Wednesday, April 29, 2020
AMC Theaters will no longer play Universal movies after Trolls World Tour fight
The Verge: AMC Theatres will no longer play Universal films effective immediately after “unacceptable” comments were made from NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell on its decision to bypass a traditional theatrical release for Trolls World Tour and make it a digital exclusive, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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After reading this article, AMC Theaters response seems a little extreme, though it is understandable. With theater's shutdown during the pandemic, many film production companies including Universal and Disney are pushing releases of new movies on their respective streaming platforms. It is not surprising that Universal floated the idea of just releasing on their streaming platform via NBC instead of releasing in theaters. Over the years, movie theaters have been losing money due to the release of many new streaming platforms like Netflix. With the pandemic, movie theaters are generating no revenue and therefore are at the mercy of the film production companies coming back with movies to release later in the year. Universal saw the changing times and decided to make a tentative change. AMC Theater's response to that was a little harsh, but ultimately foreseeable and hopefully movie theaters will be able to weather the pandemic. I for one love going to the theaters to watch a new movie.
I'm not going to lie, AMC sounds like an angry child throwing a tantrum. I know that given their current lack of revenue these relationships with the creation companies are important, but these companies also have to think about what's best for their own businesses. Times are changing with all these online streaming sites and while that may take away business from theaters that's kinda just life. AMC deciding to completely burn their bridge with Universal seems a bit hasty when Universal's unilateral decision could have potentially been used as a start to a conversation about their current and future business relations. I'm sure there's a lot that wasn't said in the article that informed AMC's decision, but Universal is a giant company that could bring in so much revenue for AMC as it begins to reopen its branches. It feels like an overreaction that will negatively affect their profits and customer loyalty in future.
This seems ridiculously petty for AMC to do. It is understandable since streaming sites have already been hurting movie theatre’s revenue, but movie studios have also been put into a desperate situation. By delaying the release of a movie, it cuts into the paychecks many of the crew members of the film were promised when they believed the film would be released in its original format. They were brainstorming a new way to make it happen, and had amazing results. Unfortunately, I think AMC saw this as a threat because it proves a film can still be successful even without a theatre release, putting their business at even more risk. That being said, it does seem silly to stop showing films from a large studio before you open back up to the public and will need the money. It’s a desperate time, and I feel it is not really the time to be petty with others.
Kinda wild for something this extreme to come out of Trolls: World Tour. Movie theaters are under a lot of financial stress right now, so I don't see how this decision could be timed well at all. It doesn't seem like this could possibly go well. I actually thought it had been widely accepted that many movies which were released during quarantine would not end up in theaters, but I guess I was wrong and there is a conversation to be had. I think AMC has to accept defeat on many levels here. They were going to lose a lot of profit from the digital release of these movies anyways, so I don't think that re-releasing Trolls in theaters would make AMC a lot of money anyways. I do feel bad; I don't want movie theaters to be come obsolete. I love going to the movies. That's why I think its so ridiculous that AMC is doing something like this. And, overall, I do see why AMC was upset, but this whole controversy will probably lose them money down the line.
It honestly sounds like the CEO of AMC read two words and thought that Universal was planning a pointed attack on their entire business. They are not. Like Elena said, this is Trolls we are talking about. The CEO of AMC is feeling attacked by Trolls World Tour. Universal was simply stating that the premium video on demand was successful for them during a global pandemic in which parents were trying to entertain their kids. They were just saying that they would be open to doing something like that again and did not explicitly say that they would violate their agreements with theaters. Why is AMC responding like this right now? Why are they saying that they will never play Universal films in their theaters when there are no theaters to be playing in... Everything is literally closed. Their solution to seeing a loss in traffic is to completely cut off the traffic.
I was in my car the other day (I needed to get out of the house and just see something new, I wasn’t going anywhere. social distance! Stop the spread) and I heard about the Trolls movie going digital and I was quite surprised that universal was doing that… I know that they want to make money and also keep their audiences entertained but I was very surprised because I was thinking about the movie theaters and their revenue (and then I realized that well… its a pandemic and things are going to change because of it)
I can get why the AMC is upset because releasing the movie in theaters (after it has already been realized digitally) DOESNT SELL TICKETS. Many people don’t mind the smaller screen, many people don’t mind wanting movies in their home. Movie theaters are an experience (and that is why it cost more to go to them and maintain them). So like movie theaters, live theater, going to restaurants, and all of these other forms of experience are a luxury! That is what most of us don’t realize is that these forms of entertainment are more expensive and take more time and energy, and during a global pandemic (and the recession that will likely follow) is going to make it very hard to afford these luxuries for a while. I do have to agree that AMC might be taking it to an extreme in this case but I think that the company is probably very fearful of future revenue. It's a hard time for every industry (also universal movies are expensive for movie theaters to play if you didn’t know)
Well right off the bat I have a lot of issues with AMC’s decision ESPECIALLY with everything going on in the world right now. I have found myself having very little patience with people and companies who respond aggressively to COVID related setbacks. Nobody asked for this to happen and it has made everybody's lives really hard but actions like what AMC has done are not going to help anyone when we are out of this. Like all other recreational facilities, they are closed to try and keep people safe, and with all of the movie theaters closed, production companies really have no choice but to release their content on streaming platforms to try and stir up some amount of revenue. Personally, I had no idea that AMC was the largest movie theater chain in the United States but I am really curious to see if more movie theater companies choose to make similar decisions, and is this the end for movie theaters as we know them?
I’ve seen several things about this situation online, and it’s a weirdly complicated situation that I’m not sure either side is handling well. (I also think it’s hilarious that out of all movies ever made, it’s Trolls: World Tour that may end up fundamentally changing the movie industry forever). Universal chose to release Trolls through streaming due to the virus. Great! People are stuck at home, couldn’t go to the movie theater, but still need entertainment, particularly parents of young children, the target demographic (which does artificially inflate the numbers, but that’s its own problem). The release is an astounding success, even factoring in the concerns that ‘if they’d gone to the movies, everyone would have bought a ticket, but now it’s one per family’, and I believe actually exceeded projected ticket sales of the movie in theaters. Great! Universal realizes, hey, we could make more money on this and release all our movies for streaming at the same time as theatrical release. Slightly less great, and really not good for movie theaters, who stand to lose significant amounts of money here. AMC says, well, fine, then we won’t show your movies at all. On one hand, some kind of retaliation from them makes sense, but on the other hand, Universal has literally just proven that streaming-only releases can be profitable and that they don’t actually need movies to be shown in theaters. I would be disappointed to lose the culture of ‘going to the movies’ with groups of friends and experiencing movies in large format with a large live audience, but on the other hand, why pay $20 each when you could do it at home for cheaper? I’m interested to see where it goes from here and into the future as things begin reopening.
Okay, here is the thing: AMC probably was not going to be making any money off of Trolls World Tour (or any other movie) because, get this, we are all under stay at home orders! Movie theaters were literally closed for business when this decision was made. Trolls was the first movie (if memory serves) to go direct to digital in the era of quarantine and laid the framework for many other movies that had been set to be released in recent times. That the CEO of AMC saw this as a targeted attack is juvenile and, honestly, I do not think that this decision was well thought through. No movie theater is generating revenue right now just because they, you know, can’t. It does not make sense to me that AMC would forego any profit to be made off of movies made at Universal after the pandemic is over, too.
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