Thread by @screening_room_

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE, the new movie from @A24 by @Daniels, is playing at the two suburban multiplexes (Cineplex & Landmark)...

...BUT NOT HERE at our art-house cinema, locally owned & operated by an exhausted small business owner can't seem to finish her taxes.

@A24 @Daniels The movie distribution & booking paradigm we've been operating within here in Canada has been ***unfavourable*** for independent exhibitors for a long time (100+ years?), and we've managed to not just survive, but thrive in our little non-mainstream niche over the past few years.

But the situation with our access to theatrical releases has reached *peak absurdity* in April 2022. It's getting existential over here.

Last week, I was feeling resigned.

Now I am feeling righteously indignant, so I'm going to shout into the Twitter void for a bit.

So: Why are we not playing EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE at our theatre right now, even though it's about to enter its third week of release in Kingston Ontario (pop: 130,000)?

And this is a university town, and we're the only downtown cinema?

And indie cinema is *what we are*?

The movie EVERYTHING is not playing everywhere all at once because Cineplex—a publicly-traded corporation that owns a jaw-dropping 75% of Canada's theatrical exhibition market—will get a slightly larger sliver of the shrinking theatrical pie if we don't show it while they do.

They are able to use their dominant position in Canada to demand that distributors give them *first choice of every single movie* and *exclusive theatrical runs*, so competing cinemas like us need to wait until Cineplex is "done with it" before we can open a film.

Back in early 2020, my movie theatre waited 8 weeks for Cineplex to finish their run of Greta Gerwig's LITTLE WOMEN.

In Week #8, it played daily at 10:10pm only.

How much did it gross for Cineplex for that entire week?

$42

Yes that's right: it wasn't "our turn yet" to play Little Women, because first Cineplex needed to stick it in a near-worthless timeslot on one of their 13 screens so that it could gross $42 *Canadian* dollars, which gets split (roughly 50/50) between them and the distributor.

In Week #9, when we finally got to open the film, it grossed $4482 in 7 days.

Not bad, but what if we got to play it in Week #1, too?

And Kingston moviegoers got to *choose* which movie theatre they would see it at, depending on which experience they preferred?

Now, Kingstonians *do* have a choice over where to see first-run movies... there's a Landmark multiplex too, over 5km north of us. (the Cineplex is 9km away).

Landmark is a Belgian-owned cinema chain that Cineplex tolerates as it prevents antitrust scrutiny.

Look into it.

OK, now regarding Canadian law around monopolies & abuses of market power: I've been told that the legal term for what *might* be going on here is "restraint of trade", but it would be the distributors (not Cineplex) who are the ones being pressured into breaking a law....

... which is why they can't speak up or say anything about it, because they would be implicating themselves.

Canadian distributors are in a crummy situation, and they are not being allowed to fully do their job of strategically putting their freshest, most-vital movies on as many screens as possible to maximize their impact/box office grosses.

Have cinemas filed a complaint with Canada's Competition Bureau? The CB is:

"An independent law enforcement agency that protects... competition for the benefit of Canadian consumers and businesses. Competition drives lower prices and innovation while fueling economic growth."

Yes, we have! A group of independent cinema teamed up & gathered up our "receipts" (evidence) of dirty dealings, and filed an official complaint with the Competition Bureau.

In early March 2020.

Yup. It didn't go anywhere.

Now you may be wondering, does this marginalization happen with indie cinemas in the US? I imagine it does, but not to the same extent as it does in Canada.

Three possible reasons, below:

#1: Canada's population is 1/10 of the US, yet Cineplex is the fourth-largest exhibition chain in North America. Exhibition is a physical/real-estate business that lends itself to regional monopolies.

But our problem is: Canada, a whole country, is "Cineplex territory."

#2: The Hollywood studios *want* and benefit from competition among exhibitors; it helps with their negotiations & it grows the theatrical pie. I imagine they have wielded some influence to prevent any American exhibitor from getting too big.

#3: "Canadians like to believe they live in one of the most sophisticated free-market economies in the world..."

Check out this insightful interview with John Pecman (former head of the Competition Bureau) as to why it isn't.

thetyee.ca/News/2019/03/1…

Oh and here's something interesting you may not know: in late 2019, a deal was made (approved by the Canadian courts) for a UK theatre giant (Cineworld) to buy Cineplex!

The deal fell through due to covid.

If it had gone forward, then overnight, all 165 Cineplex cinemas would be owned by a foreign company, which just seems wrong, if you think of cinemas as cultural infrastructure. I could go on.

Oh and Cineplex then sued Cineworld in Ontario and won:
globalnews.ca/news/8452159/c…

Oh lord, this tweet storm has gotten way too long and it's really late.

But I'm going to keep putting all these thoughts of mine out there, so I can get it off-my-chest and stop ruminating about it all day.

Back to The Screening Room: Before COVID, despite our "second class" access to movies, this cinema was doing great!

Our Box Office grosses:
2011 - $191,000
2019 - $588,815

Our market share in Kingston:
2011 - 3%
2019 - 8%

We gave a theatrical cinema experience to over 50,000 visitors in 2019. So 50,000 occasions, someone chose to leave their house, give us a few dollars, turn off their cellphone, and give their undivided attention to a movie they wanted to see.

I'd say that's pretty good!

And 2020 was shaping up to be our busiest year yet. A lot of people really like our movie theatre: they enjoy the physical space (which improves every year), and they've come to *trust our taste in movies* and take a chance on unfamiliar films with us!

But of course the pandemic happened.

I'm not going to complain about covid. Of course it has been dispiriting to operate a movie theatre through the pandemic, but we are still here, thanks to all the government subsidies + generous donations & seat sponsorships from moviegoers.

FAST-FORWARD TO TODAY:

Winter busy season is over.
People don't want to be inside.
There are no hit movies to play.
Gov subsidy ends next month.
Attendance is dropping.

I can't focus on doing my taxes... waiting anxiously for our cinema's turn to play EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE...

...and then I hear THIS on the @BoxOffice podcast:

"We are very focused on being the leader when it comes to non-Hollywood films."

Cineplex President & CEO Ellis Jacob
& Winner of the 2022 NATO Marquee Award at #Cinemacon2022, now happening in LV.

Is this some kind of joke?

The leader?

Are they interested in leading in any human sense of the word, when it comes to non-Hollywood films?

Well no, they want the "leading" grosses for these films, choking out competition cause right now they have too many empty screens in their multiplexes to fill.

Of course, it's indie cinemas who are the leading exhibitors when it comes to non-Hollywood films.

We're the ones who are paying attention to all the original/indie/foreign/Canadian/non fiction/art/obscure movies out there, because we both LOVE THEM and we NEED THEM TO LIVE

The Screening Room was the only cinema in Kingston that showed The Daniels' first film SWISS ARMY MAN, back in July 2016, when it was distributed in Canada by the now-defunct D Films (35% vs $250 min).

In its one-week run, we played it for 129 people and it grossed $994.

In my books, that's a real success!

On the money side of things, we made enough revenue to cover the minimum booking fee (increasingly hard to do these days) and then almost $600 to help pay for rent/wages/utilities/insurance/etc.

And on the more spiritual side, we get to imagine that, perhaps, someone had a wonderful memorable experience and discovered a new favourite filmmaker:

https://twitter.com/TheLibraryClark/status/1517487285058609153

Well, to whoever is still reading, thanks for considering all this.

FWIW, I got all choked up & misty-eyed when I first saw the trailer for EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE months ago, but I still haven't seen it yet because I'm still waiting to watch it at my movie theatre of choice.

THIS is the "everybody is talking about EEAAW" tweet that propelled me to rant about all this publicly.

If our cinema can't play The Movie of the Moment at the same time as others, how can our moviegoers participate in the conversation?

@dunkwun

https://twitter.com/__drewface/status/1518768433638383617?s=20&t=YK4ihfY5k4ZOTZLZwRsd1Q

@dunkwun As of today, in the entire Greater Toronto Area, here are the cinemas where moviegoers can go see EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE together:

* 19 Cineplexes
* 2 Landmarks
* 2 Independents (in Thornhill & Oakville)

Why not @Fox_Theatre, @Royaltheatre, @RevueCinema, @paradiseonbloor?

@dunkwun @Fox_Theatre @Royaltheatre @RevueCinema @paradiseonbloor This is also why we will never see a well-financed "by and for movielovers" @alamodrafthouse-like rival multiplex chain in Canada... there is no way for them to enter the market, because Cineplex owns not just movie theatres, but the marketplace itself.

@dunkwun @Fox_Theatre @Royaltheatre @RevueCinema @paradiseonbloor @alamodrafthouse Are indies doomed? I don't think so. I feel energized. Things that invigorate me in this 2022 moment:

@dunkwun @Fox_Theatre @Royaltheatre @RevueCinema @paradiseonbloor @alamodrafthouse #1: I'm a member of the new Network of Independent Canadian Exhibitors. Independent cinema proprietors have long been un-networked & un-organized, as Canada's long-established movie theatre trade organization works primarily on behalf by Cineplex.

nicecinema.ca

#2: Finally, in 2022, the movie files (DCPs) are increasingly sent to cinemas via the Information Superhighway.

Up until this point, the digital cinema norm was to ship hard drives from cinema to cinema.

And before 2013, it was all 35mm, of course!

Before 2013, the number of screens that could play a film was limited by the number of film prints the distributor paid to make (cost: $2500 or so?).

When a movie went from first-run to second-run, the first cinema would need to literally hand over the film to their competitor.

When exhibition switched to files on hard drives, there was still some physical scarcity & cooperation (between competing cinemas) involved.

On Mondays, cinemas like mine wait for the distributors to hear from Cineplex as to whether they are "holding" or "closing" a film.