The key thing the industry has to deal with is to stop being in denial of the state of film distribution everything isn’t great and there are major issues that need to deal with.
The conversion of film to digital hasn’t improved the cinema-going experience for audiences and rather than what it should of done reduced ticket prices it has allowed exhibitors to dramatically increase their prices; The Cinema Exhibitors Association claim the average ticket price in the UK is £6.52 that includes EE discounts and reduced rates for children & OAPs the average ticket price is nearer £9 and even higher in London on top of that there is the 3D surcharges. When 3D first came in audiences paid that surcharge but apart from Gravity and Doctor Who all 3D films have been out-grossed by their 2D version at the lower price.

Since 3D came back to cinemas in 2009 it has been artificially inflating the box office as without the money from 3D box office wouldn’t have seen the increased it has since.
But this year the failing at the box office are impossible to hide as attendance could be the lowest if it stays 6% down from last year since 2001. Exhibitors and DCM, FDA, CEA and others are all saying that 2015 will return audiences to the cinemas but once people have gotten out of the cinema-going habit it is very hard to get people back. There are some massive films being released next year but every year studio slates look very impressive but rarely do they meet expectations or the hype that surrounds them. The release of the Star Wars trailer on Friday over a year before its release will hype it up even more and fuel expectations even more that rarely are matched by the final film.

On June 15th 1996 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of cinema there was National Cinema Day when all cinemas were £1 cinemas screened current, classic and previews and millions of people came back to the cinema, it was repeated the following year and cinema attendance had a dramatic increase in those two years but in the years since it has flat-lined again.

I read an article in Screen International’s film preview edition from 1994 exhibitors were predicting after the £46m Jurassic Park took the previous summer (it had a £4.9m opening over 9 times its opening playing in cinemas for over 6 months blockbuster releases in 2014 are lucky if they take 3 times their openings and stay in the top 10 for 6 weeks) UK cinema attendance would be over 200m by 2000. Why didn’t the growth continue as dramatically in the years after Jurassic Park?

Last weekend The Hunger games Mockingjay part 1 opened with $123m taking more in 3 days than Speed took in 45 days, Ghost took in 39 days and Jurassic Park took in 9 days, it’s doubtful in that it will even be in the top 10 after 45 days.

In February 1991 the then Walt Disney Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg wrote “the Memo”. A 28 page analysis of the film business, which boiled down to two ideas doesn’t spent too much money and don’t make a film without a script. He also commented on Hollywood’s decline claiming that the seeds of the movie business ailments were built by the blockbuster mentality and that companies should look long and hard the event movie business as it cannot afford to indulge in it any more. These comments seem like common sense but 23 years later Hollywood still hasn’t learnt anything, they are spending more money than ever making and marketing films but the profits if any are getting smaller.

In 1997 after watching Jerry Maguire I wrote my mission statement about my thoughts of the state of the film industry as I read it now nothing has changed for the better as Jeffrey Katzenberg wrote 7 years before.

Earlier this year Sony Pictures were disappointed with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 only taking $700m worldwide if this is seen now as a failure how can the deluge of comic book adaptations and mega movies all match studio expectations as there will be some massive films in the next few years but many won’t match expectations.

In 1980 Heaven’s Gate failure destroyed United Artists these days the studios are owned by mega-billion dollar corporations that mean major flops are easier for them to deal with the only casualties are the studio executives who will often leave to get a production deal with a rival.