CinemaCon: Theater Owners' Window Wonderland
Gimme more or . . . we'll ask again?! Inside the tough talk about 45-day exclusivity and what we're not saying out loud
Hello from Las Vegas.
Like any trade show or convention, CinemaCon is a bubble, a self-reinforcing one of thousands of people in one industry, who, when they get together, have a deep psychological need to tell each other that everything is going to be alright. If you don’t believe that, get out of your L.A. cocoon and spend a day sitting in the Caesars Palace Colosseum, and if you let yourself, you can even believe that all of Hollywood’s problems were just in our heads.
There are some genuine reasons for hope here, but on the other hand there are plenty of genuine causes for concern, the worst of them being the number of issues that are swept under the table and avoided here at every turn.
As I write, we’ve seen three studio presentations — from Sony, Lionsgate and Warners — and state of the industry speeches from MPA and Cinema United (formerly NATO) chieftains.