From a film business point of view today was a weird day, or maybe I’m shot out from having sat in classes for 7+ hours today. (I have classes from 12:30-3:10 and 6:00-9:40)
First I got a bad piece of information personally, I won’t bore you with the details.
Second: AMC is buying Kerasotes Showplace Theaters LLC, or most of it. The Kerasotes family who have been in film exhibition since 1909 are selling all but 3 theaters to AMC, apparently their partner Providence Equity Partners wants out while film exhibition is on the up and up. The only Kerasotes in NJ, which ironically enough replaced two AMC/Loews sites is staying with the family as is their luxury concept Showplace Icon, which fine by me: they have good popcorn.
This means AMC is now the second largest theater in the nation (they always were by screen count, Cinemark owned one more site then they after buying Century Theaters). Regal Entertainment Group, the most homogenized of the chains will still have 1000+ more screens than AMC.
A brief note: I didn’t see this coming, I knew AMC was hungry to expand and heard roomers for years they were buying this theater or another theater. I think like banks they’ll be national chains (AMC, Regal, Cinemark) and smaller regionals. Regionals will know their own markets better and be more efficient at serving them, and when one gets national ambition and private capital funding to get big, they’ll be next in line to be acquired). I’m not sure this is a bad thing, for one we’re insuring film exhibition continues, and that’s what’s important. Some chains get it, others are slow to adopt new designs and features such as bars and expanded food courts that will save their industry. While they’re not doing anything for indie film they are at least showing films and standing their ground in favor of continuing to show films to a live, gathered audience in single auditoriums......
Which leads me to the third piece of information I found out about exhibition and film: IFC Films has acquired the new Gasper Noe film, Enter the Void, which I was looking forward to. That means good luck seeing it in a theater aside from the one they own. Filmmakers working with IFC have sold their soul if you ask me. Sure you hear the douchebags like Joe Swanberg talk about how the festival run is the theatrical release - fine, nobody wants to see your pussy ass movies Swanberg. But I do want to see the new Gasper Noe film, which will run exclusively at the IFC Center maybe a venue in LA, after it’s on the IFC on demand station.
This pisses me off. Granted IFC Films isn’t the bread and butter of the big chains and in theory I’m all for getting indie films out to a wider audience, but by burying films with a token release at a theater YOU own? IFC has made it impossible for these features to open wider. In a normal scenario a film would be given a run at a theater, let’s say the good old independent Quad Cinema. Full run, one week - it does well, it gets another week and so forth. If it does really well, maybe it’ll come to the suburbs.
You wanted to see that new film that you missed at Cannes and Toronto - sorry it’s only at 2:40 or 9:35PM, one week only. Be grateful we exist, or it’s direct to video for this flick. Often these are films by established, world class filmmakers, not some guy like me. This is why exhibition and distribution must be kept apart for the sake of filmmakers, audiences and the future of cinema. Major studios may own theaters indirectly, (or in the case of National Amusements - it’s a theater chain that owns two studios) but there is a conflict when the same division of a company is engaged in distribution and exhibition. There is a lot of consolidation in the distribution industry with a lot of passionate companies dormant compared to where they were years ago.
Price isn’t really an issue here in that anticompetitive price structures inevitably lead to paying more for less (then again we could talk about theater 5 at IFC Center, 30 seats and a digital projection from a pre-show projector). The quality of the experience as decreased, the films are projected digitally, some are made from poor files (Ricky, Francois Ozon’s latest had noticeable pixillation - the only time I’ve seen this on a digital print, was IFC streaming it from its on demand station?). Sure for a Joe Swanberg/Greta Gerwig collaboration shot on a cell phone camera this is less of an issue, but we’re talking world class directors here, and the consolidation of “indiewood” and the consolidation of the indie film market has screwed us all over.
I’m all for putting things on On Demand, yes, but with a delay so that films that were meant to be seen, discovered and enjoyed on a big screen can be if they do well in larger markets. The model allows one to watch a movie at the same time, neglecting the premium pricing involved in seeing a film over watching it on demand. With that extra price we expect a good quality picture. While IFC has picked up and distributed a lot of good films that may have never seen the light of day in the United States (I’m thinking of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s films as well as low budget indies that deserved wider recognition such as Joshua Safdie’s The Pleasure of Being Robbed).
Of coarse the only reason IFC can exist is because studios are playing it too safe these days. Although I’m curious to see what can come out of Paramount’s attempt to moving into Swanberg territory with a micro-budget division, the flaw I see there is as filmmakers we work on a microbudget because we have to. We don’t pay ourselves, we do it as a labor of love. Knowing your labor of love is owned outright by a major corporation are you going to get the actors to work just by feeding them? They may work with you on a passion project but does having a big studio in the picture change that? You bet it will, but I’m hoping for the best. Theoretically a great movie can be made on a cheap and talent like Joshua Safdie and Aaron Katz should be given a wide release. The problem of coarse is Paramount is looking for the next Paranormal Activity, not the next Wes Anderson or even Paul Thomas Anderson. Still I’m hoping for the best and understand that for an indie filmmaker like myself, online distribution is fine. As an audience member and film scholar I hate to see established world class filmmakers given relegated to a fate that’s worse than direct to video, still some IFC Films do break out, Summer Hours had a nice release despite also showing on demand simultaneously.
Last piece of news in Indiewood is that Marc Webber is directing the relaunch of Spiderman. Why does Spiderman need to be rebooted. I also hear they’re rebooting The Fantastic Four as well. I’m not sure what a Spiderman reboot can/will do. Perhaps the objective is to truly serialize the films so that they become individual stand-alone adventures like a comic book and not one narrative told in linear order. Sure we’ve seen prequels, sequels and even one squeakquel: I’m not sure where they’re going with this one but I’m interested.
Webber previously directed the wonderful (500) Days of Summer, an indie film with big stars that was given a wide release by Fox Searchlight. Another movie staring the same leading actor was later released by IFC and relegated to a one week token release at the evil for-profit that might fool you in that it almost functions like a non-for-profit (even selling memberships), IFC Center. Luckily, living closer to Toronto these days than New York, I will hopefully get to see Gasper Noe’s latest on a big screen at the Cineplex Varsity or Cumberland, and not in the extra space IFC Center had when their cafe/bar failed to work out.
As for the reboots and retreads I always hope for something new and different. Webb I know very little about aside from the fact he made a movie that I enjoyed so much I saw it in theaters twice, because after all theaters are where movies should be seen, with an audience, not at home and on demand. Judging by the little I know about his career I’m not sure what type of action movie director he’d made, he certain has a good sense of pacing, mood, and humor, reminding me of another filmmaker who went on to create the hip adaptation of Iron Man.
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