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The National Association of Theatre Owners has weighed in on the ongoing war of words between AMC Theaters and Universal Pictures, siding with the movie theater chain.
The backstory:
- On Tuesday, AMC Theaters said it would no longer play Universal films once the global pandemic is over after NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell told The Wall Street Journal the company would look into releasing films in theaters and on demand upon release, as I wrote about for the Deseret News.
- Shell’s comments to The Wall Street Journal came after “Trolls World Tour” — which was released on demand since it was pulled from theaters due to the COVID-19 outbreak — earned about $100 million.
- AMC Theaters chair-CEO Adam Aron said: “It is disappointing to us, but Jeff’s comments as to Universal’s unilateral actions and intentions have left us with no choice. Therefore, effectively immediately AMC will no longer play any Universal movies in any of our theaters in the United States, Europe or the Middle East.”
- Universal responded with its own letter, saying “going forward, we expect to release future films directly to theaters, as well as on PVOD when that distribution outlet makes sense.”
The news:
- According to Deadline, the National Association of Theatre Owners has sided with AMC over the war of words. In fact, NATO offered a second statement Wednesday after the branch was accused of working with AMC directly for the decision to not air Universal films.
- NATO said: “NATO and AMC did not coordinate those statements in any way.”
- NATO said: “Universal has a destructive tendency to both announce decisions affecting their exhibitor partners without actually consulting with those partners, and now of making unfounded accusations without consulting with their partners,” in a complete reference to the studio’s last minute pivot during the COVID-19 pandemic to take ‘Trolls World Tour’ into homes.”