joining us now to discuss is Daniel Loria? S
VP of content strategy and editorial director at box office
. Pro Daniel, what were your takeaways from the
efforts of National Cinema Day, I think it was
a great initiative of an industry coming together at a
time when everybody needs to pitch in In making movie
theaters and movie going more accessible for a wide gamut
of people over a weekend that, as you just
mentioned is usually slow. We had some great results
on Saturday. It was actually 9% ahead in terms
of box office and dollar to dollar gross Of the
prior weekend despite heavily discounted tickets. If you can
imagine it, it's$3 tickets at more than 30,000
screens here in the us any format, every showtime
huge discount. And it was still almost 10% ahead
full price tickets from the prior weekend. So when
you look at National Theatre Day, do you think
it's gonna prove to be a gimmick or a promising
strategy for theaters moving forward? I think it's an
ace up their sleeve in terms of the cinema industry
. I think it's a great way to counter a
slow schedule to counter gaps in programming that are happening
now that studios are releasing less films to theaters whenever
you have an opportunity there to come together, make
movie going more accessible and hopefully inject some excitement to
an otherwise low weekend. I don't see why the
theater industry wouldn't take that opportunity again. So following
that excitement and potential momentum. What comes next for
for theaters, following the results of of National Cinema
Day a rebound. And I think the timing here
was great. Not only was it a holiday weekend
, Not only was it on a saturday, was
it available to every single title, premium formats?
Everything. It was a preview for a very strong
slate that we're going to be seeing at the second
half of october through the end of the year.
We have the big superhero titles like Black Adam,
like black Panther Wakanda forever. And we have a
number of awards season contenders that are still coming up
through festivals like Telluride, like venice that are happening
right now, that are probably going to be making
an impact. There's just a great number of titles
coming in for the end of the year and this
was a really good opportunity to show that preview sort
of reconnect with audiences, especially those that haven't found
anything interesting at the theaters over the last couple of
weeks. And to that point in contrast to some
of the great titles coming out this year on a
per theater basis, the top performing film of the
weekend was 1975 jaws. Um, could the solution
I guess lie in the nostalgia kind of re releases
in an industry struggling for kind of new non superhero
blockbusters. Listen, the industry just went through two
year years of programming these re releases when movie theaters
first opened in 2020 and new movies weren't coming out
. Movie theaters got very, very good at marketing
the experience and marketing the theater instead of the title
and they were able to perfect the model that we
saw right here last saturday with jaws coming out.
What is it, a 50 year old film at
this point? Uh, and come out on top
from a per theater standpoint. I think it's a
great example of how despite the disruption in the titles
being available, movie goers still like to go out
and find that exclusive and unique experience in front of
a cinema screen. And that's why I think these
re releases are working now. I think they work
in moderation. I think they work in context,
but there's no question fresh new and exciting content,
fresh new and exciting films are going to be what
drives this industry back the record number, especially in
the, in the long term. But I do
like the idea around, you know, marketing the
theater, the experience there versus the movie, especially
following the last two years. We're all cooped up
and we're looking for travel and we're looking for experiences
as opposed to what we've had over the last two
years um, in some other theater kind of related
news, Movie pass that was recently resurrected and then
launching its beta phase in Chicago Kansas city and I
think Dallas is the theater industry rooting for, for
this to succeed. I think movie theaters are cautious
on what happens with movie pass. This is a
company that had been around for a number of years
before that sort of big, deep discounted$20.
All you can eat buffet happened, a model that
proved to be unviable and that ended up costing a
lot of customer service headaches for theaters, there's nothing
worse for any business in any sector of the economy
. Would your consumers when your best clients are going
up to you with questions about something that you can't
fix yourself when it's a third party producing the service
? It's always a little bit tricky. I think
the big lesson learned from that experience is that movie
theaters need to own the relationship with our customers with
their audience. And I think that's why you've seen
every single major movies theater circuit released their own subscription
service. Movie Pass has an opportunity to re engage
with audiences. It's still a brand that people like
the wait list was sold out within minutes, so
we'll see where it goes. But I think the
success of this is going to come down to that
customer service element. Can Movie Pass provide that customer
service solution that it couldn't in its last iteration?
Yeah. Speaking of its last iteration, this,
this iteration aims to be kind of a more sustainable
and I imagine a more profitable Movie Pass, can
you break down how that can be a good thing
for theaters and theater stocks more broadly. Well what
subscription does is maybe not exactly find new movie goers
, but it increases frequency from existing movies and that's
great, I mean it's going to your power users
, it's going to your most loyal audiences and customers
and making it more accessible and affordable for them to
go more often. That's a win win for everyone
, that's a win for movie theaters, that's a
win for studios and especially for third parties like movie
past offering this sort of service. When I think
about a subscription model, I certainly think about the
last couple of years and and all of us getting
more familiar with subscriptions and and even more reliant on
subscription models I think of streaming most notably however,
then I think about kind of the revolt that's happening
and streaming on the turn that that's pretty high there
as well and I think with that in line is
movie passing, something like it destined to fail again
. You know, how viable is a subscription based
service for, for movie theaters very viable when the
movie theaters do it themselves. We've seen that proven
and not only here in the US through the major
circuits, AMC Cinemark regal they have their own services
, but also overseas in markets like France and England
where subscription has been established for decades now the big
question is, can a third party subscription service work
in the market, that's something that we haven't seen
, imagine if there was a third party pizza,
a subscription service that you could order a pizza from
any sort of chain that would be very difficult to
pull off and sustain were in a similar situation here
with Movie Pass. We know it's a concept when
the companies themselves can find a way to work it
into their business, but when an outside company does
it and tries to get everyone involved, it's a
very ambitious swing. But it might be very profitable
and beneficial if they can find a model that works
. And I guess this point it's a, it's
a wait and see. Let's see if 2.0,
actually is a success. Um or or not,
Daniel really appreciate your time and your insight. Daniel
Loria, SVP of content strategy and editorial director at
box office pro.