The film exhibition industry has faced existential threats throughout its history, according to Joe Meyers, director of programming for Greenwich-based Focus on French Cinema festival and a former film critic with the Connecticut Post. But Meyers warned that the ongoing threat posed by the Covid-19 pandemic has been the greatest challenge this industry ever faced.
“We are genuinely in a crisis period,” said Meyers in a recent presentation at The Y”™s Women in Westport. “The movie theaters are still closed in New York and Los Angeles, which has meant distribution of major films has been severely curtailed because those two markets account for about 20% of the gross of any major studio film that”™s released. So, as long as those two markets are closed, you”™re not going to see many major films in the theaters that are open.”
The film exhibition landscape has faced continuous changes over the decades, first in the 1930s from the competition offered by radio and then in the 1950s with the rivalry created by television. The rise of home video and cable television in the 1980s coupled with the shift from single-screen cinemas to multiplexes also created havoc, while the recent rise of streaming services is the latest assault on theater owners.
But through the years, Meyers observed, theaters have been able to survive and even thrive as Hollywood pivoted repeatedly with films that audiences wanted to experience. While theaters in many states (including Connecticut) have reopened, the continued closure of the New York City and Los Angeles markets created what he dubbed a “complete limbo in the movie industry, where no one really knows what the next step is going to be.”
As for the theaters that are operating, Meyers acknowledged business is far below the pre-pandemic levels.
“The Avon Theatre has reopened in Stamford and the Bow-Tie in Greenwich is reopened,” Meyers said. “But business is not good because they”™re not getting big movies. And it”™s a chicken or the egg situation where the theaters aren”™t going to thrive until new major studio releases come out, and the major studios don”™t want to release their movies until all of the theaters in the country are reopened.”
Meyers noted that Warner Bros. tried to push for a return to normalcy with “Tenet,” a $200 million action-adventure epic directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Robert Pattinson and John David Washington. The film”™s opening was repeatedly delayed due to the pandemic, and Meyers was eager to see it when it finally arrived on the big screen in September. To his surprise, that enthusiasm was not shared by many of his friends and colleagues.
“What really interested me and kind of scared me in a way was when I posted on social media about going to see ”˜Tenet”™ in Greenwich and being thrilled to be back in a movie theater for the first time in six months,” he said. “Many people on my social media accounts criticized me and said that I was being deeply irresponsible to go to a movie, which showed me that a great portion of the public ”” even the moviegoing movie lovers ”” is afraid to go back to the movie theaters.
“I didn”™t feel I was risking my life or anyone else”™s by going there because they had really strong safety protocols in effect,” he said. “I felt safe in that movie theater as I have on Metro-North going into New York City, or sitting in a restaurant with my friends outside having dinner with them closer to me than six feet. The fear of movie-going is something that we”™re going to have to deal with, even when the theaters reopen.”
The “Tenet” release was not the domestic success that the studio hoped. Meyers pointed out that the film”™s total domestic gross “was $40 million, which is terrible.” However, the film was rescued from financial ruin due to its popularity in Asian markets, particularly in China, where theaters have reopened. Meyers also stated that China”™s imports of U.S. films are relatively limited and skew to big-budget action-adventure films, not smaller dramas or comedies rooted deeply in American culture and social issues.
While the pandemic wreaked havoc on theaters, it has created an extremely positive impact on streaming services, and Meyers pointed out that a new dynamic in film distribution is starting to take root.
“Due to Covid, people have seen the value of streaming services and movies that would have opened in theaters have been released on these streaming services,” he said. “Disney decided to ditch its planned theatrical release of ”˜Mulan”™ and move on and put it on Disney+, and they announced recently their big Pixar movies are going to be on their streaming service in December. So, more is available on streaming than ever.”
But Disney”™s migration to streaming services could further damage the livelihood of theater owners who rely on the studio”™s family-friendly products.
“Movie theater operators losing the Disney movies are losing one of the major sources of their revenue, which is refreshments,” he said. “For theater operators, the rental of the movie generally means the theater operator is giving 90% of the ticket sales back to whoever produced the film. Their real bread-and-butter is selling refreshments. And the thing about a Disney or Pixar movie is that parents are buying soda and popcorn and candy and spending way over the ticket price for the refreshments that their kids want to eat. With Disney moving from theatrical to home, it is really a killing blow for theater managers because they see that as lost revenue on that fantastic family audience.”
For his tastes, Meyers complained that watching a film over a streaming service can become frustrating if the production fails to pique viewer interest almost immediately.
“If a movie doesn”™t catch my interest in the first 10 or 15 minutes, I”™ll switch over to another thing,” he said. “There are so many choices at any given time that you can”™t make up your mind because it”™s overwhelming. And that encourages this phenomenon of you watching 10 minutes of this or 10 minutes of that, or you just get frustrated with the whole thing and decide to watch ”˜Real Housewives of New York.”™”
What happens next for movie theaters? Meyers highlighted that many major productions scheduled for release in the latter part of 2020 have been pushed back into 2021, while other films in preproduction have been put on hold. Of course, the uncertainty on how long it will take the pandemic to be eradicated is the key question to this industry”™s future.
“We don”™t know if a year from now if there will be movie theaters showing movies,” he lamented. “I just can”™t forecast that. The very definition of moviegoing is frozen right now and, frankly, I don”™t know what it will take for people to go back to movie theaters.”
