Combo for conversation
By Marcy Magiera -- Video Business, 5/11/2007
MAY 11 | Blockbuster’s foray into theatrical exhibition makes a great starting point for spinning “what if” scenarios. What if Blockbuster built its single multiplex outside Puebla City, Mexico, into a major North American theater chain?
The chain has said it has no plans for expansion, but what if it did?
(No inside information here, just an idea to spin an interesting conversation.)
A Blockbuster acquisition of a major U.S. theater chain would likely meet substantial anti-trust challenges given the formidable influence it would then have on movie distribution, but what if Blockbuster did acquire or build a large theater chain?
The major U.S. theater chains have weathered almost more doomsday predictions than Blockbuster itself, with rapid theater overbuilding in the late ’90s leading to a string of bankruptcies in 2000 and 2001, and Wall Street would likely scratch its head over the old media-ness of a rental store-theater chain combination, but what if it happened?
If Blockbuster owned a significant theater chain, paired with its online and bricks-and-mortar video retail business and the Internet video-on-demand service it will no doubt offer soon, it would provide a completely unique perspective on issues like windows and piracy.
Those usher/guards with night-vision goggles looking for would-be recorders in advance screenings around the world and a whole lot of theaters in Canada? Purse checks at the popcorn stand? They’d become standard operating equipment for the company that had not just its own slice of the box-office to protect, but also subsequent DVD rental and sales revenues and download coin.
On windows, the company would have to have a perspective more akin to the studios than to any current operator of distribution points. Think about it. A bigger, broader Blockbuster would lose its interest in protecting a single window and, like the studios, would have a larger interest in maximizing the revenue of a film across windows, at least those in which it participates.
Would windows collapse completely? Not likely. And neither would camcorder piracy be eradicated in the chain. But there would be ample opportunity for innovation, tempered with potential consumer drawbacks such as limited choice.
In the short term, we’ll just have to watch Cholula Puebla, where cinema patrols will be offered special rental promotions and presales for movies and games.
