Fallout for theaters
Push for simultaneous digital, theater release
Home streaming of firstrun films at the same time they are playing in movie theaters could be on the horizon.
Hollywood studios, in the wake of the decision Wednesday by six theater owners to dump Sony’s controversial “The Interview,” have been emboldened to press theaters at the next round of contract talks to do away with the theaters’ exclusive exhibition window, The Post has learned.
Any change could give studios the right to stream the films directly to movie lovers’ homes on the same day they open in theaters, sources said.
“Something is going to happen that will make digital day and date a reality by January 2016,” one knowledgeable source told The Post on Wednesday.
A group of unidentified studios are working on such a plan to either coopt theater owners or leave them in the dust, the source said.
Purchases of movies and TV shows from digital platforms have grown 33 percent this year through Sept 30, to $1.018 billion, according to the Digital Entertainment Group, an industry research tracker.
Allowing studios to add home streaming to firstrun movies would likely fatten their bottom lines.
“The average digital split is in favor of the studio, with a 7030 share,” one movie business insider said. “In the theaters, there’s a 5050 split.”
The studio insider suggested [Sony] should take “The Interview” and stream it immediately. “It’s like forbidden fruit,” the person said.
A renewed effort by the studios for the right to distribute firstrun movies to more than just theaters is only the latest move by Hollywood to push the daydate distribution model.
The opening came when the large theater owners said they would not show “The Interview” — scheduled to open on Christmas Day — after hackers made 9/11related terror threats to potential moviegoers.
Their decisions gave cover to Sony Pictures to cancel the theatrical release of the comedy starring Seth Rogen and James Franco.
Variety reported that Sony is considering a premium video on demand, or VOD, release for the title, though the studio said it has no plans at all to distribute the film.
Given that Sony has already spent $44 million making the movie — and millions more on marketing — it appears unlikely it would shelve the project indefinitely, sources said.
The movie follows two hapless characters approached by the CIA to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — a plot that triggered the threat by cyberterrorists whom the US government on Wednesday tied to North Korea.
Theater owners, naturally, don’t feel adding distribution points will enrich studios’ bottom lines.
“The general feeling is simultaneous release shifts revenue rather than grows it. It takes away from theatrical,” said one theater industry source who suggested Sony all but encouraged theater owners to cancel the movie.
Studios and theater owners are often at odds.
Most recently, after Weinstein Co. said it would work with Netflix to release a sequel to “Crouching Tiger,” theater owners AMC and Regal said they wouldn’t play it.
In 2011, Comcast tried to collapse the digital window, putting a Universal movie, “Tower Heist,” on its VOD systems three weeks after its release but had to change its plan after theater owners balked.