Alex Cann's Weekly Blog - 9th July

As you may have gathered by now, I like to spend a lot of time in a dark room watching films. Some pretty worrying news emerged last week that Cineworld is reviewing its portfolio of cinemas, and some reports suggested they could be looking to close up to a quarter of them in a bid to cut costs.

The chain has been impacted by the proliferation of streaming services, delays in big films being released as a consequence of the Hollywood writers' strike, and the cost of living crisis making a night out at the pictures something that can easily be cut when budgets are tight.

It's a worrying time for the industry, and I'm not convinced audiences are quite back to the levels we saw before the pandemic. Individual success stories have bucked the trend, however, in particular Inside Out 2. It has now become the fastest film in history to pass the billion dollar mark, and Pixar must be pleased as punch. In its first week in the States, it was predicted to make 80 million dollars (62 million pounds), but in fact raked in an eye-watering 155 million dollars (121 million pounds).

An article in last weekend's Observer pointed out that animation has become the unexpected saviour of this summer so far, after a number of high profile misses. The Fall Guy, Mad Max Furiosa and If all posted disappointing numbers, and the delay of the new Deadpool & Wolverine film will have disappointed cinema bosses too (it's released on 26th July). Box Office takings were over a quarter down on expectations.

The next big star of summer is set to be another animation...Despicable Me 4. Released in time for American Independence Day in the USA, it cleared 122.6 million dollars in its first five days of release, and 75 million dollars during the three day weekend. That would certainly buy the Minions a lot of bananas! Illumination spent 100 million dollars on making it, which is roughly half what a Disney-Pixar film would cost, so when you add in the endless merchandise opportunities the film presents, you can soon conclude they'll be laughing all the way to the bank. It comes out in the UK this weekend, and is sure to be huge.

Another major studio release is due out next week, with Twisters hitting the big screen on Thursday 18th July. A senior media analyst at ComScore, Paul Dergabedian, said: "What a difference a few heavy hitters can make. They really moved the needle and you can feel momentum building".

So if the world was my oyster, what would I do to improve the lot of cinemas? For starters, I'd give every customer a free small salted or sweet popcorn. Yes, it's a gimmick, but I'm sure lots would still buy drinks and other snacks (M&Ms make an excellent popcorn topper, especially for salted popcorn).

I'd make a new rule that all films have to be under two hours, otherwise cinemas are allowed to put in an interval. Archaic rules state they can't do this in most cases at the moment, although some smaller independent cinemas still do. This helps out the cinema, as you're likely to grab a drink and snack during the interval, plus as none of us are getting any younger, it allows the opportunity for a comfort break.

I'd also show more films in the late morning. If you're a busy parent on the school run, there are hardly any screenings you can catch in the daytime that finish in time to pick up your kids. The only time you get early screenings is during the summer holidays, and I'm sure there would be demand for more.

I'd also show more classic films, such as the recent run of 1999 films that have been on at Cineworld. Also, how about onesie screenings, where customers arrive in the attire they would wear whilst half watching Netflix and scrolling through social media on their phone?

I'm not saying it's easy to tempt folk to part with cash, especially when so many are watching every penny, but I wonder if any of these ideas might help a little. These are difficult times for cinema, but the likes of Barbenheimer last year showed that films can still be big events. We went to the lovely Penistone Paramount, where they made Barbie and Ken themed cocktails, and encouraged cinemagoers to wear pink! Stuff like this adds to that sense of fun, excitement and occasion.