Cineworld Joins AMC On Banning Universal Amid Trolls World Tour

[RAMROD 96,175]

Following flurry of dramatic exchanges involving AMC, the National Association of Theatre Owners and Universal, Regal Entertainment owner Cineworld Group has now added its voice to the chorus of windows controversy surrounding Trolls World Tour. The world’s second biggest circuit says its policy with respect to the window “is clear, well known in the industry and is part of our commercial deal with our movie suppliers… We make it clear again that we will not be showing movies that fail to respect the windows.”

Cineworld also calls Universal’s decision to opt for a PVOD release on the DreamWorks Animation sequel, “completely inappropriate,” adding that it “certainly has nothing to do with good faith business practice, partnership and transparency.”

Parts of Cineworld open letter;

"Universal unilaterally chose to break our understanding and did so at the height of the Covid-19 crisis when our business is closed, more than 35,000 employees are at home and when we do not yet have a clear date for the reopening of our cinemas.

Universal’s move is completely inappropriate and certainly has nothing to do with good faith business practice, partnership and transparency.

Mooky Greidinger, Cineworld’s CEO approached Brian Roberts, the Chairman of Comcast, back in 19th of March (after Universal announced that Trolls 2 would be released in breach of the window) and told him among other things that:

Nice words from your team are worthless if we cannot trust you as a partner."

 

FYI: Cineworld is 2nd largest cinema chains in the world (9,518 screens across 790 sites in 11 countries: the UK, the US, Canada, Ireland, Poland, Romania, Israel, Hungary, Czechia, Bulgaria and Slovakia.) after AMC  (8,200 screens on 661 cinemas in the USA, over 2,200 screens on 661 cinemas in Europe, and many more on more countries)

 

Full story on Source:

https://deadline.com/2020/04/cineworld-regal-universal-trolls-world-tour-theatrical-windows-1202920828/

 

 

The two major chains is innon Universal. As expected, the dominos effect begins. Universal is really fxcked. 

[cacaca 1,197]

I mean... this is surely only temporary? 

These big chains need to be playing as many blockbuster hits as they can when cinemas reopened or they're f*ked.

People aren't going to want to go to the cinema for a while yet.

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12 minutes ago, permotio said:

I mean... this is surely only temporary? 

These big chains need to be playing as many blockbuster hits as they can when cinemas reopened or they're f*ked.

People aren't going to want to go to the cinema for a while yet.

 

Unless Universal crawl back to them and apologize, I don't think they would. Which I believe Universal will do exactly that. Since, for sure Universal will never want to release Fast & Furious and Minions stuffs on streaming, there are so much money in there, and I am sure Universal wants all of it. So, losing these two major cinema chains from their list is a big loss that they'd rather not have. 

[edengowon 9,643]

good, the decision by universal to release all future movies on streaming at the same time as their cinema releases was foolish and a clear endangerment of the cinema industry. if universal won't support cinemas, then cinemas won't support universal.

[Rudz Xinc 7,929]

What's the whole drama behind this? I don't get it.

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2 minutes ago, Rudz Xinc said:

What's the whole drama behind this? I don't get it.

 

to put it simply:

6 minutes ago, Autumn said:

the decision by universal to release all future movies on streaming at the same time as their cinema releases was foolish and a clear endangerment of the cinema industry. if universal won't support cinemas, then cinemas won't support universal.

 

[Defmix100 5,553]

I thought cineworld did this first a few weeks ago, and Odeon cinemas before that

[freebit 6,069]

Aren't these chains likely close to bankruptcy anyway? I don't think people will want to go to the movies anytime soon, though I could be wrong. New releases were kind of heading towards a VOD format before this purely because of demand. If these studios could cut out the middleman (theater chains) and collect all the profits for themselves then I think VOD releases is still an attractive prospect for them.