After the successful release of Trolls: World Tour on VOD this past month, Universal announced on Tuesday that it would begin releasing first-run movies on demand as well as in theaters. That choice did not work for AMC theaters as they have decided to ban Universal Picture films from all AMC Theaters going forward.
AMC CEO Adam Aron stated, “The country’s largest theater chain will no longer play any Universal films in its 1,000 cinemas worldwide — if studios wants to break the longstanding theatrical window system, AMC is demanding a seat at the table”
Universal released the following statement in response to AMC’s letter and removal of their films from theaters,
“Our goal in releasing ‘Trolls: World Tour’ on PVOD was to deliver entertainment to people who are sheltering at home, while movie theatres and other forms of outside entertainment are unavailable. Based on the enthusiastic response to the film, we believe we made the right move. In fact, given the choice of not releasing ‘Trolls: World Tour,’ which would not only have prevented consumers from experiencing the movie but also negatively impacted our partners and employees, the decision was clear.
Our desire has always been to efficiently deliver entertainment to as wide an audience as possible. We absolutely believe in the theatrical experience and have made no statement to the contrary. As we stated earlier, going forward, we expect to release future films directly to theatres, as well as on PVOD when that distribution outlet makes sense. We look forward to having additional private conversations with our exhibition partners but are disappointed by this seemingly coordinated attempt from AMC and NATO to confuse our position and our actions.”
This story will surely be one that will dominate entertainment headlines as the removal of an entire studios’ film library going forward is quite the statement made by AMC Theaters.
