AMC - Not Again! Please, Stop the Agony

 American Multi-Cinemas (AMC) is the largest cinema chain in North America (over 7,700 screens) and over 2,800 screens in Europe. But with all of those screens comes management issues and the biggest one for AMC is debt and generating revenue to pay it off.

Steering this large ship is Adam Aron and things aren't so rosy for Adam these days (although over the years Adam has become very wealthy at the expense of AMC shareholders and debtors - but that's another story).

Currently AMC stock is trading at $4.40/share indicating a market value of $4.1billion. It is projecting a loss of over $900 million this year. Company debt stood at $11.8 billion at year end 2022, indicating that its debt is over twice the value of the company.

Getting Back to the Point

In February, in what AMC management thought was a stroke of genius in generating more revenue, implemented a new admission pricing policy, termed 'Sightline'.

Under this policy, tickets are priced upon where a patron sat in the auditorium. Center seats cost more than 'off' center ones. Middle and back seats more than a front row seat, etc. 

Upon getting wind of this ridiculous policy Cinema Mucho Gusto published a post decrying this move as a failure from the get-go. And, sure enough, AMC pulled out of the 'Sightline' program this week. 

Citing that their pivot away from the program was "necessary to ensure its ticket pricing stays competitive", it now plans on up charging for "better, more comfortable recliner seats." Obviously, they haven't learned their lesson, and CMG predicts this new policy will also fail.

AMC 'Sightline' seating screen. Yellow are best seats and cost more.

Ever since movie theaters opened seating was on a first-come, first-served basis with all ticket sold at equal price. Over the years this policy was adopted to give 'special' pricing for matinees, seniors, children, etc. Now, many moviegoers purchase their tickets online before going to the cinema, and in most cases, they can choose which seats they want upon purchase - again first-come, first-served.

By instituting rules and up-charges for seating makes it more difficult for the moviegoer and stimies their attendance. Too complicated and costly forces many to wait until the film is streamed and forgo the cinema altogether.

Bad move AMC!

By: Jim Lavorato, Publisher, Cinema Mucho Gusto - a service of               Entertainment Equipment Corporation

       

The Chinese Movie Business is Different ... No Kidding!

 

Chinas has a robust film industry.

It's no secret that the Chinese moviegoer has a very different content appetite from its Western counterpart. This difference was always quite noticeable when going to the movies on my visits to Singapore, which has a large Chinese population, and where most of the films were Chinese productions.

 For mainland China that difference is more pronounced. Any film that is screened in China must first pass muster with the Government censors which is very difficult. Obtaining government approval takes time and once approved that approval can be revoked at a moment's notice.

Chinese film censors are very hardline.

The Chinese have built a very robust film industry and domestic film production is tremendously successful. The Chinese are hungry for entertainment by they abhor any kind of messaging that can be perceived as anti-Chinese. For example, China as a 'bad guy' will never be tolerated. On the social side, LGBTQ+ films are strictly forbidden.

The Chinese crave Western films, but everything is contingent upon understanding what movies will be allowed and which will not.

By: Jim Lavorato, Publisher, Cinema Mucho Gusto

        Sponsored by: Entertainment Equipment Corp.

2023 Summer Sleeper - 'Sound of Freedom'

 Costing only $14 million, the now blockbuster hit, 'Sound of Freedom' is the savior of the '23 summer box office thus far. 

The film, about child sex trafficking, has now grossed over $100 million in its two-week run and is still going strong...all without any international release. 

Billed a 'political thriller' the film was produced and distributed by Angel Studios, a Utha-based company that crowd-funded the film via the Angel Guild, a community of 160,000 that votes on what film will get produced. 

Jim Caviezel plays the lead.

There is now a rush by cinema owners to get the film. It was originally released at 2,534 screens and is now screening at 3,287.

Cinema Mucho Gusto's Take

With a 100% audience rating and an 80% critics' rating from Rotten Tomatoes the film is based upon a true story of a former U.S. government agent who embarks on a mission to rescue children from sex traffickers in Columbia. A subject that Hollywood has shied away from dealing with - for political reasons. Big mistake! 

http://www.eeccinema.com/

Full-Service Cinema Supplier

Despite poor reviews from mainstream media and industry trade rags the film is a huge money-maker and that's all that counts...at least as far as CMG concerned. 

The cinema needs all the help it can muster at the box office and whichever film can accomplish this - I'm an avid proponent. 

And, by the way, 'Sound of Freedom' is a very well made and acted film.

By: Jim Lavorato, Publisher Cinema Mucho Gusto                                                             

                               

Actors Join Writers in Walkout...Their Solution, Web3

 It been over six decades since Hollywood's actors and writers joined forces to strike against the major studios (and which now includes content streamers). The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) with 160,000+ members officially joined the Writers Guild of America (WGA) in their strike this week. 

Are they going in the wrong direction?

The main issues for the strike boil down to two:

• Better compensation in the TV streaming era.
• Concerns around writers and actors being replaced with artificial intelligence.

Most of SAG's members are struggling actors that live job-to-job and require side gigs (food service, bellhop, bartender) to make ends meet. 

Is Web3 their Solution?

To me, the solution for any person that creates anything is Web3 and as a major proponent of Web3 truly believe that Web2 has become a failed construct that must evolve. 

Anyone involved in the creative process should be looking at Web3 solutions, irrespective of the massively ill-informed, and manipulative mainstream media which are themselves part-and-parcel of the major content distributors/owners. 

Entertainment Equipment 
For all of your cinema's needs

TV, movies, music, books, you name the media, are all dominated by a few players...and the content creators get little of the pie. For example, Spotify pays one-third of a cent for each stream of a song.

As, Snoop Dog put it, "Can someone explain to me how you can get a billion streams and not get a million dollars?"

However, it's not Spotify making the money, in fact, they reported an operating loss of $430 million last year. It is the big media companies that are making those billions, that Snoop refers to. Spotify has paid out over $40 billion in licensing fees to these giants. Ergo...smart musicians are leaving big media and Spotify and selling their music via NFTs in Web3. 

The same can be said for live presentations, where the marketplace is even more monopolized, being controlled by Live Nation Entertainment - the ugly and usurious offspring of the merge between Live Nation and TicketMaster.

The Way Forward

The path forward for creators to really own and profit from their original ideas is through issuing unique, one-off digital assets or NFTs, which are an undeniable breakthrough innovation. 

NFTs are the new building blocks for a truly creative-centric system. They allow direct peer-to-peer ownership transfer from creator -to- fan or user. The time has come where the ownership and transfer of ownership via digital assets and the use of these assets to access and add value has arrived. 

Check out these articles on the 4M Performance site:

• How to Create an NFT - 4M Performance
• https://4mperformance.com/what-you-should-consider-when-selecting-a-nft-marketplace/
  
• https://4mperformance.com/creating-marketing-an-nft/
  

For creators, look for companies in your media for assistance and guidance for valuing and selling your NFT creations:

• Aspen - a Web3 musicians' platform by Monax Labs
• Gala Games - helps creators develop NFTs of their video productions.
• ToonStar - an animation studio which allows its NFT community to vote on aspects of its projects, including development.

So, Hollywood writers and actors, perhaps you are negotiating with the wrong folks. It might be better, if not wise, to look in other directions and a new path forward that gives space to even the smallest projects...to dismiss Web3 innovations is to live under the delusion that the current Web2 economy is really working for everyone's benefit. 

By: Jim Lavorato, Publisher - Cinema Mucho Gusto

       

Stunts No Problem for Cruise

 Tom Cruise is known for performing many of the stunts in his films. However, the 61-year-old actor took this to the extreme in his latest film, "Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One".

In the film, he does all of the speed-flying scenes. Speed-flying is not skydiving it is akin to paragliding except that the flyer stays close to the slope of the ground, picking up speed from the wind currents. This vastly increases the chances of colliding with the mountainside - making this sport very dangerous.

According to Cruise, "You're doing spirals and landing at high speed, over 80 kilometers an hour". Video of Cruise Speed-flying.

In another scene, Cruise rides a motorcycle off the edge of a cliff and parachutes to the ground below. Video of Cruise on Motorcycle.

Of the motorcycle-cliff stunt Cruise says, "I was training for this for a long time and I was ready. We did it on the first day of shooting this film. I wanted to get it done."

The 7th film in the MI franchise, 'Dead Reckoning, Part One' opens on July 17th.