Dwayne Johnson, left, and Jason Statham talk about their upcoming film Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw during the Universal Pictures presentation on April 3, 2019.But the company was still an unavoidable subject throughout the week, much to the chagrin of those who organized CinemaCon. “The first 17 questions are about Netflix,” said John Fithian, president and CEO of NATO, during a tense interview session with media.
Perhaps actor Helen Mirren read the room best, though, when she appeared to debut footage from her new thriller,. “I love Netflix,” she told the crowd inside Caesars, but then quickly added that the company could perform the most crudest of acts upon itself. Todd Phillips, director of the upcoming film Joker, discusses the film during the Warner Bros. presentation on April 2, 2019.As ever, CinemaCon’s priority was to reassure theatre-owners that theirs is a rock-solid business model that will never go flaccid. Unlike last year, NATO didn’t even need to smother cloudy numbers underneath sunny talking points. As the Motion Picture Association of America reported last month, worldwide box office ticket sales rose by 1 per cent to US$41.
Yet that boost is mostly due to higher ticket prices, with attendance remaining roughly static. And then there is the flood of new streaming services to prepare for: Disney+, in addition to offerings from AT&T, Comcast and Apple. In NATO’s view, though, this is all good news. “The more streamers there are, the more content is coming to theatres,” Fithian said. “Because if you develop business models with multiple outlets for your products, it means more people can finance more products.
However you choose to unpack that logic, the over all message was one of unrelenting enthusiasm. And if you thought different, well, maybe you were the problem. “I’ll point out the irony that in your profession, when the numbers are down the first 15 questions are, ‘Why are the numbers down?’” Fithian told a group of reporters at the end of an interview session. “Now that we have a record-breaking year, there’s not a single question about the numbers.