Cinemas feel force of Disney’s financial clout
Star Wars fans were thrilled this week when a teaser for the latest film in the series showed Luke Skywalker aboard the Millennium Falcon spaceship for the first time in almost 40 years.
Cinema chains are considerably less excited about the imminent release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, expected to be the biggest-grossing film of the year, after Disney imposed what some described as the most punishing contract terms that they had seen.
Cinema share prices fell yesterday after The Wall Street Journal reported that Disney had demanded about 65 per cent of the ticket revenue, significantly more than usual.
It has also demanded that cinemas commit to keeping the film running in their largest auditoriums for at least four weeks, even if it is playing to rows of empty seats.
If a cinema breaks the terms of this agreement Disney will take an additional 5 per cent of the ticket revenue.
Some independent cinemas say that they will simply refuse to screen the film when it is first released on the grounds that the terms are unworkable, especially in small towns.
Disney is arguably the most powerful Hollywood studio since the 1930s.
Last year it released just 13 films but they included the top five films worldwide in terms of earnings and accounted for more than a quarter of the North American box office.
Disney took over the Star Wars franchise when it bought George Lucas’s company Lucasfilm for US $4 billion in 2012.
Since then it has released Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which became the highest-grossing film of 2015, and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which topped the box office last year.
The latest teaser for the new film, which is set decades after the original trilogy and picks up the action after The Force Awakens, was screened during the baseball World Series decider on Thursday. It showed a grizzled Skywalker, played again by Mark Hamill, gazing around the cockpit of Han Solo’s former ship - the first time he has been seen on the spacecraft since the 1980 sequel The Empire Strikes Back.