Boxoffice Pro

INDUSTRY CENTURY IN EXHIBITION
Boxoffice Pro wrote extensively
about Facebook for the first time in the
publication’s history, with Phil Contrino
suggesting that the platform could help
independent exhibitors build a direct
relationship with their fans thanks to the
possibility of online grassroots campaigns,
direct messages, reviews, friend
invitations, and more. Contrino wrote,
somewhat prophetically: “Facebook is the
next step in film marketing, and exhibitors
should plug into its potential.”
The advent of the internet, however,
also instilled new fears and created
unique threats. Piracy was facilitated
by the transmission of digital films via
satellite as well as the proliferation of new
platforms for online downloading. Piracy
was costing the industry billions of dollars
every year. NATO, the MPAA (now the
MPA), and studios fought hard for legal
action, as the movie industry feared that
it would follow the somber example of
the music industry’s battle with pirates.
In an effort to prevent themselves from
being “Napster-ized,” MGM, Paramount,
Sony, Universal, and Warner Bros. joined
forces in October 2001 to launch their
own broadband service, tentatively called
MovieFly, which provided consumers
on-demand access to theatrically released
movies. Disney and Fox responded with
their model, Movies.com. In March 2007, a
Boxoffice Pro writer—who had himself
briefly become a pirate for the sake of
journalism—concluded that “the movie
industry does have to compete against
piracy, but as with the music business, if it
gave people what they wanted for a nicer
price, it wouldn’t have to.”
This was exactly the concept that new
VOD platforms capitalized on. With their
emergence, the decades-old debate on
windows became more urgent than ever,
and sparked again in 2005—a particularly
bad year at the box office—when
Disney’s chairman, Bob Iger, suggested
that consumers had a preference for
simultaneous theatrical and DVD release.
That same year, Mark Cuban—co-owner
of 2929 Entertainment, which controlled
Landmark Theatres—defended day-anddate
releases after Steven Soderbergh’s
Bubble was released in such a manner.
In a November 2006 article, Cuban even
argued for more studio ownership of
movie theaters to eliminate the exclusivity
problem altogether. NATO’s Fithian
called the high-profile debate “salutary,”
as it had generated media attention
and precipitated discussions between
exhibitors and studios.
“Thoughtful industry leaders like
Howard Stringer of Sony, Sumner
Redstone of Viacom, Ron Meyer of
Universal, and Jim Gianopulos of Fox
have all articulated publicly their support
for the theatrical release window because
they know the tiered release model
best serves their companies and their
consumers,” Fithian declared in April
2006. Filmmakers like Jonathan Demme
and Tim Burton also expressed their
support for longer windows. In a tribute
to the cinematic art at ShowEast in 2005,
M. Night Shyamalan movingly defended
longer windows: “When I sit down next
to you in a movie theatre, we get to share
each other’s point of view. We become
part of a collective soul. That’s the magic
in the movies. If [simultaneous release]
happens, you know the majority of
theaters are closing.”
By 2007, the theatrical-to-DVD window
had stabilized to four months and 16 days.
But the questions raised by VOD platforms
were far from resolved. “Suddenly, the
talked-about place to see a movie isn’t
the mall plex or old-town indie cinema.
It’s on your computer—or in your hand,”
lamented Boxoffice Pro’s Annlee
Ellingson in November 2006. A year later,
the trend had gathered more steam: “In
an era in which Google has entered the
lexicon as a verb, MySpace is a popular
social destination, and YouTube acts
as an egalitarian showcase for budding
filmmakers, it should come as little
surprise that the internet has emerged
as the next-generation film distribution
platform with most potential—if yet,
unrealized,” she remarked. iTunes, Xbox
Live Marketplace, and Amazon Unbox
were all considered to have this kind
of potential. A particular production
company, Red Envelope Entertainment,
and its distribution arm, Netflix, caught the
interest of Boxoffice Pro. Anticipating
one of the most important debates of the
next decade, Chad Greene noted in April
2007: “If alternative distributors like Red
Envelope have their way, more and more
film fans will realize they do, indeed, live
in a distribution democracy—one in which
they can cast their votes either at home or
at the box office.”
“The movie industry does
have to compete against
piracy, but as with the music
business, if it gave people
what they wanted for a nicer
price, it wouldn’t have to.”
24 Q2 2021