Pious wish, Coué method or tangible beginning of a modification of the forces present? During the CinemaCon festivalthe high mass of American cinema, which was held from April 25 to 28 in Las Vegas, John Fithian, the head of the National Association of American Theater Owners (NATO), clearly reached out to Netflix . “Cinema doors have been open to Netflix movies for years”he said, just as theaters are slowly starting to emerge from the dreadful slump they had sunk into during the pandemic, while Netflix has just suffered its first loss of subscribers in a decade – and is about to go through a phase of stagnation.
Despite its 221 million subscribers worldwide, the streaming giant, whose price has fallen on Wall Street by 43.3% since this announcement on April 20, will he finally need the big screen? John Fithian claims to have had “many talks” with Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix, trying to prove to him that he could “earn more money by releasing your best films first in theaters”.
Changes contemplated
The leading global streaming platform, which lost 200,000 subscribers in the first three months of 2022 and anticipates a tumble of two million subscribers in the second quarter, is reportedly considering changing its model somewhat. Either to offer cheaper offers to consumers – even if it means resorting to advertising – or, hopes John Fithian, to be more present in theaters. Today, Netflix limits itself to releasing in a few cinemas the films that it presents in the race for the Oscars or in certain festivals – without this, these feature films could not qualify for it under the regulations. “A theatrical release” allows a film to “be more noticeable”while “those who go directly to streaming get lost”pleaded the president of this organization, which represents some 35,000 screens in the United States.
Also during CinemaCon, Adam Aron, CEO of AMC, the largest cinema circuit in the United States, wanted to be moderately optimistic about the recovery. According to him, box office receipts will not return before 2024 to their 2019 level (11.4 billion dollars, or 10.85 billion euros). According to IBOE (International Box-Office Essentials), receipts however experienced a very strong rebound between 1er January and April 15, earning $ 1.5 billion, five times more than during the dark period of 2021, marked by theater closures in New York and Los Angeles. But this result remains in sharp decline, by 40% compared to 2019. Adam Aron also deplored the permanent closure of 800 screens, or 2% of American operations, due to the pandemic.