March 14, 2021
Another one bites the dust. This week brought the closure of the Arclight Cinemas and Pacific Theaters. A bit of a surprise, as the Arclight Hollywood had been one of the highest grossing movie theaters in the US, according to Deadline. While there is some speculation that the owner, Decurion Corporation, may try to reopen some locations, all signs point to permanent closure for now. This follows on the heels of the Alamo Drafthouse bankruptcy, which is technically a way for them to come out stronger, but will also lead to some loss of screens. As Indiewire has reported, Landmark has also closed seven locations since 2020, including the River Oaks cinema in Houston – leaving “the country’s fourth-largest city without a dedicated art house.” And that same report noted that Regal lost a big court case on back rent in Florida, meaning this is just the beginning of some major pain in the exhibition sector – just as movie theaters seemed poised for a comeback. This does not bode well for independent and arthouse cinema in particular.
As I’ve argued here before, many times, I believe that people want to go back to cinemas, and we’ll have movie theaters for quite some time. But I’ve also argued that we’re destined for a severe decrease in the number of screens in the US (I don’t know enough to comment on other countries, but assume the same is true in most “Western” markets). People will be going to see the next Godzilla or Star Wars film on the big screen for years to come, but as we lose screens, we lose many of the opportunities for those big screens to showcase smaller films.
In some markets, LA included, it could be damned tough to find a screen for an indie/arthouse film prior to Covid, and it’s only going to get harder – California has now lost 300+ screens(!). This won’t just impact what films get booked - It will be that much tougher to even find theaters willing to let you “four-wall” (rent) a theater, as they’ll have less space to give up, and this also means less space to donate or rent out to film festivals and other special event screenings. While many fests are run by organizations that own a cinema, and they’ll be fine, there are many who rely on rented space, and when I was running the Atlanta Film Fest, there were many years where we had to beg to even pay for space at a Regal Theater – and that will get harder.
This is especially tough for specialized cinema, because it relies more than Hollywood on word-of-mouth and longer bookings. Much arthouse cinema also benefits from the big screen because it also forces audiences to make it into an event – one without the distractions of cellphones and social media (for the most part) – which allows one to pay more attention to “tougher” cinema, giving it the space it needs to sink into your brain and become something you love or respect. A lot of films don’t need that big screen, even if cinephiles demand it, but the films that do need that presence will suffer. Many argue this is what allowed Parasite to become such a hit and an Academy winner – I think it would have performed well anyways, but I can see the argument.
More importantly, in an attention-economy, playing a film in theaters helps it break through the noise of everything else. And let’s not forget, the SVOD players (which are replacing cinemas as the home for most eyeballs) are buying and playing less and less specialized films as well. Where will these films get shown? That’s becoming the central question of 2021, and might become an increasingly urgent one as we get closer to 2022 and even more theaters close. Which is inevitable.
It’s the right time for someone to swoop in and buy up a bunch of the better screens and build something that could compete for the cinephile’s attention and if coupled with the right membership/SVOD program, become something interesting. But I can tell you from experience – many investors run for the hills when you pitch this plan, as they’ve read too many (self-serving) tech-pundit predictions saying that movie theaters – and by extension, arthouse films, are dead. They may end up that way, but it won’t be from lack of audiences. It will be from greedy landlords refusing to cut deals, investors not understanding the space, and a lot of “too little, too late, too inept” responses from government – much like we’re seeing in the restaurant, bar and club/venue arenas now as well.
But we can’t pin all of that blame on the landlords or the pathetic government we have – theaters were dealt a pretty bad hand in this virus, but they hadn’t done much to future-proof themselves before it hit. I’m reminded of this every time I try to use some AMC gift cards I got for a present before the virus, and try to save some money on a PVOD rental using their On Demand site. It is, in a word – unusable. You couldn’t design a worse experience if you tried. They don’t even have an AppleTV app, or one for any other major platform. If they had bothered to invest in this platform before the virus hit, they could have negotiated some great deals with the Studios, and kept or have created a strong revenue stream when everyone shifted to online viewing. I would have gladly paid handsomely for an AMC Stubs/A-List that got me access to new release films on demand, and that then encouraged me to go back to the theater with discounts and incentives as the virus (someday) loosens its grip. They’ve raised billions in debt and will be raising more to keep their doors open, but it appears they’ve spent next to nothing on their digital offerings.
Indie and arthouse cinemas have less opportunity to raise funds, but never invested in their digital futures until it was too late either. That’s why their current On Demand offerings, even the better of them, are a hodge-podge of half-solutions that barely work. It’s gotten so bad that I’ve now witnessed distributors who play their films in “virtual cinemas,” but don’t promote them at all – the tree falling in the forest strategy; because they consider them a lost cause, and prefer to spend their marketing on more established digital platforms (such as iTunes). Talk about self-fulfilling prophecy. But you can’t blame the distributors too much – they’re just acknowledging that few theaters (there are exceptions, such as Metrograph) ever bothered to build a digital audience, or any real digital connection to their in-theater ones either.
Now we have people begging online for Netflix, or Disney to buy up these theaters to keep them open. I don't know what's worse - that people are pinning their hopes on the same entities that they blame for theater's demise; that they want them to become part of a conglomerate; or that they beg for this knowing that any Studio/SVOD who bought these theaters would be using them essentially as set-pieces to keep talent happy, do some premieres and basically turning them into museums. As much as I love the fact that the Paris Theater in NYC is still open via Netflix, it's not exactly keeping cinema-going cutting edge, or exciting.
Where does this leave us? With both bad and good news. First the bad - I think just we’re just waiting for another shoe to drop. While theaters will start to open up with more capacity, it will be awhile before we get great movies on those screens to attract audiences, or until cautious audiences (even vaccinated ones) return, due to the ongoing rise in cases and variants. Landlords will start to demand payments. Theaters that were nearing desperation will get past that point and give up. Sure, some will survive, and in a year or so, there will be some great deals for Alamo or someone else to expand. But in the near term, we’ll have less screens available, and less opportunity for new arthouse, indie and specialized cinema to break into the cultural consciousness. At the same time, it’s when things start to fall apart that cool shit gets built to replace it. As much as I bemoan the crumbling of the sector, I’m actually optimistic that we’ll see some innovative stuff come from some new players, figuring out how to build a new model, because let’s be honest – the old one wasn’t all that spectacular. We know the audiences are there – so as they say in the movies - build it, and they will come.
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FRAUDCON - a free two-day virtual summit hosted by Film Launch is designed to educate content entrepreneurs including filmmakers, actors, producers, and investors on the prevalence of fraud and theft in the film industry, and give them tools to keep from getting conned as they build their careers.
When: Saturday & Sunday, April 24th & 25th; 9:00am - 5:00pm PT
Register HERE
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Film
 The FWD-DOC Toolkit: Check out the FWD-Doc Toolkit for Inclusion & Accessibility. I am late to this one - and luckily producer Amanda Upson clued me into it this past week. From the website: "We find ourselves in an unprecedented moment of creative and financial opportunity for the documentary film industry, if we engage with authentic disabled storytelling and talent, make our media genuinely accessible, and better understand and cater to the world’s 1 billion D/deaf and disabled people — currently a seriously underserved audience for film. This Toolkit for Inclusion & Accessibility has been created by FWD-Doc in association with Doc Society and supported by Netflix, featuring a case study about Crip Camp (2020) and with a view to best practice, not just compliance. You can access and download the toolkit here.
AXS Fund Launches: And adjacent to this same topic - my good friend, filmmaker Jason DaSilva has launched the AXS Film Fund, awarding grants to creators of color with disabilities who are engaged in documentary work. The fund is supported by the Bertha Fund, and grant applications are available now. Read about it on Deadline.
POV & AmDoc Have a New Leader - AmDoc, the organization that produces POV on PBS has a new executive director/producer, Erika Dilday, who recently ran Futuro Media Group, and before that was head of the Maysles Doc Center, where she also produced Maysle's last film. A super great hire. she's also their first Black executive director, and she carries on their great tradition of hiring leaders who understand filmmaking too. Read about it in the Hollywood Reporter.
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Branded Content
BlackList and Hornitos Partner for Take Your Shot short film program: Hornitos and the Blacklist are partnering to offer up to five filmmakers a $15K grant to film a short proof of concept for their feature screenplay. While I'm not generally a fan of contests, I like that this helps diverse writers to make a visual proof of concept, which is a time-honored way of getting feature films funded and produced. Details here.
Branded Content is Boring: If you make it this far into the newsletter each week, you'll notice that I've been posting less and less brand content news. That's because most of it has been pretty, well, boring. And I work in this space. Most of what I'm seeing is same-old, same-old - you can watch the same films and they could be made by any one brand as well as another. There's been some exceptions - as I always am quick to point out (Shopify's Own the Room, but I am biased), but for the most part, we're getting more brands in the space, but a lot of copycat content, or stuff so cheesy that I can't bare to mention it here. I'll have more to say on this soon, but if you work in this space and agree - or better, disagree and have examples - contact me, and let's debate the sector.
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Miscellany:
Money For Nothing: Crypto, NFTs and Pyramid Schemes - RealLife Magazine covers the grift that is most of the tech world, but especially crypto and NFTs. I actually believe in the overall concept behind NFTs, just not the current iteration, but this piece is great at explaining all of the problems, starting with the part where everyone acts like they're hard to understand, which also increases the myths/BS around the whole space. Or as the best quote says: "I think of this as the Christopher Nolan effect: If you explain an incredibly simple premise — like, for example, “a guy forgets everything every five minutes” or “you can go inside people’s dreams and make false memories” — over and over in increasingly abstruse ways, the person it’s being explained to will eventually tell themselves, “I just don’t get it.” This effect is only strengthened the more people there are agreeing that the matter at hand is “cool,” “interesting,” or “complicated” — a process of mass, self-inflicted intellectual gaslighting." Or the best closer in tech writing this year (already): "Truly, will there ever be a greater work of capitalist art than the total destruction of the climate that made it possible?" (h/t Redef).
Black and Latinx Arts Community Still Left Behind After Stimulus - Aaron Dworkin - a violinist and arts professor and leader - pens an op-ed for The Hill about the struggles faced by the Black and Latinx arts community, even after the recent stimulus. As he points out, many of the groups that support such artists don't have the big donors and board members, are under-capitalized and have less access to credit, rely on more volunteers and part-timers and are generally facing a bigger support gap than larger arts orgs. He argues for more stimulus, for donors to pick up the slack and for more resources to cover this gap. (h/t Arthouse Convergence).
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