Halloween Kills May Not Hit the Big Screen

Halloween Kills is one of the most highly anticipated Blumhouse Productions horror releases for 2020. The film is set to hit the big screen in the United States on October 16, 2020. Regardless of what happens with the COVID-19 pandemic, Halloween Kills may not hit the big screen at AMC or Regal Theatres.

AMC Theatres announced this week that AMC “will no longer play any Universal movies in any of our theatres in the United States, Europe, or the Middle East.”

Regal Entertainment owner Cineworld Group issued a statement saying:

“Cineworld’s policy with respect to the window is clear, well known in the industry and is part of our commercial deal with our movie suppliers. We invest heavily in our cinemas across the globe and this allows the movie studios to provide customers all around the world to watch the movies in the best experience. There is no argument that the big screen is the best way to watch a movie.

Universal unilaterally chose to break our understanding and did so at the height of the Covid-19 crisis when our business is closed, more than 35,000 employees are at home and when we do not yet have a clear date for the reopening of our cinemas.

Universal’s move is completely inappropriate and certainly has nothing to do with good faith business practice, partnership and transparency.

Mooky Greidinger, Cineworld’s CEO approached Brian Roberts, the Chairman of Comcast, back in March 19 (after Universal announced that Trolls 2 would be released in breach of the window) and told him among other things that:

“Nice words from your team are worthless if we cannot trust you as a partner. The message that the media has portrayed is: “Hollywood breaks the window” – well, this is not true! All our partners called us in timely manner and told us that in the current situation they want to shorten window for movies that were already released as cinemas are closing, most importantly, they all reassured us that there will be no change to their window policy once the cinema business returned. Unfortunately I missed similar message in Universal’s announcement… not only did Universal provide no commitment for the future window – but Universal was the only studio that tried to take advantage of the current crisis and provide a ‘day-and-date’ release of a movie that was not yet released”.

Cineworld’s roots go back 90 years in the industry and it was always open to showing any movie as long as the rules were kept and not changed by one sided moves. Today we make it clear again that we will not be showing movies that fail to respect the windows as it does not make any economic sense for us.

We have full confidence in the industry’s current business model. No one should forget that the theatrical side of this industry generated an all-time record income of $42 billion last year and the movie distributors’ share of this was about $20 billion”

This means that the theatrical side of the industry could lose some of the $20 billion in revenue if studios such as Universal decide to change their releasing strategy.

What does this mean for Halloween Kills?

Universal Pictures is the distributor for Halloween Kills.

If AMC continues the ban on Universal Pictures, then Halloween Kills won’t show on AMC screens. Regal could also join in on the ban.

Several key questions will factor in what will happen next.

The first is profit potential for Universal Pictures. Can they make more money on Halloween Kills releasing it straight to streaming services?

The answer to that question will be based on what moviegoers want. Will moviegoers in a post-COVID-19 world want to sit in movie theatres with strangers who may or may not be carrying the virus?

And the last question is, will AMC and Regal back off their strict demands for the continued practice of the traditional theatrical window? Traditionally, theaters had a window of at least 90 days where films would be exclusively available before being released on DVD, Blu-Ray, and VOD.

Would you rather see Halloween Kills in theaters or rent it on VOD? Do you think the 90 days theatrical window is reasonable?

Leave a comment below and let us know what you think.