically and it has to change with studios and exhibitors sitting down together and analyzing the models. It’s not a great secret, this is happening. Leading studio executives, leading cinema representatives are talking about what these models should look like. The good news is we’re all at the table talking. That’s much better and much more cooperative than if studio x decided just to abandon the model and release a major picture in the cinema and in the home roughly at the same time. That’s not going to happen. What’s going to happen is some scientific thinking and some research and a deliberative process to maximize the model for the studios without killing the model for exhibition.”

Popularity: 10% [?]

Sphere It

Tweet This

Posted In: Distributors
Tagged: Alice In Wonderland, AMC Theatres, Bob Chapek, Bob Iger, Odeon Cinemas, Release Windows, Vue, Walt Disney Studios

Comments

SmartJog and Ymagis Team Up To Deliver D-Cinema Content

Posted by J. Sperling Reich | February 18, 2010 3:51 pm

Ymagis and SmartJog Partner

SmartJog and Ymagis issued a joint press release yesterday announcing they had reached a non-exclusive partnership agreement and will integrate their technologies to offer theatre owners a more robust digital cinema offering. The pairing seems as if it would be complimentary given that SmartJog specializes in high speed delivery of digital content and Ymagis focuses on digital cinema deployment.

What this means is that when Ymagis installs digital cinema equipment at one of their theatres, they will also be deploying SmartJog’s digital content delivery solution. During the first phase of the partnership, the SmartJog Gateway will be integrated into the Ymagis Cinema Central Server, which is a theatre management system. Content will arrive through the SmartJog Gateway and be handed off to the Ymagis TMS. This solution requires a theatre to make room for a separate piece of network connected equipment. The second phase of the partnership will integrate the software which runs the SmartJog Gateway directly into the Ymagis Cinema Central Server, allowing for content to be delivered straight to the TMS without need for additional hardware.

One bonus that comes with the partnership is that the two companies will be able to share their respective content delivery networks. This means Ymagis would be able to send content to any theatre in SmartJog’s network, even if the exhibitor wasn’t signed up with them. Both companies are based in France so it’s no shock that integration and deployment will begin in that country. Most, if not all, of the exhibitors Ymagis works with are in Europe.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Sphere It

Tweet This

Posted In: Business, Digital Cinema
Tagged: SmartJog, Ymagis

Comments

JPMorgan Finds $700 Million For DCIP

Posted by J. Sperling Reich | February 10, 2010 5:42 pm

That collective sigh of relief you may have heard over this past weekend no doubt came from the North American motion picture exhibition and distribution industries. The Los Angeles Times report that investment bank JPMorgan was finally able to round up roughly USD $700 million for Digital Cinema Implementation Partners must have come as some relief.

Heaven knows we’ve been hearing about DCIP’s quest for financing for well over a year now. It seems at every ShoWest, Cinema Expo or Show East for the past 18 months we’ve been told by investment bankers that money is on the way. Though let’s face it, if the staggering amount of money being sought wasn’t enough to cause a delay, the worldwide credit crunch certainly didn’t help. Financing hasn’t been easy to come buy in any business sector and no matter how lucrative the project.

Of course, DCIP is the deployment entity founded by three of the world’s largest exhibitors; AMC Theatres, Cinemark and Regal Cinemas. With anonymous sources close to the negotiations confirming that DCIP’s financing will be announced in the next two weeks, the company can finally begin the rollout digital cinema technology on 12,000 screens across the United States and Canada.

Back in 2008 JPMorgan, armed with virtual print fee agreements from the studios, went looking for USD $1 billion for DCIP to convert 14,000 screens across all three circuits. Since then, AMC has gobbled up Kerasotes adding another 900 odd screens to the mix. There was no word on which screens or theatres will be converted or what will happen to those screens which don’t make it into the first 12,000. Nor was a time frame given to complete the transition, though it has been widely expected to take three years.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Sphere It

Tweet This

Posted In: Digital Cinema, Integrators
Tagged: AMC Theatres, Cinemark, DCIP, J.P. Morgan, Los Angeles Times, Regal Cinemas

Comments