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Category Archives: Countries

PVR & Major Cineplex – Bowling for Celluloid

Posted by Patrick von Sychowski | February 14, 2008 9:01 pm

Two of the largest exhibitors in India and Thailand have joined forces to launch a host of non-film ancillary entertainment propositions. From the Hollywood Reporter:

New Delhi-based PVR Ltd. and Thailand’s Major Cineplex Group have created a joint venture to launch PVR Blu-O, which will feature bowling alleys, karaoke centers, ice skating rinks and gaming zones, Major said in a stock market filing Tuesday.

The agreement was signed Tuesday in Bangkok by Major Cineplex Group chairman and managing director Vicha Poolvaraluck and PVR chairman and managing director Ajjay Bijli.

Major cineplex logoPVR will hold the majority stake in the joint-venture, which will be worth around $2.25m and see the light of day in Q2 of this year. The first location wil be near one of PVR’s upcoming cinema locations in Delhi.

Popularity: 14% [?]

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On-demand films for Brazil’s art-house cinemas

Posted by Patrick von Sychowski | February 13, 2008 5:21 am

MovieMobz

Brazilian e-cinema pioneer Rain Networks is rolling out the movies-on-demand concept to cinemas. The name of the venture, MovieMobz, gives an idea of the potential and challenge that this concept faces – how to get a mob of people to agree on one film (other than the obvious blockbuster on a Friday evening). As far as technical experiments that digital allows, this is the most interesting development since multiplexes began showing films at staggered times, though in a much more radical way. From the article in Variety:

RAINMovieMobz takes digital cinema one step further. Aiming to launch in early April, Rain’s COD will allow moviegoers, grouped in online MovieMobz.com film clubs, to recommend what films play when and where over Rain’s digital cinema network.

Once exhibitors slot a film, virtual cinema club members can buy tickets, refer further wishlists to friends and, exploiting MovieMobz’s social networking system, let other people know what films they’re attending.

I can see the Silicon Valley pitch right now: “It’s Facebook goes to the art-house multiplex. It’s Cinema 2.0 !!”. But Rain has already proved itself in Brazil – though slow to export the concept abroad, though Argentina and Mexico are target markets – so they have a credible base to build on and experiment with.

We will be following this one with interest.

Popularity: 9% [?]

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Italian exhibs see b’buster “cannibal effect”

Posted by Patrick von Sychowski | February 12, 2008 5:01 am

Italian exhibitors are officially not happy about the front loading of blockbusters in the early part of this year. From The Hollywood Reporter:

Paolo Protti, president of the [Italy's national association of exhibitors], known as ANEC, called the situation the “cannibal effect” — meaning too many popular films in distribution force moviegoers to choose between too many options.

ANEC said that some of the top films released so far this year, both Hollywood and domestic fare, should be held for months closer to the traditionally slow summer season.

It seems some of these are end-of-last-year US blockbusters such as ‘I Am Legend’ and ‘American Gangster’, local films and films that only ever have the potential to be blockbusters in Europe (Woody Allen’s latest). Since Italian exhibitors only recently embraced the summer as a viable blockbuster season, it seems a bit rich about them trying to re-arrange distributors calendar so soon. But if distributors see the ‘cannibal effect’ (and we don’t mean the flesh eating hordes chasing Will Smith through Manhattan) then they will surely respond.

Popularity: 9% [?]

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PVR expands high and low in India

Posted by Patrick von Sychowski | February 1, 2008 2:16 am

Indian exhibitor PVR has given details about its expansion plan in India, which involves almost doubling in size over 14 months and adding both high-end and low-end cinemas to its expanded geographical base. “While the company is aggressively planning to open screens in north and south India in the near future, it also wants to strengthen its presence in west India and make new forays in east India, where the property and retail economy is up.” according to an article in The Hollywood Reporter. PVR also plans to expand the PVR Talkies, “no-frills multiplex concept in smaller cities”, of which it currently has nine and 20 per cent of its new builds will be focused on. So word on any international ambitions along the lines of its Indian rivals Adlabs and Pyramid Saimira.

Popularity: 8% [?]

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Korean exhibitors guilty of price collusion

Posted by Patrick von Sychowski | January 16, 2008 11:40 pm

South Korea’s four largest exhibitors have been found guilty of a number of unfair business practices by the country’s Fair Trade Commission. CJ CGV, Lotte Cinema, Megabox and Primus Cinema, which between them account for more than half of the country’s cinemas screens and over 70 per cent of box office takings, were found to have abused their dominant position in a number of way by the watchdog. As reported in Variety:

 The unfair business practices included canceling the screening of unpopular pics, giving them less than the standard one-week minimum run; changing the terms of division of revenues between themselves and distributors; and passing out $29 million in free tickets over 2½ years without consulting distributors.

The exhibitors were also accused of colluding on ticket prices. The commission will investigate further and decide on possible punitive measures.

The five largest distributors – CJ Entertainment, Showbox, Sony Pictures-BVI Korea, Universal Pictures Korea and 20th Century Fox Kore – did not escape censure either for their dealings with smaller and regional cinema chains. Between this and the current Samsung corruption probe it seems all is not well in South Korean business, but at least the authorities appear to be tackling it head on.

Popularity: 5% [?]

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Canada opts for e-cinema ghetto for regions

Posted by Patrick von Sychowski | January 16, 2008 11:20 pm

The National Film Board of Canada has launched digital distribution of movies to remote areas of the country, but opted for a lower end e-cinema system over full fledged digital cinema. This means that only local and art house films will be able to screen, rather than also showing US and Canadian mainstream films. This article highlights that it intends to spread French-Canadian language films and documentaries wider:

E-cinema screenings begin Thursday in the New Brunswick communities of Moncton, Kedgwick, Bouctouche, Caraquet and Edmundston. Francophones in those towns will be able to catch a number of acclaimed NFB offerings, including “Le Temps des Madelinots,” a Quebec documentary from Richard Lavoie that’s been a box office success in the province.

“We’re doing this in New Brunswick because there’s a very strong francophone community there with strong roots and connections to francophone culture that’s outside Quebec, so they don’t often have access to Quebec cinema,” Tom Perlmutter of the National Film Board said in an interview Tuesday.

To their credit, they are calling it “e-cinema” rather than digital cinema. In doing so they are following the path set out by the Australian Film Commission’s (AFC) Regional Digital Screen Network (RDSN), which opted for lower end equipment, rather than following the lead of the UK Film Council’s Digital Screen Network (DSN), which is DCI-grade but has minimum quotas for the amount of specialized content that these must show. Canada and Australia are effectively setting up digital content ghettos, which will be restricted in term of what they can show, as well as creating a secondary technology and quality tier.

Popularity: 6% [?]

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7/10 of IMAX’s China screens to be digital

Posted by Patrick von Sychowski | January 11, 2008 2:56 am

Large format (LF) film company Imax has recycled an old press release about a ten-screen deal with China’s Wanda Cinemas first reported here back in September 2007. The only major thing different about the new press release appears to be that seven of the ten deployments will be the as-yet untested Imax digital cinema system, while the first three use the MPX(R) film technology. The article says that “The price of the deal was not announced.” So maybe Wanda are getting the projectors for free, just as AMC did last year. Cinema goers in Changsha in Changchun in north-east China will get to see the first two (analogue) systems, followed by Beijing and Shanghai.

Popularity: 17% [?]

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Indian Box Office Is Booming

Posted by J. Sperling Reich | January 5, 2008 8:22 pm

Thanks to lurid exposes like the one which appeared in the December 22nd issue of The Economist most westerners probably think of India as a crowded and impoverished country filled with 1.1 billion people living in slums and working for miniscule wages. What they might find hard to believe, despite Bollywood’s international reputation as a bustling film industry, is that Indian’s spend Rs 8000 crore, or $2 billion, per year going to see movies. According to “Cinemagoing India“, a report published by Dodona Research, a UK-based industry analyst, this figure is not only accurate, but bound to grow over the next several years.

And if that doesn’t convince you, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) hired PricewaterhouseCoopers to write a separate report which predicts that by 2011 the Indian film industry could be generating upwards of Rs 17,500 crore, or $4.4 billion. While this figure may not outpace yearly box office figures in the United States, the world’s highest grossing film industry, it still amounts to Rs 80, or $2, per capita in India. In a country where the average movie ticket price is under $1 and per capita income is $707, raking in that kind of dough is certainly an achievement. Read More »

Popularity: 20% [?]

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Sony’s 4K finds home in Singapore’s Cathay

Posted by Patrick von Sychowski | December 5, 2007 5:15 am

Slowly-slowly Sony is starting to make inroads into multiplexes with its 4K digital cinema projector. It hasn’t been helped by the recent Beowulf 3D near-hysteria, which was strictly 2K (and Imax), but we should see some more deployments before the end of the year. In time for CineAsia comes the news of the deployment with Singapore’s Cathay Cineplexes, whose involvement with digital cinema dates back to the pioneering day of Christie 1.3K DLP Cinema projectors in May 2004.

From the press release:

Sony is equipping two Cathay Cineplexes in Singapore, including their flagship The Cathay Cineplex, with the ultra-high-resolution SRX-R220 Digital Cinema Projectors. Combined with Sony’s LMT-100 Media Block servers and LSM-100 Screen Management System, the projector systems are specifically designed for digital cinema applications. The project is expected to be completed early next year. Upon the completion of the installation, movie-goers are able to enjoy the ultimate viewing experience jointly presented by Sony and Cathay Cineplexes.

“We are very impressed with the CineAlta 4K technology, as well as the professional services rendered by Sony. The deployment of the enhanced digital technology in our cinemas demonstrates our continued commitment to provide quality entertainment to our valued patrons,” said Suhaimi Radfdi, President of Cathay Organization Holdings Ltd. “We are now planning to introduce this advanced technology to our cinemas in Malaysia and Dubai, so that more movie-goers can immerse themselves in the superior cinematic experience.”

So Sony can stick at least two more pins into its world map soon. Rumour also has it that there will be some Central European 4K announcement as well soon, but not until after CineAsia. Let’s if any 4K movies will be distributed to these cinemas from Technicolor’s newly-announced Singaporean digital cinema hub.

Popularity: 19% [?]

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China to get 5 Star cinema

Posted by Patrick von Sychowski | December 5, 2007 3:03 am

UA cinema Guangzhou Anybody who has traveled to a developing country, be it Brazil, Russia, Turkey or India, and visited a new cinema can attest that the emerging middle classes demand no less luxury than their Western counterparts (even Ethiopians, as you can see from the item below). Yet the self-styled ‘Five Star’ multiplex by UA Cinema opening in Guangzhou in 2009 looks particularly impressive, if the artist’s impression sketches are to be believed. Bob Vallone, director and general manager at Lark International Multimedia, is quoted in The Hollywood Reporter talking about the landmark property:

“The cinema will have every five-star requirement that’s been inactive in China and all of the creature comforts built in. The proof is when you sit down, the picture is bright, sound is perfect, and you become engrossed in the move and it’s an event,” Vallone said.

The cinema, which also will house a Thai Orchids restaurant, will be located in the new Metropolitan Plaza mall and seat about 950 patrons. The cost is projected at about HK$20 million ($2.6 million).

It helps that people in the area have amongst the highest disposable income in China. The cinema and its owner have their eyes on the technological future as well:

“Our long-term plans in China are to continue to provide new technologies. I’m intrigued by holographic breakthroughs that are being made at the moment, but I think that’s still 10 years away. Digital technologies will help to create the gateway for day-and-date release, which for me would be wonderful,” Vallone said.

Not sure holographic cinema is even a distant reality (H-Cinema? Wouldn’t we need a new Hollywood specification/standards body all over again??) But Vallone must know a thing or two about cinemas, or he would not be honored as CineAsia’s 2007 Exhibitor of the Year “for his development of the multiplex market in Hong Kong.”

Popularity: 11% [?]

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