[ad_1]
Despite Disney’s experience with the release of films like Black Widow and Jungle cruise day and date in theaters and at home on its Disney + Premier’s PVOD level, Imax CEO Rich Gelfond doesn’t think the model will be the new normal going forward.
“Every studio has seen the same data that Disney has seen. What Disney did was experiment during the pandemic, that’s what they said they were going to do, ”the CEO said on Tuesday during the exhibitor’s second quarter 2021 earnings call. large format.
“I remember [Disney CEO] Bob Chapek said on one of their investor days that when times are normal he thinks theater is important, exclusivity is important, “said Gelfond,” and I think when he watches his data and the pandemic is in the rearview mirror, it’s’ I’ll come to the same conclusion as everyone else: the way to maximize value is to have a theatrical window.
Related story
Imax 2Q increased sales, narrow losses; CEO Rich Gelfond says “a table set for a spectacular rebound”
IMAX
“They used to sell the same property five times, and now they sell it once. They might generate some income, but there is no evidence that this is a better model. He added that “many of the same people will come to the same conclusion.”
Dealing with the fallout from Black Widow, which would have done a combined global box office in theaters and a PVOD opening of $ 218 million (but only $ 316.3 million worldwide to date in pure box office), Gelfond said, “It does really no doubt in my mind that the combination of PVOD and a lot of hacking – people haven’t really talked about it much – there is clearly a lot of hacking that accounts for cannibalization, and that has affected the box office considerably to the end of the day.
“It’s hard to quantify, but some statistics that I find interesting are that F9, which is the most traditional distribution model, will bring in around $ 700 million globally at the end of its cycle, and Black Widow will make half of it, ”said the boss of Imax. “Black Widow was a great movie, so when I think about it, there was no doubt that there was a lot of money left on the table.
At the national box office, Black Widow dropped 68% in its second weekend, the highest number for any Disney + Marvel Cinematic Universe title; the result angered the National Association of Theater Owners, which criticized the Burbank, Calif. based studio for allowing the superhero’s original title to be cut down by hacking and window truncation .
Gelfond was optimistic about the future of cinema, predicting that we will soon see the return of the global theatrical window pole in upcoming films like Venom: Let There Be Carnage, No Time To Die, Top Gun: Maverick and even Disney / Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the legend of the ten rings.
“Each studio has a 45-day window next year,” Gelfond said, but noted that “lower-cost releases will be streamed”. Meanwhile, Imax will continue to benefit from large studio stakes.
As to whether the Delta variant is about to make a box office impact, Gelfond said “it’s too early to tell,” while observing how the box office in China and Japan exploded under an unvaccinated population.
“Among those vaccinated, there is not much reluctance to go to the movies, nothing indicates,” he said.
[ad_2]
Source link