With Coronavirus in the news and hitting the stock market, I’ve received many newsletters and updates on how it might impact the film business. Here’s a straightforward and pretty decent one from the Arthouse Convergence about how to stay prepared as a theater owner, for example, and here’s Variety reporting on how Netflix (and similar companies) might benefit from people staying home and watching television. But I’ll make a bigger bet – if we see a serious quarantine from the coronavirus pandemic, we might see an irreversible impact on film windowing practices, as film companies see the benefits of marketing directly for home viewing and don’t turn back.
Let me be clear- I don’t want anyone to get sick, and I don’t want anyone’s business or their employees to be impacted by a pandemic! But when the shit hits the fan, a lot can happen, and not all of it will be expected. What happens if US (or French…) audiences suddenly can’t go out of their homes for three months? All the talk about postponing films for a bit becomes secondary to – hey, why don’t we launch a few of these titles direct to consumer – conveniently, on these SVOD/AVOD platforms we’ve been developing and that we own – and see what works? And guess what, most of it will work, because very few films really demand to be seen on the big screen (in general and to most consumers). And then the bosses, who have been careful not to alienate their theatrical partners, start looking at their dismal stock prices and relatively decent returns from direct to consumer, and decide that’s where they should put more of their investments. And then it becomes a cycle – it works for smaller or specialized projects, then it works for something bigger, and then… why go back to the old ways of doing things once coronavirus has been solved?
It will only take a few months for this unplanned experiment to make a difference in a business that’s already changing. Yes, once we can all go outdoors again, everyone will rush to theaters (and that box office boost will be significant), but that will be for the popcorn blockbusters that will always work in theaters anyways. The rest of the business might well shift completely to the home. It could be a very bad time for theaters and theatrical based businesses – which are already having a rough Q1, and might not be able to hold on through a sustained quarantine. I also hate to say it, but Jeffrey Katzenberg could not be happier with the timing for Quibi, either.
In the meantime – stay healthy everyone.
Stuff I’m Reading
Film
11 Million Americans Used Streaming Services Illicitly Last Year – A surprisingly well written article by Variety on password sharing, which doesn’t argue that it’s the same as piracy, and instead shows that education will work better than penalization- “Stricter enforcement would likely lead to some conversion to new accounts, but most would revert to ad-supported (i.e. free) options — in other words, attempts to penalize violators largely would be counterproductive;”
Amazon and Netflix to speak at Cannes Lions 2020– But they aren’t moving into advertising, they say…
Studio Ghibli has made a ton of anime music available for streaming – and that’s a nice gift!
Staples is opening podcast studios in six Boston stores– You know Podcasting has gone mainstream when Staples announces they have podcasting studios for rent – according to Endgadget, they are offering cheap studios and equipment to record your podcast.
It’s a short newsletter this week, maybe that’s better?