Theatrical Industry Faces Years of Pain and Wrecked Business Models, Top Investors Warn

Variety Two top media investors and advisors this week warned of years of pain still to come in the U.S. theatrical movie business. The disruption brought on by the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated some existing trends and already wrecked many studios’ business models. The woeful tidings for traditional cinema industry models were spelled out in graphic terms Wednesday by media advisor Michael Nathanson, senior analyst at MoffettNathanson, and by Peter Chernin , former chairman and CEO of the Fox Group, and current CEO of Chernin Entertainment. They were speaking at APOS , the high-powered entertainment industry conference organized by consultancy Media Partners Asia, being held for the first time in a wholly virtual format. Both identified the recent collapse of theatrical windows as evidence of a shift in power from the old theatrical business model to the new streaming paradigm. Universal Studios’ “Trolls World Tour” going straight to video-on-demand, Disney’s “Mulan” being shifted to premium VoD and the sale by Paramount of some of its titles to Netflix and CBS’s All Access were all indicative of the trend, they said. “We think this experimentation is a clear signal that studios are rethinking how they look at theatrical going forward,” […]

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