Attendees of the 2006 American Film Market (AFM) looking to make sense of the constantly shifting business models of film distribution were able to hear about the most recent trends at the DGA-programmed seminar “House of Cards: Perspectives on Collapsing the Exhibition Windows”.
The roundtable, held on Monday, November 6, at Santa Monica’s Le Merigot Hotel, featured DGA Alternate Board member Donald Petrie, National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) President and CEO John Fithian, Loeb & Loeb LLC partner Keith Fleer, and Video Business Magazine’s editorial general manager Marcy Magiera. With DGA Western Executive Director G. Bryan Unger serving as the moderator, the panel engaged in a discussion about the trend toward narrowing exhibition windows, and the creative and financial implications of doing so.
Most of the conversation centered on the current pressure to shrink the amount of time between a film’s theatrical and video release, and the day-and-date paradigm where a film is released simultaneously across theatrical, television and home video platforms. Day-and-date’s proponents stress that it gives consumers a choice of how and when they want to see a film, but its opponents believe it would spell doom for theatres. Fleer boiled the argument down by asking, “If we collapse the window do we make more money or less money?” Taking an optimistic view of the looming changes, Petrie said, “I believe day-and-date may be a challenge to the theatrical release, but it will not be its demise.”
Fithian stood firm for the traditional model of theatre distribution. “The classification of a film going to the cinema first means something to the viewer,” said Fithian. He also stated NATO’s view that the industry was healthy in spite of the angst over the 2005 box office numbers that led to the day and date debate. “There’s a lot of innovation in the cinema experience over the last 10 years and our patrons love it.”
Looking beyond the day-and-date debate, the panelists also discussed the future of distribution methodology. Magiera expressed her belief that traditional theatrical distribution and DVDs are both here to stay, but we have yet to see the full impact of the Internet. She cautioned that there is a vast difference in quality between the high-end (HD DVD) and the low-end (iPod download) “One of the biggest challenges is to have the consumer understand what they’re getting in all the different formats.”
The panel agreed with Fleer’s assessment that the future would be “forced by the consumer.” But with all the talk of new interfaces like cell phones, and iPods, it took a director to give the participants a clear view of what might be lost when Petrie told the audience, “I would not want to watch Lawrence of Arabia on an iPod.”
