{"id":1668,"date":"2020-04-13T15:54:33","date_gmt":"2020-04-13T22:54:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/?p=1668"},"modified":"2020-04-15T08:01:25","modified_gmt":"2020-04-15T15:01:25","slug":"movie-theatres-after-coronavirus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/movie-theatres-after-coronavirus\/","title":{"rendered":"What Happens to Movie Theatres After COVID-19 Ends?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about businesses impacted by Coronavirus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Which businesses thrive, which survive and return back to \u201cnormal\u201d in the coming months and years&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And which businesses <em>don\u2019t<\/em> come back, or come back completely different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As an avid moviegoer, movie theatres are one of the most interesting businesses at risk to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Today\u2019s article in <em>Variety<\/em> about Cinemark \u2014\u00a0one of the three biggest movie chains in the world \u2014\u00a0caught my eye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From the article:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p><em>\u201cStudios have pushed many of their upcoming releases back until later in 2020 or 2021, <strong>meaning that the summer blockbuster season will essentially be a wash<\/strong>. <strong>That\u2019s catastrophic for the movie business, which makes more than half of its revenues during the summer<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p><p><em>\u201cCinemark has furloughed employees and shut down nearly all of its nearly 350 locations nationwide. CEO Mark Zoradi and Cinemark\u2019s board of directors will forgo their salaries during the crisis.\u201d<\/em><\/p><cite><a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2020\/film\/news\/cinemark-debt-sale-coroanvirus-1234578353\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Source<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>From another article in <em>Deadline<\/em>, with the CEO of Cineworld (which also owns Regal):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p><em>\u201cWe have stopped all new projects because we need to be careful and responsible from a cash point of view.\u201d<\/em><\/p><cite><a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/2020\/04\/mooky-greidinger-cineworld-regal-trolls-world-tour-interview-coronavirus-1202899758\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Source<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>When we come out of this pandemic, I think movie theatres will see massive changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here are my best guesses on what happens:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>A lot of cinema locations will close \u2014 and we might lose a big chain (like AMC) in the process.<\/strong> I wonder how many people will be comfortable going to a movie theatre after regular activities are deemed \u201csafe\u201d. As a luxury, I expect movie theatres will see thinned crowds for a while&#8230; and some theatres, or an entire chain, might not survive. Everyone unemployed having to to find new jobs, and when they find new jobs, having to pay for necessities for food, rent, and clothing means that people\u2019s entertainment will come from more affordable options like Netflix and Disney+.<br><\/li><li><strong>The movie theatres that survive will move to more intimate, smaller locations.<\/strong> Like Alamo Drafthouse. This means that movie theatres can reduce the square footage real estate they use, and save a lot on rents and leases. Smaller venues with less seating, and less screens.<br><\/li><li><strong>Less movies will be on the big screen<\/strong>. With smaller venues and less screens, more movies are going to get kicked to video-on-demand right away. There might be a new digital powerhouse that\u2019s created because they buy up a bunch of mid-tier, indie movies and help them with distribution and marketing on digital.<br><\/li><li><strong>We\u2019ll see less time between theatrical and streaming releases.<\/strong> I think there\u2019s a future that movie theatres don\u2019t exist, but I don\u2019t think that&#8217;s going to happen for a while. People\u2019s home theatre setups don\u2019t rival the quality of movies on the big screen. I think a large enough percentage of the population cares about getting the full experience at theatres to keep theatres afloat. But to subsidize the decreased revenue that studios get from less people at theatres, they\u2019ll release on digital while the iron is still hot (I\u2019m guessing 4-6 weeks after release keeping the same ~$20 price per movie).<br><\/li><li><strong> Movie theatres will get more creative about generating more revenue.<\/strong> To increase the average revenue per customer, I think movie theatres will need to get creative. If they have a slim margin for a customer <em>seeing<\/em> a movie&#8230; how can they increase their profit margin another way? An interesting idea could be movie theatres partnering with other entertainment venues. See a movie at a brewery. See a movie, go do laser tag with your kids after. See a movie at a concert venue, and see an artist perform songs from the movie after. I\u2019m sure movie theatres will try a bunch of things, and kickback partnerships are a good way to get revenue fast.<br><\/li><li><strong>Drive-in theatres won\u2019t make a large comeback.<\/strong> Lots of attention on drive-in theatres recently, and I think we\u2019ll see a small resurgence because of physical distancing, but not a huge comeback when this is all over. It still requires a lot of real estate to operate, even if costs to maintain are much lower.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019ll be interesting to see what happens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about businesses impacted by Coronavirus. Which businesses thrive, which survive and return back to \u201cnormal\u201d in the coming months and years&#8230; And which businesses don\u2019t come back, or come back completely different. As an avid moviegoer, movie theatres are one of the most interesting businesses at risk to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1668"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1672,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1668\/revisions\/1672"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}