THE FILM INDUSTRY: EXHIBITION

In our study about the Film Industry, we have been working from both the FDA materials and the FutureLearn course.

 

Please read today’s news about the latest Bond release and Cineworld.

Read the article copy / paste the questions into a Word document and save into your laptop folder FILM INDUSTRY. Email me by Thursday 8 October.

 

Header for your document: YOUR NAME    The Film Industry: Exhibition

 

1.    How many theatres does Cineworld have and how many jobs are involved?

2.    MGM and the UK’s Eon Productions have decided to push back the release of the already delayed latest Bond blockbuster to 2021 with what impact on Cineworld?

3.    What hopes had the cinema industry pinned on No Time To Die ?

4.    What part did Christopher Nolan’s Tenet play in the decision?

5.    When are when Warner Bros’ Dune and Wonder Woman 1984 are due to be released, and why at that time of year?

6.    For Phil Clapp, chief executive of the UK Cinema Association, is Cineworld the only exhibitor threatened by the decision of the film studios to postpone big-budget releases?

7.    How had Disney released Mulan?

8.    How have smaller operators like Picturedome managed?

9.    What has the crisis meant for Peckham Plex, an independent cinema in southeast London?

10.  Explain in detail the comment “The delay is not only a blow to cinemas.”

11. How many theatres are there in the Vue chain?

Cinema giant Cineworld to shut after 007 fiasco

The decision to push back the release of the new Bond film again could bring down the curtain on struggling cinemas

Daniel Craig in No Time to Die, his fifth and final outing as James Bond

Sabah Meddings, Liam Kelly and Shingi Mararike

Sunday October 04 2020, 12.01am, The Sunday Times

Cineworld, which has 128 theatres in the UK and Ireland, is this weekend writing to Boris Johnson and the culture secretary, Oliver Dowden, to say that the industry has become “unviable” because of the decision by film studios to postpone big-budget releases.

It is drawing up plans to close all its UK sites as soon as this week, according to sources familiar with the discussions. The move puts up to 5,500 jobs at risk.

Film industry bosses had hoped that the planned release of No Time to Die would kickstart a revival of cinema-going next month and resuscitate a sector that has been fighting for survival since the lockdown in March.

But on Friday, MGM and Britain’s Eon Productions said the latest Bond film, due to hit UK cinemas on November 12 — having already been delayed from April — would be pushed back to April next year.

The decision follows a lacklustre box office performance for Christopher Nolan’s Tenet and leaves cinemas with virtually no big movies to lure families until late December, when Warner Bros’ Dune and Wonder Woman 1984 are due to be released.

Bond’s delay will be a huge blow to cinema operators who had brought staff back from furlough and reopened in anticipation of a busy opening weekend.

Phil Clapp, chief executive of the UK Cinema Association, said: “The announcement is probably the most serious blow to UK cinema operators of a number of similar announcements over the past few weeks and will undoubtedly cause a significant number of cinemas to close again.”

Film studios had already pushed back the release of some films and opted to show some on streaming services instead. Disney shunned cinemas altogether with its newest film, Mulan, which it released on Disney Plus. It has left cinemas scratching around for something to show.

Adam Cunard, whose Picturedrome group owns seven cinemas in towns including Bognor Regis in West Sussex and Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, has brought in local comedians to entice customers. Cunard, 33, said trading had been “horrendous” in recent weeks, with daily admissions down from 300 to just 20.

“When you rely on your summer release as Pinocchio, an Italian film dubbed in English, God help you,” he said. “All my staff can see the writing on the wall. There’s no one coming through the doors.”

Picturedrome is among the 150 smaller operators that run 350 venues in the UK, out of a total of 800. The Cinema Association estimates that about 70% of these are open. The rest had been planning to start up again in the coming weeks in anticipation of the release of No Time to Die.

Peckham Plex, an independent cinema in southeast London, wrote to customers last month to tell them it would be closing on September 25, after poor sales since it reopened in August. “For some it is the understandable concerns about the risks of Covid-19, but for most it is about the lack of available films,” the chairman, John Reiss, wrote.

Tyrone Walker-Hebborn, who has owned Genesis cinema in Whitechapel, east London, for 21 years, called the Bond postponement a “huge blow on top of many others we’ve had in the last few months”.

Despite a “brief shot in the arm” from the release of Tenet in July, Genesis has been taking about 30% less than it usually would at this time of the year.

Cineworld, which is expected to announce its closure as early as tomorrow, had reopened the majority of its cinemas in July.

The chain, which declined to comment, warned last week that it did not expect admissions to recover to pre-Covid levels until at least 2023.

The majority of its staff will be asked to accept redundancy, with possible incentives to rejoin the company when theatres reopen — likely to be next year.

The delay is not only a blow to cinemas. The 007 franchise has scores of commercial deals worth hundreds of millions of pounds with brands such as Aston Martin, brewer Heineken, watchmaker Omega and DHL, the delivery company. David Haigh, chief executive of the consultancy Brand Finance, said he estimated the Bond brand is worth as much as £10bn.

The delay means a painful few months ahead for British cinema. Tim Richards, chief executive of the Vue chain, which has 90 cinemas in the UK, said there were many occasions when a Bond release would be the biggest story of the year. “It will be a potential death blow to smaller operators,” he said.