Michael Tae Sweeney: RIP United States v. Paramount Pictures Inc

RIP United States v. Paramount Pictures Inc

BREAKING: Sony Pictures Entertainment has acquired popular dine-in movie theater chain Alamo Drafthouse Cinema.

Sony Pictures acquires Alamo Drafthouse Cinemaapnews.com Sony Pictures Entertainment is getting into the exhibition business. The studio behind recent films like “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” and “The Garfield Movie” has acquired the distinctive theater chain Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, the companies said Wednesday.

I suspect that the business model has fundamentally changed/broken enough by now that studios breaking down the distributor/exhibitor wall will mostly benefit consumers and creators but idk.

The fact that so much content is consumed on studio/owned tv networks and streamers now meant that the distinction between an exhibitor and distributor was increasingly illusory anyway. At least this now aligns theaters with studios in trying to make the experience of going not suck

Yes, Sony has been the most reasonable studio during this era by a lot bsky.app/profile/meze...

I feel a lot better about this in the wake of this interview with the Sony Motion Pictures Chairman who seems to have his head screwed on completely straight about the damage reckless pursuit of streaming has done to what was a fundamentally sound business model for decades

Tom Rothman Fetes Columbia Pictures Centennial, Talks Quentin Tarantino, Streaming & How To Bring Young Audiences Back To Movie Theatersdeadline.com Tom Rothman discusses Quentin Tarantino, streaming and how to bring young audiences back to the movies as his Columbia Pictures hits 100 years.

I think something people in the industry are slowly realizing is that creating the consumer expectation that hit movies are a thing that you pay money to see actually *enhances* their value when put on streaming later vs just dumping an avalanche of content there directly

One of the hottest streaming properties of 2023 was TOP GUN MAVERICK precisely because it had already spent months in theaters the year before where the only way to see it was to pay $15 for a ticket

Yup. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me bsky.app/profile/jibb...

My wife & I wanted to see Fall Guy (it was good) & it was streaming, like, 3 weeks after being in the theater. Ive wanted to see Furiosa but haven't been able to so i assume it'll be on my TV in the next 3 weeks so why bother making time for a ticket

I just have not figured out the rush to put things on streaming (except netflix - i think they are wrong too but it is their whole thing)

Much in the vein that VHS and later DVD/Blu-Ray value was enhanced by the amount of time between theatrical release and when you could buy the physical media containing the goddamn movie. Studios *already knew* how much of a gap they needed but bulled ahead anyway.

What's getting me back into a theater? A movie that begins at the advertised time, and is not preceded by 45 minutes of commercials and coming attractions.

I feel like an underrated value of a massive box office haul is as a signal that the movie is worth watching. so much endless shit one could load up on stream, people get analysis paralysis

Box office also generates free advertising! For just one example, when a movie is #1 at the box office for the weekend, they will mention that on all the TV morning shows on Monday, all the entertainment publications will post about online, etc.

Consumers appreciate a little curation! Otherwise there's too much of everything

100%. And its on a really basic level also: there's infinite content on streaming and identifying what's good or worth your time is difficult. Everyone knows the experience of idly scrolling Netflix for half an hour. Theatrical releases help push films up to "Oh yeah I heard about that"

It legitimizes the movie. "Oh, this isn't just some trashy student film."

I would have LOVED and paid to see Prey, Glass Onion and No One Will Save You in a theater.

I loved seeing Glass Onion during the single week Netflix allowed it to be in theaters, but it sucks that I can't own a blu-ray of it now. And since I missed the limited window for Hit Man, my roommate and I had to plug a laptop into our TV to watch it at home since neither of us directly subscribe

Streaming as (semi-reluctant) replacement for home video, rather than replacement for home video AND theatrical

Almost re-realizing in a way. I mean they probably already knew (pre-streaming) that there was a major difference between the values of home video releases and direct-to-video releases.

I mean "must see TV" was a whole thing. You'd thing it wouldn't be that tough to the obvious logical extrapolation.

Obvious in retrospect but “be comfortable putting out terrible movies regularly instead of being terrified of the budgets of the movies we demand everyone make” is maybe a better strategy

Any idea why that is? Is it just because they don't own a streamer? Aren't entirely American?

no idea

It's a purposeful strategy. I remember reading this piece from about 3 years ago, and the term "biggest arms dealer" was used, and that analogy has kept coming up since then. "In the Streaming Wars, Sony Stands on the Sidelines" (2021) archive.ph/tyTAr

I don’t understand what Disney, Max, & Universal are doing. invest a fortune in creating their own services, don’t renew their content licenses for the legacy streamers (which sucked, but made sense from a business perspective of limiting where to watch) then at the first Sign of trouble lic again.

Sony is a primary channel for offshoring industry jobs.

In the future something something (everyone would like a nice future where consumers and creators are one and without intermediary, but hard nut to crack)

(Was probably easier with VHS tho. Haha, just kidding, I mean DVDs.)

it'd be nice to have a thorough legal / economic analysis showing that before allowing the sale to proceed!

I feel a lot better about this in the wake of this interview with the Sony Motion Pictures Chairman who seems to have his head screwed on completely straight about the damage reckless pursuit of streaming has done to what was a fundamentally sound business model for decades

Tom Rothman Fetes Columbia Pictures Centennial, Talks Quentin Tarantino, Streaming & How To Bring Young Audiences Back To Movie Theatersdeadline.com Tom Rothman discusses Quentin Tarantino, streaming and how to bring young audiences back to the movies as his Columbia Pictures hits 100 years.

Talk is cheap of course, who knows if this will be a good thing in the long run, but at least leadership over there seems to understand that its important for the entire film industry to actively figure out ways to revive theatergoing

I'm not surprised by this. I first came across Rothman 10+ years ago giving short intros to movies on "Fox Movies" (or whatever their TCM competitor was). I realized he was a top exec and thought "Why is he spending time talking about old movies?" I think he's a film nerd, and it will pay off.

it is psychedelically disorienting to hear a guy in this job talk the way he is talking. Tyranny of IP. Bring prices down. Be creatively reckless. Young people don't give a shit about us being 100 y/o but no tech company will ever have Lawrence of Arabia. don't wanna be naive but... seems good?

This is apparently the guy who's responsible for the atrocious Kingdom of Heaven cut so creative instincts...ehhhh, who knows, but at this point I'll take anyone who realizes very obvious things like "People like the Bad Boys movies and they're cheap to make" over whatever's happening at WB

yes, that and "one day the money fountain of comic and game adaptations is going to end, and that day may have already come" is a pretty low bar to clear but there's a whole lot of people not clearing it!

this is the biggest, of these deals, but Paramount got tossed out several years ago. Netflix owns the Paris theater in NYC (among others).

Though the Paramount Decree never applied to Netflix, only to the main Hollywood studios. I’m actually unclear on what obligations Sony had under the decree - they own Columbia Pictures, which was a decree signatory, but I’m not sure if the parent company was barred from theater ownership.

it kind of doesn't matter because the decree was formally terminated in 2020. www.culawreview.org/current-even...

Terminations of the Paramount Decrees: A Greenlight for Monopolies — Columbia Undergraduate Law Reviewwww.culawreview.org In August 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, New York federal court terminated the Paramount Consent decrees. The federal court’s termination of these decrees suggests the idea that t...

Trump DoJ ripped that one up a few years ago www.justice.gov/atr/page/fil... www.justice.gov/atr/paramoun...

The Paramount Decreeswww.justice.gov

It was vacated in federal court in 2020 and Sony was never a party to it!

I thought Sony was a party to it through Columbia Pictures?

Columbia is a subsidiary of Sony Pictures. Questionable if that matters considering Paramount has itself been owned by a movie theater conglomerate since like the 1990s.

? What movie theater congolmerate? Did Viacom own movie theaters in the US?

Viacom (now Paramount Global) was a subsidiary of Redstone's National Amusements, which has been a theater operator since the 50s mostly on the east coast, they own Cinema de Luxe and Showcase.

Viacom was originally a CBS subsidiary for production of telefilms and theatrical content, which they spun off in the 70s and Redstone acquired it as a holding company after it acquired MTV, Showtime and the cable portfolio.

It rules too because now with streaming they can own all distribution 🙃

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