CinemaCon: Bill Alberti Looks At Cinema’s Generation Z Challenge
At CinemaCon 2015 Bill Alberti of Communispace looks at the challenges of making cinema relevant for today's always-on Generation Z.
Universal’s Pragmatic “Fast & Furious 7” E-Cinema Release
Universal this weekend become the first Hollywood studio to release a major blockbuster in cinemas on digital equipment that falls short of the specifications set out by DCI. Rather than abandoning the hard-fought DCI guidelines, this arguably demonstrates Universal’s pragmatism in the one mar…
NCM-Screenvision Call Off Merger – Winners and Losers
Now the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. – Sun Tzu, The Art of War, I-26 The proposed merger between US cinema advertising majors National CineMedia (NCM) and Screenvi…
Austrian Exhibitor Cineplexx Launched VoD Service
The boundaries between cinema and video-on-demand (VoD) in Europe are blurring further, with the parent company of Austria’s Cineplexx exhibitor announcing its Cineplexx2Go VoD service. While VoD services are already offered by exhibitors such as UK’s Curzon Cinemas (Curzon on Demand) an…
How Endemic Is Box Office Fraud In China?
Is China’s cinema market larger than official figures suggest, due to box office fraud siphoning off 10% or more of its total value? Having looked last week at how micro-channel subsidies are inflating box office takings, it is time to look at box office spend that is collected but never rep…
Global Box Office 2014: Asia Comes to West’s Rescue
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has released its 2014 Theatrical Market Statistics report, providing an overview of global box office and trends. Overall box office grew year-on-year by just 1% but to a record USD $36.4 billion. However, the underlying trends point to a surging Asia…
Though Major Exhibitors Still Boycott Simultaneous VOD Releases From Netflix, the Oscars Willingly Accept Them
On Monday of last week, Deadline broke the news that Netflix was making another move into feature films by acquiring “Beasts Of No Nation” for a reported USD $12 million. This was followed the trade publication Variety which published three stories on the same subject in quick succession…
How Subsidies Distorted China’s “Record” February Box Office
Much has been written about how China’s cinema box office ‘overtook’ that of the United States this past February. While we have already covered how much of this is down to skewed arithmetic, often without proper context, it now seems that this “record” may require a la…
UK’s Odeon For Sale Again – Third Time the Charm?
Private equity group Terra Firma has announced that UK/European cinema chain Odeon & UCI Cinema Group (Odeon for short) is for sale. The merged exhibition operation failed to attract bidders willing to match the asking price in both 2011 and 2013 but Terra Firma’s chair Guy Hands is hoping…
AMC’s Premium Recliner Seating Plans Revealed
A week after Regal announced that it plans to convert 25% of its screens to luxury seating, AMC has provided details about its plans for reseating. While the Chinese-owned exhibitor is not committing to a particular screen percentage target, the ambition is great for the cinema chain that in many wa…