President and CEO of NATO John Fithian speaks onstage during the CinemaCon 2021 The State of the Industry and MGM/UAR presentation at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace during CinemaCon, the official convention of the National Association of Theater Owners, on August 24, 2021 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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LAS VEGAS – The death of cinema is greatly exaggerated – that is the theme of this year’s CinemaCon.
Instead, it’s the same-day release model for theaters and streaming that has kicked the popcorn bucket, according to John Fithian, president and CEO of the National Association of Theater Owners.
“I’m happy to report that simultaneous publishing is dead as a serious business model, and piracy killed it,” Fithian said Tuesday in his annual speech at CinemaCon, which his organization hosts. “If a pristine copy of a film finds its way onto the internet and spreads, it has a very detrimental impact on our industry.”
Fithian’s comments followed a lengthy speech by Charles Rivkin, chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association, on the dangers of digital piracy to the cinema industry and how the MPA is working to combat illegal uploads and downloads of film content.
“On average, pre-release piracy can take up to 20% of box office revenue – your earnings,” he told theater owners on Tuesday. “And with the right efforts to raise awareness among consumers, regulators, and the media, we can continue to build a culture that recognizes piracy for what it is – theft, pure and simple, and a direct threat to creators who.” creative workforce, and the creative community everywhere.”
Throughout the Covid pandemic, day-and-date releases have become a necessary part of the box office recovery process. However, as more consumers have returned to the theaters, the need for these types of releases has decreased. Theater owners are optimistic that viewers will keep coming, especially after the lucrative box office performances of Spider-Man: No Way Home, The Batman, and Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
Studios and industry executives are acutely aware of how powerful a special box office window can be for a film and how devastating piracy can be to potential revenue. Because of this, Disney planned to release Avengers: Endgame in 2019 in China and North America on the same date to ensure that the majority of potential audiences could see the film in theaters before it was pirated online.
While some studios have opted to implement occasional day-and-date releases, typically low-to-mid-budget films or those aimed at a moviegoer demographic that’s been slow to return, most studios have committed to showing their films for at least 45 days before they are released in the home market.
In fact, Sony’s Motion Picture Group President Josh Greenstein has touted that Spider-Man: No Way Home, which released in December, stayed in theaters for 88 days before releasing to the public on other platforms. “No Way Home” grossed approximately $1.9 billion at the worldwide box office during its theatrical run.
“When analyzing title by title, it is very clear that spikes in piracy are most dramatic when a film is first available for viewing at home: it doesn’t matter whether it’s on premium video-on-demand or subscription video -on-demand is available,” he told Fithian. “Robust cinema windows protect against piracy. When a big title that people are clamoring to see in theaters comes home too quickly and is then pirated, the temptation to stay home and watch pirated films increases for many potential moviegoers.”