On The Town with Matthew Belloni, NATO President/CEO Michael O’Leary touched on a wide range of topics — industry momentum heading into 2025, NATO’s new “Strength of Theatrical Exhibition” report, windows — as he and Belloni discussed current state of theatrical exhibition. You can list to the full podcast here.
A few key quotes:
On Red One‘s theatrical window:
“Amazon distribution chief Kevin Wilson notified the big chains in advance of the short window on Red One. And, faced with a strike-hobbled slate of Hollywood fare, they agreed to take the film, which has so far grossed $94 million in North America—pretty poor, given its cost and the full-freight marketing. Despite acquiescing, however, the theater owners weren’t thrilled about this arrangement, per multiple sources, especially if it portends how Amazon will act in the future. Nor was Michael O’Leary, the head of the National Association of Theatre Owners, the lobbying group for exhibition. “I don’t think that is a sustainable model,” O’Leary told me this week. “I can tell you it’s not a sustainable model. It’s not one that we would support.””
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Anyway, for O’Leary and the theater owners, there’s a big difference between P.V.O.D. (the higher-priced, individual film rentals) and electronic sell-through (iTunes and other film purchases)—both of which are premium offerings with relatively small reach—and the massive S.V.O.D. services, like Prime Video, which boasts more than 200 million customers worldwide, many of whom consider the platform “free” with Prime shipping. For that reason, sending a movie to Prime Video after 27 days is much different than even, say, offering it to P.V.O.D. after 17 days. “I had conversations last week with the folks at MGM-Amazon and have made it very clear that we understand the circumstances about Red One, but as an industry, we can’t support something like a 25-day window where it goes directly to a streaming service.” (Amazon declined to comment on those talks.)
