Movie theaters officially dead

[Guest Lobo]

31 minutes ago, AustinMT said:

So it’s a mess.  This is straight from someone at a high level in the industry:

1.  Theaters hyped that loosened restrictions and the release of Tenet and Ninja Turtles would jump-start the business.  It didn’t, and the studios pushed everything back.

2.  The result of everything getting pushed to next year means a lot (I mean a lot) of screens will close permanently in the US, unless there is a bailout.

3.  Without a lot of screens, studios will release movies overseas (where movies are faring much better) and less so in the US, and move more to streaming

      — the studios were already ready for this.  Think about it — Disney has a streaming platform (and owns 20th Century in addition to its own studios); NBC/Comcast, which now has a streamong platform, owns Universal.  ATT/Warner owns Warner Brothers and New Line. and has a streaming platform through HBO; CBS/Viacom owns Paramount, and has a streaming platform.  That leaves Sony.

4.  The secondary fallout will be large.  Lenders could previously hope for a sale, or a Ch 11 with a sale process, but there won’t be buyers.  The hard assets are worthless.  Oh — and what are landlords going to do with these giant boxes?

 

To that 2. point---I don't see a bailout of this particular industry happening.  For one thing, most Americans do not understand the financial arrangement/financial separation between studios, distributors, and the theaters themselves.  Nor do they care.  They'll see a bailout of the theaters will be seen as a bailout of Big Studio.  And we think of Big Studio as wealthy people paying other wealthy people piles of money to look pretty and talk on film.  And we have to pay $15 for a ticket and $10 for popcorn to see it happen.  The average American does not know what their mother's hip replacement surgery cost last year, but we sure as shit know what a movie ticket and theater popcorn cost.  So the sympathy card is gone.  The nostalgia factor is almost all dried up as well.  If we were talking about the small-town main street mom n' pop 2-screen cinema, then maybe.  But we're talking about, as you said, the Big Box eyesores that nobody gives a shit about except the NNN landlord.  We'll continue to bailout airlines, maybe even hotels, long before anybody on Capitol Hill gives fuck all about movie theaters.  But if anybody can successfully lobby D.C. to get something completely unnecessary done, it's Hollywood.  Can you imagine being some 70 year old Congressman, and Meagan Fox and Margot Robie come into your office in tight fitting pencil skirts to talk to you about saving an American Institution like the Movie Theater, right after AMC lobbyists just stroked your Super PAC a check for $500k?  

I don't know anything about their new distribution pivot overseas or the streaming wars of any of that.  I just know the real estate side is so much more dire than even people in the industry are willing to admit.  I think the ones inside shopping malls or the unique one-offs like Alamo Drafthouse or Bullock IMAX, I think those can weather the storm (I'm just using local examples, you can insert names/properties from your neck of the woods anywhere in this paragraph).  But the ones in strip centers or PAD sites...those are absolutely dead men walking.  Nevermind the inferior product (I don't give a shit they installed reclining seats or upgraded the sound systems).  The real estate nut is just too large for most theater models.  The good news in the theater business is your G&A, after your NNN lease payment, is pretty damn attractive based on square footage.  You can have 5 stoned teenagers run a huge multi-plex on a weekday, and the margins on your concessions are of course why you're in the business in the first place. 

But the strip center/PAD theater model...when they can't be a tenant anymore...the ripple effect is going to destroy thousands of strip centers around the nation in a matter of a year.  Those legacy lease rates bake in that the theater will be an anchor of that strip center.  When they leave 5 years into a 10 year lease...you can't restructure that massive amount of shortfall.    The triple-net costs bake in that the theater will cover a huge portion of the property taxes, property management, and insurance.  And what do theaters need in addition to that huge building with lots of A/C?  They need gobs and gobs of parking.  The property owner is now not only stuck with 50,000 square foot box, but 250 impervious cover parking spaces.  They have to still pay property taxes on all that land that's not needed for parking.  He can try to spread those costs into the leases of the coffee shop, nail salon, yogurt place, and bank...but they're gonna threaten to break their lease and walk.  What the hell is the owner gonna do with that box, and as importantly, all that covered land that he's being taxed and insured on?  Again, I'll let experts speak on the business model itself, but from a real estate perspective...the death of the theater and their parking lots is going to drag down entire strip and retail centers all across the nation.  We're not just going to have big box eyesores, we're going to have entire dead blocks because so much of the NNN lease model was formulated around the theater and it's space needs.  We really should start giving some thought to stopping the paving over of America for 15 minutes.  

[Gene Parmesan 4016]

Even if you have your streaming platform aren't you still taking it in the shorts?  I just don't see how Mulan or any of the other early releases are making much money direct to streaming.  Something is better than nothing, but that's certainly not sustainable for what are supposed to be blockbusters.  

[mdmost 43076]

Marvel isn't going to make a billion dollars on one of the movies going on a streaming platform. Mulan only did maybe 30 million dollars. In theaters, it would've made closer to 200 million dollars.

[Js1 85651]

10 minutes ago, mdmost said:

Marvel isn't going to make a billion dollars on one of the movies going on a streaming platform. Mulan only did maybe 30 million dollars. In theaters, it would've made closer to 200 million dollars.

Wikipedia says $200 million budget - $66.8 million in box office.

I would guess that:

A) more reliance on international box office receipts

B) scaled back marketing budgets for the films - it was estimated each delay cost Disney $200k - $400k in marketing fees (possibly $5 million by moving it out of the summer schedule) and they spent $50 million on global advertisement of the film

[mdmost 43076]

I believe that 66.8 million includes Chinese box office receipts & Disney+ revenue ($30 a pop). It bombed in China which is odd because it was seemingly made for China. 

[Pato del Muerto 52664]

How big a hit did Disney end up taking though, since it kept all domestic money instead of sharing with theaters.  And probably scaled back advertising. 
 

theaters are eating shit because they lose ticket revenue plus food and drink. 

Edited October 8, 2020 by Pato del Muerto

[Js1 85651]

11 minutes ago, mdmost said:

I believe that 66.8 million includes Chinese box office receipts & Disney+ revenue ($30 a pop). It bombed in China which is odd because it was seemingly made for China. 

66.8 includes China - BoxOfficeMojo says China was 40 million of that.

They filmed parts of it in Xinjiang and it was a controversy, which caused the Chinese government to order media outlets not to cover the movie's release.  Oh and the star made comments in support of Hong Kong.  Not a good way to go for Chinese movie audiences. 

[mdmost 43076]

She made comments in support of the crackdown of HK protesters

Quote

In the lead up to its release, Disney’s live-action Mulan has generated a surprising amount of political controversy. First, in 2019, star Liu Yifei spoke out in support of Hong Kong police despite law enforcement’s brutal treatment of pro-democracy protesters. Her comments sparked the hashtag #BoycottMulan—a rallying cry that was renewed after some eagle-eyed viewers noticed that Disney had thanked eight government bodies in Xinjiang, a Western province, in the film’s credits. Parts of Mulan were shot in the province, a disturbing revelation as it’s the same region where China has forced an estimated 1 million to 2 million Uighur Muslims, a local, oppressed minority, into concentration camps. 

 

Edited October 8, 2020 by mdmost

[Js1 85651]

Yeah you're right.  I wonder if that dampered it elsewhere. 

[Gene Parmesan 4016]

1 hour ago, Pato del Muerto said:

How big a hit did Disney end up taking though, since it kept all domestic money instead of sharing with theaters.  And probably scaled back advertising. 
 

theaters are eating shit because they lose ticket revenue plus food and drink. 

I think most ticket revenue goes to the studios.  That's why concessions have such a huge markup.  I'd guess Disney ate a huge shit burger on this.  I wonder how much studios rely on the blockbusters to make their nut for the rest of the year.

[Pato del Muerto 52664]

53 minutes ago, Gene Parmesan said:

I think most ticket revenue goes to the studios.  That's why concessions have such a huge markup.  I'd guess Disney ate a huge shit burger on this.  I wonder how much studios rely on the blockbusters to make their nut for the rest of the year.

It’s staggered so that each week the theater gets more of the revenue I believe. I just don’t know the splits. 

[CooterBrown 18038]

It’s staggered so that each week the theater gets more of the revenue I believe. I just don’t know the splits. 

IIRC, it’s 90/10 the first two weeks and moves to the theater’s favor after a month. Theaters love films like Titanic that stay popular for months because they make a ton of cash on them.

[Guest Lobo]

I think everyone involved in the making, distribution, and theatrical screening of "Titanic" loved it.  Everyone loved it apparently, except me.  

Some theaters will survive so divorced dads and their kids have something to do, that doesn't involved talking, on Wednesday evenings.  I mean, we started out playing catch or fielding practice, but sooner or later...those lead to talking.  

[HoustonFrog 368]

Shocking that a lot of things in our economy break (especially real estate)when we start using our homes as housing, office space, entertainment space, exclusive dining space.

[NeverMarryAStripper 21996]

On the plus side, a lot of people get to fuck at the office now

[Guest Lobo]

Good point HoustonFrog, but it really begins to beg a deeper, but separate question that many of us have been kinda peppering around the board the last few months.  

There's the business model in question---do we need to pay that much money to see a film at the theater that we can see a couple months later at home for pennies on the dollar?  Is the theater experience worth that much more even without this virus?  There's the business model of restaurants, of bookstores, of banks, etc.  We have come to find out cooking at home with the occasional takeout is healthier and cheaper and just as good sometimes.  We are happy to download books.  We can accomplish more banking on the toilet now than in a half hour in the branch.  so we know the business models have already been changing, and Covid-19 put them on turbo blast. 

But what is not being discussed enough by the private and public sectors is what the hell is gonna happen to all that real estate?  Yeah, retail was dying...but now we're also seeing the death of restaurants, theaters, public spaces, medical professional sub-industries, hotels, and airlines.  Some of those are due to a flaw in their business model that are vulnerable to the pandemic.  Others can weather through the pandemic because they're not reliant on large groups of people coming together inside.  Again, I confess I don't understand the intricacies of many of those business models and markets.  I can watch a stream a movie at my home and skip the theater.  I can't clean clean my own teeth at home and skip a visit to the medical professional complex across town.  So the second part of the equation to me is, even if you can solve for the market compression due to Covid-19 and things go back to "normal"...how do you continue to carry that much real estate on your books?  They'll figure out a way to get movies to lazy Americans.  They prospered despite the VHS player and the Blu-Ray and Netflix original content---they'll make it through the death of the theater.  But those theater deaths are gonna drag hundreds of thousands of acres of retail down with them.  

Ironically, it's the Blockbuster Video paradox.  Blockbuster didn't die because they refused to embrace streaming.  They had a platform and tried to buy other ones, plus the most recognized name in home videos.  They had tons of cash and a nearly limitless credit line.  They died because of their real estate nut.  Nearly 10,000 stores at 6,000 feet each.  60mm square feet.  Let's use the year 2000 prices, NNN lease at say (and they always had the choices pad sites and end-caps...you never had to hunt one down in the back of the strip mall)...$25-$30/foot back then (blended rate, they were everywhere from Manhattan to Lufkin) plus an army of khaki-wearing stoners at $7.50/hour.  They saw the future, a full-on embrace of streaming would saved their business model of bringing great entertainment straight to your living room, but it would have been a tacit admission to their shareholders and creditors that the nearly $5bn/year they spent on rent and employees was largely...unecessary.  The big theater companies are about to have to do the same thing.  They can and should get involved in the streaming game somehow...but then what to do with those tens of millions of useless square feet of HVAC space and the hundreds of thousands of covered acres for cars that will never come back.  /rant

If anybody is starting a theater redevelopment/parking lot infill revitalization REIT...I want in!  I'll be shorting it, but I want in! 

[atomheartbevo 89878]

4 hours ago, Gene Parmesan said:

Even if you have your streaming platform aren't you still taking it in the shorts?  I just don't see how Mulan or any of the other early releases are making much money direct to streaming.  Something is better than nothing, but that's certainly not sustainable for what are supposed to be blockbusters.  

Smaller (cheaper) movies, not as much of a risk (which is why Netflix is pumping out a ton of original content).  Blockbusters...depends, like others said, there's varying amounts that the studios and theaters split depending on the movie and how long it's in theaters.

The revenue stream for a blockbuster can be very convuluted.  First, the cost of the movie and the advertising (which can run close to half of a movie's budget in some cases).  Some of that cost is spread among investors/studios splitting things up.  

If there are toys available, that's an income stream that costs the movie makers nothing up front.  There are other, similar, streams, like books, collectables, comic books, etc., but not nearly as lucrative as toys.  But toys can bomb (see the newer Star Wars movies, you've seen the toys on the shelves long after they should have been sold through).  There's a ton of companies (food products, etc.) that want to slap your movie on their products as well, but I don't know how much this is worth and/or if it falls into advertising.

There is rental revenue (think Amazon putting the movie up for a few months, for however much a 48-hour rental costs, or Redbox, etc.), which is not bad - you start getting into serious money.  Then there is the HBO/Showtime/etc. revenue, and I guess that Netflix and Amazon Prime falls into that category as well, which also gets into serious money, and this also all gets into overseas distribution.  These are all things that bring in money, without costing the studios anything, so they are helping pay the movie production off.

In fact, in some cases, like CBS's Star Trek Discovery, Netflix, not CBS All Access, distributes it overseas, and Netflix's revenue alone is paying for the cost of development.  Some movies live and die by the HBO/Showtime/streaming revenue.

Where it gets dicey is where it goes straight to Disney+ or whatever, skipping a lot of revenue streams ( wide theater release, rental, HBO/Netflix/etc.).  Disney is hoping enough want to cough up $30 extra to make it back.  Some movies, and Disney is best positioned for this, will make a shitload of money off of DVD/Blu-ray sales as well.  Parents buy shitloads of kid movies to keep in the car, for trips, etc.

 

[Post Oak 20310]

46 minutes ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

On the plus side, a lot of people get to fuck at the office now

Username checks out

[atomheartbevo 89878]

18 minutes ago, Lobo said:

But what is not being discussed enough by the private and public sectors is what the hell is gonna happen to all that real estate?  Yeah, retail was dying...but now we're also seeing the death of restaurants, theaters, public spaces, medical professional sub-industries, hotels, and airlines.  Some of those are due to a flaw in their business model that are vulnerable to the pandemic.  Others can weather through the pandemic because they're not reliant on large groups of people coming together inside.  Again, I confess I don't understand the intricacies of many of those business models and markets.  I can watch a stream a movie at my home and skip the theater.  I can't clean clean my own teeth at home and skip a visit to the medical professional complex across town.  So the second part of the equation to me is, even if you can solve for the market compression due to Covid-19 and things go back to "normal"...how do you continue to carry that much real estate on your books? 

It's not good.  We have friends who have a restaurant that, in large part, relied on theater traffic.  They started it with theater traffic in mind, and did quite well until this all hit.  They are hanging in because they received a little aid, and more importantly, their landlord cut them some slack (their landlord has already watched other businesses in the development go under, and they are desperately trying to keep as many in there as possible).  They've also benefited from to-go orders and people wanting to get out of the house, but if the theater goes under (not a Regal), they are fucked long-term.  Their landlord told them that if the theater goes, they will have to try and offload the property as there's just nothing else that can anchor the development - they've been quietly talking to grocery stores, retailers like Target, Walmart, etc., and nobody is biting.

There are a helluva lot of factors involved - if it's one of the newer mega-theaters, some of those were purpose-built to anchor a commercial development along a highway/near a highway intersection - movie theaters and the surrounding businesses were focused on the theater model, because that's the model that would work in those locations.  If they weren't there, it wasn't like another massive business would come in - HEB, Walmart, Target, etc. already have their locations setup, etc.

Anyways, putting aside the cost of demolishing everything, the losses from the businesses/theater that went under, etc., and getting it rezoned (assuming they could), a lot of that real estate is not necessarily prime real estate for housing, as in, nobody wants a house right on the highway (strips malls are great, houses not so much).  

Another little piece of our childhoods is about to die off, following the malls, Sears, etc.

[Guest Lobo]

Of course the downside to all the newfound office fucking, is that  the end of theaters is gonna mean fewer teenagers getting handjobs at the movies.  They’re getting drivers licenses and cars at historic lows. You take away cars and theaters, lot less sexual exploration.
 That means fewer teen pregnancies but a fuckton sexually represssed boys growing up angry.  Unless uber starts renting out the backseat to couples.  there’s still the local park I guess.  

lotsa fun memories at the little two screen theater in LaGrange, IL. If they ever close down and auction off the red upholstered seats, don’t buy one.  Lotta nasty shit went on on those seats back in the 90’s.  

[Chet Steadman 940]

Some of those well-positioned, core theaters have the potential to provide a lot of upside to landlords and tenants in the form of multifamily redevelopment opportunities.  Like, A LOT.  

Most however, are going to be an albatross for the foreseeable future.    

[Guest Lobo]

Core and Core+ can certainly be rezoned and redeveloped.   But I’m thinking the true strip center or stand alone PAD, their locations are just shitty locales for multi family.  You could make a REVPAR model work with those with a value-level/extended stay product though. But again, most primary and secondary markets are gonna have their theaters in good spots so overly priced already due to the lease burdens.  Who wants to buy the Gateway or Regal in Austin to convert to multi family at an 8 cap rate with maybe the possibility of exiting at a 6 cap rate after you’ve already taken a Bath on insanely high buildout rates?   
 

but yeah your scenario could work really nicely in already underpriced secondary markets with two or three theaters in town about to go out from under their lease.  It would save the rest of the retail surrounding it so owners/ground leasing principals should be very willing to play ball in terms. 

[mdmost 43076]

Yeah, they're hibernating for a while

 

[atomheartbevo 89878]

So if you look at their schedule over the next 3-4 months, between Mulan, Mandalorian (dropping weekly), Soul, WandaVision (weekly), and a few other things, they've got subscribers locked in for a solid 3-4 months, if not more.

I haven't looked at their numbers lately, but damn....back in the Spring, they had over 50 million subscribers.  That's $300 million a month, over $3.6 billion a year.  Disney+ can absorb a few tentpole movies that may not make it into theaters, and plenty of non-tentpole movies like Black Widow and Soul.

Edited October 9, 2020 by atomheartbevo

[mulletpelini 5216]

Doesn't help when you've been putting out regurgitated shit product for several years.  Put out a shit product, get shit results.  Fuck em theres plenty of movies from the past 50 years I have on HDD's that I can pull up and watch at home in a theater setting just about as good as what was offered anyways, but with a better final product than what we were seeing there.  Popcorn and soda is cheaper and if I watch Endgame I don't have to watch pee dribble out of my dick from an enlarged prostate because I couldn't pause the movie at the theater to go take a piss after the first 2 hours.

[atomheartbevo 89878]

Wonder Woman 1984 is the last major movie that hasn’t been pushed to 2021.  WB moved Batman and Dune, no way they leave WW hanging around the theater.  

[mdmost 43076]

Free Guy, the next Ryan Reynolds movie, is supposed to be out on December 11th. Though they did cut a funny bit where he and his costars were throwing out random dates in the future that the movie will probably be moved to like Valentine's Day 2021. 

[aggie08 21561]

You know, if you told me that Top Gun 2 was the last movie that I'd ever get to see in a theater, I honestly would be okay with that. But even that seems to be asking too much.

[ChickenSandwich 9856]

Studios are postponing these movies because I assume they don’t want to miss the massive amounts of money from the box office, but by doing so will cause those needed theaters to go out of business?  If so, would make sense for them to become partners and bail them out in some form?

 Or, is the American theater not relevant and their focus is on the world wide box office revenues?

[CooterBrown 18038]

Saw an article the other day that called for Disney to skip their $3B annual dividend and pump that money into new D+ content. They could fund 50+ feature films and series if they did that. That could actually finally destroy theaters for good.

[Michael Knight 13008]

8 hours ago, mulletpelini said:

Doesn't help when you've been putting out regurgitated shit product for several years.  Put out a shit product, get shit results.  Fuck em theres plenty of movies from the past 50 years I have on HDD's that I can pull up and watch at home in a theater setting just about as good as what was offered anyways, but with a better final product than what we were seeing there.  Popcorn and soda is cheaper and if I watch Endgame I don't have to watch pee dribble out of my dick from an enlarged prostate because I couldn't pause the movie at the theater to go take a piss after the first 2 hours.

The movie making industry will survive the movie delivery industry is what is going to die. That industry has nothing to do with making the product you seem to hate so much. Hollywood will be fine and people will still want movies in a post covid world so that content will need to be provided to them in some form. Maybe new theaters will arise from the ashes and we'll just go back to the old ways but that seems unlikely. Places like Flix and Alamo will probably be around but the for the masses trough style chains likely will be gone. Will that in turn impact the content that's made? Brainless action flix go straight to streaming with smaller budgets while the more lets say sophisticated fare is still run in the smaller boutique theaters.

[Guest Lobo]

^

well put.  Again, I profess my lack of knowledge about the movie making business itself.  But I read that Disney holdback of dividends in order to fund $3bn worth of content on D+.  

Uh......if I'm a major theater chain, I just shit myself, forgot all about my real estate needs, and realized that Disney could pretty much corner half the movie revenue to be made next year between Star Wars, Pixar, Marvel, et. al.  If Disney were to do this, every theater chain we discussed up-thread, even if they could somehow salvage their real estate, will now have to seriously consider renting out their properties as homeless shelters during the summer because everybody will be at home streaming Disney+.  You'll get some attendance when the serious Oscar films come out in the Autumn and some Christmas movies.  But I'd just as soon consider shutting my doors from April-September to save on HVAC and staff.  

[Pato del Muerto 52664]

2 hours ago, Michael Knight said:

The movie making industry will survive the movie delivery industry is what is going to die. That industry has nothing to do with making the product you seem to hate so much. Hollywood will be fine and people will still want movies in a post covid world so that content will need to be provided to them in some form. Maybe new theaters will arise from the ashes and we'll just go back to the old ways but that seems unlikely. Places like Flix and Alamo will probably be around but the for the masses trough style chains likely will be gone. Will that in turn impact the content that's made? Brainless action flix go straight to streaming with smaller budgets while the more lets say sophisticated fare is still run in the smaller boutique theaters.

I’m wondering how my little small town, stand-alone, non-corporate owned, 4 screen theater has done and will do going forward. 
they had shut down for a while, then I’d drive by and see “jaws 4:00 7:00” or empire strikes back or some other old favorite. 
now it’s new releases again, but I wonder how much money is being made. 
do they own the building outright?  Can the owners operate the business themselves if it comes down to it?  In theory it could be a 1-2 person job if there’s only 5-10 customers per showing. 

[AustinMT 952]

3 hours ago, ChickenSandwich said:

Studios are postponing these movies because I assume they don’t want to miss the massive amounts of money from the box office, but by doing so will cause those needed theaters to go out of business?  If so, would make sense for them to become partners and bail them out in some form?

 Or, is the American theater not relevant and their focus is on the world wide box office revenues?

My understanding has always been that the profit margin was higher for the US release because of the deals that have to be cut (and people paid) for overseas.Maybe that has changed (and there is certainly now a lot of revenue from overseas releases)

[atomheartbevo 89878]

4 hours ago, CooterBrown said:

Saw an article the other day that called for Disney to skip their $3B annual dividend and pump that money into new D+ content. They could fund 50+ feature films and series if they did that. That could actually finally destroy theaters for good.

2 hours ago, Lobo said:

Uh......if I'm a major theater chain, I just shit myself, forgot all about my real estate needs, and realized that Disney could pretty much corner half the movie revenue to be made next year between Star Wars, Pixar, Marvel, et. al.  

While we focus on Disney, it's not just D+ - Netflix, HBO/Warner, and Amazon are all delivering content that is pretty much as good as anything you will see in movie theaters, and more and more of that content is not wrapped up in a 2 1/2 hour movie, but in weekly series that run 10+ episodes.

Look at the newest trailer for Expanse, in the Expanse thread, that Amazon is funding - the quality of those effects is as good as what you see on the big screen within the past 5 years.  The Mandalorian, if you want to bring Disney in, is up there, and by the way, Mandalorian is using new technology that's changing how they shoot effects-laden content (cheaper, better looking, faster to produce), while keeping the quality at movie-level.  Netflix has had multiple series/movies that rise to (or above) where the big-screens were at just 10-15 years ago.

And then let's talk about HBO.  Game of Thrones is what should have had the major theater chains worried over the past 5 years.  Movie-level production values, on a weekly basis, in a fantasy series that was grabbing more eyeballs than the majority of movies that hit the big screen.

And HBO is moving ahead, with a high-budget Green Lantern series, ala D+, rather than running out some Green Lantern movies on the big screen, and you know we are not far off from a weekly series set in the Harry Potter universe.

But ultimately, I'd go back to Game of Thrones.  That is what should have worried the theaters.

James Cameron got fucked a little bit - if he had started production of his Avatar sequels/prequels/whatever,  later this year or next, instead of a series of movies, Disney would have turned it into a massive high-budget series.   Hell, they may still do that in some way.

[Chet Steadman 940]

7 hours ago, mdmost said:

Free Guy, the next Ryan Reynolds movie, is supposed to be out on December 11th. Though they did cut a funny bit where he and his costars were throwing out random dates in the future that the movie will probably be moved to like Valentine's Day 2021. 

Holy crap, I forgot about that movie.  The trailer dropped last year and I remember thinking it had serious potential.  

[Bevo&Pevo 5265]

Ya'll make some darn good points all around.  Something will happen soon, the production companies will need to see a return on this year's spending.

[Deej 77003]

Oh no! We might get less superhero movies? Count me in.

[Michael Knight 13008]

16 hours ago, Deej said:

Oh no! We might get less superhero movies? Count me in.

[BNB 100]

Amazon is probably licking their chops at all the cheap real estate along highways to snatch up for warehouses.

[Guest Lobo]

^

Good point.  Sad thing for the ground lease guys holding their dicks is...they all think they're the girl that's gonna get asked to the dance.  And the math don't add up.  But yeah, if I'm holding the paper on a place like that Metropolitan 14 on South IH-35 in Austin, I'm the first off the sinking ship.  I'm gonna whore myself out there to any warehouse/fulfillment usage now.  You wait 18 months to see how the world of overpriced popcorn at a Pixar flick and overpriced NNN legacy leases shake out...you're gonna be fucked.  May as well go first into the ether and make a deal with the devil.  They can't all be converted into community colleges and hotels.  Somebody has to go first, but it's a tough ask since they all think they'll be blessed by the studios to be their beta test of what's next.  But those 6 acres of parking outside say, "fuck no....take the deal Mitch!"  

[DallasHorn26 586]

it's definitely going to be interesting to see what happens over the next year. I was thinking the other day that I've only been to maybe 4-5 movies in the past year-year and a half. While people will pay the $30 premium for a new movie, studios aren't going to be able to make their money back. We had my youngest daughter's bday party the other night and she requested a movie themed party and wanted to watch the new Mulan. We bought a $35 screen from amazon and built a collapsible PVC frame for it. Her grandparents have a popcorn machine and we bought some boxed candy to set up the concession stand. It was a semi movie theater experience for a handful of adults and a few close family friends for probably less cost than everyone going to the movie and it was fun. After that experience, id rather do that the go to the theater any more.  

[Deej 77003]

Quote

A lawsuit filed against Alamo Drafthouse Mueller accuses the Austin movie theater of failure to pay overdue rent and other expenses.

Mueller Aldrich Street filed the suit in Travis County District Court against Alamo Mueller and Alamo Drafthouse founders Tim League and Karrie League.

“Alamo Mueller has failed to pay rent and other amounts due under its lease, and it has repudiated its obligations to pay rent under the lease in the future,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit is seeking more than $1 million in damages.

https://www.statesman.com/business/20201012/alamo-drafthouse-mueller-faces-lawsuit-over-rent-payment

Edited October 12, 2020 by Deej

[atomheartbevo 89878]

Okay, this should have theater chains shitting in their pants.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/12/disney-reorganizes-to-focus-on-streaming-direct-to-consumer.html

Quote

Disney is restructuring its media and entertainment divisions, as streaming becomes the most important facet of the company’s media business.

On Monday, the company revealed that in order to further accelerate its direct-to-consumer strategy, it would be centralizing its media businesses into a single organization that will be responsible for content distribution, ad sales and Disney+.

 

[Guest Lobo]

Wow, it's happening faster than I thought.  

You can bring a lot of stories to your lessor about why you can't make your nut this month, and they'll work with you.  Pandemic, flood, HVAC went out, some crime happened, etc.  But I'm not sure how, "We can't make rent this month or any other month because cartoon mouse has decided to beam himself directly into our patron's homes."  

Edited October 12, 2020 by Lobo

[freyguy 4306]

[Eskimohorn 5644]

^^^^^^^^
He'sRightYouKnow.jpg
 
 

Wtf is this.

[Eskimohorn 5644]

Yeah Dune in IMAX needs to happen. I’ll see it at the Houston Museum of Natural Science and pay $30 for parking if I have to. 
 
I saw Dark Knight at the IMAX in the Bob Bullock Museum the first day it came out. Holy shit, what a great day. 

Last of the Mohicans at SA Rivercenter back in the day. Who knew the Miami Vice guy could make movies.

[atomheartbevo 89878]

At least the IMAX theaters attached to museums should survive.  

[66BUFF 2566]

18 hours ago, Deej said:

https://www.statesman.com/business/20201012/alamo-drafthouse-mueller-faces-lawsuit-over-rent-payment

Shocked that the founders of Alamo had a personal guarantee on the lease.