Since January 22nd, when Paramount Pictures announced their plan to offer virtual print fees directly to exhibitors, the news has been a frequent topic of conversation throughout the exhibition community. It didn’t take long before a copy of the agreement began circulating through the industry, in large part thanks to the National Association of Theatre Owners. With this year’s ShoWest less than a month away there is no better time to review the agreement in detail.
For those who have not seen a copy of the agreement, which is in draft form, it can be viewed on this post and downloaded here. The first thing to take note of is that the document isn’t the size of a phonebook. While many integrators VPF agreements can be upwards of 100 pages long, Paramount’s direct-to-exhibitor VPF is only 21 pages. And just because the document is a draft of the agreement an exhibitor will ultimately sign doesn’t mean it’s going to expand. After all, it’s not as if Paramount will be entering a brand new relationship with a highly leveraged third party. The studio is entering an agreement with the same exhibitors they’ve been doing business with for decades.
The agreement has 24 sections, one schedule and two exhibits. Keeping in mind that I am not a lawyer, nor do I pretend to be, I’ll review each section pointing out some of the more pertinent bits and what they might mean for an exhibitor. Some of the sections are standard boilerplate and will not be covered in as much detail.
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