Movie theaters have endured world wars, depressions and recessions, and the advent of everything from television to streaming. But COVID-19 and the public health crisis it has generated around the …
Other companies tied to exhibition suffered similar losses. Imax declined 41%, and cinema ad seller National CineMedia fell 60%. Last week theater owners asked the federal government for a bailout package that would include loan guarantees and tax relief, which they said would allow them to stay solvent. As of press time, it was unclear whether the stimulus bill that’s being debated in Congress will include everything the exhibition community is seeking.
“This year’s box office is going to look like the biggest asterisk you’ve ever seen,” says Jeff Bock, an analyst with Exhibitor Relations. “You’ll never be able to compare 2020 to any other year and have it mean anything. It’s going to be a lost year. It just won’t be there.” To underscore his optimism, Aron and other AMC executives in February took a 15% pay cut for the next three years in return for options that begin to pay off when the stock price exceeds $12 a share.
Cineworld said last week that it, too, plans to cut expenditures — and should weather the storm, unless theaters must close for more than two months. If that happens, it added, then “there is a risk of breaching the Group’s financial covenants [with lenders], unless a waiver agreement“I’ve asked my two landlords: ‘I’m not proposing to not pay my rent. But if I get in a jam, can I postpone it?’” says Mark O’Meara, who owns University Mall Theatres and Cinema Arts Theatres in Fairfax County, Va.
Exhibitors have said that their sales would suffer — and movies would lose their cachet — if consumers knew they could watch current films at home. That’s why the largest chains dug in their heels last year when Netflix sought a short theatrical window for Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman.” The movie appeared in just a few dozen independent venues.
Universal and Warner Bros. have especially strong incentives to break the 90-day window. Their parent companies, Comcast and AT&T, make most of their money from subscribers who want content for TVs and mobile devices. When you add it all up, “I don’t see any shining silver lining to get people to want to invest in this group anytime soon,” B. Riley FBR analyst Eric Wold says. “You never know why someone does not go to see a movie. So people always assume it’s something systemic that’s keeping them away.”
Why don’t Wall Street wizards take advantage of exhibition’s depressed stock prices and buy them while they’re cheap? That’s “a misperception held by a bunch of morons,” Wedbush Securities’ Pachter said before the coronavirus crisis. That’s not to say that theaters have been unaffected by TV and streaming. But the trade group says the change was driven by studios, not consumers.
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