It was announced this week the US would hold their first-ever Cinema Week between June 22-27, supported by Independent Cinema Alliance, NATO, Atom Tickets, AMC, Regal and Cinemark and independent chains. Featuring exclusive content and merchandise and special screenings with filmmakers and talent.
Ever since UK cinemas closed for the first time on March 17th, 2020 always believed UK cinemas should relaunch themselves with National Cinema Week similar to National Cinema Days in 1996 and 1997 were hugely popular with 1.5m+ attending with all cinemas £1. In 1996 was to celebrate the 100th anniversary of commercial cinema and this year is the 125th anniversary in the UK and US (21 February Lumière Brothers screened their first film to a commercial audience at Regent Street Cinema in London and 24 April at Vitascope Hall in New York; the world’s first commercial cinema screening was in Paris on December 28).
In 1997 National Cinema Day was held on Sunday 15th June, 1.4m came and saw films including The Fifth Element, Absolute Power and Con Air.
Daniel Battsek, chairman of the All Industries Marketing Committee for Cinema, said at the time “National Cinema Day is fast becoming an institution. “On National Cinema Day 1998 we are toasting the success of British Cinema and its continued development.” The 1998 event wasn’t as successful as the previous two years due to it happening during the World Cup with 850,000 people taking part on Sunday 7 June, McDonald’s sponsored the event which saw cinema tickets prices reduced to half price, rather than £1 for ther previous two years.
In 1997 cinema market is expected to continue to grow over the next five years, with admissions expected to increase to 185 million by 2002, 2002 admissions were 175.9m and didn’t increase again until 2018 up 1%. 20+years ago many expected admissions to top 200m+ by now and also increase the number of visits per year per head in the UK is about 2.2 compared to five in the US, and 20 years later that average hadn’t increased.
Northern Ireland held a Cinema Day in 2016 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of cinema and was repeated for the following three years, something big on this scale would be a far better way to get people to get back into the cinemagoing habit, much was made over the LoveCinema campaign but that targeted cinephiles, a National Cinema Week with previews of upcoming releases and screenings of classic films could have been a much-needed boost for UK cinemas and brought back many to the cinema who haven’t been for many years.
Always surprised National Cinema Day didn’t become an annual event but there were some issues between exhibitors and distributors over the share of box office and the distributors of films opened close to National Cinema Day felt they lost out on box office.
There was a National Lottery Cinema Day on 30th September 2018 and repeated August 25th 2019, but 2018 was poorly marketed and was a damp squib, 2019 had more coverage with 500k of tickets but again had little impact as BO for the weekend was down -44% previous w/e and 35% less than same w/e 2018.
The closure of cinemas gave the industry a once in a lifetime opportunity to relaunch the cinema experience, but exhibitors were fixated would be ‘pent-up demand’ and didn’t need to do anything like the voice in Field of Dreams “people will come”. Vue’s Tim Richards said in March 2020 “Families, couples, individuals are being tied up at home for weeks or months now,” … “When it is over there will be a demand to get out as we have never seen in history. There is no scenario after lock-down [where] people will say ‘I’m not going out; I’m staying in to watch Netflix’. When cinemas reopened for the first time in July 2020 cinephiles rushed back but others took much longer to return.
Imax CEO Rich Gelfond said similar in February after China’s record-breaking New Year box office, saying “It tells you [that] when it’s safe to go outside and people want to go, they’re going to run to go to the movies” … “I think the only thing you can say is it’s pent-up demand,” … “I think they’re just happy to get out, and I think it foreshadows the rest of the world.” The key part of his comment is “when it’s safe to go outside”. While on The Tonight Show this week James Cameron said ‘let’s get back to cinemas, when they are safe to do so’, so he doesn’t believe they are currently safe to go to, despite being in New Zealand with daily COVID cases in single figures?
Many have predicted that after COVID lockdown we could have the roaring twenties as there was a century ago after the Spanish Flu ended, had a decade of growth and prosperity. In 1984 cinema admissions were 54 million, the lowest ever (until last year) the following year the industry held British Film Year, to promote British films and to get people to go to the cinema, it did both with admissions increasing by 16 million to 72 million and over the next 17 years, UK admissions increased steadily until 2002.
Despite the growth of streaming over the past decade (especially the past year) if the industry can get people to fall back in love with the cinema habit again they will still go often, four years ago went to see Peppa Pig: My First Cinema Experience with my niece and nephew, it was their first-ever trip to the cinema, and they enjoyed going and have been many times since; as Edward says to Vivian in Pretty Woman about opera “People’s reactions to opera the first time they see it is very dramatic, They either love it or they hate it, If they love it, they will always love it, If they don’t, they may learn to appreciate it, but it will never become part of their soul.”
Similar could be said about cinema, last year was the first year since the early 80s I hadn’t gone to the cinema, there will be millions like me who loved going to the cinema but have gotten out of the cinema habit and found watching films at home on their 50+ inch TV screen almost as enjoyable as don’t have to worry about other cinemagoers behaviour that has ruined the cinema experience for many over the last decade. The industry can’t take it for granted that these people will immediately return to the cinema, so need to do more to make their experience more enjoyable and that’s not reclining seats and restaurant food.
As soon as UK cinemas closed on March 17, 2020, Cinema First, BFI, UK Cinema Association, Film Distributors Association and all the exhibitors and studios should have been working together on the reopening of cinema. The Film Distributors Association gave exhibitors a 450+ library of classic and recently released films when they reopened, but the majority of cinema schedules looked like they were frozen in time from March when they reopened on July 4. All the films that were in cinemas in March had been since released on digital and DVD so apart from Onward it was unlikely cinemagoers would decide to see them in the cinema.
The industry should have come together with a national campaign to get people back into the cinema-going habit as it was always going to take time for the majority to feel safe going back to the cinema again and get back into the cinemagoing habit as many were perfectly happy watching films at home on their 5- and 50-inch screens.
China reopened their cinemas in August with several high-profile local releases including The Eight Hundred opening with $161m and My People, My Homeland with $157m in October and then over the Chinese New Year 7 films opened with Detective Chinatown 3 opening with $398m and Hi, Mom $195m taking $1.2bn over New Year holiday. Western cinemas reopened with only Christopher Nolan’s Tenet which was never going to be the saviour of cinema he and industry believed as it needed to open as part of a slate of films as his other films were.
With European Championships from June 11th to July 11th, they could easily have National Cinema Month as, after Whitsun half-term boost, the June box office will drop off as it regularly does during European Championships and World Cup and won’t return until July 8 when F9 opens. Next year the industry will face a tougher challenge with the World Cup in Qatar between 21 November and 18 December.
UK cinemas are set to reopen on May 17th with Peter Rabbit 2 the biggest film to open until July opening just before half-term and will do what Christopher Nolan’s Tenet couldn’t be last August become the saviour of cinema, until No Time To Die in September. Also released is horror Spiral (ninth part of the Saw film series), the first of four horror films opening within a month, Demon Slayer: Mugen Train, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It and A Quiet Place Part 2, and BAFTA and Oscar winners including Sound of Metal and Nomadland.
After A Quiet Place Part II opening on 4th June until F9 on July 9 there are a lot of films set for release but few that will find wide audiences, cinemas will have the opposite challenge with a jam-packed schedule of 13 studio releases within 21 days from July 9 F9, Black Widow, The Forever Purge, Space Jam: A New Legacy, The Croods 2: A New Age, Cinderella, Wrath of Man, Snake Eyes, Hotel Transylvania: Transformania, Old, The Suicide Squad, Jungle Cruise and Spirit Untamed.
August is slightly calmer with Free Guy, Don’t Breathe 2, People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan, The Paw Patrol Movie, Reminiscence, BIOS, Candyman and The Beatles: Get Back.
But then the madness returns in September with Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings, Respect, Infinite, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Dune and No Time To Die.
October brings The Addams Family 2, Halloween Kills, The Last Duel, Dear Evan Hansen, Ron’s Gone Wrong, The Many Saints Of Newark, The Boss Baby 2, Jackass and Last Night In Soho; with Eternals, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Top Gun Maverick, House of Gucci and Encanto in November and West Side Story, Spider-Man: No Way Home, The King’s Man, The Matrix 4 and Downtown Abbey 2 in December.
With such a strong slate of films from July to December it’s vital for cinemagoers old and young to feel comfortable returning to the cinema, and the issue many have when UK cinemas are being with other cinemagoers. This is why vaccine passports were the best bad idea available, the problem is exhibitors just saw the negatives, despite COVID cases dropping over recent months many will still be very hesitant going back to the cinema.
During Boris Johnson’s press conference on February 15th, he said rapid tests would help nightclubs and theatres which had been unable to open last year. “I think that will be the route that we go down and that businesses will go down.” The Daily Telegraph reported that cinemas could require vaccine passports to prove they have had a vaccination before being able to purchase cinema tickets.
The following day Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi on BBC Breakfast was asked if owners of the hospitality sector could demand a vaccine certificate “if you wanted to go to the cinema”, he replied: “Well, I just think it is obviously up to businesses what they do.”
The UK Cinema Association were predictably negative about vaccine passports, saying that tests would take 30 minutes and cost £3-4 each and asking cinemagoers to be tested on arrival was impractical. Were the UKCA purposely being obtuse as it was never suggested people would be tested at the cinema but instead, would have a QR code after receiving two doses of the vaccine and those who haven’t would need to have a PCR test 72 hours before going to the cinema, then put code in when purchasing tickets online, or scan in with QR code.
The public can see the benefits of vaccine passports, as seen by all the polls in favour of them in the UK and the US, and a group of 20 leading arts figures told Boris Johnson this week they back Covid certification to open up theatres and cultural venues. The list includes include James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli and the chief executive of the Royal Opera House Alex Beard. Sports bodies have also backed their use as they realise it would allow them to return to full capacity in stadiums much sooner.
Surely even the UKCA could see them apart from the week Tenet opened (inflated with a 5-day opening) the 25 weeks cinemas had reopened from July to December were incredibly soft (less than 10% more levels) so much more would need to be done to get people to return to the cinema when they reopen, likely to be May. Much was made about the safety measures, but they felt like they were the least required, as it is, of course, a necessity to eat popcorn in cinemas masks could be taken off in auditoriums.
Three years ago, Watchdog found drinks from three of the UK’s largest cinema chains (Cineworld, Odeon and Vue) were found to contain extremely high levels of bacteria including traces of salmonella and Listeria. The exhibitors rejected the findings and said they take hygiene “incredibly seriously” and have robust cleaning procedures in place. There was also a study in 2009 that said 69% of men didn’t wash their hands after going to a public toilet and you could see this happening in toilets in cinemas when many didn’t wash their hands and then they would touch the toilet door, the auditorium doors, safety railings, armrests and often put their feet on the seat in front.
Always thought the best way to promote relaunch is using Fox’s excellent 1997 Star Wars re-release trailer… For the last year, you have watched films the only way possible on the TV screen, but if you have only seen them this way you haven’t seen them at all… it’s all about getting people excited about the cinema experience again, exhibitors have regularly said there will be pent-up demand but while it was the case for cinephiles, the majority are perfectly happy to watch films at home on their 50+ inch TV screens and it was always likely would take much longer for them to return.