Boxoffice Pro Q1 2021

INDUSTRY CENTURY IN EXHIBITION
CinemaExpo in Europe, the Australian
Movie Convention, and CineAsia. Greene,
welcoming the launch of the first CineAsia
in January 1995, lauded these global trade
shows for revealing “that we all share a
human face by celebrating what we share
and providing an interpersonal conduit
for educating each other about the things
we do not.”
Trade shows were significant spaces
for global intercultural exchanges. NATO/
ShoWest, the amalgam of the annual
conventions of NATO and ShoWest
since 1988, emerged both as a forum to
debate how exhibitors would adapt to a
globalized world and as a driving force
for international expansion. The slogan
for the 1991 NATO/ShowWest trade show,
“The World is Watching,” encapsulated the
industry’s new preoccupations. William
Kartozian, NATO’s president, introduced
international audiences to the convention
with “A Global Welcome,” while NATO
executive director Mary Ann Grasso wrote,
“Wilkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome!” It
was the first convention chiefly focused
on the international economy, featuring
numerous presentations and seminars
on international exhibition, distribution,
and marketing. A few months earlier, in
November 1990, NATO had launched
an International Exhibition Committee
to help facilitate American investments
abroad. Soon, North American exhibitors
were popping up all over Europe, South
America, and Southeast Asia, while the
African and Middle Eastern markets
remained sidelined. Cineplex, for instance,
expanded to Eastern Europe and South
America, while UA expanded to Singapore
in 1994 following the 1985 introduction of
its first Asian multiplex in Hong Kong.
The signing of the North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994
and the 1993 deregulation of the Mexican
film market, which lifted caps on ticket
prices and dropped quota requirements
for Mexican films from 50 percent to
just 10 percent by 1997, put Mexico at
the center of the American expansion
strategy. According to a Boxoffice Pro
report from February 1994, AMC had
“retained a real estate agent in Mexico to
hunt up potential AMC sites there.” The
Mexican market seemed particularly
favorable, as Mexican cinemas, all
previously owned and/or regulated by
the government, were not in the way
“of modern competition” for American
firms. Cinemark de Mexico president
Ken Higgins echoed the argument,
claiming that “Mexico is where the
U.S. was 30 years ago, with little single
theaters and twins,” and that it boasted
the second most avid moviegoers in the
world after China. While local players
like Cinemex began to rise, American
exhibitors were quick to rival them.
Cinemark, which had opened its first
Latin American theater in the Chilean
capital of Santiago in 1993, opened four
theaters in Mexico right after NAFTA was
signed. By 1997, Cinemark was on track
to become the second-largest circuit
in the world, with locations in the U.S.,
Canada, Mexico, Central America, Peru,
Chile, Argentina, and Brazil, where the
first multiplex with Cinemark’s signature
stadium seating opened in July 1997.
Cinemark International also announced
a partnership with the second-largest
Japanese circuit, Shochiku Co., to build
100 screens in Japan by the year 2000.
This expansion was driven by one
mission: to bring innovative multiplexes
to underscreened markets. Tim Warner,
president of Cinemark International,
summarized this in a May 1997 interview:
“The thing we’re going to primarily bring
is the state-of-the-art multiplex theater to
Japan. Right now, they have something
like one screen for every hundred and
some thousand people—as compared
to the U.S. which is about one screen for
every 10,000 people—and yet it’s still one
of the primary markets outside of the U.S.
for U.S. films from a dollar standpoint.”
But, he continued, “The potential of the
marketplace, or the risk versus rewards,
are very high because most of the markets
that we are going in are very, very much
underscreened.”
42 Q1 2021