Rushfield at CinemaCon: 'The Punditocracy Pissed on Your Business'
Theater owners party as Hollywood burns
Back home, Hollywood is ablaze with Disney layoffs, the Shell fire, those cable guy ousters, and the final days until the writers strike.
But as home base smoldered, America's movie theater owners convened to consider the state of their industry, and about all the gathering storm clouds they had to say: precisely nothing!
Not quite nothing — David Harbour made one joke from the stage. Touting his film Gran Turismo, and after reading an off line in his presentation, Harbour quipped, blaming “the writers strike.”
But apart from that, onstage and even off, if there were a dark cloud hanging over this industry, it burned right off under the blazing Las Vegas sun.
No balls. No glory. - Tom Rothman
(The lone nod to the week's events: most conversations had a what really happened with Jeff Shell moment; the strong consensus being there's much more we don't know yet.)
So what was the mood among theater owners, as Hollywood burned?