Cinemas versus Disney: Blockbusters? No thanks

Even a revolution can start small, in this case at the bottom left of the homepage of the Mathäser-Kino in Munich. There is a small window that you can click on with “Current information on ‘Black Widow'”. This is the new Marvel blockbuster that started in the cinema on Thursday – but not in Mathäser. Instead, it says: “Unfortunately, the film distributors have changed the terms and conditions for some films to a considerable extent and unilaterally at the expense of the cinemas. Therefore,” despite attempts to reach an agreement, “unfortunately” it is with a heavy heart that one has to forego Black Widow “.

What is somewhat vague and formulated here in general is nothing less than a rather brave insurrection. The Kinopolis Group, which in addition to Mathäser operates many other multiplexes across Germany, is one of the first major players on the German market to refuse to allow all the terms of their business model to be dictated by the powerful Disney Group. The stumbling block: “Black Widow” started on Thursday in the cinema and on Friday on the Disney + streaming service.

Inquiry from Gregory Theile, the managing director of the Kinopolis Group, who explains the matter in more detail: “Until the beginning of the pandemic, there was an exclusive cinema window of at least 120 days in Germany, to which all film distributors adhered. If now – in At a time when the cinemas are already struggling with the worst crisis of the past decades – we cannot accept this with high-audience films at the same time on streaming platforms. “

Theile says he regrets this decision very much. But “in this specific case we were unfortunately forced to forego the use of the film.”

It’s not the first time Disney has experimented with this new model. A few weeks ago, the animated remake “Cruella” also started almost simultaneously on Disney + and in the cinema, although fewer cinemas were open at the time. Other large US rental companies such as Universal have also been experimenting with such models since Corona. But “Black Widow” is the most prestigious Hollywood blockbuster to date that has been dealt with in this way. And at least for Kinopolis, Disney now seems to have gone a step too far.

The operators feel more and more affected by regulations

For years, cinema operators have been quietly complaining about the distribution policy of the major US studios. Usually cinemas and distributors share the revenue per ticket roughly half and half. In the case of important films, the studios are increasingly putting the pistol on the chest of the cinemas, it is said. For example with higher rental rents. But also with other conditions. For example, the studios would dictate when and how often you had to play a movie if you wanted to get it. Or they would force other, less popular films on the cinemas as a package if they wanted a blockbuster.

Such information is usually only given underhand because the same cinema operators who have been yelling into every microphone for a year how badly German politics treat them during Corona suddenly become very quiet or, as a precaution, do not even call back or reply to emails, when it comes to American rental policies. Of course you would also like to know what Disney has to say about it. Whether other cinemas are also refusing to watch films, and whether something like this shouldn’t have an impact on the company’s distribution policy in the medium term? The answer is simple: no comment.

Studios like Disney have usually had an advantage so far, because it was often more profitable for many cinemas to play “Star Wars” or Marvel films under worse conditions than not at all. Which makes the Kinopolis Group’s move to remove the film from the program all the more astonishing.