By AMC Theaters CEO Adam Aron unsurprisingly wants movies to play exclusives in cinemas for longer, what may surprise you is how much longer.
The head of the nation’s largest exhibitor spoke during a quarterly earnings call today and said that there is a “very live debate right now” going on regarding cinema exclusivity windows and that they would “like to convince all the major studios that they should keep movies in theaters longer.”
Windows between a film’s cinema release and its home video/digital release have shortened over time. With VHS the delay was six months. By the time of DVD/Blu-ray it was around three months/90 days and it stayed that way for a long time – shrinking ever so slightly to 74 days by the end of the 2010s.
With the pandemic, the window has gone down to 45 days but some – most notably Universal Pictures titles – have gone to digital quick as 17 or 30 days via PVOD. More consistent is that there is no consistency – if a film flops it will go to streaming sooner rather than later, if it’s a runaway hit it’ll generally stay in cinemas for longer.
Aron says that’s not good enough and wants to go back to not just a consistent 45 days, but pre-pandemic levels again:
“In our view, 17 days or 30 days are too short, [and] this is a conversation that is front and center, live. We believe everybody would make more money if the windows were longer.
So watch this space, we’ll continue to see what can do to convince the industry that it should be firm around this 45-day number. And once we get there, maybe we can extend it to 60 days or 74 days, like it was pre-pandemic. We will all learn together, but this is a very live topic.”
Whether studios will give up PVOD, which has become a solid cash cow for Universal and others, remains to be seen. Multiple releases over the past few years have indicated that PVOD releases don’t cannibalise box-office sales.
Long windows are also still alive and well for certain films with it announced earlier today that “Moana 2” will be hitting Disney+ on March 12th – a full 106 days after it opened in cinemas and long after the film ended its theatrical run.
Source: Deadline
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