What We Learned This Week: November 30-December 6

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LESSON #1: #TRANSISBEAUTIFUL IS ALIVE AND WELL— First and foremost, bravo to Elliot Page and his future in Hollywood. May his story inspire others and fulfill those who live under undue fears. Page stands tall as a worthy figure to celebrate and deservedly so. I was happy to update the history of my Every Movie Has a Lesson website content to make the proper name and pronoun changes. There will be no deadnaming there or here. Educate yourself and add that responsibility to your own social media and conversation practices.

LESSON #2: THE THEATER-TO-HOME WINDOW IS JUST ABOUT DEAD— I have long cited in this column the shrinking amount of time between a movie’s theatrical release and its availability on home media. Back in the day, it used to be six months to a year. Somewhere in the advent of streaming platforms and VOD, it shrunk to 90 days and sometimes less. In huge industry news, Warner Bros. just made their own window zero days. For all of their planned upcoming 2021 film releases (not just Wonder Woman 1984 to end 2020), the studio will make them available in theaters and on their coveted HBO Max streaming platform on the same day. That’s a monumental shift in business, something definitely spurred by the present COVID-related circumstances where theaters are strapped, empty, dying, and immediately pissed by this move. Just like Disney+’s goal a year ago when it debuted, watch this bring a huge surge of new subscriber business to HBO Max when you’re promising chances to see the likes of Dune, The Batman, and more from the comfort of their own home. 

LESSON #3: THIS IS A PIVOT AND PIVOTS ARE NOT PERMANENT— Call this big business move what it really is: a pivot, and one certainly necessary considering societal circumstances. Mark me in the group that wonders why it took this long for some large entity with their own streaming service to pull this trigger. Disney dipped its toe with Hamilton, Mulan, and Soul, but to say ALL for an entire year like WB is commitment to the pivot. Expect more moves to follow. Watch Universal put their stuff on their Peacock subsidiary. Maybe WB lets HBO Max absorb their DC Network and put everything under one service. Maybe Disney does more. Maybe Disney uses their controlling ownership of Hulu Plus to be the “adult” place for all the non-family-friendly content and the entire Fox library they bought. In any case, pivots are reversible. When theaters are viable again, business can pivot back to include them better. They are still the #1 place to make billions. When people can return to them, business will return to them too. They’ll be back. They just won’t be, and can’t afford to be, the same.

LESSON #4: MARK YOUR CALENDARS FOR AUGUST 2022— I’ve called it all year and I’m going to keep calling it now. If this pandemic keeps going longer, people stay away, and studios pivot to streaming, the large theater distributors are going to die off. As I’ve noted often in this column, they already are shutting down or circling bankruptcy. Theaters as we know them are not going to come back the same. What will they look like? Well, I think you need to mark your calendars for August 2022. With the old Paramount Decrees rescinded as of August 2020, studios can open and run their own theaters after a two-year sunset period. That’s August 2022. The WBs and Disneys of the block can pivot to streaming, sit back, and watch the AMCs, Cinemarks, and Regals bleed to death. They can buy them at their lowest point and rebrand them as their own with no old rules. They will look triumphant in 2022 when it’s the studios that “bring theaters back” with their own labels.  Best of all for them, they buy out or shove away the middle-man profit sharing they’ve tried to squash for decades. Every dollar goes back to them. This column may not be here in August 2022, but, mark my words. If the landscape is able to re-open, this scenario is happening.

LESSON #5: INVEST A LITTLE MORE INTO YOUR HOME SETUP— In the recommendation closing slot this week, I’m going to turn to the home and not the watch lists. With all of this time spent now at home, improving your home theater setup is something you probably should have been doing since March. Add all the new streaming opportunities coming and now is the time to upgrade, even if you just missed the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. You don’t have to go full Magnolia quality, but there are many little DIY and piecemeal things you can do on the cheap.  I currently have a 1080p projector that cost about $800 at the time. It gives me over 100 inches of screen size and has lasted longer than any physical monitor I’ve ever had. Projection is an awesome effect, and I’ll never buy another actual TV again. Even those new 4K-capable projectors in the $1200-1500 range will give you just as great of visuals as a TV of the same price and likely double the screen size. I know the prices of high quality TVs haven’t been better, but spring for the projector. You won’t regret it. After that, choose an accent wall and use flat paints with less sheen instead of buying a projector screen. A good affordable soundbar with HDMI input can blow plenty of sound versus the old expensive multi-channel towers, receivers, and setups. Use Monoprice to buy longer wholesale cables and learn how to hide the sea of wires. The DIY furniture setups ideas are endless. From palettes to pillows, you can make a little paradise den and not break the bank.

DON SHANAHAN is a Chicago-based and Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic writing on his website Every Movie Has a Lesson. His movie review work is also published on 25YL (25 Years Later), Horror Obsessive, and also on Medium.com for the MovieTime Guru publication.  As an educator by day, Don writes his movie reviews with life lessons in mind, from the serious to the farcical. He is a proud director and one of the founders of the Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle and a member of the nationally-recognized Online Film Critics Society.  As a contributor here on Feelin’ Film now for over two years, he’s going to expand those lessons to current movie news and trends while chipping in with guest spots and co-hosting duties, including the previous “Connecting with Classics” podcasts.  Find “Every Movie Has a Lesson” on Facebook, Twitter, and Medium to follow his work. (#148)

What We Learned This Week: The New Future of Movie Theaters “Soapbox Special”

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SOAPBOX SPECIAL: The New Future of Movie Theaters

During this last month or so of our collective national and international quarantine, I’ve been holding the topic of re-opening movie theaters from my usual “What We Learned This Week” columns for a “Soapbox Special.” There have been so many articles, so many perspectives, and so many rapidly evolving updates and changes that I couldn’t distill them down into one little lesson or column entry. 

With several regions of America starting to re-open (including my own state of Illinois and city of Chicago), it was time to get on the stump and arm the cannons. I put some of what follows into spoken word recently on an episode of Mike Crowley’s “You’’ll Probably Agree” podcast, but the issue has grown since then. Click into the multitude of links in the lessons for the deeper referenced stories. They are well worth their reads and your attention. The theme of this all can be summarized as cautiously optimistic.

LESSON #1: WHAT WOULD IT TAKE TO GO BACK TO THEATERS— I’ll open this rant back in late May with polling from Variety. It featured a survey of consumer comfort. Here are some bulleted results in numerical order:

  • 91% requested hand sanitizer stations
  • 90% say the most important factor is a cure for COVID-19.
  • 86% supported limited screenings for cleaning time
  • 75% support employees temperature checks
  • 70% would rather watch a first-run feature at home
  • 61% would feel better about mandatory face coverings
  • 60% support audience temperature checks
  • 47% were comfortable buying concessions
  • 46% were comfortable using public restrooms at theaters

There’s more there in that article, but those were the highlights. Beyond even that poll, you’ve got more and more segments of the population who won’t feel comfortable with any public event, let alone a movie, without a vaccine in place. Putting any number of these initiatives in place would be costly, especially for theater chain companies reeling on the edge of bankruptcy. 

LESSON #2: WHAT DOES THAT FUTURE LOOK LIKE— Any of those changes from Lesson #1 would make for a very different setting than the “normal” way we’ve been going to the movies for the last century. Many editorials and articles (Seattle Times in May, Vulture in May, and Quartz in June) have tried to talk that out exhaustively with every guess in the clouds. For example, many of us have embraced reserved seating as a way to select our spots, skip crowds, and guarantee seats even if we walk in last minute to avoid 20 minutes of senseless trailers (I know that’s not just me, *wink*). The activity timeline changes upward if we are to stand in a line for temperature checks and even downward if there are no concession lines or needs anymore, which is a tremendous business hit to the theater chains that have been bolstering their kitchen capabilities and choices beyond candy and popcorn for the better part of the last two decades. The other word in there everyone wants to avoid is “crowds.” Can that be accomplished with roped off sections, skipped seats, or an all-reserved seating model (which some older theaters don’t fully have)? In the meantime, you’ve got companies fumbling financial footballs and poking public outcry bears (bravo Michael Phillips) over requiring or not requiring masks (and reversing courses) and other measures before they even open. Do you really trust them to get all of this right on the first try here in July?

LESSON #3: THE OPTION OF AUTOMATION— Piggybacking off of Lesson #2, one potential solution could be artificial intelligence, as crazy at that sounds. According to Variety in May, some theaters in Korea were considering “contact-free” technology.  Theater chain CJ-CGV replaced its human staff with AI robots and automated kiosks for scanning and handling ticket transactions. Concession stands were replaced with app-powered and LED-controlled pick-up/delivery boxes. Leave it to tech-savvy Asia to be the tip of that spear. Could the likes of AMC or Regal pull stuff like that off, again, while teetering on financial failure? How do data-danger-minded consumers feel about that?

LESSON #4: COMPANY SURVIVAL IS PERILOUS— The first three lessons constitute a forecast and some great ideas, but who or what can afford those measures? After months of virtually complete closure, save for some door-front concession hawking, large theater chains, especially AMC (which includes the Carmike brand), are in the financial toilet. Bailouts and loans are hard to come by and “junk” status is hitting stock reports. You even have Amazon interested in gobbling up AMC, which would be quite interesting. It may require a rescue such as that. This peril is international as well with CineEurope reporting a possible $20-31 billion loss for the year. Even reopening isn’t an instant cure. The majority of profits for these companies are dependent on concessions because of the high ticket receipt percentages going back to the studios, a gouge that has been increasing over the years at the high blockbuster level (Thanks, Disney). If the food areas are closed due to viral fears and health code regulations, that destroys earnings. 50% capacities of social-distanced seating doesn’t help theaters either. Even 50% might be optimistic. There are theaters opening at barely 25% capacity. 

LESSON #5: “TOO BIG TO FAIL” IS LOOKING FAILURE STRAIGHT IN THE FACE— And with that we reach the studios’ level of wallet hit with an inactive theater distribution market. Even with their demanded big bites of the pie, half-filled (or less) theaters do not help them either. This is especially the case at the blockbuster level. No matter the anticipation demand or potential staying power of a really big hit flick with less competition, it is exponentially harder to recoup $200 million-budgeted tentpoles and their $100+ million marketing campaigns if sizable fractions of the screens holding butts are gone or entire chains are shuttered. That’s why the really big stuff like Tenet, Mulan, Fast 9, No Time to Die, and more are not automatically landing on streaming services or VOD outlets. Even at a Trolls: World Tour-equivalent $20 price tag per rental (and its modest success), those giants cannot recoup those huge red balances versus getting a ticket for every head instead of every household. A little thing like The Lovebirds or Irresistible can land in the green with VOD, but not Wonder Woman or Black Widow. A business with a blockbuster class level of movies that once looked too big to fail making its worldwide billions is now failing because they have no place to go and no one able to come to their shows.

LESSON #6: STUDIOS DID SOME THIS TO THEMSELVES— Believe it or not, the studios have slowly damaged their own theatrical success/potential for years with the incremental shortening of the windows between big-screen premieres and home media release dates. Folks my age remember the months of interminable wait back in the VHS and cable TV eras before streaming services were even a glimmer in someone’s eye. For example, Forrest Gump hit theaters over the July 4th weekend of 1994. It didn’t land on VHS until late April 1995 after a long theatrical run and a winter Oscar bump. After that, it wouldn’t hit paid cable for another bunch of months and then years before basic cable made it “free.” By comparison, Joker opened on the first weekend of October last year, hit store shelves the first weekend of January 2020, and no one cares if it comes to HBO or Showtime because Netflix, Hulu, or VOD is cheaper and better. What used to be six months at the minimum (or even an entire year if you were a Disney release) has shrunk to merely 90 days on average. Sure, both Forrest Gump and Joker raked for their times, but it’s an indictment on patience versus money-grabbing. People that are willing to wait can now weather a pretty comfortable amount of time compared to the past for their 4K players and big-screen TVs in their dens. In our current COVID-19 state, we’ve all got nothing but time on our hands to do just that. Why risk health if personal patience versus some “fear of missing out” can pay one $20-30 digital download/disc price to watch a movie repeatedly instead of hauling the entire family plus concessions once, especially for something they don’t deem “big screen worthy?” The studios trying to keep the buzz constant with shorter waits will now see leverage backfire in favor of the consumer. For a current case of that, just look at Disney/Pixar’s Onward and the mere weeks it took to cave from the VOD rental level to dismissively dishing it to everyone in Disney+. With studios building their own streaming shingles, you’re going to see more of that or see more wins for Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon.

LESSON #7: THE PRICE POINT OF DIGITAL— Let’s go further with the digital wants of consumers versus the new risks and hassles of theaters. Circling back to that opening Variety polling again, remember that 70% would rather watch a first-run feature at home. And that was back in May. Imagine now knocking on the door of Independence Day, no matter how much antsy-pant anticipation and hope is out there. That same Variety polling screened respondents on online pricing with some keen results. It asked how much a “reasonable” price would be to stream top-quality productions in their home. Here are those results in numerical rank:

  • 47%- $10 
  • 20%- $20
  • 19%- only if it was free
  • 6%- $30
  • 3%- $40
  • 1%- $50, $60, or $80%

That’s 67% holding firm at $20 or under and studios need to do their own projections of math. Regardless, welcome to a more than a little bit of the #firstworldproblems portion of this entire “Soapbox Special.” Movies are wants, not needs, period. They are lovely fulfillment, but non-essential. For every one of those 6% hardcore FilmBros and cinephiles with the disposable income to drop $40 or more to see their precious Christopher Nolan film, over 95% aren’t budging or can’t afford it. Check your privilege. 

LESSON #8: ADAPT OR DIE— One way or another, change is needed at the highest level that trickles down to every screen in America. A popular industry that has weathered the advent of television, cable, and now streaming opponents and competition in its century of existence should be able to survive this. Or can they? With the Paramount Accords lapsed, is it time for studios to buy or build their own sustainable theaters to show off their own wares and keep all the profits they used to share with the chains? If studios instead mine the digital landscape successfully, do we really need multiplexes anymore? That is a question posed recently in The New Yorker by Richard Brody in a good read. They’ll need smaller budgeted films to do that, scaling so many things down. Go back to the roots. You can make a dozen solid indies or five or more star-driven mid-budget programmers like the industry used to do in the 1990s with the cost of a single MCU film. Reverting back to that level of business would require some baths and haircuts, but it would rescue the industry. It’s time to embrace those needs. In another angle, columnist Nick Clement on Back to Movies says the film industry is “f–ked.” In many respects, I highly agree with him and his fantastic stump piece speaking on unemployment and the public state of some of those aforementioned #firstworldproblems. Time and patience are the biggest needs. 

LESSON #9: “ABSENCE AWAY MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER”— I’ve used this lesson before in “What We Learned This Week” and it’s time to end with it again. Shed away all the polling and conjecture. We all know the love for movies is there or we wouldn’t be talking about it. Look at the success of early openings and the lined-around-the-block comeback of drive-in movie theaters. It will be a topsy-turvy year, without question, even with a full return. We’ve had a zero-budget film named Unsubscribe streaking at an empty box office only to be dethroned by revival screenings of Jurassic Park putting it back to #1 in the nation, George Foreman-style, 27 years after it last ruled the multiplexes. If the year ended today, Bad Boys For Life would get the “biggest movie of 2020” championship belt in the record books. Just like Field of Dreams says, “people will come.” They just need to wait. Everyone, for that matter, from the greedy studio execs and sidelined movie stars to the lowly theater ushers and concession stand workers, needs to wait. This has sucked and it will keep on sucking, but the best answer is to wait and get through this better and healthier, personally and financially, than rushing and screwing it all up. The movies will be there. We want all the people to be there too. 

DON SHANAHAN is a Chicago-based and Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic writing on his website Every Movie Has a Lesson. His movie review work is also published on 25YL (25 Years Later) and also on Medium.com for the MovieTime Guru publication.  As an educator by day, Don writes his movie reviews with life lessons in mind, from the serious to the farcical. He is a proud director and one of the founders of the Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle and a member of the nationally-recognized Online Film Critics Society.  As a contributor here on Feelin’ Film now for over two years, he’s going to expand those lessons to current movie news and trends while chipping in with guest spots and co-hosting duties, including the previous “Connecting with Classics” podcasts.  Find “Every Movie Has a Lesson” on Facebook, Twitter, and Medium to follow his work.  (#135)

What We Learned This Week: March 23-29

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LESSON #1: IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT A BLOODBATH MADE OUT OF INVISIBLE MONEY LOOKS LIKE…–… go look at the box office numbers for the month of March. If you thought the unfortunate and gobsmacked drop it made during the weekend March 13-19 was something to behold, it’s downright eerie to this weekend and the complete goose egg due to a nearly total industry shutdown. Take a look. This is becoming quite the asterisk in a ongoing record book.

LESSON #2: WHEN WILL THE MONEY RUN OUT?— This lesson names the big question that has to be looming around boardrooms top to bottom in the industry. Most successful companies on the level of studios and theater chains can weather a temporary stoppage, especially when a couple of businesses are offering to open for free to get people back in. One has to wonder when “furlough” (as it is called at AMC) turns into “failure.” There’s already a bankruptcy bill on the table specifically for movie theaters. This big question may turn into an ugly one.

LESSON #3: WE WILL BE LIVING VICARIOUSLY THROUGH THE MOVIES— This week was supposed to be the Opening Day of the Major League Baseball season. No matter if your local team had high or low hopes (or something in between like my Chicago Cubs), it feels like something pure and pleasant is missing. I’m glad to see A League of Their Own win the monthly Donor’s Choice vote here on Feelin’ Film. We have to live vicariously through the movies. That’s what we have to do with the loss of something like baseball and the homestretches of the NBA and NHL seasons. I’ll gladly curl up on my quarantine couch, crack a beer or two, and watch the likes of Bull Durham, The Sandlot, He Got Game, Love & Basketball, and Slap Shot. Call all of that cinematic comfort food.

LESSON #4: GET USED TO THE NEW TRAFFIC JAM— Speaking of the lag of life in the struggle to leave the sofa, it certainly appears the strain is hitting the data and network systems that are chiefly providing our new main avenue of home entertainment. The increase in Netflix outages in the U.S. and Europe is alarming and never fun. We’re going to have to learn some patience or lean on physical media. Heaven forbid we have to open an actual book or play a board game. 

 

DON SHANAHAN is a Chicago-based and Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic writing on his website Every Movie Has a Lesson. His movie review work is also published on 25YL (25 Years Later) and also on Medium.com for the MovieTime Guru publication.  As an educator by day, Don writes his movie reviews with life lessons in mind, from the serious to the farcical. He is a proud director and one of the founders of the Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle and a member of the nationally-recognized Online Film Critics Society.  As a contributor here on Feelin’ Film now for over two years, he’s going to expand those lessons to current movie news and trends while chipping in with guest spots and co-hosting duties, including the previous “Connecting with Classics” podcasts.  Find “Every Movie Has a Lesson” on Facebook, Twitter, and Medium to follow his work.  (#127)