Boxoffice - October 2016

CONVENTION
PREVIEW
alternatives to those formats. For now everyone is
trying to modify their cinemas in order to stand out,
since they can’t add any more screens until shopping
malls start being built again.
Is there a correlation between this trend and
the sort of businesses you’re seeing book
booths at the Expocine trade show?
We’ve noticed projector companies have decreased
the size of their booths, even though we’ve seen an
increase in the number and size of booths. Seating
companies, lighting, flooring, architecture—we are
seeing an increased presence from the sort of businesses
that you hire when you’re looking to upgrade your
cinema.
EXPOCINE
2016
Interview with Marcelo Lima,
CEO, Tonks
by Daniel Loria
I remember speaking
shortly after Dilma
Rousseff’s reelection
in 2014, you told
me you suspected
there would be even
more instability and
that big changes
would happen.
Something big did happen, very big in fact. S
has already been impeached and has vacated
the presidency as Brazil is suffering from an
economic recession. How have these factors
affected the Brazilian market?
In cinema, nothing. It hasn’t affected us at all. We
are still breaking records each month. We are selling a
lot of tickets. I believe this first semester was 12 percent
bigger than the first semester of last year. We are
having some problems with shopping malls, however,
since we are dependent on them to add screens in the
country. Our pace of growth in terms of screens is
therefore a little slow right now; some new shopping
malls were postponed or cancelled because of the
economic problems. That being said, since existing
cinemas continue to sell a lot of tickets, we’re seeing
a lot of refurbishings and modifications in present
locations for small, medium, and major circuits. We’re
seeing a lot of traction in premium large format. For
example, Cinemark just opened a four-screen theater
that has three VIP screens and one XD auditorium.
Dolby Atmos and 4K are popular, and so are in-house
In light of this, do you see an increased M&A
activity and greater consolidation in Brazil in
the coming years?
It wouldn’t surprise me. I have heard about discussions
being had—circuits looking to buy someone,
or someone getting bought by someone. I can’t share
those names, but there appears to be movement
around that. There is one local company, Cinesystem,
that was acquired by a company called Stratus and is
looking to increase its size. They are focused on Brazil,
but they could potentially expand outside the country.
How has domestic production been
performing this year?
Distribution is doing well, especially Paris Filmes,
which continues to produce good domestic movies.
We’ve had a number of domestic films that have
performed well this year, I’d say around one each
month. We saw a huge success this year with Os Dez
Mandamentos; it broke TV records last year, and
they followed up that success with a sequel that was
released theatrically this January. It was huge, grossing
nearly $30 million. The two biggest domestic hits of
the year came from TV.
Expocine will celebrate its third edition this
year. I know you’re in the middle of putting
everything together, but what can you tell us
about the event?
Expocine isn’t just a Brazilian show; it’s a Latin
American event. We have had more than 500 registrations
in less than two weeks, with representatives
attending from 10 countries so far. We have all the
major studios attending, with some of them having
screenings during the event. We’re looking forward to
welcoming everyone here. n
26 BoxOffice ® OCTOBER 2016