AMC theaters will no longer show Universal movies

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Ghostworld, Apr 28, 2020.

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  1. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    Good points...

    Years back, I got to catching afternoon showings, because I could. And because of having more space to myself, due to less people in the theater around me.

    Long before CV19, I tend to avoid having people I don't know or associate with in my immediate proximity.

    At the motel, if someone has a cough or appears to be sick, I don't allow them in my office. I simply tell them to stay outside while I stand in the doorway and conduct business or have a conversation.

    One thing about a movie theater is that it is a large rectangular box with high ceilings.

    This gives you a huge volume of air around you, which would greatly reduce any viral load.

    In addition, most movie theaters have revamped their HVAC systems to move a greater volume of air.

    The major theater chains are acutely aware of how precarious their current position is and are therefore doing everything to stack the odds in their favor.

    Being that you are a school teacher and school is starting back up, you don't have the luxury of attending a movie at anytime as you might have during the summer.

    With this being the labor day weekend, people are catching the last days of summer vacation and the movie theaters will likely to be full.

    Is it possible for you to catch an afternoon showing during the week when the theater is not likely to be crowded?

    I would be given to imagine that any new release movies, will be in theaters for extended periods of time because of the restricted seating, the reluctance of people to be in crowded places and the lack of new releases bumping them out.
     
    brownie61 likes this.
  2. brownie61

    brownie61 Forum Resident

    Not really, unless it’s something super special that I’m dying to see that is only being shown once at one showtime only. I can only really go on weekends once school has started. I have always gone to morning matinees, which aren’t available right now. It looks like the theater is opening at 2 pm this weekend, and 4 pm during the week. But it’s only one theater, and it’s opening weekend. This isn’t even one of my 3 regular AMC theaters, which aren’t opening until next weekend at the earliest. It looks like one closer to me is starting with evening showings only when it opens on Sept. 10.

    We’ll see what happens as time goes on and as more theaters open. I don’t even particularly want to see Tenet - I just looked at a booking for that movie because it was the only one I would even consider seeing right now. But to be honest, it doesn’t really interest me.
     
    Last edited: Sep 5, 2020
    SandAndGlass likes this.
  3. brownie61

    brownie61 Forum Resident

    Movie Theaters Returned. Audiences Didn’t. Now What? .

    I wasn’t sure whether to post this here or in the Blockbusters thread. Here seemed a better place.

    Everything in this article convinces me that the movie industry is committing suicide. Reduced hours, reduced screenings, higher prices, reduced choice of movies. That all means fewer customers. The trend towards shunting movies to streaming services is proving to be a nonstarter when you have to subscribe to Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Hulu, HBO, Showtime...(have I missed any?) if you want the choice you used to have in a theater. I have just about stopped looking at new release listings because the odds are huge that a movie I would like to see is on a streaming service I don’t subscribe to. And that’s me, someone who went to the movies once a week on average. As for my friends who used to enjoy seeing movies in the theater, they’re all at the “what’s a movie??” stage.

    I don’t know the solution, but what they’re doing isn’t it.
     
  4. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    By this time next year I can see cinemas closing down, if not already closed.
     
  5. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    I would tend to agree with you.

    But there are many problems...

    First off, even before movie theaters were forced to shut down by the government, people had already stopped going out to movies when this whole thing was just beginning.

    Then there was the "two week" forced shutdown...

    Seems that was extended a bit...

    And still major markets are still shutdown....

    The movie industry still is not getting it!

    Just because they have opened the doors again does not mean that people will be in lines again to see movies.

    From the linked article:

    “Tenet” — it has brought in $177 million worldwide — illustrates that if the United States can get its public safety issues under control, people will start going out to movie theaters again.

    Its not about the U.S. getting their safety issues under control, they have...

    It is that the news media has been busy doing what it does best and that is to spread fear.

    One of our members posted in the grocery store thread about having anxiety going early in the morning to an uncrowded grocery store to buy food...

    We have a problem when the studios are not releasing new movies to the theaters.

    I don't get the feeling that the general public had that much interest in Tenent.

    Even the thread on our forum has very mixed results with a lot of negative comments.

    We have only one single summer tentpole movie and it is released at the end of summer.

    How bright is that?

    Common sense would also dictate that with the reluctant public, together with movie theaters being operated at 50% of capacity, that new releases are not going to dhow strong opening numbers (at least here in the U.S.).

    What might have been expected in one month, is now going to take three months, maybe more...

    This is just the way things are and I don't see that they are likely to change in the near future.

    Least we forget the non-essential working class that have been out of work, due to forced closings.

    Movies have been out of sight and out of mind for five months now.

    There is no urgency for people to return to theaters. Many can't afford to do so anyway.

    When you have extraordinary circumstances, extraordinary action is required.

    After 9-11, the economy was stalled and many segments had come to a complete halt. Nobody was buying cars. The manufacturers started offering $5k rebates, 60-month 0 % financing, sign and drive with no money down. It worked!

    Here the distributors are not making concessions, neither are the theaters.

    This is a time where the entire movie industry is going to have to make massive concessions, that is if they intend on remaining in business.

    Now is not the time for movies with $200M budgets, now is the time to release movies with $10M budgets.

    Theaters need to be offering a large popcorn and a large coke for $5 indtead of $10.

    Going to a movie used to be affordable, now it is not. I has to return to affordability.

    Studios have to decide right now if they are going to rely on streaming as a move for distribution or not.

    This decision has to be made before all of the theaters close, not afterward.

    Unless issues are adressed and positive decisions are made soon, there is simply not going to be any more movie theaters...
     
    Jrr, alexpop, brownie61 and 2 others like this.
  6. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    General public no interest in Tenet? I think that’s the basic truth. I’m sure if James Bond : “No Time To Die “was out it would have fared better. People have to be wowed back to the cinema with a kiss kiss bang bang.
     
    Shawn and SandAndGlass like this.
  7. Jord

    Jord Forum Resident

    Location:
    The Netherlands
    First off. Very good points. I would advice you to structure your posts a bit better, not leaving an empty line after every line. You made a great posts but it made it a bit harder to read.

    Now onto the points you made. You are quite right. Covid is a problem now but it illustrates a ton of other problems that have been plaguing the movie industry for years. Covid only accentuates them.
    Movie budgets have been skyrocketing for years which is a curve that's bound to crash, as we've seen now. Covid accelerates this but it would have happened after a while regardless. the problem now is that studios have a lot of expensive movies that got shelved because there is no way they can make back their budget in this climate. I do think however that the bigger problem for the movie industry is the long term impact, after Covid has moved away.

    There is simply too much competition for the movie theater industry nowadays. If you look at movies in itself, watching a movie at home has become a very viable alternative in recent years. I'd say the advent of HD tv's was a massive step in this direction and I feel that the 3D gimmick in theaters was a way to counter this. Fast forward a few years later and now we have relatively affordable 4K TV's that provide the consumers with a visual quality that makes the difference with the screen in movie theaters negligible. Then there is the comfort factor. You can pause a movie when you want, watch when you want. With who you want. Concessions are a lot cheaper. Those are some huge pluses.
    No you can't watch every new movie (although the Straight to VOD releases certainly steer in that direction now) but with the extreme selection in movies on dvd, blu-ray, digital copies and streaming you literally have over 100 years of cinema to explore at the leisure of your own home.

    Then there are other forms of entertainment. Just take a look at gaming. Both actively, as well as passively by watching in Twitch. Are they the same as movies? No. That being said, they are competition since you can only spend your time once. Looking at a sales figure, video games are slowly eclipsing the movie industry. In this current climate, games are thriving as shown by the massive success of games like Animal Crossing this year and there is really no sign of slowing down:

    [​IMG]
     
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  8. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    I don't have that one on my list, due to the advance publicity that I have heard.

    Quite true, while a James Bond movie, might well be quite the thing, I don't think this particular one quite does it for me.
     
  9. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Referring to the masses per se.
    Not interested in the new James Bond film myself.
     
    SandAndGlass likes this.
  10. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    Thank you for pointing this out to me. I retired back at the end of 2018 and have been on the road since 2019. I don't have Internet access where I have been staying. That previously had not been an issue, because of places like Starbucks, ehere I could drink my coffee and have wireless Internet access on my laptop.

    Since March and the lockdown started, this was no longer possible and I put a data plan on a local phone that I have been using.

    It is one of those small smartphones, that I had never intended to use for anything but simple texting.

    Due to it having a very small screen compared to my laptop, I can't really tell what the formatting would look like on a regular size screen.

    Actually, I was aware of it in authorizing this post because I did deliberately make more line spaces than I normally would have, because I wanted to place emphasis on several different points, in a manner similar to using bullets.

    I will add though, one of my main personal pet peeves is when people post in large blocks of text, without placing paragraph line breaks inbetween paragraphs to break up the text so that it is more readable.

    I have said that myself in other movie related posts.

    Tentpole movies are great and they have their place. But it seems that they have overrun good, ordinary movies.

    It is still quite possible to make a decent movie with quality no name actors and a good story line for $10M.

    It has been a viable alternative since the days of Blockbuster Video and VHS tape rentals.

    The 3D gimmic was introduced in the 50's along with other gimmics to combat the new advent of prople having a TV set in their homes.

    TV's have vastly improved in quality since the early projection TV sets in the early 80's.

    A 4k TV in a home has a better picture than a 4k picture in a theater that is projected on a 40' screen.

    Let's not forget about the audio. The audio part of my HT has better surround sound and clearer dialogue than in a typical multiplex.

    I figured this out when I started to collect used VHS tapes back in the 90's. By the end of the decade, I had 3,800 prerecorded taps in my collection. About 600 were pre 1960 and went back to The Birth of a Nation in 1915.

    They have long surpassed sales of movies in the home market.
     
    alexpop likes this.
  11. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    I have no probs with your posts. It’s the content that counts.
     
  12. Deuce66

    Deuce66 Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    more bad news for the industry this time from Disney

    Movie industry dealt devastating blow as 'Black Widow,' Marvel slate postponed

    Disney’s new release schedule:
    • “The Empty Man” moved to Oct. 23, 2020
    • “Death on the Nile” pushed to Dec. 18, 2020
    • “The King’s Man” dated for Feb. 12, 2021
    • “Black Widow” will now debut May 7, 2021
    • “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” pushed to July 9, 2021
    • “Eternals” moves to Nov. 5, 2021
    • “Deep Water” now slated for Aug. 13, 2021
    • “West Side Story” shifted to Dec. 20, 2021
     
  13. Mirrorblade.1

    Mirrorblade.1 Forum Resident

    I foresee... pulling out the magic card of future prospects.. these will fail as bad as new coke in 1980's.
     
  14. Lance Hall

    Lance Hall Senior Member

    Location:
    Fort Worth, Texas
    Hasn't the comic book movie trend finally come to an end?
     
    SandAndGlass likes this.
  15. Jord

    Jord Forum Resident

    Location:
    The Netherlands
    Interesting. Curious to see what this will do with the whole MCU, scheduling wise.
    Originally we were supposed to get BW this spring I think, with Falcon & the Winter Soldier arriving late summer and Wandavision maybe at the end of the year.
    Now we'll get Wandavision first, BW in spring next year and FATW coming in "2021".

    I would think that BW would be fairly stand alone, seeing as how her story already ended but WV is supposed to tie in to the new Dr Strange movie and FATW will obviously tie in to future Avengers movies. (with the new Thor movie being the first movie that could have a tie in related to FATW)
     
  16. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    MCU scheduling?
    Late 2021.
    Wouldn’t be surprised 2022.:sigh:
     
  17. Stereosound

    Stereosound Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Paramount which will be on Paramount+ soon and Universal which is on Peacock. MGM and Sony/Columbia but they don’t have their own platforms at the moment. Well Sony had Crackle but I think they sold it.
     
  18. brownie61

    brownie61 Forum Resident

    Well, AMC is finally showing something I want to see badly enough to lure me back to the theater. But it’s not a Hollywood movie, it’s a one-night only special event Stevie Nicks concert film. I’ve been to a number of these special event concert films and I always love them. I’m looking forward to it and it should be fun.
     
  19. Ilusndweller

    Ilusndweller S.H.M.F.=>Reely kewl.

    Location:
    Columbus, Ohio
    Theaters:2020 as Blockbuster:Y2K

    Covid has theaters in a chokehold.
     
  20. brownie61

    brownie61 Forum Resident

    Unfortunately, with almost a month to go until this screening, tickets have already been sold which are much too close to mine for comfort. This is an old fashioned stadium seating arrangement, where the seats are on top of each other. There is already a party of three 2 rows directly behind me, and there is an open seat for sale with only one empty seat left next to me. I’ll let it go a little longer, but I think I’m going to bail and request a refund.
     
    Last edited: Sep 27, 2020
  21. Deuce66

    Deuce66 Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    Yes and getting ready to tap out.

    AMC warns it could run out of cash this year

    • AMC has warned investors that it is in danger of running out of cash by early 2021.
    • A bare movie calendar and continued lackluster attendance has left its business hemorrhaging cash.
    • The chain is exploring several ways of acquiring additional sources of liquidity and ways to increase attendance.
    AMC, the largest cinema chain in the U.S., warned investors on Tuesday is in danger of running out of cash by early 2021.

    Shares of the company tanked by 7.8% in early trading Tuesday. AMC’s stock, which has a market value of $446 million, has plunged 44% this year.

    In a public filing, the movie exhibitor said a bare movie slate and lackluster attendance has left its business hemorrhaging cash with little hope of recouping losses in the near future.

    As of Friday, AMC said, has been able to reopen 494 of its 598 U.S. theaters, but only at a limited capacity of 20% to 40%. The remaining theaters are in California, Maryland, New York, North Carolina and Washington. These theaters, although only around 17% of the company’s total footprint, represented nearly a fourth of the company’s total revenue last year.

    For now, there are only four major films on the slate for the rest of the year: Universal’s “The Croods: A New Age,” Disney’s “Free Guy,” Paramount Pictures’ “Coming 2 America” and Warner Bros.′ “Wonder Woman 1984.”

    And even their release dates could change as coronavirus case numbers continue to rise and some states remain stringent about keeping movie theaters shuttered.

    Over the past seven days, the U.S. has been adding about 50,000 new coronavirus cases a day, which is up nearly 13% from a week ago. Public health officials anticipate the virus could spread more rapidly as the weather gets colder and people begin to spend more time indoors.

    AMC said it is in talks with local and state government officials from these states, but there is no clear timing for when these locations will be able to reopen.

    California has loosened restrictions on movie theaters, but only around 139 of the state’s more than 500 cinemas are open. New York’s guidelines have remained firmly against theaters reopening. As of last weekend, only two of New York’s nearly 300 locations were open.

    Cinema owners have rallied together to try to pressure New York, in particular, to permit theaters to reopen. Studios have made it clear to these operators that if the state does not reopen, major blockbusters will continue to be delayed.

    AMC has already renegotiated its debt to improve its balance sheet this year and is exploring several ways of acquiring additional sources of liquidity and ways to increase attendance levels, which have fallen 76% compared with last year.

    The company is looking into additional debt and equity financing, renegotiating with landlords concerning lease payments, possible asset sales, a joint-venture with an existing business partner and minority investments in its stock.

    “There is a significant risk that these potential sources of liquidity will not be realized or that they will be insufficient to generate the material amounts of additional liquidity that would be required until the company is able to achieve more normalized levels of operating revenues,” AMC warned.

    AMC is also banking on a deal it struck with Universal in July that allows Universal to play a movie for as little as 17 days in theaters before being permitted to release it on premium video on demand. This could help offset some of its losses as AMC gets a cut of revenue from those sales.

    The expectation is that Universal will tap into this deal with its second “Croods” film, due out on Thanksgiving. That would allow Universal to bring the film to the home market just ahead of the winter holidays.

    Other cinemas are also getting creative to make money during this time. Rival theater chain Cinemark has been heavily promoting its private theater rentals. Before the Covid-19 outbreak, renting a theater could cost $250 to $500, depending on the size of the auditorium. Now, rentals cost $99 to $175.

    Cineworld-owned Regal decided last week to cut its losses and temporarily shutter until New York permits theaters to reopen. Its CEO Mooky Greidinger told CNBC that it was losing more money by being open than it was being closed.
     
    SandAndGlass likes this.
  22. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    No.
     
  23. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    SandAndGlass likes this.
  24. visolo

    visolo Well-Known Member

    Or when Universal releases Jurassic World 3.
     
  25. Chris DeVoe

    Chris DeVoe RIP Vickie Mapes Williams (aka Equipoise)

    I've had plenty of private screenings for the cost of two tickets.
     
    the pope ondine and SandAndGlass like this.
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