CINEMAS CONTINUE TO SUFFER, DISNEY MOVE "BLACK WIDOW" TO MAY
WEEKLY FILM INDUSTRY NEWS DIGEST, UPDATED THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 24
Cineworld Results: Exhibition Giant Suffers Massive Half-Year Downturn Due To COVID
Mooky Greidinger, Chief Executive Officer of Cineworld Group: “Current trading has been encouraging considering the circumstances, further underpinning our belief that there remains a significant difference between watching a movie in a cinema – with high quality screens and best-in-class sounds – to watching it at home. As part of this, our policy regarding the theatrical window remains unchanged as an important part of our business model, and we will continue to only show movies that respect it.”
AMC Entertainment Files To Sell Stock For Cash As Exhibition Struggles
AMC Entertainment has filed to sell 15 million shares of common stock to raise fresh cash, the second exhibition distress call today after Regal parent Cineworld of the U.K. posted a brutal results for first six months of the year...Regal is the largest circuit in the U.S., AMC the second.
Disney Moves Release Dates
Marvel’s Black Widow was set to move, it’s by far the biggest shift on Disney’s theatrical calendar, going from November 6 to May, 7 2021….20th Century Studios’ Kenneth Branagh-directed all-star ensemble mystery Death on the Nile moves from October 23 to December 18.
Pandemic Intensifies Need For Platforms To Invest In Local Indie Content, Say Euro Producers
“We at the European Producers Club believe that the European authorities and the European Commission have to take the lead in order to come up with some measures to try to balance this disequilibrium that is created now, because otherwise there will be a lot of casualties in the process.”
‘Mulan’: Making Sense Of The Box Office And VOD Grosses
Walt Disney’s Mulan earned another $10.9 million overseas. That includes a $6.5 million second-weekend gross in China, dropping 72% from its mediocre $23.2 million opening…I’m guessing Disney was hoping for more than $36.2 million in ten days from the very marketplace at which the movie was aimed.
Presuming half of Disney Plus subscribers are in America, then we can guestimate that around 3.1 million people leased Mulan in America during the first week of availability, for an opening week of $93 million. Now that’s almost identical to the $95 million 19-day cume for Trolls: World Tour back in April, but Trolls 2 only cost $20 to rent (and cost DreamWorks just $90 million to make) and that film’s PVOD legs stretched out all summer…Mulan doesn’t seem to have that kind of staying power, currently at 14 on Disney Plus’s trending list (the 1998 animated Mulan is in 17th place). Nonetheless, a $93 million PVOD total would be equivalent to around $186 million in theatrical grosses, since Disney doesn’t split revenue with the theaters.
Even if Mulan does make a ton of money on PVOD, here’s another issue: It’s earning what it’s earning partially because it was a heavily-anticipated theatrical release…Mulan is currently a big fish in a near-empty pond, and the notion of it being “worthy” of global theatrical release is part of its allure.
China Box Office: ‘Mulan’ Defeated Yet Again by ‘The Eight Hundred’
Disney’s “Mulan” made only $6.47 million over its second weekend in China, allowing it to be handily defeated once again by the local war epic “The Eight Hundred” (which) has now earned a total of $425 million (RMB 2.88 billion) since is Aug. 21 debut, making it China’s highest grossing film of the year so far. It is projected to continue on to a total box office of $446 million (RMB 3.02 billion)…In contrast, “Mulan” is currently projected to earn just $41 million (RMB 278 million
“Tenet” opened in China the week before Disney’s live-action remake…Despite the fact that Disney went out of its way to make a film that it thought would appeal to Chinese audiences, Nolan’s sci-fi thriller has received better viewer ratings across all platforms and is currently projected by Maoyan to earn $66.9 million (RMB 453 million)— significantly more than “Mulan.”
https://variety.com/2020/film/news/disney-mulan-china-box-office-2-1234776520/
‘After We Collided’ increases as ‘Tenet’ holds UK-Ireland box office weekend crown
The romantic drama After We Collided recorded the best per-location average at the UK & Ireland box office this weekend, bringing in £1,359 for each cinema it played in…The film scored a second successive weekend increase, going up 35% on its previous session with £597,979. It has now passed £1.7m after three weekends….After We Collided is closing in on the number one spot, still held by Warner Bros' Tenet. Christopher Nolan’s temporal thriller dropped 35% on its previous weekend, bringing in £780,000 for a £13.9m cume.
https://variety.com/2020/film/news/disney-mulan-china-box-office-2-1234776520/
