Drive-in joins fight against Disney Studios film distribution methods
A fight against film giant Disney Studios started by P. E. I.’ s Brackley Drive-in has been gaining support.
Brackley Drive-in owner Bob Boyle tells customers on Facebook why neither “Incredibles 2” nor “Ant-man and the Wasp” were recently on screens.
“We tried to our very best to get what we thought was a great program. At this time, Disney will not play a new film on a single-screen drive-in for less than three weeks for most films. We do not think this is fair to us or our customers,” wrote Boyle on the drive-in’s Facebook page. “You, as the customer, have the right to demand when and where you can watch a film. Only you can change this troubling trend. The studio will not listen to us, but they should listen to you.”
Boyle’s words set off a Twitter and Facebook firestorm, with Disney and the properties it owns receiving numerous messages from fans asking for policy changes.
Saltwire reached out to Disney’s corporate offices and had not yet received a response by press time.
“Disney is doing this in small towns and on single-screens and drive-ins all over the place, and it threatens the viability of the industry,” says Boyle.
He says the Vogue Theatre in Sackville, N.B., Brackley, the Valley Drive-in and the Neptune Drive-in in Shediac, N.B., are all having issues.
Three-week rule
Kirk Longmire, a member of the Coldbrook Lions, which owns the Annapolis Valley staple, says the rules Disney has about how many weeks its films must be played constrain the one-plex and drive-in theatre industry.
“We have to play a Disney movie for three weeks in a row, or we can’t show it at all,” said Longmire. “The rules here aren’t new. We’d be stuck with the same movie and dwindling profits three weeks running, but now that Disney owns Marvel and Star Wars, things are at critical mass.”
Last weekend, Longmire said the Valley Drive-in played “Solo: A Star Wars Story” for the first time, although it’s been in theatres since May 10.
The other film on the doublebill? A third helping of “Avengers: Infinity War,” which blasted the box-office summer season into gear in April.
“We don’t have to play them for three weeks if we wait a month or six weeks to show them, but by then, they’re so old that we won’t make as much money,” said Longmire.
And it could get worse. As it stands, Disney is also in a bidding war with giant Comcast to obtain the rights to FOX, including its film comment. Some FOX properties include X-men, Deadpool, Planet of the Apes, Alien, Predator and more. If Disney is successful, it would then own all FOX film properties, as well as Marvel and the Star Wars rights.