Picturehouse Lead Executive Clare Binns and Vue Chief Executive Tim Richards presented different perspectives on the state of the UK exhibition sector, speaking (Tuesday 23 April) at the new multi-party committee on UK culture, media and sport.
“The industry is going through a kind of crisis at the moment, because they don’t know where the future is,” Binns said, responding to a question from committee chair Caroline Dinerage about what the next 10 years will look like for Britons. “Franchise videos charge more to produce and the profits are lower than before. “
Binns highlighted the good fortune of two original films last year through the Barbenheimer phenomenon, but said U. S. studios moving toward original films “is like spinning a giant ship. “
In addition to the Picturehouse Entertainment distribution operation, Binns operates Picturehouse Cinemas, the 26-site boutique exhibition circuit. Operating prices pose a major risk to their existence, he said.
“It’s going to be very complicated not only for Picturehouse but also for family theaters — their prices have gone up a lot,” Binns said. “Utilities are up more than 40% in the last two years. The current prices of these cinemas in many cases almost allow them to survive.
“I don’t know the answer to when the public will come back. All I know is that waiting for audiences to come back is very expensive for those theaters.
“I’m a little more optimistic. As an industry, before the pandemic, we were breaking records in the UK and globally,” said Richards, chief executive of Vue, pointing to the record year for exhibitions in 2018 and similar figures in 2019. “The pandemic has hit us very hard. We’re not planning a full shutdown. “
Last year’s “modest and fragile recovery” was further delayed by measures taken in Hollywood. “This year, incredible films are coming out in all genres, British and Hollywood, but there aren’t enough of them,” added Richards, who cited 35% fewer films released in 2022 than before the pandemic. This figure advanced by up to 20% less last year, and a similar or slightly worse figure is expected for 2024.
“This is a company that deserves to be saved. It hasn’t been damaged and it is today,” Richards said. “We’re revitalizing the main streets, we’re directing traffic to the malls where stores are suffering. We’ve grown more and more powerful and I think you’re going to see that comeback.
Richards and Binns also disagreed on the difference between multiplex and signature programming.
“There is no such thing as independent cinema, arthouse cinema or great cinema,” Richards said. “Screens are part of the same ecosystem: we are all screens and we all produce films.
“Arthouse cinemas, in the classic sense of the word, show the same films as us, day in and day out,” he continued. “I’m a big fan of Watershed [in Bristol], but they’re both screening next week in Civil War. A few weeks ago, if you were looking at the hundred most productive old arthouse cinemas, one of them showed Dune: Part Two and a bunch of advertising movies.
“I’m going to defend Watershed and other people like us a little bit,” Binns responded. “Yes, we all play Dune; But we also screened many other films. It wasn’t as undeniable as that. “
The third panelist, Alex Hamilton, chief executive of Studiocanal UK, shared Richards’ optimism about the resilience of post-Covid global cinema and Binns’ pessimism about the “role of UK cinema in this”.
“Events like Barbenheimer were orchestrated from Los Angeles,” Hamilton told the committee. “It is important, if we want to identify the perception of the UK film industry over the next ten years, to think about how it can have an advertising impact, in its domestic market. We have to recognize that the advertising functionality of British films is very seriously threatened. ”
He cited that Studiocanal UK had two of the three highest-grossing British films this year to date, Wicked Little Letters and Back To Black, with £9. 4 million and £6. 4 million last weekend.
“British audiences need to see films about British themes,” said Hamilton.
The challenge lies in marketing, as major studios must spend gigantic sums on global deployments that even corporations the size of Studiocanal, a subsidiary of Canal owned by Vivendi, can’t compete with.
“Even when we shoot Paddington in Peru at the end of the year, which will be the biggest British film of the year, we still needed an American studio [Sony] to provide some of the financing. “Hamilton said.
It’s hard to find audiences for British films without the help of studios, even if they’re critically and festival-critically acclaimed, Hamilton added. “Scrapper, Rye Lane, How To Have Sex: all universally admired films, all noticed by few people in cinema.
“The explanation for why many other people haven’t gone is the economic situation of Clare and many of us,” he continued. “You can’t incur the same kind of marketing expenses as if you were subsidized by a Hollywood studio offering you this global success. “
Picturehouse Entertainment released Charlotte Regan’s Scrapper for a total of £580,000 last year. Even that figure was only achieved through significant marketing, Binns said. “At the end of the day, it’s how much money we spent on this movie to make it. “to the audience. “
Hamilton began his speech by acknowledging the good fortune of recent decades in terms of tickets and the “explosion of content available to British audiences,” whether in cinemas or on streaming platforms.
“The advent of streamers and uncontrolled painting done through exploitation and distribution, as well as Hollywood, has led to a wonderful proliferation of content,” said Hamilton. [But] it has taken away the rules of gambling from others who come to see British cinema. “
Hamilton said box office studies show that “the biggest videos are getting bigger, the middle ones are going down a little bit, and every week a lot of videos are coming out that reach audiences. “
Richards touted the use of synthetic intelligence in programming. “We use AI to book our screens exclusively,” said Vue’s CEO. “Our AI is an amazing tool because we know what our consumers see across the country. “
He gave the example of a Vue cinema in Inverness, Scotland, which screens Asian films to cater to the desires of a local Asian community. “We have that point of granularity in our business. “
The trio spoke during the day’s CMS Committee consultation. Earlier, Mark Cosgrove, film director at the Watershed Cinema in Bristol, and Catharine des Forges, director of the Independent Film Office, spoke about the demanding funding situations of the independent exhibition. sector.
“Investment in capabilities and exposure is ridiculously low,” des Forges said. “For other people to be innovative and creative, you still need resources. Many independent cinemas had educational managers, marketing managers, or audience progression managers, the kind of other people who developed skills. We see less of this in the rooms.
The additional investment could simply come from a “tax break for accepting threats,” Cosgrove said, similar to what is enjoyed through art galleries and theaters. averse to threats: there will be some tax relief,” he said.
Picturehouse Entertainment is offering production financing, a first for the British company.
Check this page for updates in the territory.
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