The Christmas holidays should have been the time for cinemas to make up for the loss of sales of the past nine months. The hard lockdown makes this impossible and consumers are therefore again dependent on streaming services, which have been benefiting from it for months.
This development is also putting pressure on large American studios. What to do with all the new movies that were planned this year? Many premieres have been moved to 2021. Due to the continuing uncertainty, Warner Bros decided to change tack: all films for next year will be released simultaneously in cinemas and on its own streaming service in the US. The news sparked a minor landslide in Hollywood.
The discussion about the exclusivity of cinemas has been going on for years, but has been put on edge. It is now the case that cinemas have the exclusive right to show a film for an agreed period. Only then do they end up in other places, such as streaming services.
Directly in your living room
“It is really a tipping point,” says Ennel van Eeden, media expert at accountancy firm PwC. “We will look back in a few years and conclude that this was the moment when the standard models were opened.”
Film journalist Omar Larabi also recognizes this. “Studios are going to bring movies directly to the viewer in the living room,” he says. “They don’t just want to make movies, but also trade and show. That trend is likely to have negative consequences for the cinema industry. I don’t know if we’ll get back to where we were in numbers.”
PwC is following developments in the Dutch cinema and streaming market and sees the following picture:
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