Earlier this month I spent two weeks in Singapore – and glimpsed the future of cinema, though it is probably not what you think it might be. The city/island/state was my home for five years, so it was a welcome opportunity to reconnect with friends and colleagues that I had not seen since before the pandemic. Singapore is sometimes jokingly called ‘Asia for beginners,’ on account of having Chinese, Indian, Malay and other heritage and cuisines all conveniently mixed in one place, as well as being so safe and organised that it is one of the few places in this part of the world where you can safely drink the tap water.
I got to meet and talk to the CEOs of the big local cinema chains, Golden Village and Shaw Theatres, as well as the team behind Asia’s coolest independent cinema operator, The Projector. I talked to the APAC heads of distribution for the likes of Warner Bros. Discovery and Walt Disney, as well as major regional independent distributors, such as Encore Films, which handles everything from anime “Suzume” to “John Wick 4.” I attended the re-opening of the multiplex at Bugis+ (now part of GV) and the pop-up The Projector: X.
Singapore has long punched above its weight in the region and its position at the watery cross road of the strait of Malacca, through which ships pass with the seeming density of a Los Angeles freeway, gives it a unique perspective on the region. However, Singapore is not in any way a typical Asian country as nothing is typical about any two nations (Indonesia vs. Bhutan, anyone?), but it does hold lessons for the whole of the rest of the world. Not because of any technology representing the future, but because of the trends that it exemplifies.
Singapore has 271 cinema screens and an annual attendance of 18.5 million in 2019… for a population of 5.7 million. This gave the country a very healthy average attendance of 3.25 visits per person, per year. It definitely helps that Singapore cinemas are air-conditioned, if not to say often freezing. But the country was hit hard by COVID and the ensuing restrictions. In 2021 cinema attendance was estimated to be just 7.63 million. It is one of the few markets that saw significant cinema operator consolidation, with Golden Village taking over some Filmgarde sites, while The Projector temporarily moved into the Cathay building. mm2 came close to selling its Cathay Cineplex chain to Golden Village.
What is encouraging is to see the renewed focus that the post-COVID realities have had on cinema operators’ customer offerings. The re-opening of the Bugis+ multiplex under GV saw the launch of the Azule Spanish-Mexican cafe and tapas food proposition. It could have been enough to refresh the paint, seats and screens to perk up the cinema, but GV instead invested heavily in making it feel like a brand new multiplex. The ingenuity of The Projector team in transforming the Cathay building into a mixed arthouse-mainstream cinema with little-to-no budget for lobby furniture and fittings demonstrated that the cool vibe in its original Golden Mile Tower home was no fluke. Yet nobody thought that these “new” sites, coupled with more Hollywood films would be enough to bring patrons back to 2019 levels.
The most telling change I saw in Singapore was not in any cinema, but in every second restaurant I went to. And I went to a LOT of restaurants in Singapore, because food is close to a religion there. What struck me was how many had done away with waiters to take your food order, replacing not just the menu with a QR code, but the whole food and drinks ordering process. Not just mid- range and quick serve chains, but even my local go-to for traditional Hainanese chicken rice. In one case the Japanese restaurant Genki Sushi even delivered the food to your seat on a miniature Shinkansen bullet train. It was all more high tech than any of my (pre-COVID) visits to Japan, South Korea or Shanghai. But what was driving it was not the technology, but something that cinemas all over the world have to grapple with – staffing shortages.
Singapore faces a twin demographic challenge. Singapore had a birth rate of just 1.10 child per woman in 2020. Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan all now have birth rates of less than one child per woman. Meanwhile Japan and China have slightly higher birth rates than Singapore, but still below 1.5 children per woman. Only the likes of Malaysia have closer to a natural replacement rate of 1.87. This means that there are not enough children to make up the cinema audience of tomorrow. On a staffing level, Singapore has another challenge in that it has very low immigration for the lower skill service and hospitality sectors (expats relocating from Hong Kong do not count). With the few young people encouraged by their parents to seek high income career paths to support them in their old age, there are few who chose barista, waiter or cinema usher even as a transitional job.
The likes of Golden Village started responding to this challenge even before the pandemic, with automated ticket gates scanning your ticket or mobile QR code. They already launched the Gold Class Express concept with the Funan mall opening, where you order food on your app instead of having a button to summon staff to your recliner. Had the incline of the cinema auditorium not made it impossible, they probably would have even pioneered a cinema robot cleaner. Instead they came up with the idea of renting recliners for afternoon naps to exhausted office workers. Thus GV has not lost sight of service, nor is it purely focusing on premium, understanding that segmentation is the key and innovation is a must. The Projector is having to be no less agile on the indie side, trying to do more with less, even as it broadens its geographic footprint and film offerings.
Singapore is not waiting for cinema-going to revert to what it was before the pandemic, whether the hope for that is 2024 or 2025. Rather it is evolving to meet the changing future where “No Kids” poses a greater challenge than Netflix.
Cinemas
Korean Cinema Operators Serve Up New Experiences
Korea’s three largest multiplex chains CGV, Lotte Cinema, and Megabox, are evolving their business scope into complex cultural spaces that provide unique experiences to meet customer needs, instead of just being places where you come to watch movies. They are doing this by hosting events and programs, not just ones connected to movie screenings, but in addition have enhanced their offerings with sports experience spaces and exhibitions using the advantages that cinema spaces offer.
CJ CGV is offering a short-game golf studio in a movie theatre as well as a climbing gym and bowling pub. Lotte also recently launched the ‘European Classical Concert Tour Planning Exhibition’, which showcases performances by world-renowned classical musicians in Paris, France, Munich, Germany, and Prague, Czech Republic. Megabox is offering curated lectures associated with film releases.
Unlike many other Asian nations (with the exception of Japan) Korea has a mature cinema market, with many multiplexes 20 years or older, as well as an aging population. That means that they cannot expand by building more multiplexes in an already saturated market. Together the three Korean cinema majors demonstrate why Korea is a country that cinema operators in Western Europe and North America could draw inspiration from as they too re-think the cinema experience.
Source: Global Economic News
Distributors
Apple Plans to Spend $1 Billion on Films for Movie Theatres
Bloomberg is reporting that Apple has plans to spend upwards of USD $1 billion per year to produce movies for theatrical release in an effort to raise their Hollywood profile, lure big name talent and attract subscribers to their paid streaming service. After their film “CODA” made Apple first streaming company to earn a Best Picture Oscar in 2022, one would think the tech giant would have already achieved all these goals. Surely nobody will be complaining about having more big budget movies to show in cinemas.
Previously, Apple only released its film productions on a limited theatrical basis, if at all, with most of them going directly to their streaming service, Apple TV+. To switch gears and release films widely in cinemas Apple will need to strike deals with third-party partners, i.e. studios, as they don’t have the internal capacity to do so. They are currently speaking with movie studios to service titles for a distribution fee.
They’ve already cut a deal with Paramount Pictures to release Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” with the studio getting 10% of the box office for the Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle. Other titles that cold be in the mix are director Matthew Vaughn’s “Argylle” and “Napoleon,” a biopic of the French political leader being made by Ridley Scott.
Source: Bloomberg
People
Erik Lomis, MGM Distribution Chief, Dies at 64
The film industry was shocked to learn that veteran distribution executive Erik Lomis died unexpectedly on Wednesday at his home in Santa Monica, California at the age of 64. An outpouring of kind words and fond memories flowed across social media and in trade publications for the remainder of the week.
Lomis was currently the head of distribution at MGM where he was helping Amazon, the company’s new owner, take on the historic studio. He had worked at MGM earlier in his career, from 1993-2011, where he worked his way up to President of Worldwide Distribution, overseeing the release of such films as “Legally Blonde” (2001) and numerous James Bond movies including “GoldenEye” (1995), “The World Is Not Enough” (1999) and “Die Another Day” (2002).
He jumped over to The Weinstein Co. where he worked on titles that included “The Artist” (2011), “Silver Linings Playbook” (2012), and “The Hateful Eight” (2015), before departing in 2016 to launch the distribution arm of Annapurna Pictures. Lomis came full circle when in 2019 he moved to United Artists releasing, a joint venture between MGM and Annapurna.
As someone who shepherded the careers of many executives who are now in senior leadership positions within the industry, and as a key fundraiser for charities such as the Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation, Lomis was beloved around Hollywood, both personally and professionally.
Source: Deadline
Sponsor Spotlight
Smart Solutions for the Best Performance
Dolby Auditorium Packages are engineered exclusively for the best cinema performance. Our products are quality tested in multiple configurations in our own engineering labs to ensure the highest quality and reliability.
Celluloid Junkie is the leading online resource dedicated to the global film and cinema business. The Marquee is our newsletter focused on motion picture exhibition; keeping industry professionals informed of important news, the latest trends and insightful analysis