Members of NATO are pissed off at AMC theaters and Universal Studios

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   Stevennix2001posted 4 years ago

   Before we begin discussing this topic.  I should point out that I'm NOT referring to the traditional NATO that I know most of you are most likely familiar with, which stands for "North Atlantic Treaty Organization."  No, the NATO that I'm referring to stands for "National Association of Theater Owners."  Yes, I know that's confusing but just wanted to clarify this before we went even further into this topic.
   
   Moving on now that we've cleared that up.  According to various sources, AMC movie theaters made a deal with Universal Studios recently behind NATO's back which has royally pissed off a lot of their members, with it being rumored that some have went as far as to call AMC theaters' execs a bunch of cowardly snakes.  Backstabbers, and all sorts of derogatory insults under the sun.  No joke. 
   
   Anyways, Universal's deal was basically instead the traditional 3 month window, when a movie can go from being exclusively in theaters to move on to VOD (short for video on demand), that they would instead shorten that window to 17 days.   When theaters reopen next month, a new movie would be available exclusively in theaters for 17 days, but after those 17 days are up, you would have the option of either still seeing the movie in theaters, or pay a premium price to rent it on VOD to watch it in your own home.  While the exact price figure wasn't disclosed for the VOD release in this new deal, I can only assume it'll be around 20 dollars to "rent" like Universal has been doing these days with their new releases online.   
   
   However, Universal does hold the option of not putting a movie on VOD after 17 days if the movie does extremely well in theaters, and once the movie does go onto VOD, then AMC theaters would get 10 percent of the cut of Universal's VOD sales.
   
   Regal has said it would be a cold day in hell before they would ever agree to such a deal, and a lot of other members of NATO have echoed the same sentiments.
   
   What are you're thoughts on this?   Was Universal wrong for doing this deal behind NATO's back to make it with AMC exclusively?  Would Universal studios been better off if they had approached NATO first even though recent reports suggests that other big chains like Regal and Cinemark have already said they wouldn't do it?   
   
   Did AMC make a good deal?  Did Universal make a great deal?   And if Regal, Cinemark and other big movie chains aren't going to support this new model, then does that mean Universal movies will be exclusive to AMC when theaters reopen?  And if that's the case, then will that hurt them?   
   
   And most of all, do you think this is a game changer?  Or not at all because Regal and Cinemark won't back it, which makes the deal pointless as many Hollywood insiders think?  Please discuss.

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