Boxoffice Pro—Q4 2021

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ADDING MORE 

ADDAMS 

The Addams Family 2 Co-Director Conrad Vernon 

Delivers a Sequel for Halloween 

The Official Magazine of the National Association of Theatre Owners

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16/09/2021 8/4/21 10:50 11:23 

AM

Q4 2021 

CONTENTS 

76 

The Reit Stuff 

Ghostbusters: Afterlife 

Continues a Family Legacy 

28 

Building Strong 

TK Architects Celebrates Its 

40th Anniversary 

64 

The Story Continues 

Studio Movie Grill CEO Ted 

Croft on the Dine-In Chain’s 

Emergence from Covid-19 

84 

Adding More Addams 

The Addams Family 2 

Co-Director Conrad Vernon 

Delivers a Sequel for Halloween 

90 

A Shared Tragedy 

Fran Kranz’s Mass Explores 

the Emotional Aftermath of a 

School Shooting 

03-04_Contents.indd 3 17/09/2021 16:47

CONTENTS 

INDUSTRY THEATER ON SCREEN 

10 

12 

18 

22 

28 

NATO 

CinemaCon 2021: The State of the 

Industry 

NATO 

A Conversation with John Fithian 

and Charles Rivkin 

Charity Spotlight 

A Recap of Industry-Wide Charity 

Initiatives 

Indie Influencers 

Interview with Patrick Schweiss 

of the Mary D. Fisher Theatre 

Industry Insiders 

TK Architects Celebrates Its 40th 

Anniversary 

64 

70 

The Story Continues 

Studio Movie Grill CEO Ted Croft on 

the Dine-In Chain’s Emergence from 

Covid-19 

Boxoffice Barometer 

Interview with Sean Mahoney, Senior 

V.P. Sales and Marketing, Vistar 

76 

84 

90 

94 

97 

The Reit Stuff 

Ghostbusters: Afterlife Continues a 

Family Legacy 

Adding More Addams 

The Addams Family 2 Director 

Conrad Vernon Delivers a Sequel 

for Halloween 

A Shared Tragedy 

Fran Kranz’s Mass Explores the 

Emotional Aftermath of a School 

Shooting 

Event Cinema Calendar 

A Sampling of Event Cinema 

Programming Hitting the Big 

Screen in 2021 

Booking Guide 

CINEEUROPE 

SHOWEAST 

34 

38 

40 

45 

International Distributor of 

the Year 

Universal Pictures International 

UNIC Achievement Award 

Ivar Halstvedt, Director of Cinema, 

Kulturmeglerne Ltd. 

Pure Gold 

UNIC and CineEurope Honor 

Dedication and Service to Cinema 

International Exhibitor of the Year 

Odeon Cinemas Group 

48 

52 

56 

58 

Dan Fellman Show “E” Award 

Rolando Rodriguez, Chair, President, 

and CEO, Marcus Theatres, and 

Chairman, National Association of 

Theatre Owners 


Miguel Mier, Chief Operating Officer, 

Cinépolis 

Bingham Ray Spirit Award 

Lisa Bunnell, President of 

Distribution, Focus Features 

Al Shapiro Distinguished Service 

Award 

Elizabeth O’Neil, Executive Director, 

Variety, the Children’s Charity of 

Southern California 

60 

61 

ShowEast Hall of Fame 

Paul Holliman, Former Head of 

Worldwide Digital Cinema and 

Strategic Planning, Disney 

Salah M. Hassanein Humanitarian 

Award 

Mark Christiansen, Executive Vice 

President of Worldwide Distribution 

Operations, Paramount Pictures 

“We’ve learned valuable 

lessons about our ability 

to innovate while we face 

daunting challenges.” 

Charles Rivkin, p. 12 

“The missing piece was that 

we weren’t yet to a point 

where we had multiple films 

opening on a weekly basis, 

so that journey continues.” 

Rolando Rodriguez, p. 48 

04 Q4 2021 

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06-07_Executive-letter.indd 6 17/09/2021 08:39

EXECUTIVE LETTER 

CHAMPIONING 

THE MOVIEGOING 

EXPERIENCE 

“Conventions are a crucial 

part of this industry, 

bringing together vendors, 

exhibitors, and distributors 

under the same roof to 

better define our common 

goal: championing the 

moviegoing experience.” 

I know I wasn’t the only person 

who was equal parts nervous and 

excited as I landed in Las Vegas for this 

year’s edition of CinemaCon, the first 

major industry convention since October 

2019. The surge of Covid-19 cases brought 

about by the Delta variant, the latest 

unforeseen turn in the long and arduous 

road to recovery for movie theaters, 

prevented numerous colleagues from 

attending (whether out of caution or 

travel restrictions), a sobering reminder 

that this wouldn’t be an occasion to let 

our guard down and celebrate the return 

to business as usual. 

In fact, it is becoming increasingly 

clear that although business will certainly 

return, it won’t be anything like the 

“usual” we used to know. I don’t mean that 

in terms of global box office; I remain 

confident those figures are still within 

reach. But I believe the lessons from this 

ordeal will shape our business in the 

years to come. 

And, ultimately, that is the reason 

why conventions like CinemaCon, and 

those organized by our partners at the 

Film Expo Group, are so important to our 

industry. They give us a chance to share 

what we’ve learned, connect with each 

other, and chart a course for the future. 

In its own small way, that is the mission 

statement of this publication. We are 

here to share the insights, best practices, 

lessons, and, yes, even mistakes, of those 

who work in this industry. That is why we 

are thrilled to bring you an issue packed 

with interviews from leading executives 

in distribution and exhibition. This may 

be our most executive-driven issue of the 

magazine in my tenure as the editor of 

Boxoffice Pro. 

Conventions are a crucial part of this 

industry, bringing together vendors, 

exhibitors, and distributors under the same 

roof to better define our common goal: 

championing the moviegoing experience. 

While this past CinemaCon was far 

from being as large as its predecessors, 

it retained that communal sense of an 

industry convening to find a way forward. 

It was truly meaningful to see so many of 

you in person in Las Vegas after spending 

the last 18 months fighting remotely 

for this industry’s survival. I have no 

doubt that same feeling will be shared by 

everyone at CineEurope and ShowEast. 

This is a career-defining crisis for 

everyone involved. The stakes are 

existential for movie theaters. And 

although we’re still not done with the 

crisis, CinemaCon 2021 showed me we’re 

all still committed to fighting for the 

future of theatrical exhibition together. 

Daniel Loria 

SVP Content Strategy & Editorial Director 

Boxoffice Pro 


07 

06-07_Executive-letter.indd 7 16/09/2021 11:25

08_AD-LTI.indd 8 17/09/2021 08:32

NATO 10 | Charity Spotlight 18 | Indie Influencers 22 | Industry Insiders 28 

INDUSTRY 

“Your technology has changed, and our technology has changed, and 

this is how we’re helping you create a better patron experience.” 

TK Architects, p. 28 


09 

09_Industry-Opener.indd 9 16/09/2021 11:26

Industry NATO 

CINEMACON 

2021: THE 

stATE OF THE 

Industry 

These remarks were delivered 

by John Fithian onstage at the 

Colosseum at Caesars Palace 

in Las Vegas on August 24, 

during CinemaCon 2021. 

BY JOHN FITHIAN 

It feels really great to be back 

[at CinemaCon] surrounded by 

friends again. 

Technology kept us connected during 

the pandemic, but nothing can replace 

meeting face to face. Humans simply 

need to be together. That’s why our 

business will thrive again. The pandemic 

constituted an existential challenge to the 

moviegoing experience, but collectively 

we have risen to overcome that threat. 

I want to take a few moments to 

recognize some historic efforts that have 

helped us through these trying times. 

NATO would be nothing if not for the 

dedicated members who volunteer their 

time to support the industry they love. 

Our executive board has met over 

Zoom more than 50 times during this 

pandemic to provide guidance and to 

take decisive action. Two chairmen have 

served during the pandemic—Ellis Jacob 

from Cineplex and Rolando Rodriguez 

from Marcus—and their vision and 

steadfast leadership have been invaluable 

assets. They have helped us chart a path 

forward when no road map existed. 

NATO and our members have stayed 

more connected, more unified, and more 

proactive than ever before. Members 

from competing theater companies have 

worked together on grassroots lobbying, 

safe reopening protocols, securing tax 

breaks, helping our furloughed employees, 

and successfully applying for grants—all 

of which are keeping projector lights on. 

I also want to thank my NATO and 

CinemaCon staff colleagues for working 

tirelessly during the pandemic. Though 

every member of the team has contributed 

significantly to our recovery efforts, I 

want to give a special shout-out to two 

individuals—Esther Baruh and Jackie 

Brenneman—whose leadership of the 

SVOG [Shuttered Venue Operators Grant] 

program has served as a lifeline to many of 

our members. 

The Directors Guild of America and 

the Motion Picture Association have been 

tremendous partners during this crisis. 

More than 100 directors rallied to support 

our industry by signing an unprecedented 

letter to Congress asking for help. MPA 

members have helped us reopen safely 

and have provided new films to bring 

customers back. 

Members of the creative community 

have shown their support in so many ways 

to make one thing crystal clear: Their best 

work is made for the big screen. I applaud 

artists who refuse to accept the false 

narrative that movie theaters are a thing of 

the past and that the future will be one in 

which every movie is consumed at home. 

These leading creatives know better, and 

they are on the right side of history. 

There’s no denying that our industry has 

changed during the last 18 months. Now we 

are charting a successful path forward. 

Exclusive release periods remain 

vital to the survival and success of the 

theatrical experience. Theatrical windows 

won’t be what they were before, but 

they can’t be what they were during the 

pandemic, either. What the future holds 

is up to our members and distributors 

NATO would be nothing 

if not for the dedicated 

members who volunteer 

their time to support the 

industry they love. 


10-11_NATO.indd 10 16/09/2021 11:26

to decide, but let us be clear about one 

thing: Simultaneous. Release. Does. Not. 

Work. For anyone. A steady flow of strong 

movies released with exclusive windows 

is essential to exhibition’s recovery, and 

to the profitability of the entire movie 

ecosystem. 

This is a historic turning point for our 

industry. We are about to enter an era 

of great experimentation that I believe 

will only bolster the importance of the 

big-screen experience. Movies that were 

starting to shy away from a theatrical 

release will grace our screens again. Our 

customers want more options, and there 

are content providers looking to satisfy that 

demand in new theatrical release models. 

Our members will redefine what the 

theatrical experience means. Cinema 

is much more than a passive form of 

entertainment. It’s immersive and life 

changing. Cinema is not meant to exist 

on the same digital playing field as 

funny cat videos on YouTube or endless 

TikTok scrolling. 

Billions of people around the world 

had the option of going to the movies 

taken away from them during the 

Our members will redefine 

what the theatrical 

experience means. Cinema 

is much more than a passive 

form of entertainment. It’s 

immersive and life changing. 

pandemic, and the longing to return to 

that experience was palpable. Now that 

they are coming back, the excitement is 

invigorating. 

The sense of community that cinema 

creates is more important than ever. 

Cinemas are a vital part of the small 

towns and big cities in which they are 

located. The foot traffic movie theaters 

create will help surrounding businesses 

recover from Covid-19. According to an 

Ernst & Young study that NATO released 

last week, in addition to the $18.3 billion 

in direct movie theater revenue, movienight 

spending on other businesses here 

in the U.S. amounted to $5 billion in 2019 

before the pandemic hit. We will return to 

that level again. 

John Fithian is President & CEO of the 

National Association of Theatre Owners 


11 

10-11_NATO.indd 11 16/09/2021 11:26

Industry NATO 

A CONVErsATION WITH 

JOHN FITHIAN And 

CHARLES RIVKIN 

The NATO and MPA Chiefs Discuss 

and Compare Their Strategies for 

Cinema’s Recovery from the Effects 

of the Covid-19 Pandemic 

BY DANIEL LORIA 

“Our industry is facing one 

of the toughest ordeals in 

our 100-year history, and 

it’s going to take some time 

before we can look back and 

say we’ve made the ultimate 

comeback.” 

This is an industry still dealing with 

the effects of a global pandemic. 

Where are we in the recovery effort 

right now? 

John Fithian: It’s been a rough road, this 

pandemic, for theater owners, as it has 

been for Charlie’s studio members as 

well. I think we’re almost at halftime of 

the recovery. We had hoped to be further 

along by this point in 2020, but there are 

some good signs. We’ve had big movies 

start to do very, very well—even during 

these times. We’ve seen customers’ 

interest in coming back out to the cinemas 

in growing numbers. We have to walk 

before we can run, and we’ll probably be 

well into 2022 before being back up to 

the level we were pre-pandemic. We’re 

encouraged by the progress, but we know 

it’s going to take a while. 

Charles Rivkin: The future still feels a bit 

uncertain, of course, but we’ve learned 

a lot of valuable lessons over the past 

year and gained incredible ground. We 

can expect some big wins going forward 

and some setbacks, but we’re going to 

come out of this stronger than ever. Our 

industry is facing one of the toughest 

ordeals in our 100-year history, and 

it’s going to take some time before we 

can look back and say we’ve made the 

ultimate comeback. 

What are the biggest lessons you’ve 

each learned over the past year that 

will help the industry navigate the 

pandemic’s ongoing challenges? 

Rivkin: In my opinion, we’ve learned 

valuable lessons about our ability 

to innovate while we face daunting 

challenges. We also recognize that we 

have to work together as an industry 

with the comeback spirit that’s defined 

our industry for the past century. These 

are the foundations of our past, present, 

and future. I’m not the first person to 

draw parallels from Covid-19 to the 

influenza pandemic of 1918, but I am 

really confident that we’ll be in the midst 

of another roaring ’20s because that’s 

what followed the 1918 pandemic. Back 

then, some of our members were in their 

infancy and just about to be formed. 

Paramount was around a decade old, 

while AMC, MGM, Warner Bros., Disney, 

were all founded in the 1920s. And the 

MPA was founded in 1922, so we are going 

to be 100 years old next year. Together, 

these companies grew rapidly and created 

an iconic industry. We’re on the verge of 

something great right now. We’re going to 

rebound and rebound strong. 

Fithian: Building on Charlie’s reference of 

the pandemic of 1918, the strong recovery 

in people going out of their homes to seek 

entertainment during the early 1920s gives 

us all hope on coming out of this pandemic. 

We’ve learned so many things during this 

process, especially to be prepared for the 

unexpected, but, most importantly, I think 

we’ve learned these lessons together as an 

industry. And I give Charlie and the MPA 

great credit here; they’ve been with us 

side by side in every part of the relief and 

recovery process of our industry. 

I would contrast that with what’s going 

on in the country, unfortunately, because 

I don’t believe we have worked together 

side by side as much as we should have. I 

think we’ve all learned from the pandemic 

that we really shouldn’t politicize things 

like science. That we should listen to our 

scientific advisers, health advisers, and our 

leaders, regardless of their political party, 

and we should work together to come out of 

this pandemic. I think we’re beginning to 

do that better as Americans now. But within 

our own little microcosm, our main lesson 

from this pandemic is to work together to 

recover from the challenges that we faced. 

You are two of the biggest advocates 

for our industry, but a lot of your 

work isn’t always seen by general 

audiences. What were some of the 

things you pushed for, out of the 

public eye, that kept our industry 

afloat and people at work, over the 

last year? 

Fithan: The first one I would cite is 

how to operate safely coming out of a 

pandemic. That covers how you produce 

movies, Charlie’s members’ jobs, and 

how you exhibit movies, our members’ 

jobs. We collaborated very closely on this 

and consulted with some of the same 

epidemiologists to share ideas on how to 

develop safety protocols. Charlie’s team 

got the studios back up and running with 

careful production protocols, and we got 

exhibitors back up and running with the 

CinemaSafe protocols. That partnership 

during the pandemic was essential. We also 


12-16_NATO-Conversation.indd 12 17/09/2021 08:40

tremendously appreciate the support of our 

partners and, indeed, the entire creative 

community, that helped us seek relief. We 

had one of the most successful lobbying 

campaigns in the 30 years or so that I’ve 

represented theater owners: to get recovery 

funds out to theater operators and get tax 

breaks in place. Charlie and top executives 

from his members, along with over 100 

movie directors, working through the DGA 

and [National Executive Director] Russ 

Hollander’s team, came together to lobby 

behind the scenes to produce an essential 

lifeline to keep theater owners in business 

during the pandemic. The last of these 

examples I’ll cite is that I just love the way 

this industry always pulls together to help 

its own people. The Will Rogers Motion 

Picture Pioneers Foundation, which is 

supported both by Charlie’s members and 

by ours, created a fund very early in this 

process to help furloughed employees on 

the exhibition and the studio side. Some of 

Charlie’s members made big contributions, 

and so did ours, in rallying to help the 

workers who didn’t have a paycheck 

coming in until the government passed 

unemployment compensations. 

“We’ve learned so many 

things during this process, 

especially to be prepared 

for the unexpected, but, 

most importantly, I think 

we’ve learned these lessons 

together as an industry.” 

Rivkin: From our vantage point, I think 

the most impactful initiative that the MPA 

brought to the table was the health and 

safety protocols that we created. It was 

done in the early days of the pandemic 

in 2020, and it was a collaboration 

between the studios, unions, guilds, and 

public health experts. It made it safe for 

hundreds of thousands of production 

workers in the United States to come back 

to work. These protocols led to one of 

the safest work environments for anyone 

on set in the United States, resulting in 

some of the lowest positivity rates in the 

country. That took a tremendous amount 

of effort and a lot of coordination—and 

we’re proud of the result. 

There are a lot of things we advocate 

for that make our industry as great as it 

is, from protecting free speech and rights 

of creators to securing strong copyright 

protections so that they can profit from 

their creative work. These things aren’t 

really public; we do this every day. They’re 

not something everybody necessarily 

knows about. Last year mandated that 

we do even more. As John mentioned, 

together we knocked on every door that 


13 


Industry NATO 

mattered, from Capitol Hill to statehouses. 

I personally called 28 of the nation’s 50 

governors to make my case. We advocated 

for liquidity for PPP loans and grants, the 

expansion of unemployment insurance, 

and that cinemas were included in the 

Save Our Stages Act. NATO and the MPA 

worked very closely together to make sure 

that we made that happen. 

Messaging a return to cinemas is a 

sensitive and challenging task. What 

was your strategy for developing 

efforts like CinemaSafe and joint 

campaigns like The Big Screen Is 

Back? Can we expect to see more of 

these collaborations in the coming 

weeks and months? 

Fithian: Messaging is always important. 

It’s always a collaborative process between 

producers and distributors of movies and 

those of us that exhibit them. Careful 

messaging became all the more important 

during the pandemic, and it will be as we 

continue to come out of the pandemic. The 

MPA and NATO worked together on that, 

with epidemiologists helping set the right 

protocols so that we could introduce them 

to Charlie’s members and bring them to 

the plate by emphasizing those efforts. 

Letting people know it was safe and 

time to come back out to the cinemas 

was an important part, but you can’t 

get people back out to cinemas unless 

you also have the right product. That’s 

why partnering on The Big Screen Is 

Back campaign was also important and 

rewarding. The team at the MPA and we at 

NATO were joined by some leaders at CAA, 

one of the biggest talent agencies in Los 

Angeles, in putting together a campaign 

about movies coming back and sentiments 

around it. We launched it in Los Angeles, 

and we’ve had some pretty good play 

off of that campaign. We’re not done yet. 

Obviously, the Delta variant created a 

change in consumer attitudes about safety 

in going to the movies, so the messaging 

challenges continue. Like I said earlier, we 

are at halftime in this recovery process. 

Rivkin: NATO did a tremendous amount 

here to show that it is safe to go back 

inside of a movie theater. We did our best 

as well. Our individual member studios 

did PSAs and tried to get the point across. 

We’re grateful to the Hollywood stars 

like Tom Cruise, Arnold Schwarzenegger, 

“When it comes to a return 

to cinemas, a return to 

production, a return to our 

business generally, there is 

only one mantra: We’re all in 

this together.” 

and others who showed their love of the 

movies by showing up and reminding 

people what it’s like to sit in that audience 

and enjoy this unforgettable experience. 

When it comes to a return to cinemas, 

a return to production, a return to our 

business generally, there is only one 

mantra: We’re all in this together. That 

includes the MPA, NATO, studios, theater 

owners, unions, guilds, independent 

filmmakers—it’s got to be all of us. We 

laid the groundwork, we created a safe 

environment for workers and audiences 

through CinemaSafe, and we’re showing 

audiences they can feel as comfortable 

returning to cinema as any other activity. 

The Big Screen Is Back campaign, 

which I’m very proud of, as John pointed 

out was done with an enormous help from 

[partner and Managing Director] Bryan 

Lourd at the CAA and others in Hollywood. 

I think the worst is behind us, I really do. 

It’s clear the pandemic isn’t over, but until 

that time comes, you’re going to see more 

and more collaborations between all of us 

in the entire industry. 

The pandemic has put extraordinary 

stress on this industry. You both have 

said that we’re all in this together, and 

clearly your efforts are collaborative. 

Can you cite some of your favorite 

examples of positive collaborations 

between the studios and exhibition 

that you’d like to see more of? 

Rivkin: Is there anything better than 

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Terminator 

himself, declaring the big screen is back 

to a rousing audience, who then chanted 

it over and over again? It was such an 

incredible moment, because we could 

feel the excitement of being in a theater 

waiting to see great stories told on the big 

screen and highlight the 1.6 million or so 

jobs that our industry supports. 

CinemaCon, the show NATO puts on 

every year, is simply unmatched and 

is always extraordinary. I’m looking 

forward to seeing everybody again, in 

person, meeting exhibitors, seeing the 

studio programs, and of course, giving the 

address on the state of the industry. 

Fithian: Charlie addressed some of the 

bigger programs quite aptly, so I’ll talk 

more about the collaboration. The one 

that comes to mind is that New York City 

had us closed for a really long time, and 



so did Los Angeles. We developed these 

safety campaigns together, messaged them 

together, Charlie was on the phone with 

governors, and we were doing our lobbying 

for a safe return to both movie production 

and exhibition—but we still couldn’t 

get New York City open. What finally 

worked was a meeting with a bunch of the 

governor’s lead people and the mayor’s lead 

people, that included—and I’m not going 

to name names—a CEO of one of Charlie’s 

companies, the CEO of a major talent 

agency, a representative of exhibition, and 

theater people in New York. They described 

the importance of coming back to the 

movies as we come out of this pandemic. 

They described the health protocols. It was 

one representative from each sector of the 

industry, talking about how important it 

was for New York to open cinemas and get 

us going again. A week later, they opened 

cinemas in New York City, and that was the 

tidal wave that then led to the studios being 

able to release big movies again. It was a 

signal to the rest of the world that it was 

time to go. That’s just one little anecdote of 

the kind of collaboration behind the scenes 

that people don’t necessarily know about, 

where everybody was coming together to 

make the pitch about the need to return to 

movie theaters. 

Piracy has a massively detrimental 

effect on the members of both your 

organizations. How much has the 

pandemic exacerbated this problem? 

What can the industry do to redefine 

its approach to fighting piracy under 

the current market conditions? 

Rivkin: We are absolutely committed 

to [fighting piracy]; it is one of my core 

priorities—reducing piracy and protecting 

the legal marketplace for creative content. 

Piracy really harms our economy. It has 

cost the U.S. economy about 230,000 jobs 

each year and about $30 billion. It hurts 

creators and it hurts audiences. Visiting a 

piracy website puts people at an increased 

risk of malware, which can lead to identity 

and financial theft. A study just came 

out showing that when a pirate steals a 

movie pre-release, it results in a 19 percent 

decrease in box office, so you can see where 

NATO’s and the MPA’s interests are aligned. 

That’s why in 2017 we formed something 

called the Alliance for Creativity and 

Entertainment, we call it ACE, turning it 

into the leading global coalition dedicated 

“Is there anything better 

than Arnold Schwarzenegger, 

the Terminator himself, 

declaring the big screen is 

back to a rousing audience, 

who then chanted it over and 

over again?” 

to reducing piracy and protecting the legal 

marketplace for creative content. Over the 

last year and a half there have been more 

people at home watching content than 

ever before, which obviously leads to an 

increase in piracy. In 2020, there were 137.2 

billion visits to piracy websites around the 

world. Think about that number. The only 

way we can fight piracy is with an all-of-theabove 

approach. That means civil litigation, 

working with law enforcement, and a lot 

more. We know that the industry’s recovery 

requires us, all of us, to address piracy. And 

we’ve made tremendous progress. I’m 

very proud that our current coalition, ACE, 

has the six Motion Picture Association 

members—Disney, Warner, NBC, Universal, 

Sony, Paramount, and Netflix—and I also 

brought on board Amazon and Apple. 

The eight of these companies, the most 

powerful studios. are the core of the 

governing board of ACE. All in, there are 35 

members that span the globe. It’s an endless 

fight, but I think we’re doing a good job. 

Fithian: The MPA have been the lead 

warriors in the fight against piracy for many 

years. The coalition Charlie just described 

is having a great impact as we tackle the 

scourge of piracy on our business. We play 

a support role in the fight against piracy 

in training and coordinating with our 

members and staff to try to defeat it inside 

movie theaters. It’s a great example of 

another way that we partner with the MPA 

leadership as we track where recordings are 

taking place. Through watermarks in the 

content, they let us know and we coordinate 

with law enforcement to track and try to 

stop and arrest people stealing the content 

off our screens. That partnership has been 

going on for four years, and it gets more 

sophisticated every year. 

Another source of piracy, of course, is 

digital. And here is where I’ll make a pitch 

for the exclusive theatrical window. The 

pandemic necessitated that content be 

released in theaters and at home at the 

same time, because Charlie’s members 

could not monetize their movies purely 

on a theatrical run given the restrictions 

during the first part of the pandemic of 

going out to theaters. So, we understood 

why movies were released without 

windows simultaneously. The challenge as 

we come out of the pandemic is that it puts 

a digital copy in the hands of pirates on 

the first day of a theatrical release, which 

is much more damaging than a recorded 


15 


Industry NATO 

copy from inside of a cinema. We’re 

happy that now that we are coming out 

of the pandemic, Charlie’s members are 

returning to release movies with exclusive 

windows. We think that also will help 

counter the digital piracy that’s gone on 

during the pandemic. These are issues led 

by the MPA, they have a tremendous team 

of technology experts and lawyers fighting 

the issue, and we’re very supportive of that 

cause because it affects the entire industry. 

If you could each trade roles for a 

year, what would be the top item 

you’d like to address with each 

other’s membership? 

Fithian: Well, I should not be able to 

influence Charlie Rivkin on how he would 

lead his organization. This is a man of 

an amazing political, diplomatic, and 

business career. He knows the business 

from his time as a CEO and is now a 

tremendous leader of the industry. 

If I had to pick one thing, if I were in his 

shoes, it would be to continue something 

he is already doing, which is to broaden 

the tent and have more people involved in 

the causes of the MPA and the industry at 

large. He’s done that in a couple of ways, 

like by bringing Netflix into the MPA. A 

lot of people have the misconception that 

exhibitors don’t get along with Netflix. 

That’s not the case; we are working 

more and more with Netflix every day. 

By bringing them into the tent of the 

MPA, Charlie has broadened the reach 

and messaging about the importance of 

movies. I hope he gets Apple, Amazon, 

and companies like that into the MPA to 

join the great causes that he’s fighting on. 

Rivkin: It’s obviously a theoretical 

question, because I’m certain there is 

no one better suited to running NATO 

than John Fithian. John has led this 

extraordinary organization, NATO, for 

three decades, and the reason they’ve kept 

him in and that he continues to excel is 

that he’s a diplomat, which is required. He 

is a fierce advocate for his industry and a 

tough negotiator. He’s also a really good 

person, and a good friend. It’s because we 

get along and trust each other, and try to 

work towards a common goal, that we have 

a better chance of solving problems for the 

industry at large. So, I guess I would answer 

the question in a highly theoretical way, 

since I don’t want anybody to take John’s 

job, even for a moment. But I would also do 

things that John is already starting to do: 

finding new ways to grow and enhance the 

theatrical experience. We’re in the golden 

age of content. We should all look for ways 

to champion the entirety of that content 

across a variety of business models in a 

way that lifts up the industry for everybody. 

That’s what John and I are challenged with 

and working towards every day. 

“Charlie has broadened the 

reach and messaging about 

the importance of movies. I 

hope he gets Apple, Amazon, 

and companies like that into 

the MPA to join the great 

causes that he’s fighting on.” 

RTS 



17_AD-ES-T.indd 17 16/09/2021 11:29

Industry CHARITY SPOTLIGHT 

CHARITY 

SPOTLIGHT 

“We are delighted to 

provide these kids with 

a renovated sport court 

that will bring immense 

joy for years to come.” 

CINEMARK AND WARNER 

BROS. JOIN FORCES FOR 

THE BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS 

OF COLLIN COUNTY 

In celebration of the July 16 release 

of Space Jam: A New Legacy, 

Cinemark and Warner Bros. Pictures 

teamed up with the Boys & Girls Clubs 

of Collin County (Texas) to revamp the 

sport court at the McKinney facility in 

McKinney, Texas. The new court was 

unveiled during a ceremony attended by 

Boys & Girls Clubs of Collin County staff 

and president, Cinemark executives, and, 

of course, Boys & Girls Club members 

themselves, who, in addition to exploring 

the new court, got to hang out with Bugs 

and Lola Bunny. 

“Cinemark was thrilled to partner with 

Warner Bros. Pictures and Boys & Girls 

Clubs of Collin County on this meaningful 

project,” said Wanda Gierhart Fearing, 

global CMO at Cinemark. “We are delighted 

to provide these kids with a renovated sport 

court that will bring immense joy for years 

to come. And to further the excitement, the 

Boys & Girls Club members and staff will be 

among the first to experience Space Jam: A 

New Legacy during an advance screening 

at our Allen theater”—to which they were 

driven after the sport court ribbon-cutting 

in special Space Jam: A New Legacy– 

wrapped buses. 

As part of the renovation, the sport 

court was given new backboards, post 

foams, circumference netting, and a highpower 

cleaning of the courts and stands. 

Even more exciting, the post foams and 

select banners and placards now feature 

characters and artwork from Space 

Jam: A New Legacy, making it a fun and 

immersive space. 

“We so appreciate the support of 

Warner Bros. Pictures and Cinemark in 

transforming this court for our club kids 

and the community,” said Marianne 

Radley, CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of 

Collin County. “This past year has been 

especially trying on these kids, so for 

them to witness such an act of generosity 

and have the opportunity to see Space 

Jam: A New Legacy prior to its release is 

just incredible.” 

ARTS ALLIANCE MEDIA 

SUPPORTS MEDICINEMA 

WITH ‘25FOR25’ INITIATIVE 

Arts Alliance Media (AAM), a 

London-based provider of digital 

cinema software and support services, 

raised nearly £500 for MediCinema 

after employees completed 25 homebased 

challenges in just 25 days as part 

of an entertaining “25for25” fundraising 

campaign. 

The initiative, which ran throughout 

the month of April, challenged 25 AAM 

employees to each complete a unique, 

home-based task within a 25-day period 

before donating a minimum of £10 toward 

the chosen charity. From brewing beer, 

making bread, and sketching something 

new to hula hoop endurance, learning 

a new song, and completing a “couch 

to 5 km,” each challenge presented an 

unorthodox test for AAM employees to 

overcome for a good cause. To provide 

extra motivation, the final donation 

could only be made to MediCinema when 


18-20_Charity.indd 18 16/09/2021 11:29

“We were aware of the great 

work MediCinema does, and 

offering those in care an 

escape through the medium 

of cinema is a cause which the 

whole company supports.” 

all participants had completed their 

challenges. 

Alan Bowen, GM and CFO at Arts 

Alliance Media, said: “At AAM, we remain 

committed to our social responsibilities. 

Given the U.K. national lockdown had 

only recently ended, it was imperative to 

establish a creative fundraising initiative 

that we could each participate in from 

home. We were aware of the great work 

MediCinema does, and offering those 

in care an escape through the medium 

of cinema is a cause which the whole 

company supports.” 

Selected by employees as their charity 

of choice, MediCinema aims to improve 

the difficult reality of life in hospitals for 

patients and families throughout the U.K. 

By building, installing, and maintaining 

cinemas in places of care, MediCinema 

is able to provide an immersive 

experience while accommodating those in 

wheelchairs and hospital beds. 

By raising an impressive £482.52, AAM’s 

donation can fund an entire MediCinema 

screening (£317.92), plus three families of 

four (£50.40 each) or two required nurses 

(£150.00) at another screening. 

“We are enormously grateful for the 

wonderful and creative fundraising efforts 

that the Arts Alliance Media staff have 

made,” said Kat Mason, former CEO of 

MediCinema. “It’s brilliant to have been 

chosen as their charity of choice—this 

past year has been so difficult for NHS 

[National Health Service] patients who are 

isolated more than usual in hospitals, and 

this money raised will help more of them 

benefit from our services.” 

UPCOMING EVENT 

On October 30, Kissimmee, Florida’s 

Sunset Walk development will host 

a Special Olympics 5K run/walk—with 

Studio Movie Grill’s Sunset Walk location 

hosting the participants for a specialneeds 

screening. Studio Movie Grill 

Sunset Walk was also named Business 

of the Year by one of its community 

partners, Westside K8 School. 

LIFE AFTER COVID: 

BY THE WILL ROGERS 

MOTION PICTURE 

PIONEERS FOUNDATION 

Will Rogers Adapts and Moves Forward 

The Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers 

Foundation (WRMPPF) operates three 

programs: Brave Beginnings, the Will 

Rogers Institute, and the Pioneers 

Assistance Fund. The WRMPPF was 

originally known as the Will Rogers 

Memorial (1936) when it operated a 

hospital (Will Rogers Memorial Hospital) 

in upstate New York. Over the decades, 

the organization’s activity level has 

fluctuated based on the state of the 

industry and current events. The past 

year has forced this historic organization 

to adapt to the current environment and 

plan for a new normal in the industry. 

Brave Beginnings 

Many people don’t know that the United 

States has the sixth-highest rate of 

premature birth in the entire world. The 

Brave Beginnings program has provided 

grants to hospitals nationwide, since 2006, 

to purchase vital equipment for neonatal 

intensive care units. In early 2020 (prepandemic), 

it issued $1.4 million in grants 

to 42 hospitals. 

Due to the severe economic 

circumstances created by the pandemic, 

fundraising efforts for the Brave 

Beginnings program were suspended in 

spring of 2020 and remain suspended 

at this time. Support for the public 

programs (Will Rogers Institute and Brave 

Beginnings) has almost exclusively been 

provided by the exhibition community 

dating back to the 1930s. The theater 

closures during 2020 made it impossible 

for exhibition to continue their support 

last year, and consequently there will be 

no new grants to hospitals in 2021 and 

potentially into 2022. 


19 


Industry CHARITY SPOTLIGHT 

The Big Screen Big Hearts 

campaign has one 

objective—to help people 

rebuild their lives and get 

back on track. 

Will Rogers Institute 

Continuing to honor the legacy of 

Will Rogers, the Will Rogers Institute 

continues to fund pulmonary research 

and fellowship grants nationwide. The 

namesake lab, the Will Rogers Institute 

Pulmonary Research Center at University 

of Southern California Keck School 

of Medicine, continues to expand its 

activities in cell biology and physiology of 

the pulmonary alveolar epithelium. Their 

findings have relevance to many applied 

problems, including air pollution, chronic 

obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), 

and even Covid-19. 

In addition to the lab at USC, the 

Will Rogers Institute funds research 

fellowships at the following institutions 

to train the next generation of pulmonary 

health experts: 

• Patricia Neal Rehabilitation Center, 

Knoxville, TN 

• Burke Rehabilitation Hospital, White 

Plains, NY 

• University of Texas Southwestern, 

Dallas–Fort Worth 

• NYU Grossman School of Medicine, 

New York 

• Cedars Sinai Hospital, Los Angeles 

The Pioneers Assistance Fund 

For nearly 80 years there has been an 

assistance program for people who work 

in the motion picture industry. Today, 

the Pioneers Assistance Fund continues 

that tradition by providing financial aid 

and supportive counseling to individuals 

who work in theatrical exhibition and 

distribution and vendors exclusive to 

either sector who are encountering an 

illness, accident, or injury. In 2021, a 

campaign was launched to help people 

rebuild their lives who experienced 

financial hardship during the pandemic. 

The Big Screen Big Hearts campaign has 

one objective—to help people rebuild their 

lives and get back on track. 

Activity in 2021 

The Pioneer of the Year Dinner, a timehonored 

industry event since 1947, did not 

happen in 2020 and will not happen in 

2021. The dinner is the primary funding 

source for the Pioneers Assistance Fund. 

Not to worry—the PAF will continue 

to operate via reserve funds, and there 

will be no reduction of services offered 

anytime in the near future. 

Writing a Will and Rounding Up Made 

Easy: WRMPPF has partnered with an 

organization called FreeWill to offer 

industry members a free estate-planning 

tool. The online platform not only allows 

people to create a free and legally binding 

will, but also allows individuals to make 

planned gifts and required minimum 

distributions from their existing IRAs. 

FreeWill also provides a person with the 

ability to donate gifts of stocks. 

Another modern program implemented 

by WRMMPF is the easy way to donate 

loose change electronically. People can 

sign-up to “round up” the loose change 

of a credit card or debit card transaction 

automatically. Visit wrpioneers.org/ 

donate to see all the ways you can support 

our industry charity. 

Tomorrow’s Leaders – Film Row: An 

amazing group of early career and midcareer 

industry professionals, called Film 

Row, has emerged to support WRMPPF as 

well as provide professional development. 

This dynamic group has hosted the Film 

Row golf events in 2019 and 2021 and 

engaging activities like Lunch and Learns, 

Quarantrivia, and their Film Row LEAD 

Speaker Series. The future leadership of 

the industry is in good hands. 

Stay connected with the Will Rogers 

organization on social (@wrpioneers)! 

CHARITY HEROES 

WALTER HEBERT 

Retiring this year after three 

decades with Cinemark, EVP 

of Purchasing Walter Hebert 

leaves behind him a legacy 

of charitable assistance to 

those in need. To recognize his 

many contributions over the 

years, Cinemark is building 

a treehouse in his honor at 

Variety’s Peaceable Kingdom 

Retreat for Children, which 

hosts diagnosis-specific 

summer camps for children 

dealing with a range of 

conditions. The treehouse, 

named “Fort Walter,” was 

dedicated to Hebert in August. 

In his time with Cinemark, 

Hebert has forged numerous 

relationships across the globe. 

He has devoted countless 

hours to Cinemark’s annual 

golf tournament, which has 

raised millions of dollars for 

charities, including Peaceable 

Kingdom/Variety of Texas, 

Will Rogers, and the Dallas 

Holocaust and Human Rights 

Museum, to name just a few. 

In recognition of all his efforts 

and generosity, Variety named 

him Texan of the Year in 2018. 

Boxoffice Pro invites you 

to honor a Charity Hero— 

someone in the exhibition 

industry who has gone above 

and beyond to help those in 

need. Nominations—along 

with a description of the 

person’s charity activities 

and a photo—can be sent to 

numbers@boxoffice.com. 



Celebrating 50 years 

of unwavering dedication, 

service, and excellence! 

In the face of unprecedented 

challenges for the cinema industry, 

Proctor Companies is proud to stand 

strong as your trusted, go-to partner. 

Considering a new project? 

Give us a call. 

www.proctorco.com | | sales@proctorco.com 

800-221-3699 

50th_Full 21_AD-Creators.indd BO.indd 1 

21 17/09/2021 8/17/21 5:07 08:33 PM

Industry INDIE INFLUENCERS 

INDIE INFLUENCERS 

Brought to you by 

As the cinema industry begins to emerge from the Covid-19 

pandemic, Boxoffice Pro and Spotlight Cinema Networks are 

partnering to profile movie theaters and influential industry 

figures from across the country and asking them to share their 

first-person accounts of bringing the movies back to the big screen. 

MARY D. FISHER THEATRE 

Sedona, Arizona 

Interview with Patrick Schweiss, 

Executive Director 

Can you give us some background 

on the Mary D. Fisher Theatre 

and its connection to the Sedona 

International Film Festival? And 

who is Mary D. Fisher? 

We were a festival before we were a 

theater. The Sedona International Film 

Festival is turning 28 this year. We’re 

very proud of that. And the Mary D. 

Fisher Theatre is about to turn 10. Back 

in 2011, we realized that we had become 

much, much more than just a once-ayear 

film festival. The festival had grown 

from three days to nine days since its 

inception. We were renting one of the 

multiplexes across the street on 45 of the 

52 Tuesdays to bring special events in 

throughout the year. We realized, why 

are we doing that when we could just 

build our own theater and have an art 

house movie venue for Sedona? 

So we investigated and looked into this 

building that used to be a bank. It’s kind 

of a funny-looking building. I often tell 

people, it’s one of the ugliest buildings in 

Sedona, and you’ll find the cutest little art 

house theater in it. Everyone agrees it’s 

absolutely amazing. It was built as a bank 

long ago, and then became a call center for 

a marketing company. And then you walk 

in, and you’re mystified by the beauty of 

this gorgeous 112-seat theater in the most 

nondescript building. 

At that time, Mary D. Fisher was on 

my board of directors. She’s an incredible 

philanthropist, artist, humanitarian. She 

was the keynote speaker in 1992 at the 

Republican National Convention. She 

was one of the first women to publicly 

acknowledge she was HIV positive, that 

it wasn’t just a gay man’s disease and that 

we have to pay attention to this. So she 

became the face of AIDS awareness and HIV 

awareness and gave this incredible speech 

at the Republican National Convention. 

She devoted the rest of her life to doing 

wonderful things philanthropically and 

in the arts. She’s an artist and a fabric 

designer. Her family was Fisher Oil up 

in Detroit. Her father, Max Fisher, and 

her mother, Marjorie, instilled a sense 

of philanthropic excellence in all of the 

kids. They established foundations, and 

wherever they were living they gave very 

generously. Mary’s passion was film and 

C 

M 

Y 

CM 

MY 

CY 

CMY 

K 


22-26_Indie-Influencers.indd 22 16/09/2021 11:32


23 



the arts. She fell in love with the idea of us 

building our own little theater and made it 

possible for us. So we’re very, very grateful 

to Mary Fisher and to all of our supporters 

who have really poured tens and hundreds 

of thousands of dollars into supporting 

us over the years. It’s been an amazing, 

amazing run of nine and a half, now going 

on 10, years of our art house theater. The 

community has totally supported it. So 

much so that we’re about to embark on an 

expansion campaign of adding a second 

screen to the theater. We’re really excited 

about that. 

What’s your day-to-day 

programming like, aside from when 

the film festival is going on? 

[We screen] two films a day, every day of 

the year, here at the Mary D. Fisher. We 

have a four o’clock and seven o’clock 

show. Strictly art house, foreign, that 

kind of product. We have a wonderful 

partnership with the megaplex across 

the street—we rent their facilities 

during the film festival. They are really 

committed to the big box office films, the 

Hollywood blockbusters, the first-run 

films. We don’t do any of that. We strictly 

focus on art house fare and foreign films 

and documentaries and those type of 

things that wouldn’t normally make it 

to a theatrical run in a megaplex. Our 

audiences really respect that and really 

love that we’re bringing some culture and 

some extra film events and things that 

they normally wouldn’t be able to see if 

we weren’t here. 

From your website, it looks like your 

programming is quite eclectic—even 

some nonfilm content, like a live 

magic and comedy show. 

We had several people within the course 

of a month a couple of years ago come 

up to us and say, “You’re the cultural 

heart of Sedona. We experience so many 

wonderful things when we come to the 

Mary D. Fisher Theatre.” 

On any given week, we’ll have two 

art house movies that will open. We’ll 

have the Met Opera. We’ll have a ballet 

from the Bolshoi on-screen. We’ll have a 

London West End production. We’ll have 

a discussion series. And we’ll have a live 

show. It’s an eclectic mix, as you said. A 

combination of really wonderful art house 

theater fare, alternative content, and some 

live performances. We purposely built the 

“Our audiences really 

respect that and really love 

that we’re bringing some 

culture and some extra film 

events and things that they 

normally wouldn’t be able to 

see if we weren’t here.” 

theater so that the screen could move back 

on tracks. We have a small performance 

space—9 by 19 1/2 feet. We can do some 

smaller productions. We’re the home for 

the improv troupe here in Sedona. Poetry 

slams. All sorts of wonderful live events. 

It’s this wonderful, eclectic, artsy, cultural 

mix. We’re very proud that our own 

members have labeled us the “cultural 

heart of Sedona,” because we really want 

people to experience that. 

We had a couple in from Toronto that 

came to me one night and said, “You don’t 

know us, but we’ve been here for a week. 

We’re from Toronto. Five of the seven 

nights we were in Sedona, we were here 

at your theater experiencing something 

different every night.” It was such a 

rewarding thing to hear, that even visitors 

consider us a viable way to spend their 

time and their money here in Sedona, 

checking out some things that wouldn’t 

normally be on a vacation agenda. We get 

stories like that all the time from people 

that come in to visit. And our locals! Our 

locals will be here five, six times a week, 

catching different things. 

A festival experience is different 

from a standard screening—each 

film has fewer screenings, so it feels 

more exclusive, more like an event. 

There might be an intro or a Q&A. It 

really sounds like the Mary D. Fisher 

Theatre has been inspired by that 

festival ethos. 

We’re about so much more than film. We 

call it an experience. You can go anywhere 

and see a film. Even at home, on your 

laptop. Everybody does it. You can go to the 

multiplexes—and there’s nothing wrong 

with that. There’s a great market for that. 

You often go to art house venues for 

the experience. And that experience is 

exactly what you say: a little bit of that 

festival feel, where you’ve got Q&As or 

Zoom Q&As or a discussion happening 

after the film. We always tease and say 

we’ve got a year-round festival happening 

here in Sedona, because there are so 

many films we’re bringing in each week. 

It almost does feel like there’s a film 

festival almost every day here at the 

Mary D. Fisher Theatre. It’s exciting. It’s 

exactly the vibe that we’re going for. We 

want people to come to the films and 

say, “Wow, that was so much more than 

a movie!” And then talk about it and tell 

their friends. 



As someone who has experience both 

running an art house theater and on 

the festival circuit (as the executive 

director of the Sedona International 

Film Festival), what are some lessons 

that the art house world can take 

from how film festivals create unique 

experiences? 

People are thirsty for so much more now. 

There’s a new streaming service popping 

up every single day, much to the chagrin 

of us theater owners and managers. 

Ultimately, we love that streaming 

services exist. There’s a great market for 

that. As long as people are experiencing 

films, they should experience them any 

way they can. But for us, getting people 

to have that communal experience in 

a theater surrounded by other movie 

lovers and having that opportunity for 

conversation—that’s what it’s all about. It 

enriches the experience. 

That’s what I would love to impart to 

all our colleagues, from the megaplex to 

other art house theaters. That experience 

is so appreciated by your audience. It 

takes going to the movies to the next 

level. And it’s something that is so easy 

to do, especially now—you can dial up a 

“It’s this wonderful, eclectic, 

artsy, cultural mix. We’re very 

proud that our own members 

have labeled us the ‘cultural 

heart of Sedona,’ because 

we really want people to 

experience that.” 

filmmaker or someone affiliated with the 

film for almost every screening and have 

that enhanced experience. And people 

go away talking about it. You don’t get 

that when you’re watching a movie on 

your laptop at home or on the TV at home. 

Number one, you don’t get that communal 

experience of seeing a film on the big 

screen in the dark, the way they’re meant 

to be experienced, surrounded by other 

people. And then having that conversation. 

Even if there’s not a conversation from 

a filmmaker at the end of the film, just 

hearing what’s happening in the lobby. 

As people leave, the conversations and 

the dialogue that happens is absolutely 

magical. To be able to take that experience 

and make it not just, in our case, the nine 

days of our festival but a 365-day-a-year 

experience is something really quite 

extraordinary. 

Given that you’re such an integral 

part of the cultural community in 

Sedona, what have you found to be 

the best ways to maintain strong 

communication with your customers, 

pre-Covid, during the shutdown 

period, and now? 


25 



I know that a lot of the other house art 

house theaters also have membership 

programs, but we have a really, really 

strong, very dedicated membership 

program. A very generous membership 

program. In Sedona itself, we are the 

largest member-supported nonprofit 

organization. We’re very proud of that. 

We engage with them constantly, daily 

through emails, and keep them updated 

on what’s happening. 

We always realized our members were 

incredibly important to us, but it never 

was proven so much as during Covid. They 

came out of the woodwork. We, like all 

theaters, had to close. We were closed five 

months of 2020. We were lucky enough 

to open at the end of August [2020] and 

have been open ever since. During the five 

months we were closed, we tried to find 

creative ways—as we all did—to keep our 

audiences engaged in our product and 

supporting us even when they couldn’t be 

here for a movie. 

We started by doing a free shorts film 

festival online. We had incredible support. 

We had just completed our film festival, 

and I got permission from our shorts 

filmmakers to share their films with our 

audience. When the pandemic hit, when 

we had to shut down, we sent them a 

free short film at one o’clock every day, 

with a little clicker at the bottom saying, 

“Please help support us while we’re closed. 

We are keeping all of our employees 

employed.” And asking them to donate. 

Which they did. We did a membership 

campaign, which usually happens in 

April and May. Again, it was right during 

the heart of being closed down. And 

people gave so generously and gave extra 

donations, because they knew we were 

keeping our employees employed and 

that we were sending them things daily 

to watch and enjoy. 

You’re not just saying “give us money.” 

You’re providing entertainment and 

then bringing up donations. 

Right! And the “give us money” either 

wasn’t asked or was a subtle thing at 

the very end, saying, “If you enjoyed 

this, please consider supporting us. Any 

donation helps.” And we would get $5, 

$20, $200, $5,000 at different times, just 

because people felt compelled. We were 

keeping them engaged. And we hadn’t 

lost sight of how important they are to us. 

And that helped us. 

“In Sedona itself, we are the 

largest member-supported 

nonprofit organization. We’re 

very proud of that. We engage 

with them constantly, daily 

through emails, and keep 

them updated on what’s 

happening.” 

You work with Spotlight Cinema 

Networks—both screening their preshow 

and showing content from 

their event cinema outfit, CineLife 

Entertainment. Can you talk a bit 

about your relationship with Spotlight 

and how it’s helped the Mary D. Fisher 

Theatre through the recovery process? 

They are such an important partner to us. 

We started with them years ago with their 

on-screen ads. It’s such a no-brainer for 

theaters. They do all the work and sell 

the ads. We have the right to show them 

or not show them. We get to pick what 

works for our audiences, and 99 percent 

of the time it’s everything they do. And 

you get this magical check that shows 

up, because you’ve shown their ads! They 

provide such an incredible opportunity 

for theaters and a great marketing 

opportunity for their advertisers to get in 

front of our customers’ eyeballs. The art 

house theater crowd is usually a highereducated 

crowd. Our demographic is 

older. They have disposable income. 

They come to movies and events that are 

a little more expensive than [you’ll find 

at] the regular cineplex. So their ads are 

getting seen by a really prime audience. 

And now, with the addition of their 

cinema events and the special alternative 

content they do, it’s just phenomenal. I 

think we book almost everything that 

they make available, because it’s such a 

fit for our audience. It provides wonderful 

cultural events that we can program. So 

it’s great revenue for us, great revenue 

for CineLife Entertainment, and great for 

our audience to experience something 

cultural that they wouldn’t normally get 

to experience. 

We’re also excited because, with the 

addition of the second theater, we’ll be 

able to expand and even do more of those 

programs that Spotlight Cinema Networks 

and CineLife Entertainment offer. We’re 

excited about the opportunities that’s 

going to present. Getting in front of more 

people with those messages and those 

programs and providing more cultural 

experiences is what it’s all about. 



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27_AD-Proctor.indd 27 17/09/2021 08:33

Industry INDUSTRY INSIDERS 

BUILDING 

STRONG 

TK Architects Celebrates Its 


BY REBECCA PAHLE 

1981, says Michael Cummings, was 

not the best time to be an architect. “I 

distinctly remember a professor telling me, 

‘It’s a great time to be in school. There’s not 

an architecture job to be had anywhere.’” 

Nonetheless, 1981 was the year when 

architect Ted Knapp took a risk and—with 

a combination of hard work, planning, 

and a little bit of lucky timing—cofounded 

(with wife, Sue) TK Architects, 

still going strong in 2021 as the firm 

celebrates its 40th anniversary. 

According to Cummings, TK Architects 

senior principal, Knapp, who retired 

from the firm in 2011, worked at several 

architecture firms in the Kansas City area 

before hitting a professional wall: “He’s 40 

years old and there’s nowhere for him to 

go in his career. There’s no other position 

to aspire to.” Striking out on his own and 

founding TK Architects—“to be in charge 

of [his] own destiny,” says Cummings— 

may have ended in failure, given the state 

of the economy at the time. Luckily, TK 

Architects had a weighty factor in the plus 

column: they shared, and still share, a 

home city with AMC Theatres. 

That AMC ended up being a key early 

client for TK Architects—and that the 

year of TK Architects’ founding saw both 

companies smack-dab in the middle of 

the construction-heavy multiplex boom— 

was a product of “really interesting 

foresight and thought” on Knapp’s part, 

says Cummings. At an earlier job, he’d 

done design work for shopping centers, 

which familiarized him with AMC, whose 

corporate headquarters was three blocks 

from his office. Despite a noncompete 


28-31_TK-Architects.indd 28 16/09/2021 11:33

Below. The Palms 

Theatres & Imax in 

Waukee, Iowa 

clause, Knapp would reach out to cinema 

veteran Larry Jacobson, then senior 

V.P. at AMC Theatres, to ask about “hot 

fishing tips”; this bit of entrepreneurial 

subterfuge led to architecture jobs with 

AMC, designed over the weekend after the 

chain held its Friday real estate meetings. 

“When I started a few years later, that was 

still a regular part of the weekly routine: 

wait for the real estate call on Friday 

afternoon and figure out whether you’re 

going to have to work the weekend or 

not to get something done for it,” says 

Cummings. Though he admits that it was 

“a bit of luck” that the multiplex boom was 

under way during TK Architects’ early 

years, “it certainly wasn’t a bit of luck 

that AMC was a targeted potential client. 

[The hard work] was not luck at all. Or all 

the design skill that went into being able 

to do those layouts in a few hours over 

a weekend, to let them make a decision 

whether a site made any sense.” 

And it wasn’t luck that would carry TK 

Architects along for another four decades. 

In 1987, says Cummings, AMC Founder 

and CEO Stan Durwood claimed that 

every theater that needed to be built in the 

U.S. already had been, which ultimately 

had two major impacts on TK Architects’ 

future. One: In search of new clients, 

they got involved in the larger exhibition 

community, attending industry events like 

ShoWest (now CinemaCon), CineEurope, 

CineAsia, and other conferences hosted by 

the NAC and TEA, the forerunner to ICTA. 

Secondly, when AMC went to Europe 

to try and establish an international 

presence there, TK hopped across the 

pond as well, founding an office in 

London in 1995. In the decades since, TK 

Architects has worked on entertainment 

projects in more than 50 countries. They 

also, in addition to cinemas, do work for 

entertainment, food, and retail venues, 

including those in the emerging cinema 

entertainment center field, profiled in 

depth in our August 2020 issue. 

“It was a unique edge that 

we had, to be able to [say to] 

cinemas, ‘Your technology has 

changed, and our technology 

has changed, and this is how 

we’re helping you create a 

better patron experience.’” 


29 


Industry INDUSTRY INSIDERS 

In listening to the stories of vendors, 

whether seating or concessions, 

technology or architecture, one gets a 

sense of the rich and still-evolving history 

of theatrical exhibition—and the case is no 

different with TK Architects. In the firm’s 

early years, their designs for AMC under 

the leadership of Durwood were geared 

toward an “efficiency rating”—basically, 

taking a preexisting space (as most 

theaters were located in shopping centers 

at that time) and trying to fit as many 

people as possible into each auditorium 

for maximum profit. Whether a cinema’s 

business plan made sense was a matter of 

simple math: the cost of the lease, the size 

of the building, and the square footage 

required per seat. “I remember to this 

day a call with Ted and Larry Jacobson— 

they’d worked very hard on his plan to get 

something to fit. It was the first one they 

did, and they were so proud.” The plan 

was taken to Durwood, who right off the 

bat asked for the efficiency rating. When 

it proved too low, he responded, “‘Well, 

that’s terrible. Don’t even show it to me 

unless you get a 12.’ At the time, that was 

Stan’s formula, his recipe for what he 

needed to sign a lease.” 

“It’s about putting the space 

and spending the money 

where the customer will 

appreciate it.” 

The efficiency-rating era—or the 

packing-them-in-like-sardines era, 

whichever you prefer—began to pass 

with the coming of stadium seating and 

was fully K.O.’d by AMC’s enthusiastic 

adoption of recliner seating near the 

beginning of the 21st century. “We were 

having a conversation with [exhibition 

veteran, now CEO of Classic Cinemas] 

Chris Johnson,” says Cummings, “and he’s 

like, ‘It’s counterintuitive. It just makes no 

mathematical sense. But I see the results. 

I see the business. I see the dollars come 

from a location before and after. It makes 

no sense. But it works.’” 

Recliner seating swept the North 

American market, and other changes to 

the cinematic status quo followed—with 

TK Architects in the thick of it, figuring 

out how to design all these new trends that 

were taking hold in the industry. With 

dine-in came the need for theaters to have 

kitchens. More recently, the increased 

adoption of touchless technologies— 

spurred by Covid, but certain to remain 

post-pandemic per TK Architects 

Principal Theresa English—has had its 

own impact on theater design. Cinema 

entertainment centers are an area in 



which Cummings sees room for continued 

design innovation, as are food and 

beverage and microcinemas—or, speaking 

in a more general sense, designs for “more 

versatile spaces,” says English, that allow 

for cinemas to more easily experiment 

with an expanded variety of content. 

Although North American cinema 

design has trended toward the warmer and 

more inviting in recent years—kind of a 

“your-living-room-away-from-home feeling,” 

says Cummings—in certain overseas 

markets (including China), “they’re a lot 

more experimental and a lot more willing 

to try something and to look for something 

that’s eye-catching.” While Cummings 

would love the opportunity to provide 

more glitz and glamour, even something 

borderline Vegas, he says, referring to some 

cinemas he’s visited in India—“I don’t know 

how positively the U.S. market will react to 

that. And I’m not talking about the clients. 

I’m talking about the consumers. 

“It depends on the demographics, and it 

depends on the market,” he continues. “I 

also think about the success that Alamo 

[Drafthouse Cinemas] or Everyman 

[Cinemas] have had in their markets with 

creating a very unique aesthetic. … It’s 

really about being part of the communities 

that they’re in.” 

Meanwhile, TK Architects upped its 

own technological game over the decades, 

shifting from AutoCAD design software to 

Revit, allowing them and their customers 

to look at potential sightlines in 3-D. “I 

could look at [a potential design] in curved 

rows with a curved screen and tell [a 

client], ‘Yeah, you’ll be able to see the 

bottom of the screen,’ or ‘No, you won’t,’” 

says English. “We adopted that earlier 

than I would say our competitors did. It 

was a unique edge that we had, to be able 

to [say to] cinemas, ‘Your technology has 

changed, and our technology has changed, 

and this is how we’re helping you create a 

better patron experience.’” 

Patron experience must be at the center 

of every cinema, which the designers at TK 

Architects will remind a client if its own 

creative vision clashes with practical and 

efficient design. Spend money on things 

your customers will actually notice, says 

Cummings: spacious-enough bathroom 

stalls, not top-of-the-line plumbing 

systems. “They care if you walk into an 

auditorium and there’s a space to gather 

yourself and figure out where you’re going 

to go”—versus a “not fully realized” space 

at the back of the auditorium “that only 

half a dozen patrons actually see during 

the course of the movie. It’s about putting 

the space and spending the money where 

the customer will appreciate it.” All this, 

says Cummings, while capturing “each 

client’s unique culture and personality”— 

whether that’s hewing to a very specific 

brand aesthetic or, with midsize exhibitors 

on down, working with the client to 

understand their vision so that it can be 

expressed through design. 

TK Architects started in a time of 

economic precarity, when exhibitors were 

taking risks and exploring innovations that 

would lead the world of cinema into the 

next century stronger than ever before. As 

TK turns 40, the world of exhibition faces 

profound challenges yet again—which it 

is meeting, as ever before, with creativity 

and entrepreneurship, all underpinned by 

a love of going to the movies. 

Left. Malco Powerhouse 

Cinema, Memphis, 

Tennessee 

Right. Marcus Palace in 

Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, 

and Camp Cinemark in 

Allen, Texas 


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Niels Swinkels 34 | Ivar Halstvedt 38 | UNIC Gold Awards 40 

CINEEUROPE 

“If it wasn’t for the hugely motivating environment at Universal, 

I would not have chosen to stay at the same company for such 

an extensive amount of time.” 

Niels Swinkels, p. 34 


33 

33_CineEurope-Opener.indd 33 16/09/2021 11:35

CineEurope 2021 NIELS SWINKELS 

INTernATionAL 

DISTRIBUTor 

OF THE YEAR 

nieLS SWinKELS 

Executive Vice President & 

Managing Director, Universal 

Pictures International 

“We are delighted to 

have this opportunity to 

thank and honor Niels and 

Universal for their leadership 

position in maintaining the 

even flow of product to the 

industry during the past 18 

months.” 

Niels Swinkels, the recently 

promoted executive vice president 

and managing director of Universal 

Pictures International, is this year’s 

recipient of CineEurope’s International 

Distributor of the Year award. 

Prior to taking on his current role 

in January 2021, Swinkels served as 

executive vice president of international 

distribution—a role that required him 

to relocate from Los Angeles to London 

in 2015. Swinkels’s ties to Universal date 

back to 2004, when he joined the newly 

created Universal Pictures International 

head office as its international marketing 

director. Further promotions saw him 

move up to V.P. of sales and distribution 

EMEA in 2006 and a change in title to 

senior vice president in 2009, before 

spending over four years as managing 

director of UPI U.K. and Ireland. In his 

current role, Swinkels manages the dayto-day 

operations of the UPI businesses, 

delivering strategic direction for all 

international theatrical distribution 

efforts and leading business development, 

including regional partnerships, 

productions, and market expansion. 

“Universal Pictures International has 

been a strong supporter of CineEurope 

since its inception, and Niels has led that 

effort with great professionalism,” says 

Andrew Sunshine, managing director of 

CineEurope. “We are delighted to have 

this opportunity to thank and honor Niels 

and Universal for their leadership position 

in maintaining the even flow of product to 

the industry during the past 18 months.” 

Boxoffice Pro spoke to Swinkels 

ahead of CineEurope and asked him to 

look back on his career. We also asked 

about the challenges of distributing and 

marketing global tentpole releases during 

a pandemic. 

You’ve worked at a variety of 

companies throughout your career. 

What has been the biggest change 

in the industry during that span? Is it 

harder to get a film on an audience’s 

radar today than in the past? 

I would say, over the 25-year time span, 

the biggest change has been the growth of 

the international market, helping global 

box office to a record $42 billion in 2019. 

Secondly, and that answers your other 

question, is the way films get marketed 

and the environment in which we do that. 

Campaigns used to be a lot less complex. 

Getting your one sheet and trailer right as 

key elements, plus a set of derivative TV 

spots, were your main tasks as marketer. 

Nowadays, the volume and variety of 

marketing elements on each release are 

vast. We’re now to able to directly target 

moviegoers with customized messages. 

This is not only the opportunity that the 

intricate media landscape now provides, 

but also a necessity to break through the— 

mostly online—clutter. 

Have you had any mentors 

throughout your career that have 

helped you be where you are today? 

Absolutely, from my first two bosses in 

the Benelux, Dirk De Lille and Marc Punt, 

who helped me on my way as a movie 

marketer, to David Kosse, Duncan Clark, 

and now Veronika Kwan Vandenberg at 

Universal as I moved into distribution 

and management. Each of them has 

taught me different things about my 

job, the industry, how to strive to be 

the best at what I do and be the most 

effective leader. I am grateful they have 

all allowed me to grow and evolve and at 

critical points change roles to continue 

that journey. And during my entire 

17-year-plus career at Universal, Donna 

Langley has always been an incredible 

inspiration, showing how to combine 

business smarts with creative excellence 

and how to always strive for change 

and progress. If it wasn’t for the hugely 

motivating environment at Universal, 

I would not have chosen to stay at the 

same company for such an extensive 

amount of time. 

The rise in prominence of the 

international box office is one of the 

major industry developments of the 

last 25 years. As a distributor, was 

there a specific period when you 

noticed the industry had realized 

the true potential and power of 

international markets? 

Titanic was of course an early indicator 

of the enormous potency of international, 

when box office receipts for that movie 

seemed without end in 1998. But it wasn’t 

until the early 2000s that the Lord of the 

Rings and Harry Potter franchises started 

to show consistency of international 

box office potential at $500 million or 

more for each installment, plus some big 

animation hits around that mark from 

Pixar and DreamWorks. Moving to London 


34-36_CINE_NIELS-SWINKELS.indd 34 16/09/2021 11:35

to take an international role in early 

2004 was perfect timing to be part of this 

surge and helped me be an advocate for 

and contributor to it. The growth hasn’t 

stopped since. 

Universal is one of the few studios to 

consistently release films worldwide 

since cinemas reopened. What 

lessons did you learn from that 

process? From your perspective, 

where is the global cinema recovery 

today compared to last year? 

We learned and still learn new lessons 

on each release weekend and in between, 

as everything is still in such a state of 

flux. Most importantly, we learned that 

you can release movies around the world 

with extended rollout patterns, holding 

out and waiting for opportune moments 

from market to market. For example, we 

are still in release on The Croods: A New 

Age, which opened in North America at 

Thanksgiving 2020, and we’ll cross $165 

million in international box office, the 

highest gross for any family film since 

the start of the pandemic. We have yet 

to release [in all] markets for F9, for 

which we started the rollout in major 

international markets like China, South 

Korea, and Russia an unprecedented 

five weeks before domestic. We are 

approaching $550 million in international 

box office, by far the highest-grossing 

film since the start of the pandemic. 

There’s light at the end of the tunnel, 

and it shines brighter in some places than 

others still. But we are committed to our 

slate for the remainder of 2021, including 

No Time to Die. Along the way, we may 

need to revert to unconventional release 

patterns, if market circumstances require 

it. It’s the reality of today, but it can work. 

We have confidence that in 2022 we will 

return to a more normative situation. 

Launching a global release under 

regular market conditions is difficult 

in itself. How did the pandemic 

change your approach, as you 

balance the challenge of helping 

audiences return to cinemas while 

being sensitive to those who may not 

be ready to come back? 

The unusual rollout strategies we 

conceived on prior-mentioned releases 

proved that you can manage the 

availability of movies for the right 

audience at the right time, market by 

“If it wasn’t for the hugely 

motivating environment 

at Universal, I would not 

have chosen to stay at the 

same company for such an 

extensive amount of time.” 

market. This includes in the home as 

well. We have found very effective ways 

to release in the home at shorter windows 

while protecting the theatrical opportunity 

when cinemas are open. This not only 

secures a constant flow of available new 

titles, it also enables profitability on 

releases during very challenging times 

and is therefore a business model that has 

a foundation for a future. The profile of 

the content-consuming population and 

its propensity to leave the house to see a 

movie on the big screen or watch at home 

will continue to evolve. Safety will be the 

first and foremost concern initially. The 

overall experience will be next—like in 

normal times. When we come out of the 

pandemic, in ideal circumstances, we will 

have grown both theatrical and in-home 


35 


CineEurope 2021 NIELS SWINKELS 

viewing as audiences will have developed a 

very strong sense of the value of one versus 

the other. 

When was your first trip back to the 

cinema since theaters reopened 

in your area? Can you tell us more 

about that experience and what it 

meant to you? 

It was on April 16. A private hire with 

friends at the Cinemark North Hollywood. 

We watched Fast Times at Ridgemont 

High. It was an emotional night: being 

back at a cinema with great company, 

having an old-fashioned good time. I 

won’t forget it. I posted about it on my 

social media, and it got huge response. I 

have been back to the cinema for regular 

programming many times since, both 

with my family and with friends. 

Cinemas have an extraordinary 

challenge ahead of them as they 

continue to reopen. How do you 

believe the industry can move 

forward from this crisis? 

For a while, exhibitors will need to deal 

with Covid-safe measures to make patrons 

“The profile of the contentconsuming 

population and its 

propensity to leave the house 

to see a movie on the big 

screen or watch at home will 

continue to evolve.” 

feel safe as well as their staff. I think each 

of them has done an incredible job in that 

sense. I’m a huge believer that moviegoing 

will come back in a big way. We have 

already seen very promising signs of this 

in markets where circumstances allowed 

for recovery. 

Like before the pandemic, if cinema 

owners invest in places people want 

to leave their houses for, because they 

offer value for money in quality and 

experience (that includes anything 

from making a reservation to leaving 

the theater) on something you cannot 

replicate at home, and we deliver on the 

expectation of what people want from 

a movie in the social space of a movie 

theater, we will recover and prosper 

like before and even go beyond. Look at 

the restaurant business currently. It’s 

booming! People have had enough of 

cooking at home, cold takeaways, and 

washing up. I believe that analogy is a 

sign of hope for all of us. 



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8/31/21 16/09/2021 10:22 11:36 

AM

Cineeurope 2021 IVAR HALSTVEDT 

UNIC 

ACHieVEMENT 

AWARD 

IVAR HALSTVEDT 

Director of Cinema at 

Kulturmeglerne Ltd. and former 

Country Manager for Norway 

at Nordic Cinema Group and 


It’s been a long two-plus years since 

the exhibition executives of Europe 

were able to meet at CineEurope, last held 

in person in June 2019 in Barcelona, Spain. 

The Film Expo Group hosted a digital 

version of the event in 2020, but as this 

year’s UNIC Achievement Award winner 

Ivar Halstvedt will tell you, there’s nothing 

like meeting in person. 

The current director of cinema at 

Kulturmeglerne Ltd. and former country 

manager for Norway at Nordic Cinema 

Group (later Odeon Cinemas Group), 

Halstvedt may be a year late in picking 

up his award—he was initially slated to 

receive it at 2020’s CineEurope—but it is 

no less a reflection of an incredible life 

of service to the Scandinavian cinema 

industry. “We are absolutely delighted 

to honor Ivar at CineEurope 2021,” says 

Phil Clapp, president of UNIC. “The 

award recognizes his distinguished 

career and leadership in the European 

exhibition sector, his continued passion 

and commitment to the highest standards 

of theatrical presentation, and his key 

role in developing both the Norwegian 

and European cinemagoing experience. I 

know that it will be warmly welcomed by 

colleagues from across the industry.” 

A devotee of cinemagoing since his 

boyhood in Norway, Halstvedt evolved into 

a key figure in the Scandinavian exhibition 

scene. As the then–Nordic Cinema Group’s 

country manager for Norway, as well as 

head of its Technical Council, he played a 

key role in Norway’s conversion to digital 

cinema. Later, Halstvedt was instrumental 

in the series of mergers and acquisitions 

that led to the Nordic Cinema Group— 

now merged into the Odeon Cinemas 

Group—becoming a part of AMC Theatres. 

Halstvedt is a long-time board member of 

Film & Kino, Norway’s cinema trade group, 

and remains an active cinema developer. 

What was your first job in the 

exhibition industry, and at what point 

did you know you wanted to make a 

career out of it? 

I started working in the exhibition industry, 

part-time, during my studies in cultural 

management in the mid-1980s, but already 

as a kid I had my mind set on working in 

exhibition. My first real, full-time job was 

as a cinema manager at Heggelia Cinema 

in 1989. It’s situated in the north of Norway, 

where the sun never rises in the winter and 

never sets in the summer. 

In 2010, when Norwegian cinemas 

were in the process of digitizing, you 

wrote the guide, “How to build a 

modern cinema multiplex.” What 

does the phrase “modern cinema 

multiplex” mean to you today? 

In 2010 the Norwegian cinema industry 

started the first national conversion to 

digital cinema in the world. That of course 

created a lot of focus, since nobody had 

done it before us. 

At that time, I knew that many other 

things would also deserve more professional 

attention: improvement of cinema 

design, how to increase profitability, 

improvement of terms in lease contracts, 

and how to improve requirement specifications 

to ensure the quality of the cinema 

towards contractors, to name a few. 

Today, I would focus more on how to 

achieve a total curated cinema experience 

for our audiences and how to get maximum 

bang for the buck from the right things. 

These would include attentive service from 

the personnel, personal presentations of 

the screenings, unique design of interiors, 

innovative PLF screens and special 

concepts, and extended new F&B offerings. 

What professional lessons have you 

taken from the Covid-19 pandemic? 

To always be prepared for the unexpected 

and to drill action plans for damage 

control when a crisis might hit. I must say 

I am very proud of the way our industry 

has handled the pandemic, keeping our 

chin up through it all and struggling 


38-39_CINE_Ivar_Halstvedt.indd 38 16/09/2021 11:36

to stay open as much as possible while 

making our patrons feel safe when they 

decide to return to the cinema. 

Who are the companies or industry 

figures working in exhibition today 

who most inspire you? 

Except the companies I have worked in 

myself, I must say that the concept and 

results from Everyman Cinemas [in the 

U.K.] seem to impress and inspire many in 

our industry today. 

What achievements are you most 

proud of from your time in the 

exhibition industry? 

If I may mention two: The first would be 

successfully establishing Europe’s first 

new-build cinema with all-digital picture 

and digital sound transmission, Ringen 

Kino, in Oslo in 2008. 

The second would be the opening of 

the Odeon Oslo in 2018, Norway’s largest 

multiplex ever, with 14 screens, including 

a wonderful Imax screen. This cinema 

also achieved the highest admissions in 

the country. 

How do you see Covid affecting the 

evolution of the cinema industry—in 

terms of adopting new technology 

and premium experiences—as more 

global markets emerge from the 

pandemic? 

I believe the pandemic has made us focus 

on what’s important in life. What we have 

witnessed upon the return to cinemas in 

all reopened markets, from the surveys 

being conducted, assures us that the 

cinema experience has been deeply missed 

and is much-loved. How out-of-home 

entertainment will develop post-Covid, I 

guess everyone has an opinion, but what 

we have seen in the last years is that both 

modern and well-run multiplexes and 

successful boutique cinemas are doing 

very well, catering to different needs from 

the same audiences. I think improved 

design, personal service, and new offerings 

will continue to evolve in the years to come, 

making our profits grow and bringing 

about much-needed reinvestments on a 

broad scale for many cinemas. 

Can you tell us something about 

the cinema projects you’re currently 

involved in? 

I can’t be very specific, but I am involved 

in several exciting new-build projects 

“I think improved design, 

personal service, and new 

offerings will continue to 

evolve in the years to come, 

making our profits grow and 

bringing about much-needed 

reinvestments on a broad 

scale for many cinemas.” 

and also in several renovation projects 

involving older, pre-war cinemas. Both are 

very close to my heart. 

Do you remember the first movie 

you saw in a theater? What was the 

cinema you went to most as a child? 

It was Disney`s Dumbo at our local cinema, 

Selbak Kino, located at the dodgy end of 

the portside town of Fredrikstad. I became 

a regular there from a very young age. The 

cinema reminds me of Cinema Paradiso, 

both in design and the type of audience. 

Who have been your mentors in the 

exhibition community? 

I have been fortunate enough to have had 

the opportunity to work with many leading 

professionals in our industry. These include 

Mr. Stein Sandvik, the great entrepreneur 

of Norwegian cinema, who gave me the 

responsibility of building Norway’s first 

cinema chain; Mr. Peter Fornstam, the 

great Swedish cinema showman, who 

taught me how to run a profitable cinema 

chain within a lean organization structure; 

Mr. Mats Kullander, the highly regarded 

cinema builder of SF Bio, who taught me 

the importance of bringing atmosphere 

into cinema design; Mr. Ari Saarinen, the 

great cinema technology innovator, who 

taught me how to think outside the box 

on technical solutions; and our great and 

inspirational leader through many years, 

Mr. Jan Bernhardsson, who taught me very 

much about large-scale business and how 

to improve it constantly. 

I am also very inspired by having 

witnessed the work performed by the 

very kind and highly skilled Mr. Duncan 

Reynolds and Mr. Stephen Lavelle of 

Odeon Cinemas Group. 

What does it mean to you to be 

able to attend CineEurope after the 

horrible year and a half the exhibition 

community has had—especially since 

you were supposed to receive this 

award in 2020? 

I believe attending CineEurope this 

October will be a very important part of 

our industry’s [journey] to recovery. We 

will continue from where we left off, with 

certain adjustments. Like most others, I 

can’t wait to see everyone again. Even 

if we have been able to meet digitally 

for the last 18 months, there is now a 

huge, accumulated need to meet and do 

business in person again. 


39 

38-39_CINE_Ivar_Halstvedt.indd 39 16/09/2021 11:36

CineEurope 2021 UNIC GOLD AWARDS 

PURE 

GOLD 

UNIC and CineEurope Honor Dedication 

and Service to Cinema 


The final night of CineEurope’s 2021 trade show will see this 

year’s eight Gold Award recipients receive their honors at 

an awards ceremony at Barcelona’s Centre de Convencions 

Internacional de Barcelona (CCIB). 

“The Gold Awards were started by UNIC [International Union 

of Cinemas] and CineEurope in order to recognize individuals 

that have served our industry in so many ways throughout their 

careers,” CineEurope co-managing director Andrew Sunshine 

said in a press release. “On behalf of the entire Film Expo team 

[producers of CineEurope], I would like to take this opportunity to 

congratulate the eight individuals being honored in 2021 and thank 

them for their contributions, hard work, and dedication. Each and 

every one exemplifies what this award is about.” 

Below, Boxoffice Pro offers an introduction to the eight Gold 

Award winners being feted at this year’s CineEurope. Interviews 

have been edited for length and clarity. 

THE WINNERS 

Hanna Dobslaw 

Theater Manager, Cineplex Alhambra 

Berlin, Germany 

Angeles San Gabino 

Former Managing Director, Federación de 

Cines de España (FECE), Spain 

Alexander Kuznetsov 

COO, Karo 

Russia 

Alain Surmulet 

Technical Director, NOE Cinémas 

France 

Ulf Jansson 

CTO, Winberg Kino 

Sweden 

Dee Vassili 

Executive Director, Group H.R. 

Vue International, U.K. 

Jon Nutton 

Marketing Director, 

Empire Cinemas, U.K. 

Martin Waller 

Group Food and Beverage Director, 

Odeon Cinemas Group, U.K. 


40-44_CINE_Gold.indd 40 16/09/2021 11:37

WHAT’S THE NUMBER ONE 

PROFESSIONAL LESSON 

YOU’VE LEARNED DURING 

THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC? 

Hanna Dobslaw, Cineplex Alhambra 

Living as an individual in a society means 

being part of it and taking responsibility 

for its survival. [We must] look out for each 

other. 

Alexander Kuznetsov, Karo 

Unfortunately, this is the first time that 

the film market faced a global problem 

that completely turned the business 

upside down. Previously, cinemas also 

faced difficulties during economic crises, 

but cinema has always remained the most 

affordable format for recreation, and the 

market quickly stabilized. 

This situation made it possible to 

further develop our team’s anti-crisis 

management skills, since we had to instantly 

revise our cinemas’ work (personnel, 

contracts, new standards). One of the 

main tasks was to retain all personnel and 

return them to work as quickly as possible 

after the lockdown was lifted, in compliance 

with all security measures. 

Ulf Jansson, Winberg Kino 

One must try to keep cinemas open 

as much as possible—with respect for 

restrictions and human safety, of course. 

But never to close if not forced to. 

Jon Nutton, Empire Cinemas 

Persistence, resilience, and belief in our 

industry and that we can bounce back 

even stronger than we were pre-pandemic. 

Angeles San Gabino, FECE 

The role of national associations during 

the pandemic has been more relevant 

than ever before, helping cinemas to find 

the best solutions against the pandemic 

and defending the entire exhibition sector 

during all those months. 

Alain Surmulet, NOE Cinémas 

As in most industries, the first closure 

[March through June 2020] was felt as 

a real trauma that had to be quickly 

overcome. The focus was about keeping 

both the equipment and the buildings 

themselves in perfect working order. 

Neither were designed to be unused for 

so long. More than ever, we had to show 

flexibility, rigor, and motivation toward all 

the staff involved to ensure very regular 

maintenance on all equipment was done in 

order to be 100 percent sure we were ready 

for the day the reopening would happen. 

While co-chairing the exhibition 

department of the French Superior 

Technical Commission (CST), I supervised, 

“Keeping our teams engaged 

and informed on the complex 

situation unfolding whilst 

planning the reopening and 

recovery demanded a new 

level of communication and 

support for all of our people.” 

with the support of the National Federation 

of French Cinemas and Eclair Laboratories, 

the dispatch of an encrypted DCP [digital 

cinema package] allowing all French 

cinemas to test their equipment every 

week. With more than 7,400 KDMs [key 

delivery messages] generated (including 

all the cinemas in Metropolitan France and 

overseas territories, the open-air traveling 

cinemas, as well as post-production 

screening rooms), this constituted a 

technical operation of an unprecedented 

scale responding to an exceptional 

situation. At each of the two reopenings, 

the technical issues were limited and all 

the rooms were able to reopen! 

Dee Vassili, Vue International 

Covid has changed the world and 

potentially the way we live our lives in 

the future. 

One thing for sure is that change is the 

only constant, so be prepared for it! 

Ambiguity and complexity are the “new 

norm,” therefore, seek to understand and 

find a better way of doing things, which 

will take us out of our comfort zone and 

may not resemble anything we have ever 

done before. 

Martin Waller, Odeon Cinemas Group 

The big learning for me during the 

pandemic was about the importance 

and power of communication. Keeping 

our teams engaged and informed on 

the complex situation unfolding whilst 

planning the reopening and recovery 

demanded a new level of communication 

and support for all of our people. 


41 



WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST 

JOB IN THE INDUSTRY, AND 

WHEN DID YOU THINK YOU 

MIGHT LIKE TO PURSUE 

EXHIBITION AS A CAREER? 


I started to work for CineStar in 1999. They 

opened their cinema in the north of Berlin—the 

day of the grand opening was my 

19th birthday. I was together with friends 

and we watched Shakespeare in Love. I decided 

to submit my application to them the 

next day. Two days later, I started working. 

Selling ice cream, making popcorn, and 

welcoming our guests were among my first 

tasks, and I loved it. Working in cinema 

means belonging to a great family. 

In the following years, I learned more 

and more about what it means to work for 

this family in the service sector as well as in 

administration for two different companies. 

In December 2009, I was asked to take 

over the Alhambra cinema in Berlin. That 

was the moment I knew I would make my 

own place where employees feel what I 

felt when I started working 10 years before. 

Now it’s 2021, and I have never regretted 

this decision. 

“During my technical 

education I worked as a 

cinema projectionist, and 

then I was hooked on the 

industry and have never 

regretted it for a moment.” 


I started my movie career in 2006 at the 

cinema Kinostar De Lux. 


My first job in the industry was at my 

father’s cinema at a young age. During my 

technical education I worked as a cinema 

projectionist, and then I was hooked on 

the industry and have never regretted it 

for a moment. 


Back in March 1989 I joined AMC 

Entertainment as a part-time “cinema 

operative” at Crystal Peaks in Sheffield. 

From the first time I walked into the foyer, 

I instantly found my second home—and 

30-plus years later, [here I am]! 


My first job was in 1976 as secretary of 

Federación de Cines de España (FECE). In 

2008 I was promoted to general manager 

of the organization, until my retirement. 

From the first, I thought the exhibition 

sector would be my home. I never thought 

about changing jobs. 


With a father that was a projectionist, you 

could say that I learned to love projection 

very early on! I first visited a projection 

booth at the age of 10. My first actual 

projection was at the age of 14 in the 

cinema of Lisieux: starting the projector, 

opening the curtains, opening the douser, 

the house lights dim down, and the image 

appears on screen. Unforgettable! 

I knew very quickly that it would be a 

vocation, that it would be that or nothing! 


The first time I went to the cinema I was 

5 years old, and it became etched into my 

childhood memories. I was blown away 

by the big screen and stories, but also 

because it was a shared experience with 

people that mattered to me. Life is about 

creating experiences and memories with 

people you care about. 

Prior to Vue, I had worked across 

media, retail, and entertainment. When 

the opportunity arose to join the industry 

with Warner Bros., as the director of H.R. 

for theatrical across U.K., Ireland, and 

southern Europe, I grabbed it with both 

hands. Since then, I have had an amazing 

adventure with Vue, and I know that my 

5-year-old self would be very happy with 

the fact that we are now part of creating 

those amazing experiences and memories 

for others. 


I joined Odeon in 1996 as a trainee general 

manager. Within a year I had worked in 10 

different cinemas, including supporting 

two new builds. I loved the buildings, the 

like-minded teams, the amazing product 

we play, and the culture at Odeon, always 

looking to improve and be better for 

our guests and our teams. I was quickly 

hooked and have been lucky to enjoy such 

a diverse career within the industry. 



IS THERE AN INDUSTRY 

LEADER OR INITIATIVE 

THAT HAS INSPIRED YOU— 

PROFESSIONALLY OR 

PERSONALLY—OVER THE 

COURSE OF THE PANDEMIC? 


The staying power of our family business 

in Germany means the staying power of 

each employee in our cinemas. You could 

feel the passion in every action they have 

taken. Making posts on social media, 

selling popcorn for home cinema events— 

we have done everything to stay alive in 

the memories of our guests. 


It was the whole Karo team and investors. 

All our employees have worked with 

dedication to change our work standards 

to deliver the safest service possible. 


It must be my colleague and friend Peter 

Fornstam [founder of Svenska Bio], with 

his positive attitude all the time. 


Christopher Nolan, a fantastic and 

dedicated filmmaker who (along with 

Warner Bros.) pulled out all the stops 

to get Tenet out there supporting our 

industry last summer. Without this film, I 

don’t think many in the sector would have 

opened at all after the first lockdown. 


An initiative I would highlight is the 

protocol of sanitary measures during the 

reopening process in Spain. And as industry 

leader, the president of FECE, Juan Ramón 

Gomez Fabra, for his optimism and his 

good work with all the associates. 


The leader who inspired me the most 

during this pandemic? The same leader 

who has inspired me for 30 years and with 

whom I have the pleasure to work with 

every day: Richard Patry. In addition to 

being president of NOE Cinémas, he is 

also president of the National Federation 

of French Cinemas (FNCF). He has 

deployed an impressive amount of energy 

to defend cinemas in this unprecedented 

period, ensuring that no theater is 

abandoned or closed. And he succeeded! 

New cinemas have opened even after the 

lockdown. 

Within NOE Cinémas, I learned a lot by 

being by his side and I continue to do so 

every day. He is one of the greatest cinema 

enthusiasts that you can meet. He lives for 

cinemas and for the people who work for 

them. He is a great entrepreneur, a leader, 

a visionary with an incredible capacity for 

work. We share the same vision of how to 

“Christopher Nolan, a 

fantastic and dedicated 

filmmaker who (along with 

Warner Bros.) pulled out all 

the stops to get Tenet out 

there supporting our 

industry last summer.” 

operate and how to do this job. I owe him 

a lot and I dedicate this CineEurope Gold 

Award to him. 


At Vue, I am fortunate to be working with 

authentic and talented people. During the 

course of the pandemic, we have pulled 

together as one global team and delivered 

some amazing results. From a personal 

perspective, my colleagues have challenged 

me, supported me, taken me out of my 

comfort zone, and provided a different 

lens from which to view the world. This is 

what makes me get up in the morning to 

face the day’s Zoom calls and the complex 

challenges coming over the horizon. 


I am proud to have worked with the OCG 

ExCo team throughout the pandemic, 

where the calmness and critical decisions 

made under great pressure set the tone 

for our whole company. However, the 

biggest inspiration for me was working 

with our teams across southern Europe, 

especially Spain and Germany, where our 

operational leads were new to their roles 

at the outbreak of the pandemic. Christian 

Elbrechter and Jose Manuel Ocaña did 

an incredible job getting our cinemas and 

our teams back in operation. I saw them 

grappling with a new role, in the worst 

possible situation, and having to work 

with me sitting at home in London rather 

than being out in the field with them. 

Their resilience and desire to do the right 

thing was inspiring to see as we worked on 

turning a crisis into a recovery mission. 


43 



WHICH FACTOR IS MOST 

IMPORTANT IN ALLOWING 

CINEMAS TO RECOVER 

FROM THE EFFECTS 

OF THE PANDEMIC? 


Cinema should have personality to provide 

a welcoming feeling for our guests. We are 

nothing without them. Customer service 

is the most important aspect of our work. 

Watching movies in cinema theaters should 

be a special event, which we have to create. 


The pandemic has crumbled many 

moviegoers’ habits. Some people, during 

the lockdown, got used to watching 

movies at home. Others do not visit 

crowded places due to the danger of the 

virus. The task of the entire market is to 

show that cinemas are safe from the virus, 

and for this it is necessary to comply with 

all safety measures (social distancing, 

masks, vaccinations, and much more). 

Watching a movie in a cinema will always 

give much more vivid emotions than 

watching at home. To achieve this, you 

need to monitor the hospitality (highquality 

work of the staff) and the quality 

of the service provided. 


The most important factor is exclusive 

windows for cinemas and great movies. 


To shout about what we do from the 

rooftops. Yes, the public can sit at home 

and watch a film on TV, but for a truly 

memorable experience they need to get 

into a cinema where action films are more 

exciting, horror films are scarier, and 

comedies are funnier. And in a darkened 

auditorium, no one can see you cry! 


Good films with an exclusive release 

window for cinemas, state aid and 

subsidies to help cinemas to reduce their 

losses, and official campaigns promoting 

the cinemagoing experience. 


Even the most beautiful and modern 

cinemas are nothing without the feature 

films, to which they are merely the 

backdrops. 

More than ever, we need great movies: 

blockbusters, of course, but also art house 

films. We need diversity, films for all the 

different kinds of patrons, and above all 

films designed for the cinema auditorium. 

A movie theater is the best place to 

experience them, the place where they 

take all their meaning and dimension. 

During both periods of closure, we 

were in the process of constructing three 

new cinemas (which have since opened), 

and I worked closely with their architects 

to make their architectural designs 

coincide with the future operation of the 

sites. We firmly believe that the movie 

theater experience is irreplaceable, and 

our continued investment in building new 

venues is the best proof of that. 

Since the dawn of humanity, people 

have needed to come together to experience 

shared emotions. Movie theaters meet this 

basic need. 


It’s all about the people and creating a 

dynamic culture that drives the right 

behaviors, creates a shared sense of 

purpose, and encapsulates diversity, 

inclusion, and equity within a safe, 

healthy, and engaging work environment. 

Irrespective of organizational size, all 

of these challenges remain board-level 

accountabilities and levers that play a 

critical part in driving business recovery. 

People strategies should be an integral 

part of the commercial agenda and 

treated equally as important as other big 

investments we make in areas such as 

concession stands and auditoriums. 


I believe that engaging content and a 

great experience in the cinema is the 

key to recovery. The exhibition industry 

has done a great job in creating a safe 

environment, which will continue to build 

confidence for all audience types to return 

in time. Now it is important that our teams 

deliver a great service, welcoming guests 

back in through our doors, where they can 

indulge in our food and beverage offerings 

and then comfortably experience a movie 

on those giant screens with amazing 

sound systems. When it is done well it is 

an amazing experience, especially in a full 

auditorium. When people experience that, 

they will come back for more. 

“Cinema should have 

personality to provide a 

welcoming feeling for our 

guests. We are nothing 

without them.” 



Cineeurope 2021 ODEON 

INTernATionAL 

EXHIBITOR OF 

THE YEAR 

ODEON CineMAS 

Group 

Europe’s largest cinema operator, 

Odeon Cinemas Group, is this year’s 

recipient of CineEurope’s International 

Exhibitor of the Year Award. The circuit, 

which extends across 340 sites over 10 

European territories, worked throughout 

the pandemic on improving its digital 

experience for guests. Beginning with the 

U.K. and Ireland, Odeon replatformed 

its website and app, introduced new 

kiosks and cash registers in cinemas, and 

upgraded various back-end systems to 

improve film programming and 

financial processes. 

“It gives us great pleasure to present 

the International Exhibitor of the Year 

Award to the Odeon Cinemas Group,” 

said Andrew Sunshine, president of the 

Film Expo Group. “Odeon Cinemas has 

built a culture of innovation for cinema, 

changing the moviegoing experience 

throughout Europe.” 

Added UNIC President Phil Clapp, “We 

are delighted that Odeon Cinemas Group 

has been recognized as the CineEurope 

2021 International Exhibitor of the Year. 

This decision reflects, in particular, the 

extent to which the company has blazed 

a trail across a number of European 

territories, not least through the rollout of 

their groundbreaking Odeon Luxe brand, 

taking the cinema environment to new 

heights and setting new standards for the 

big-screen experience.” 

Mark Way, president, AMC Europe, 

and managing director, Odeon Cinemas 

Group at AMC Theatres, and Juan Antonio 

Gomez, chief partnerships and content 

officer, Odeon Cinemas Group, will 

receive the award on behalf of the circuit 

at the CineEurope awards ceremony on 

Thursday, October 7, in Barcelona. 

“It is a huge privilege to receive this 

award on behalf of all 9,000 Odeon 

“Odeon Cinemas has built 

a culture of innovation 

for cinema, changing the 

moviegoing experience 

throughout Europe.” 

Cinemas Group colleagues,” said Way in 

a statement. “This award is particularly 

welcome news now, as we have just 

reopened in all our countries. Our teams 

are thrilled to be back doing what they 

love—delivering unforgettable bigscreen 

experiences to our guests, who are 

proving very keen to return, in the safest 

environment possible. It is testament to 

all our teams’ hard work and commitment 

over recent years in improving Odeon’s 

guest experience, whether that be through 

great hospitality, the rollout of our Luxe 

recliner model, our improved food and 

beverage offer, or through upgraded 

cinema technology across our estate. 

“It is a new dawn for cinema, and the 

future for Odeon Cinemas Group within 

that is very exciting. As we begin to recover 

from the most challenging year in 

the industry’s history, we look forward to 

continuing to invest and expand our offering 

while welcoming millions more guests 

through our doors in the years ahead.” 


45 

45_CINE_Odeon.indd 45 16/09/2021 17:33

46_AD-Screenvision.indd 46 16/09/2021 11:41

Rolando Rodriguez 48 | Lisa Bunnell 56 | Elizabeth O’Neil 58 

SHOWEAST 

“People need entertainment in order to have a healthy society, 

and the cinema is one of the safest places to go for that purpose.” 

Miguel Mier, p. 52 


47 

47_ShowEast-Opener.indd 47 16/09/2021 11:42

ShowEast 2021 ROLANDO RODRIGUEZ 

DAN FELLMAN 

Show E AWARD 

ROLANDO 

RODRIGUEZ 

Chair, President, and CEO, Marcus 

Theatres, and Chairman, National 

Association of Theatre Owners 

Rolando Rodriguez is this year’s 

recipient of the Dan Fellman Show 

“E” Award, a lifetime achievement prize, at 

ShowEast. The award, renamed in 2015 to 

honor long-time Warner Bros. distribution 

executive Dan Fellman, is presented 

annually to an industry member or 

company in honor of their achievements, 

accomplishments, dedication, and 

longevity in the industry. 

“We are extremely honored to present 

Rolando Rodriguez with this award at 

ShowEast this year. There is no better 

example in our business that truly 

represents what this award is all about,” 

says Film Expo Group President Andrew 

Sunshine. “Rolando’s dedication and 

commitment to the theatrical community 

is second to none.” 

Rodriguez is the chair, president, and 

CEO of Marcus Theatres and executive 

vice president of The Marcus Corporation, 

in addition to his roles as chair of the 

National Association of Theatre Owners 

(NATO) and board member of the Global 

Cinema Federation. 

Prior to his role at Marcus, Rodriguez 

served as CEO of Rave Cinemas and 

executive at Walmart and AMC Theatres. 

He has advocated for diversity, equity, and 

inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the business 

community and has served as the board 

chair for the Hispanic Collaborative, 

which is committed to advancing the 

overall well-being of Hispanic people in 

the greater Milwaukee area. 

Boxoffice Pro spoke with Rodriguez 

ahead of ShowEast to get his perspective 

on the challenges remaining for exhibitors 

and why inclusion is a key objective for 

Marcus Theatres. 

We’re seeing positive signs in the 

market, but this is still a period of 

transition. Where would you say the 

industry finds itself in terms of its 

recovery here in the United States? 

What signposts will you be checking 

to assess progress in the coming 

months? 

The good news is, obviously, there’s a 

solution. There are multiple solutions, 

with the vaccination, which we should all 

be encouraging for our own safety and 

the safety of others, and there are also 

treatments. This is a totally different place 

than where our country was a year ago. 

That is the positive aspect of the external 

factors that impact our industry. 

Secondly, thanks to the support of our 

film company friends in California, with 

new releases hitting the market, we’re 

starting to see momentum. We are getting 

back to the norm of what would happen in 

our industry in 2019 and early 2020, when 

you would have two to three new films 

released on a weekly basis. That is positive 

momentum. It is positive momentum 

“We are extremely honored 

to present Rolando Rodriguez 

with this award at ShowEast 

this year. There is no better 

example in our business that 

truly represents what this 

award is all about.” 

toward educating consumers that we’re 

back. You can’t get that by just flipping on 

a light switch. Our industry was practically 

shut down for a period of 15 to 18 months. 

We were able to reopen, yes, and did so 

with library titles from our partners in 

California. That helped us welcome back 

our most loyal moviegoers and bring back 

as many associates as we could during that 

difficult time. 

We continue that journey with the help 

of the vaccines, of studios providing new 

films, and by continuing to educate our 

consumers that we have safe, enjoyable 

out-of-home entertainment options, at 

an incredible price-value relationship, to 

participate in. 

Where are we on that journey? I think 

we started to walk around May of this year. 

Now we’re in a faster walk, kind of a jog, 

and picking up momentum. My hope is 

that as we start getting into the fall, as we 

start heading into October, November, and 

December, that’s when we get into an even 

faster jog to ideally get ourselves into a 

running situation. 

Communicating with moviegoers 

about returning to cinemas is a 

sensitive task during this crisis. How 

have you addressed that challenge 

at Marcus Theatres and on behalf of 

the industry as a whole with The Big 

Screen Is Back campaign? 

We started in the walking phase of that 

marketing task in May with The Big Screen 

Is Back. We held a big launch event in 

L.A. to let the world know that theaters 

are open. But at that point in time, if you 

recall, only around 65 percent or so of 

theaters were open. Many were challenged 


48-51_SHOWEAST_Rolando-Rodriguez.indd 48 16/09/2021 11:42

ecause the SVOG money had not reached 

a lot of the smaller, independent operators. 

They couldn’t afford to open their doors. I 

think NATO’s team has done an incredible 

job in working to ensure those funds will 

become available. 

As those funds started to roll out, you’re 

starting to see more theaters opening 

up. And those theaters are just starting 

that journey to educate their consumers. 

Then we followed that up with Cinema 

Week, which occurred in the middle of 

June, and that was another big jolt. The 

reason I share these two big events is 

because every exhibitor across the board, 

including Marcus, spent a great deal of 

time ensuring that we were marketing 

The Big Screen Is Back to all our loyalty 

members and marketing and advertising 

channels. The missing piece was that 

we weren’t yet to a point where we had 

multiple films opening on a weekly basis, 

so that journey continues. 

We talk a lot about this during our NATO 

board meetings: It’s not a one-week event 

or a one-month event—it’s something we 

need to do every day, week, and month, 

probably through the end of this year. We 

have to stay very focused on messaging, 

and constantly messaging, with the 

support of our film partners who are now 

in many cases promoting films again. 

The other thing that we really 

appreciate is that many of them are 

promoting them as “in theaters only.” 

There was a little bit of confusion at the 

beginning, where people would say, “Well, 

where do I watch this movie? Is it on a 

streaming channel? Is it at the theater?” 

Streaming and VOD are important 

elements for [studios] to create the 

revenues necessary to make films. But 

there’s no question that the theatrical 

business is a launching pad. When it’s 

properly treated, it creates long-lasting 

value down the line. 

“The missing piece was that 

we weren’t yet to a point 

where we had multiple films 

opening on a weekly basis, 

so that journey continues.” 

I love engaging with our associates and 

customers, trying to find out what’s on 

their minds. Interestingly enough, there 

is some data in some of the consumer 

sentiment surveys that I’m not seeing 

reflected in our theaters. They say seniors 

aren’t back. When I went to see Stillwater, 

the seniors were back. 

They’re ready to come back for the 

right title. 

That’s right. And then they say, moms and 

kids aren’t back—when you add up the 

multiple family films that are out, believe 

it or not, that’s the genre that’s doing the 

best. It’s not driven by one movie, like 

in 2019 when you had The Lion King. In 

this case, we don’t have a Lion King, per 

se, but we’ve had a series of titles that are 

bringing back families. 

In our case, at Marcus, we have the 

STAR program, so we embellish the 

CinemaSafe requirements to take it to a 

different level. When consumers come 

back, we get judged by our customers on a 

What have you learned in the last 

year and a half about moviegoers’ 

comfort levels in returning? What 

role do social factors, like vaccine 

availability and local case numbers, 

play in that equation? 

First of all, the fact that vaccines are out 

there has really brought an incredible 

psyche change in many consumers. I’m 

a moviegoer—I watched three movies 

this past weekend, I’m watching at least 

two movies this coming weekend—and 


49 


ShowEast 2021 ROLANDO RODRIGUEZ 

net promoter score, a universal customer 

service element, and our scores have never 

been higher. 

We also introduced the Marcus Private 

Cinemas program, so those families 

that still felt concern [about] going to 

an auditorium [with a general audience], 

they’re renting these auditoriums, and 

we’re providing them at a great price-value 

relationship. What’s been fascinating 

about that is that the folks that come to 

the Marcus Private Cinema, once they 

come, we’re seeing them come back as 

regular customers, because they see the 

safety protocols that we, as an industry, are 

taking. It’s an ongoing battle that we all 

have, and it is not specific to our industry; 

this is every consumer-facing business 

in America, every entertainment facility, 

every restaurant—we’re all facing the same 

challenge of earning that consumer back. 

There’s no question that vaccines 

helped open the doors, coupled with 

the release of A Quiet Place Part II. That 

movie opened when our country wasn’t at 

a high level of vaccination, so I think it’s 

a combination of a key film and getting 

out to the marketplaces and letting 

people know that the theaters were back 

open. I have to give John Krasinski a lot 

of credit for going out to local theaters 

and promoting the film in person. That 

was an amazing guerilla marketing effort, 

which we need to do more of to get back 

out there and energize our consumers. 

He went to all types of markets, not just 

on the coasts, and we’d love to see more 

movie stars and directors do exactly 

what he did. He energized consumers 

back into moviegoing, and we really 

appreciated that. 

What are the biggest challenges 

that remain for U.S. exhibitors in the 

coming months, in what will hopefully 

be the tail end of this crisis? 

We’ve had some films that have done 

extremely well. What we’re looking for 

now, that next milestone everybody is 

looking for, is that one film that’s going to 

open up to $100 million. That’s the next 

bridge. We’ve had films that opened up 

at $60, $70, and $80 million, and a $100 

million dollar opening is going to be the 

next milestone. 

As far as challenges that we still 

face ahead, frankly, the biggest one is 

perception. Perception from government 

and health agencies, consumers, and 

even from our great partners in the film 

community who are releasing films. They 

all have to feel comfortable so we can 

get back to the more traditional types of 

release models. That means having some 

sort of theatrical exclusivity window that 

separates the importance of theatrical 

from availability at home through PVOD 

and streaming. Will it be the same that 

it’s always been? No, but we still need 

that exclusivity. There is a financial 

benefit associated with it for all of us, film 

companies and exhibitors. It is important 

for all of us. Perception will play an 

important part of how to get back to that 

$100 million opening. 

All of us have been waiting for 

industry conventions like CinemaCon, 

CineEurope, and ShowEast since 

the start of this crisis. As an industry 

leader, how do you think these events 

will help the industry recover? 

We have incredible partners, not just 

in the film community, but among the 

vendors as well. The vendor community 

has stuck it out with us; they’ve been our 

partners through this whole tragic period. 

And that was really the objective, from 

the very beginning, for CinemaCon this 

year, getting all these folks together. Being 

able to see each other [in person], instead 

of just on video conferencing. There is no 

replacing being in person. We’re human 

beings, social beings, we miss each other. 

What this crisis brought to light for me is 

how much I missed my friends, my family, 

and my colleagues. Seeing them in person 

has just been an incredible joy that I will 

never take for granted again. We used to 

take it for granted, looking at a meeting as 

just a meeting. Now we look at a meeting 

as something meaningful. That’s what 

these conventions bring to the table, 

bringing together the film community, 

vendors, and exhibitors. And while the 

upcoming conventions may not be as big 

as they would have normally been, there 

will be enough people there to have a truly 

bonding experience and talk about the 

good things we need to work on together. 

This has been a time of crisis and of 

innovation. How did Marcus use this 

period to innovate, and which of 

those initiatives will remain after we 

emerge from this crisis? 

We had to take the online concept to a 

whole different level. Our technology 

wasn’t quite up to speed, and we had to 

work very quickly to adopt a low-to-notouch 

concept. In other words, ordering 

concession items, box office tickets, and 

walking to your seat without having to 

interact with anyone. That innovation was 

adopted quite rapidly across the industry, 

and we were one of the first leading 

circuits to implement it. 

I think the way we sanitize our theaters, 

the way we clean and maintain them, are 

at a totally different level that will not go 

backwards again. It’s a new standard. I 

don’t see sanitation stations ever going 

away; you’re going to want those hand 

sanitizers everywhere. 

I don’t think private cinema rentals 

will go away. The private cinema rentals 

were an incredible element that brought 



families back out to our theaters; it’s a new 

market that’s been created. I don’t think 

that ordering the tickets, food, and beverage 

online will go away. In fact, for us, we’ve 

changed our model at Movie Tavern for 

example. Now, instead of having servers 

take the order, people make their entire 

order online and we have a runner take 

the food to their seat. The consumer has 

enjoyed the ability to do it on their own. 

Interestingly enough, it’s improved our 

customer service scores. Those are just a few 

of the innovations that I think will continue. 

You’ve been very outspoken about 

the industry’s need to better serve the 

Latin American market in the U.S. What 

are some of the programs that Marcus 

will be implementing for National 

Hispanic Heritage Month this year? 

When I speak about diversity, equity, and 

inclusion (DEI), the inclusion part is the 

most important. If you focus on the “I,” 

you won’t have to worry about the “D” and 

“E.” It’s all about inclusiveness, if you work 

on it—you’ve got it. Hollywood has started 

doing that and I’m looking forward to 

Eternals, which will actually feature some 

“Will it be the same that it’s 

always been? No, but we still 

need that exclusivity. There is 

a financial benefit associated 

with it for all of us, film 

companies and exhibitors. It 

is important for all of us.” 

Hispanic superheroes, so that’s exciting. 

Hispanic audiences represent about 24 

percent of the attendance in our industry. 

Couple that with the African American 

demographic, which represents roughly 

16 to 17 percent of the market, and that’s 

40 percent of your attendance. And that’s 

only ethnic diversity. Female audiences 

represent over 50 percent of attendance— 

if you’re not paying attention to that, 

you’re not taking advantage of chances 

where you can connect with consumers. 

During Hispanic Heritage Month, 

we would normally host CineLatino 

[Milwaukee Film Festival], but, 

unfortunately, because of where we’re at 

with the virus, we’re trying to be as careful 

as we can. We’re still going to bring several 

Hispanic films throughout that entire 

month and connect with the Hispanic 

collaborative here in Milwaukee. We’re 

doing everything we can to become a little 

bit more inclusive. And that, by the way, is 

not only the right thing to do, but it’s good 

for business. Diverse communities are 

important audiences in our social makeup 

today that are critical to the long-term 

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51 


Showeast 2021 MIGUEL MIER 

INTERNATIONAL 

EXHIBITOR OF 

THE YEAR 

MIGUEL MIER 

Chief Operating Officer, 

Cinépolis 

“There is no better example 

in our business that truly 

represents what this award 

is all about. Miguel’s 

leadership and commitment 

to Cinépolis has made it the 

company it is today.” 

Miguel Mier began his career at 

Cinépolis in 1994, straight out of 

college, joining the circuit at a time when 

it was still a family-owned company in 

Mexico. The timing was fortuitous. The 

start of Mier’s tenure coincided with the 

entry of multinational circuits into the 

Latin American exhibition market, creating 

a dynamic competitive balance that also 

saw the introduction of the multiplex in 

communities across the region. 

Mier’s role at Cinépolis grew as the 

circuit established itself in its domestic 

market and began to look at expansion 

opportunities abroad. He oversaw the 

launch of the company’s international 

operations in Costa Rica, Guatemala, and 

Panama before a stopover at Stanford 

University to pursue a business degree in 

2006. He emerged from Stanford with a 

business plan that Cinépolis would use as 

the blueprint for further expansion into 

India, Brazil, Chile, Spain, the Middle 

East, and the United States. In 2014 he was 

appointed as a nonfamily board member 

of the company. Today, the circuit 

comprises 6,728 screens in 19 countries 

across four continents. 

Boxoffice Pro spoke with Mier ahead 

of ShowEast about his long career and the 

lessons he’s learned from the challenges 

of the pandemic. 

Cinépolis is celebrating its 50th 

anniversary this year. You’ve been 

at the company for 26 of those years. 

How has the company changed since 

you began your tenure? 

I joined the company in 1994. I was 21 

years old and just getting out of college; 

it was my first job. My first job was to 

manage the technology within Cinépolis 

during a time when there was pretty 

much no technology at all. Back then, we 

were a regional Mexican company, family 

owned, privately held. In the years since 

I joined, we’ve evolved from a company 

of 320 screens in a region of Mexico to 

6,700 screens in 19 countries across four 

continents. The company has enjoyed 50 

years of history, growth, and discipline by 

always putting the consumer in the center 

of our decisions. 

That has been the DNA that has 

made us innovators within the industry. 

We were the first in bringing stadium 

seating and Imax to Latin America. We 

introduced VIP auditoriums well before 

other, more developed markets. We were 

the first to livestream soccer games in our 

auditoriums. The first to sell reservedseating 

tickets via our app, something 

we’ve been doing for over a decade. We 

like to think of ourselves as innovators, in 

spite of our industry being 120 years old 

and maybe not considered as particularly 

innovative. We’ve grown thanks to 

bringing innovations to our customers. 

Part of that growth has been 

the international expansion you 

mentioned. That includes two 

markets that are notoriously difficult 

for any foreign player to gain a 

foothold in: India and Brazil. What 

was different about the Cinépolis 

approach that has allowed it to enter 

difficult markets and maintain a 

leadership position there? 

I came back from Stanford in 2007 with 

an expansion plan for Cinépolis to enter 

India. I presented the idea to the board, 

they accepted, and today we’re the thirdlargest 

multiplex circuit in the country. 

It was a year of developing the business 

plan and doing research in the Stanford– 

Silicon Valley community, where there are 

a lot of Indian academics who love movies. 

Their input was really helpful. When 

talking about both markets, we were able 

to build a great and amazingly talented 

local team in each of those countries. We 

knew what we were trying to accomplish 

and the skills that were required to do 

that. At the same time, we were hands-off 

enough to source a talent pool with the 

right skill set from each local market. It 

has always been about building a very 

strong local team. Those are the two 

ingredients that helped us in India. We did 

a similar analysis in Brazil—shorter, faster, 

but with the same framework. 

From your perspective, as one of 

the top exhibitors in Latin America, 

how has this pandemic affected 

moviegoing in the region and the 

region in general? 

The way in which this pandemic has 

impacted everything in our lives has 

overshadowed what we are experiencing 

as an industry. The way the pandemic has 

been approached in Latin America has 

been so different that it’s shown us there is 

not only one way to approach a situation. 

You can be creative, and you can learn 

things that have worked in one market 

and bring them to other markets. We have 


52-55_SHOWEAST_Miguel-Mier.indd 52 16/09/2021 11:43

great examples that we can learn from and 

adopt best practices, not only in Mexico, 

but from the whole region. 

Every country is operating under 

a different time frame for recovery. 

What challenges is Cinépolis 

currently facing as a result? 

Stability is the main challenge we have 

across all these markets. India, for 

example, was one of the markets that was 

doing quite well while the pandemic was 

hitting European markets quite heavily. 

They even launched new titles that were 

quite successful: In Tamil Nadu, in the 

south of India, they launched Master, and 

it did amazing box office numbers. But 

suddenly, the Delta variant hit the country 

and everything stopped again. Now we’re 

seeing India, little by little, getting back on 

its feet. Latin America, however, has been 

hit very hard by the Delta variant. 

The lack of stability in being able to 

forecast the future when we present to our 

board is a challenge every other cinema 

company is also facing. There is a huge 

“Once we reach that 

stability—once vaccinations 

are prevailing around the 

globe—we will start seeing 

the rebirth of the exhibition 

business.” 

uncertainty right now, but at least in the 

case of the Cinépolis board members, they 

understand the complexity of the situation. 

All of us at Cinépolis believe there is a 

strong and bright future for the exhibition 

industry worldwide. Once we reach that 

stability—once vaccinations are prevailing 

around the globe—we will start seeing the 

rebirth of the exhibition business. 

What are some of the operational 

and best practices lessons you’ve 

picked up and implemented circuitwide 

since the start of the pandemic? 

First of all, communication. Constant 

communication with every team member 

around our different regions. The other is 

training: training our teams to create and 

generate the safest possible environments, 

everywhere. Not only in our cinemas, but 

also at their homes, because we want our 

employees and their families to be safe. If 

we see a positive case in any of our offices 

around the globe, we want to ensure we 

can check in on them to see how they are 

doing and see how we can help them and 


53 


Showeast 2021 MIGUEL MIER 

their families. Having these strong ties of 

communication is something we have been 

exercising heavily and will likely continue 

to be a part of our company in the future. 

One of those operational challenges 

is communicating a return to cinemas 

with audiences in different markets. 

That’s a very sensitive message, 

especially with different countries 

being in different scenarios when 

it comes to the virus and vaccine 

access. How have you tackled that 

external communications challenge? 

I think about it in two ways. One, as 

an industry, we haven’t been able 

to communicate loud and clear one 

simple message: Cinema is a low-risk 

environment to enjoy entertainment. 

People need entertainment in order to 

have a healthy society, and the cinema 

is one of the safest places to go for that 

purpose. That has been the number one 

communication challenge we’ve faced as 

a whole industry. 

The flip side of the matter is that 

every local authority has a different 

take on what’s safe and what people 

are allowed to do. So, we try to generate 

messages that can be accommodated in 

the different legal frameworks we have, 

not only from a national perspective but 

also from a state and sometimes from 

a community perspective. We’ve seen 

mayors of some cities that have different 

requirements than their states, and we 

have to accommodate and comply with 

a divergent set of rules about what they 

think is safe and what’s not. 

“People need entertainment 

in order to have a healthy 

society, and the cinema is 

one of the safest places to 

go for that purpose.” 

Is there a time frame that you 

expect, at least in Latin America, 

for the cinema industry, to get 

back to something a little bit more 

recognizable? Maybe not 2019 levels, 

but something close to it? 

We think we will have our cinemas back on 

their feet with a lot more percentage of the 

population vaccinated by the end of the 

year. Covid-19 may still be around, but the 

gravity of those infections hopefully won’t 

be as severe by that point. 

This isn’t the first public health crisis 

that Cinépolis has faced in recent 

history. Back in 2009, there was an 

H1N1 epidemic in Mexico that also 

caused closures and a lot of concern. 

Fortunately, it was localized, and 

we didn’t have the challenges 

we’re currently seeing at a global 

level. What did you learn from that 

experience? 

At the time, none of us had experienced 

something like the H1N1 epidemic in 

Mexico. Today, it’s something miniscule 

when compared to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

It’s like comparing Chicken Little to 

Godzilla. But back then it was a huge 

phenomenon; we had our cinemas shut 

down for 17 days, which was unheard of. 

It took us around four weeks to recover 

from that 17-day shutdown. Today, we 

can’t compare those 17 days with the more 

than year and a half that we have been 

shut down in Peru or Colombia. We’ve 

been closed in some of these markets for 

over 18 months. 

If we look back at the recovery we saw in 

Mexico after the 17-day shutdown, it’s as if at 

a certain point after those four weeks since 

reopening, the country forgot all about it. 

What we learned is that when people feel 

safe, it’s easy for old habits to return. 

That’s why we strongly believe that 

our industry will recover. We don’t have a 

doubt about it. But first, we need things to 

straighten out and wait for the rollout of 

the vaccines. Once science can solve the 

gravity of the problem, it will bring back 

some level of comfort in society and we will 

see audiences flocking back to the cinema. 

As you look back on your last 26 

years at Cinépolis, what have been 

the biggest achievements and the 

biggest challenges? 

I would start with the latter: What we’re 

experiencing right now is, by far, the biggest 



challenge our industry has ever seen. I 

never expected to be dealing with a crisis 

as deep as the one that we’re facing. But as I 

mentioned, we are positive that we are going 

to be out of this crisis sooner than later. 

In terms of the successes that we have 

reached, I would list our international 

expansion. In order to get there, we first 

had to be really good in our domestic 

market. Paraphrasing Stephen Hawking, 

our brief history of time in the industry 

would start in the mid-’90s, when Latin 

America opened up to international 

exhibitors jumping into the market. It 

was a tectonic shift in the competitive 

landscape of the exhibition business in 

Latin America, and many local companies 

died in the evolution process. Some, like 

ourselves, were able to rise to the challenge. 

In Mexico, during the mid-’90s, four 

large, multinational circuits entered the 

market. At that time there were many 

local and regional circuits. Some of those 

players are no longer in business. Those 

of us that prevailed were able to not only 

be competitive in our homeland, on our 

own turf, but also when going out and 

expanding those capabilities that we 

“I never expected to be 

dealing with a crisis as deep 

as the one that we’re facing. 

But as I mentioned, we are 

positive that we are going 

to be out of this crisis sooner 

than later.” 

built through the decade that ran from 

the mid-’90s to the mid-2000s. Once 

we established ourselves within the 

Mexican market, we started expanding 

to Central America and to the northern 

half of South America. Then came the big 

leaps: Brazil, Spain, India, and the Middle 

East. That international expansion is 

what I say stands out as the most relevant 

achievement for Cinépolis over the last 

three decades. 

We’ve been able to accomplish this 

through a very disciplined, conservative 

financial management that has allowed us 

to grow without being heavily leveraged. 

It has given us enough resources and 

confidence to strongly believe we have a 

solid future ahead of us, once we recover 

from the great challenges we’re currently 

living through. 


55 


Showeast 2021 LISA BUNNELL 

BINGHAM RAY 

SPIRIT AWARD 

LISA BUNNELL 

President of Distribution at 

Focus Features 

Lisa Bunnell, president of 

distribution at Focus Features, will 

receive this year’s Bingham Ray Spirit 

Award at ShowEast. The award was 

established in 2012 in honor of the late 

Bingham Ray and is bestowed annually to 

an individual who has shown exemplary 

foresight and creativity in the world of 

independent film. 

“It is with great pleasure that ShowEast 

will honor Lisa with the Bingham Ray 

Spirit Award,” said Andrew Sunshine, 

president of the Film Expo Group. “Lisa’s 

passion for independent film has brought 

some of the most successful, important, 

and talked-about indie films to the 

masses. We congratulate her on this 

well-deserved honor.” 

During her five-year tenure at Focus 

Features, Bunnell has overseen all 

domestic theatrical release plans and 

bookings for Focus Features and has been 

responsible for the theatrical release of 

multiple Academy Award–winning films. 

Prior to joining Focus, Bunnell 

spent 10 years as vice president of film 

for Landmark Theatres, where she 

programmed the chain’s 261 screens in 

26 markets throughout the country. She 

got her start in the cinema business with 

Loews Theatres, where she worked in the 

film buying department in the circuit’s 

New York City office for 17 years. 

Boxoffice Pro caught up with Bunnell 

ahead of ShowEast to learn more about her 

career and the state of specialty distribution 

and exhibition during the pandemic. 

Take us back to your first years in the 

film business: How did you first enter 

the industry and what are some of 

the early lessons you took with you to 

your subsequent roles? 

I started working at Loews Theatres while 

I was still in school; I spent over a decade 

working for them. When I started there, 

“Lisa’s passion for 

independent film has 

brought some of the most 

successful, important, and 

talked-about indie films to 

the masses.” 

I was working with exhibition legends 

like Frank Patterson and Bernie Myerson. 

It was baptism by fire. I learned a lot in 

a short period of time. For me, it was a 

strong message of learning as much as 

you can from as many people as possible. 

Don’t be afraid to ask questions, and don’t 

punch a time clock. Be ready, willing, and 

able to put in the extra time to get the job 

done right. That’s a mantra that I carry 

with me to this day. 

Looking back on your career, what 

have been some of your proudest 

achievements in the industry? 

When I look back, I think first about the 

theaters that I worked to open when I was 

at Loews Theatres: Lincoln Square, Boston 

Common, and Georgetown to name a few. 

As a film buyer, it has always been about 

championing smaller films and holding 

them for long periods of time to make sure 

they have the proper chance to be seen. 

Films like Man on Wire, Exit Through the 

Gift Shop, and Whiplash to name a few. It’s 

not always easy to take care of these more 

specialized films. 

At Focus I have been able to work with 

so many amazing filmmakers. Highlights 

for me are Spike Lee winning his first 

Oscar for BlacKkKlansman. The film was 

certainly one of the most rewarding films 

that I ever had the honor to distribute. 

Working with Paul Thomas Anderson 

and having Phantom Thread get six Oscar 

nominations, including Best Picture and 

Director. For many years, I have had a Sid 

and Nancy one sheet in my office. So, when 

Gary Oldman won the Oscar for Darkest 

Hour, he came to the office the day after 

the awards to thank all of us at Focus. He 

signed my Sid and Nancy poster that day. It 

was really amazing and so special for me. 

What makes me the most proud is 

when I feel that we have truly given a 

filmmaker a chance to have his or her 


56-57_SHOWEAST_Lisa-Bunnell.indd 56 17/09/2021 08:49

vision shown on the big screen. I am 

honored that I have the chance to be able 

to make that happen in exhibition and in 

distribution. 

Who have been some of the colleagues 

and mentors that have helped 

you get to where you are today? 

Travis Reid at Loews Theatres—without 

him I would probably still be living in New 

Jersey working in retail. He encouraged 

me when it wasn’t easy for a woman to 

break through in our industry. He gave 

me the opportunity to prove myself. He 

believed in me when I didn’t believe in 

myself. Ted Mundorff, he saved me when 

Loews was taken over by AMC. My love 

was always for film buying. He took me 

on at Landmark Theatres. Working with 

Ted was an amazing and educational 

experience. There were many of the “New 

York ladies” who encouraged me when I 

was growing up in the industry—Linda 

Ditrinco, Janet Murray, Sheila DeLoach, 

and Bobbie Peterson among them. They 

accepted me, educated me, and made me 

feel welcome. I will always be grateful 

to all of them. Jim Orr—we have known 

each other for a long time from our days 

at Paramount and Loews. After years 

of working together, when the Focus 

distribution job came up, he was the 

one who recommended me. Today I am 

lucky enough to work in the Focus family. 

Led by Peter Kujawski, we truly all work 

together to bring filmmakers’ visions to 

life on the big screen. 

Focus was among the most prominent 

distributors active since cinemas first 

reopened during this crisis—doing 

so without the help of your two core 

markets: L.A. and New York. How 

did you approach that challenge, 

and what did you learn from the 

experience? 

I think the biggest lesson that we all 

learned is that you can expand your 

thinking outside the New York and L.A. 

platform version of an art film release. 

While you can never take away from 

the importance of New York and Los 

Angeles, things are a lot different than 

10 years ago. The concept of needing to 

have big numbers in New York and Los 

Angeles so that the “word of mouth” will 

spread to other cities in the country is a 

bit antiquated. Now with social media, 

it’s pretty easy to get the word out to 

everyone immediately. It’s something that 

we all learned from. That’s not to say that 

there won’t be films whose paths would 

be best served with a New York and Los 

Angeles platform, but I do think that we 

all have to look at every film individually 

to make sure that we are doing the right 

thing for each one. I like to think of all of 

our films like one of our children. Each 

child has different DNA and they need to 

be treated differently. 

How did the postponement of major 

film festivals and the Academy 

Awards change your game plan over 

at Focus? And how has the pandemic 

informed the way you approach your 

role in the future? 

I have to say that at Focus we worked all 

through the pandemic. We released 10 

films theatrically in 2020 and will have 

13 in 2021. As far as film festivals during 

the pandemic, we remained active and 

watched virtually as many films as we 

would have at an in-person festival. We 

were active in acquisitions and became 

involved in projects that we currently 

have going into production. The awards 

season was long, but I think we adjusted 

as well as you possibly could. We are so 

proud of Emerald Fennell and Promising 

Young Woman [pictured below]. It was 

an important film for so many reasons, 

and we are proud of how we were able 

to get it out nationwide under difficult 

circumstances. As far as the future goes, 

we are planning on releasing 15 films 

theatrically next year. I think every film 

deserves its best shot theatrically. We 

work on targeted plans for each film. It’s a 

challenging time for the industry, but it’s 

also exciting to see new opportunities. 

Now that New York and L.A. have 

been open for a number of months, 

where is the specialty market in terms 

of recovery? 

I am very optimistic about the future 

of specialty film. There are so many 

opportunities to work on content. The 

specialty market, just like so many other 

markets in the world, is slowly coming 

back. I think we all need to be patient. 

When we opened Morgan Neville’s 

Roadrunner, I was really encouraged to 

see the strong grosses coming from so 

many art theaters. There is potential 

for art films—you just need to support 

them properly. 

“What makes me the most 

proud is when I feel that 

we have truly given a 

filmmaker a chance to have 

his or her vision shown on 

the big screen.” 


57 

56-57_SHOWEAST_Lisa-Bunnell.indd 57 17/09/2021 08:49

Showeast 2021 ELIZABETH O’NEIL 

AL SHAPIRO 

DISTINGUISheD 

SERVICE AWARD 

ELIZABeth O’NEIL 

Executive Director, Variety, the Children’s 

Charity of Southern California 

Running a charity with two fulltime 

staff members is never an 

easy task—but, in 2020, with need 

higher and resources fewer than ever 

before, the challenge was exponentially 

bigger. It’s well deserved, then, that one 

half of that two-person team—Elizabeth 

O’Neil, executive director of Variety, the 

Children’s Charity of Southern California— 

is receiving the Al Shapiro Distinguished 

Service Award at this year’s ShowEast. 

O’Neil’s love of cinema started at the 

drive-in. The youngest of 10 children, she 

and her siblings would be bundled into 

the family station wagon (the younger 

kids in their pajamas) and taken to the 

movies, where the older children would 

sit on the roof while the little ones stayed 

in the car, likely to fall asleep before the 

film was over. The Child Catcher from 

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the first movie 

O’Neil remembers attending at the 

theater, caused some sleepless nights: 

“I still had nightmares for years!” When 

she was 7 or 8, she remembers an older 

sister—ostensibly on babysitting duty— 

taking her along with her friends to a 

drive-in double feature of M*A*S*H and 

The Andromeda Strain, “which scared me 

to death. I don’t think my parents ever 

found that out.” 

Luckily, early exposure to ageinappropriate 

films didn’t turn O’Neil off 

the world of cinema. O’Neil’s professional 

connection to the exhibition industry 

began in 1986, when she started working 

for USA Cinemas (later acquired by 

Loews Theatres, eventually to become 

a part of AMC Theatres) as a co-op 

advertising coordinator. Later, she became 

their director of in-theater marketing. 

Following her time in exhibition, O’Neil 

“We can’t get into the mind 

frame where everything is 

going to be virtual from now 

on, because we still need 

that human interaction.” 

moved to market research firm Theatrical 

Entertainment Services—taking her to 

Los Angeles—and Technicolor Cinema 

Distribution. It was while working at the 

latter company that she was asked to 

join the board of directors at Variety, the 

Children’s Charity of Southern California; 

three years later, in 2008, she became its 

executive director. 

It was her time at these companies, 

O’Neil says, developing skills in the areas 

of sales and client relations, that helped 

her once she moved to the nonprofit 

sector. “I still very much try to run the 

charity as a for-profit,” she says—both in 

terms of getting as many contributions 

as possible and in running Variety, the 

Children’s Charity of Southern California 

with efficiency and transparency. 

Through her efforts, charity assessment 

organization Charity Navigator increased 

the rating of Variety’s Southern California 

chapter from two to four stars, indicating 

a nonprofit that (per Charity Navigator’s 

official assessment criteria) “exceeds 

industry standards and outperforms most 

charities in its cause.” 

“We’re a small chapter,” says O’Neil, 

and thus “it was really important for us to 

let donors know that their contribution 

is going to help the greatest number 

of children where the need is greatest.” 

With that four-star rating, Variety of 

SoCal is able to instill confidence in their 

donors that “as much of their donation 

as possible is going to the mission of 

helping children”—particularly those with 

medical disabilities who, with Variety’s 

assistance, are able to get much-needed 

adaptive bikes, mobility equipment, and 

other equipment and services to help 

them lead happier, more active lives. 


58-59_SHOWEAST-Elizabeth-Oneil.indd 58 16/09/2021 12:03

“The parents are the 

heroes. The parents are 

the people that—24 hours 

a day, seven days a week— 

are dealing with meds and 

therapies and walkers and 

wheelchairs.” 

In 2020, with the Covid pandemic 

shutting businesses’ doors and keeping 

billions quarantined, the emotional 

and psychological benefits of being able 

to spend a few active minutes outside 

hit home for families and individuals 

worldwide. Variety of SoCal—like the 

cinema industry as a whole—had to 

pivot to virtual events, a challenge for 

a nonprofit that previously generated 

the vast majority of its donations from 

in-person events, including poker and 

casino nights, an annual Golf Classic, and 

the Heart of Show Business luncheon. 

In September 2020, when Covid case 

numbers had taken a dip, Variety of SoCal 

held an in-person, outdoor golf event 

that “sold out immediately,” says O’Neil. 

“The biggest takeaway was that it was so 

nice seeing our colleagues again and just 

catching up with people. We can’t get into 

the mind frame where everything is going 

to be virtual from now on, because we still 

need that human interaction.” 

With in-person events now more 

possible than they were in mid-2020, 

O’Neil says she isn’t ready to let go of 

virtual fundraising events entirely. What 

Covid has taught her, she says, is that “we 

really need to diversify more into other 

revenue streams, other than just in-person 

events. We love seeing our supporters. We 

love getting together. We love the events 

that bring all our friends out to support 

the industry. That’s so important. But I 

think the key is to get a better balance 

between the in-person events and other 

revenue streams.” 

From her 13-and-counting years as 

Variety of SoCal’s executive director, the 

moments that stick most in O’Neil’s mind 

involve that in-person connection—not 

with entertainment professionals (though 

she immensely values the charitable spirit 

of the entertainment community that 

makes Variety of SoCal’s work possible), 

but with the children and families who 

benefit from Variety’s work. She recalls a 

75th anniversary event, where 75 adaptive 

bikes were given away to at-need children. 

“It was the most amazing day. I remember 

one father came up to me—his son was 

named Angel, and he had written the most 

beautiful note on his application. He came 

up to me and gave me flowers to thank 

me for what was happening that day. The 

parents are the heroes. The parents are 

the people that—24 hours a day, seven 

days a week—are dealing with meds and 

therapies and walkers and wheelchairs. 

Yet they never lose joy and hope. They 

are dedicated and driven to giving their 

children their best lives possible. They are 

the ones that inspire me. They’re the ones 

that are the heroes.” 


59 

58-59_SHOWEAST-Elizabeth-Oneil.indd 59 16/09/2021 12:03

Showeast 2021 PAUL HOLLIMAN 

ShoweaST 

HALL OF FAME 

PAUL HOLLIMAN 

Former Head of Worldwide 

Digital Cinema and Strategic 

Planning, Disney 

Paul Holliman, the seasoned 

executive who recently retired from 

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, is 

the latest industry member to enter the 

ShowEast Hall of Fame. The ShowEast 

Hall of Fame annually recognizes 

individuals who have made an exceptional 

contribution both to the success of their 

company or organization and the wider 

cinema industry. 

Holliman got his start in the cinema 

industry as a projectionist at the 

Commonwealth Theatre’s 50-S Drive-In 

Theatre in Emporia, Kansas. From there, 

he served as manager in Kansas City, 

followed by stints as booker in Denver 

and regional film buyer in Dallas. Disney 

approached Holliman to join its theatrical 

distribution team while he was in Texas, 

and he began his tenure at the company as 

the manager of the studio’s smaller branch 

in New Orleans and Memphis. He went on 

to manage the company’s largest branch, 

in Los Angeles, over a six-year period 

during his 32-year term at the studio. 

At Disney, Holliman moved up to 

become vice president, assistant general 

sales manager, where he oversaw the 

“On behalf of our entire team 

at the Film Expo Group, we 

would like to congratulate 

Paul and recognize him 

with a Hall of Fame award 

this year for his continued 

support and dedication to 

our great industry.” 

theatrical distribution of Fantasia 2000, 

the first commercial studio motion picture 

released in Imax. The release generated 

nearly $50 million from just 54 venues, 

helping establish Imax as a commercial 

distribution format. 

That commitment to technological 

innovation continued, as he played a key 

role within the team of Disney, RealD, Dolby, 

and Industrial Light & Magic executives 

that delivered the first digital 3-D release, 

Chicken Little, to cinemas in 2005. 

Holliman went on to become the 

Head of Worldwide Digital Cinema and 

Strategic Planning at Disney, overseeing 

the global conversion to digital cinema, 

in a major turning point for the cinema 

business. Among his many innovations 

in theatrical distribution were the 

first live commercial sporting event 

broadcast digitally to cinemas with NCAA 

football and basketball games in 2007 

and the negotiation of the first satellite 

distribution agreement for a studio with 

OpenSky and Eutelsat in Italy in 2010. The 

latter deal defined operational protocols 

for satellite delivery and digital cinema 

and is still in use today. 

His charitable efforts have included 

stints as a board member and officer of 

Variety, the Children’s Charity of Southern 

California, and as board member and 

officer with the Will Rogers Motion Picture 

Pioneers Foundation, where he has been 

an advisory board member and active 

member of the Brave Beginnings Neonatal 

Grant Committee for many years. 

“On behalf of our entire team at the 

Film Expo Group, we would like to 

congratulate Paul and recognize him with 

a Hall of Fame award this year for his 

continued support and dedication to our 

great industry,” says Andrew Sunshine, 

president of the Film Expo Group. 


60_SHOWEAST-Hall-Of-Fame.indd 60 16/09/2021 12:04

Showeast 2021 MARK CHRISTIANSEN 

SALAH M. HASSANEIN 

HUMANItaRIAN AWARD 

MARK CHRISTIANSEN 

“Mark defines what 

it means to be the 

Hassanein Award winner. 

His commitment to our 

industry and its charities 

are second to none.” 

Executive Vice President of Worldwide Distribution 

Operations, Paramount Pictures 

Paramount’s Mark Christiansen is 

this year’s recipient of the Salah 

M. Hassanein Humanitarian Award at 

ShowEast. The honor dates to 1987 and 

is presented annually to a company or 

individual in the industry that has made 

an impact in the philanthropic community. 

“Mark defines what it means to be the 

Hassanein Award winner. His commitment 

to our industry and its charities are second 

to none,” says Andrew Sunshine, president, 

Film Expo Group. “We are honored to 

recognize his achievements.” 

As the executive vice president of 

worldwide distribution operations at 

Paramount Pictures, Mark Christiansen 

leads a group responsible for localizing, 

packaging, marketing, and delivering 

Paramount’s film slate around the world. 

He previously held operations and sales 

positions at DreamWorks, MGM, and 

Columbia Pictures. 

Christiansen is currently president of 

the Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers 

Foundation. As a result of financial 

hardships caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, 

the WRMPPF provided cash distributions 

to over 10,000 members of the exhibition 

and distribution community—98 percent 

of whom come from the exhibition sector. 

He also supports the CHP 11-99 Foundation 

and the University of Oregon. 


61_SHOWEAST-Mark-Christiansen.indd 61 16/09/2021 12:04

CONGRATULATION 

TO A GREAT FRIEND 

FROM THE ENTIRE TEAM AT STRONG ENTERTAINMENT 

ROLANDO 

RODRIGUEZ 

on receiving the 

Dan Fellman Show “E” Award 

strong-tech.com 

strongmdi.com 

62_AD-MDI-Rodriguez.indd 62 16/09/2021 12:04

Studio Movie Grill 64 | Boxoffice Barometer 70 

THEATER 

“In this golden age of content, the moviegoing experience has to be 

bigger than just going to see the movie. It has to be experiential.” 

Studio Movie Grill, p. 64 


63 

63_Theater-Opener.indd 63 16/09/2021 12:04

Theater STUDIO MOVIE GRILL 

THE STORY 

CONTINUES 

Studio Movie Grill CEO Ted 

Croft on the Dine-In Chain’s 

Emergence from Covid-19 


“Opening hearts and minds one story 

at a time” is the mantra of Studio 

Movie Grill. The Dallas-based chain, 

founded in 2000, has quite a story of its 

own. In 2019, Studio Movie Grill was the 

13th-largest exhibitor in North America, 

combining a dine-in movie experience 

with numerous community initiatives— 

including its “Movies + Meals” program, 

providing free screenings and meals to 

local nonprofits—to build a powerful 

brand that entered 2020 set to expand. 

In April 2019, Studio Movie Grill 

received $100 million in strategic 

growth investment from TowerBrook 

Capital Partners L.P. In January 2020, 

they announced plans to open five new 

locations through the first three quarters 

of the year. In March, the Covid-19 

pandemic shut down North American 

cinemas. In October, Studio Movie Grill 

filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. 

But the story wasn’t—and isn’t—over. 

April 2021 saw Studio Movie Grill emerge 

from Chapter 11 following a restructuring. 

With a new CEO at the helm—former 

COO/CFO Ted Croft, who’s been with the 

company since 2011—Studio Movie Grill 

is poised to exit the pandemic period 

leaner and more focused on providing 

the best possible guest experience—even 

if that means something a little different 

now than it did in the pre-Covid days. 

Boxoffice Pro spoke with Croft; Ted 

Low, V.P., brand and marketing; and 

Tearlach Hutcheson, V.P., film, on SMG’s 

emergence from a challenging 2020 and 

the next chapter in its own ongoing story. 


64-69_THEATER-SMG-Croft.indd 64 16/09/2021 12:05

Studio Movie Grill was one of the 

chains that filed for Chapter 11 during 

2020. Could you talk a bit about the 

restructuring process that SMG went 

through and how it will enable you to 

emerge stronger from the pandemic? 

Ted Croft: As you can imagine, Chapter 

11 is tough on all parties. It’s tough on 

the company, tough on your vendor 

partners, tough on everybody. If you turn 

it around and find the glass half full, what 

it does enable you to do is restructure. 

The lending partners we had, Goldman 

Sachs and Crestline [Investors], were our 

partners prior to the filing, and they stuck 

with us. They believed in this leadership 

team, believed in the brand, funded our 

way through the bankruptcy, and will 

be funding us post-emergence, which 

happened in April. 

Today, we have 19 of our strongest 

locations. We’ll have two more that will 

open this fall. We were able to, I’d say, 

recast a lot of our contracts. So you’re 

able to review every single contract in the 

company, and you come out with a much 

stronger balance sheet. 

The smart thing that Goldman and 

Crestline did during that time, during 

the pandemic and even during the 

bankruptcy, was that they kept the top 

performers. And I don’t mean just the 

stores. I mean our top performers in the 

field and our top performers at the home 

office. They funded that. Keeping folks 

around set us up for a much more positive 

exit and emergence. I think it positioned 

us extremely well to be ready for the guests 

who are coming back to the theaters. I 

think that was a very smart decision that 

they made, way back when. We wouldn’t 

be sitting here today without them. The 

balance sheet is stronger. We have our topperforming 

locations, and we have our top 

team performers, as well. So I think we’re 

set up for success. 

In the months prior to the pandemic, 

Studio Movie Grill had gotten some 

investments and was planning a 

pretty substantial expansion. Given 

that, the pandemic was particularly 

unlucky timing for you. 

T.C. It was very unfortunate. When [the 

pandemic] hit, I think it was 32 [theaters] 

open, five under construction, and—as 

you referenced—we had others that we 

were close to signing. The timing was 

unfortunate because we were just rocking 

along. Five under construction. We had 

a remodel in progress. We had other 

remodels scheduled for the year after. 

You had money out there, and then 

Covid just shut everything down. 

T.C. That’s exactly right. It hit like a ton 

of bricks. That’s one of the unfortunate 

casualties of the pandemic and the 

bankruptcy, is that unfortunately some of 

those sites that we had under construction 

are no longer going to be part of Studio 

Movie Grill. 

Corporate social responsibility is a 

big part of Studio Movie Grill’s brand. 

Coming out of the pandemic and the 

restructuring, what will that look like 

moving forward? 

Ted Low: You mentioned corporate 

responsibility, and we stand behind 

“Opening hearts and minds one story at a 

time” to do that. That doesn’t change with 

respect to the circumstances of 2020. We 

look at that through a “Win 5” stakeholder 

model [in which five groups—guests, 

investors, team members, communities, 

and vendor partners—benefit from 

SMG’s success], and we’ll continue to stay 

focused on that stakeholder model. One of 

the biggest things that we noticed [during 

the pandemic] was just how important 

our teams and our vendors were through 

the last year. As Ted mentioned, in the 

absence of key investor partners, in the 

absence of high performers, and in the 

absence of the communities that really 

stood behind us, I’m pretty confident we 

wouldn’t be on this call with you today 

explaining what our future looks like. We’d 

be reflecting on what the past was. 

I don’t think that in any way we have 

any intention of deviating from that 

responsibility. As a matter of fact, we’ve 

stood it up in a lot of different ways through 

some campaigns in 2021. Our “Now Open, 

Now Hiring” campaign [in the spring] 

was really driven around looking for high 

performers to join high performers—again, 

doubling down on the team member piece. 

And we’re actually going back to resurrect 

some of the programs that we had to 

suspend in 2020 as we look into 2021 and 

2022, just to try to continue to solidify that 

position in the market. 


65 



The unanimous feedback from a lot of 

the candidates [to the “Now Open, Now 

Hiring” campaign] coming through our 

H.R. teams and our ops teams was, if they 

were going to come back to work, they 

wanted to come back to work with a brand 

that stood on a stakeholder model or stood 

for something that was bigger than itself. 

I think that’s evidence of what the brand 

represented in the market. What we were 

working so hard to build pre-pandemic 

helped us stand up a little bit faster postpandemic. 

That was the sentiment coming 

from a lot of these candidates as we looked 

to onboard them. 

It seems like you really do enable 

and encourage local G.M.s to take 

initiative with their own theaters. 

T.L. [Senior Director, Public Relations and 

Outreach] Lynne McQuaker was a key 

component in creating that localization 

effort, so that a general manager can say, 

“Hey, I want to do a fun run,” or, “Hey, I 

want to support this philanthropic effort 

in my community. It’s important to what 

I stand for.” Our “Chefs for Children” 

program was created by a chef outside of 

Chicago that had a special needs child 

and wanted to come up with a way to 

leverage the brand and the brand’s 

resources to benefit that group of people 

that he was directly impacted by. Those 

localized efforts, Lynne certainly deserves 

some credit for instituting that, and 

we’ve maintained that into 2021 and in 

the future. 

“With all these great films 

coming out, we’re going to 

really have to focus on giving 

them the legs that they 

deserve and making sure that 

they stay on-screen as long as 

they possibly can.” 

On a different subject of localization— 

Tearlach, how much does SMG tailor 

its programming to individual theaters 

and the communities they serve? 

Tearlach Hutcheson: Any time that 

you’re programming a theater, you’re 

looking for what the audience wants to 

see. Anyone who’s buying film for a chain 

is looking at each individual theater. If 

you’re not doing that, you’re not doing 

your job properly. But I think on top of 

that, we often do events [and screenings] 

for local filmmakers. We don’t necessarily 

take the approach of charging a large fee. 

We work out a deal where we split tickets 

or things like that, so they can have the 

people who are in the film and the people 

who are supporting them come in and be 

part of that event. Being a place where 

[people turn] up to support the local 

community is important to us. 

Over the back half of 2021, the 

schedule’s just jam-packed. How 

does SMG approach that from a 

programming perspective? It has to 

be quite the jigsaw puzzle. 

T.H. I think the difference between prepandemic, 

during the pandemic, and postpandemic 

is we’re really focusing more on 

how our pre-pandemic models were and 

how that worked. I don’t see it as a jigsaw 

puzzle. I see it as a lot of great films coming 

out at the end of the third quarter and the 

fourth quarter. The dam is right there, and 

we’re waiting for that dam to release. 

With all these great films coming out, 

we’re going to really have to focus on 

giving them the legs that they deserve and 

making sure that they stay on-screen as 

long as they possibly can. I think that’s one 

of the biggest dilemmas that we’re going to 

have with this onslaught of films. 

How do you handle the marketing 

angle of that? 

T.L. I’m actually going to be the one that’s 

excited about too much content. There 

was a lot of anticipation for Tenet last 

September. There was a lot of anticipation 

for Wonder Woman 1984 in the holidays. 

There was an eagerness to try to figure 

out how to get back to the movies, but 

they obviously just didn’t hit like they 

needed to. We started seeing an uptick in 

attendance as early as Tom and Jerry back 



in February, and so we started trying to 

map the trend. 

If you look at how we run our strategies 

internally, with respect to marketing and 

marketing communication to our guests, 

we’ve got a pretty good grip on who our 

customers are by location, like Tearlach 

mentioned. While it may be a jam-packed 

slate, some of those titles may not always be 

appropriate for every one of our stores, and/ 

or some may have longer legs than others. 

The marketing strategy is kind of Marketing 

101: We’ve got acquisition strategies, and 

we’ve got retention strategies. To answer 

your question: The more the merrier. We 

run a very strategic film rollout schedule, 

from advanced ticketing to “now showing” 

to chase campaigns. 

[For example], The Suicide Squad opens 

for us tomorrow. We’ve got paid media 

campaigns going for The Suicide Squad. 

We’ve got featured beverages going. We’re 

in a great relationship with Warner Bros. 

for that title. To continue the legs on that 

movie, we’ll still run chase campaigns next 

week and the following, but we’ll move 

on to the next titles that are up. We’ve got 

them in a sequence that sets us up to serve 

up content to our different constituents, 

because our guests have a pretty broad 

makeup of movie preferences. 

For Ted Croft, what’s your personal 

vision for SMG moving forward, and 

how is that informed by your former 

roles as COO and CFO? 

T.C. In my former roles, there was a lot 

of support of the vision of the brand. A 

lot of the focus was on interaction with 

investors. Now, in a new role—and it’s not 

just me, it’s the entire leadership team— 

we’re all taking a much more enhanced 

awareness of the guest experience. 

Our lending partners are the same [as 

before], and we know each other so well. 

That was a big part of taking on this role. 

They know the brand. So that frees up 

time and space to be able to focus on the 

day-to-day. 

Our role is—it’s a little bit cliché—but 

we’re protectors of the brand. They stuck 

with us because they believe in the brand. 

That’s why they’re putting more money 

into Studio Movie Grill. And so, I don’t 

think we’re here just to maintain. We’re 

in a great position to be able to accept all 

these guests as they come back and give 


67 



them a great experience. [But the goal 

is] not to just maintain. I’ve been asked 

to spend a portion of my role looking at 

potential growth opportunities for Studio 

Movie Grill. We do believe very strongly 

that those opportunities are going to 

present themselves in the near future, and 

so that’s what we’re going to focus a lot of 

time on. [We’re going to be] really focused 

on the guest experience and opportunistic 

growth opportunities and giving our 

leadership team every tool that they need 

to deliver that guest experience. 

Your brand is strong, so you’re 

not in a place of needing to make 

fundamental changes. 

T.C. I think that’s fair. But we are always 

looking for ways to make it better and 

make it easier for our guests to use Studio 

Movie Grill. That’s a challenge we talk 

about almost on a daily basis. 

What are some of the ways you’re 

exploring by which to do that? 

T.L. There was a way to SMG, prepandemic. 

I spent a decade telling [guests], 

“Kick your feet back and push a button, 

and we’ll do all the work.” I think the 

environmental circumstances around us 

affected people’s comfort with doing that. 

We, like so many others, took on what I call 

“catastrophe innovation.” We quickly fasttracked 

getting food and beverage onto 

our mobile app. We quickly fast-tracked a 

more robust kiosk experience. Do I think 

those things are fully optimized today, 

“In this golden age of content, 

the moviegoing experience 

has to be bigger than just 

going to see the movie. It has 

to be experiential.” 

on the call with you? No, I don’t. I think 

there’s opportunity to continue to make 

them better. 

We’ve expanded our surveys, and 

we’ve expanded our net promoter score 

reach, so that we can get more and more 

transparency into that kind of feedback. 

And not just feedback from people that 

didn’t have the experience we wanted, 

but feedback from people that had the 

experience they wanted, so that we can 

learn from both sides. And the feedback 

that we’re getting is that there’s still a 

propensity to want to do full service. But 

there’s also a group of people—that are 

gaining in market share by every period— 

that have a propensity for wanting to do 

technology-based service. The brand 

is taking a hard look at what we’re 

calling “high-touch” and “low-touch” 

opportunities. There are certain points 

where “low-touch,” i.e., “high-technology,” 

can service the guest better. And then, 

in certain places where hospitality really 

rings out, we still want that customer and 

team member interaction. We’re balancing 

that, and I do think that’s part of what that 

future looks like. 

We realize that there are continuous 

ways to optimize the experience. I think 

any in-theater dining concept would 

share the same heartburn, with respect to 

when we do checks and when we payout, 

and that’s typically happening during the 

climax of the movie. That’s not unique to 

Studio Movie Grill. That’s a reality for all of 

us. And so we’re constantly taking a look at 

how to make it better. 

In this golden age of content, the 

moviegoing experience has to be bigger 

than just going to see the movie. It has to 

be experiential. If we can’t figure out how 

to dial into the experience, then we do 

become an archaic business model. At the 

end of the day, it’s got to be worth getting 

you off your couch and getting you into the 

theater and getting you into an experience 

that provides that kind of quality-value 

equation that you were looking for, that 

makes you feel good about the money you 

spent and the time that you were away 

from home. That’s where we’re doubling 

down. [When Ted Croft] says, we want to 

get back to basics and keep it simple, we 

think that’s what the customer wants. We 

were the first in the [dine-in] space. We 

want to be the best in the space. We’re just 

going to get back to doing what we’re good 

at doing. 



“Storytelling has remained 

the constant throughout 

this business. The thing 

that’s always changed this 

business is technology.” 

As you do customer research and 

think about adjustments to your 

business model, are you coming to 

any conclusions about programming? 

I’m thinking specifically about nontentpole 

content, whether they’re 

mid-budget films or alternative 

content. What role will that play in 

SMG moving forward? 

T.H. We are always experimenting and 

trying out different forms of alternative 

programming. We have, from very early 

on, been big supporters of Funimation, 

and we’ve seen them rise in success. 

We used to do a lot of music alternative 

programming. The problem that we’re 

having post-pandemic is that we’re not 

really being offered that type of content 

at the moment. But if it was being offered, 

we would be putting it out there in the 

marketplace and playing it. So alternative 

programming is very important to us. 

Turning back to the question about 

the big films and the mid-range films, it 

depends on what you mean by “mid-range 

film.” One of the conversations happening 

in the public sphere in this businesses is 

that people are only going to come out 

for the Black Widows, you know, things 

that have to be seen on a big screen. And 

I’m going to push back on that. I’m going 

to say, the best way to experience a great 

story is in a dark room with a bunch of 

strangers. The Black Widows of the world, 

the No Time to Dies of the world, that’s one 

thing. But a comedy is a lot funnier when 

you’re with a hundred people laughing. A 

horror movie: everyone being scared at the 

same time, everyone taking that big intake 

of breath. A drama. It’s better when you 

hear everyone silently crying in their seats, 

trying to pretend they’re not crying. That’s 

how you’re meant to experience a movie. 

Storytelling has remained the constant 

throughout this business. The thing 

that’s always changed this business is 

technology. We’ve had this influx of 

streamers. But you go back and think 

about 1920s radio, 1950s TV: How did that 

change how things were shown in movies? 

The introduction of the VHS tape, DVD, 

now streamers. That definitely changed 

the way that people are consuming at 

home. But the story that I’m telling 

myself about home consumption is that 

streaming is merely people converting 

from DVD into streaming. We still have 

that block coming into the movie theaters 

and wanting to have that experience. The 

customer base is still there. 

Coming off that idea of storytelling, 

my final question: As the industry 

comes out of a challenging year and 

a half, and as SMG emerges from its 

own particularly transformative time, 

what is the story of Studio Movie Grill 

going to be? 

T.C. My initial gut reaction is: We made 

it. We survived. And we’re still here. We 

were a great brand going in, and we’re a 

great brand coming out. And the SMG 

story is not done. I said it earlier: We’re 

not here just to maintain. We’re here to 

continue the story. As we grow, it creates 

opportunities. Just recently, we’ve had 

some well-earned internal promotions that 

have happened. People that stuck with us 

during this pandemic have been promoted 

into leadership positions. That’s the stuff 

that keeps us going. Those are the stories 

that we love—that the folks that have 

stuck with us are going to be rewarded 

because we have a brand that’s going to 

survive. To see people exceed and enrich 

their own lives gives us a lot of satisfaction 

as a leadership team. We’re not done. We’re 

still here. And the story continues. 


69 


BOXOFFICE BAROMETER 

2021 

Honoring Excellence in Theatrical Exhibition 

Boxoffice Pro is reviving its iconic Boxoffice Barometer readers’ poll, a popular 

annual feature of our magazine for decades, in which exhibitors vote on the best 

achievements in the industry. In this newly revamped edition of the Barometer, 

representatives from over 50 exhibition circuits around the world voted online 

to select the most important and influential contributions to the exhibition 

industry in 2020. Boxoffice Pro will be featuring profiles of each honoree in our 

print editions throughout 2021. 


70-73_BAROMETER.indd 70 16/09/2021 12:06

Industry Figure of the Year: 

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION 

OF THEATRE OWNERS 

Cinema Trend of the Year: 

PRIVATE THEATER 

RENTALS 

Film of the Year: 

TENET 

(WARNER BROS.) 

Theatrical Distributor of the Year: 

WARNER BROS. 

Exhibitor Relations Department 

of the Year: 

WARNER BROS. 

Cinema Vendor of the Year: 

VISTA GROUP 

INTERNATIONAL 

Food & Beverage Vendor of the Year: 

VISTAR 

Technology Vendor of the Year: 

CINIONIC 


71 


Theater BOXOFFICE BAROMETER 

FOOD & BEVERAGE 

VENDOR OF THE YEAR 

VISTAR 

Interview with Sean Mahoney, Senior 

V.P. Sales and Marketing, Vistar 

“As our business grew, so 

did the level of trust with our 

amazing business partners— 

and today, support of the 

exhibitor space is strongly 

woven into the fabric of our 

business.” 

Since your acquisition by 

Wellspring Capital Management 

LLC in 2002, it looks like Vistar has 

entered new markets. Can you 

provide some background on your 

pre-2002 history? 

Vistar is a division of Performance Food 

Group, which traces its beginnings 

back to 1875. In 2002, Wellspring Capital 

acquired Multifoods Distribution Group 

and renamed it “Vistar,” setting the stage 

for multiple acquisitions over the past 

decades. In 2015, Performance Food Group 

announced an IPO, and PFGC has been 

trading on the NYSE ever since. 

At what point did Vistar begin working 

with movie theater concessions, 

specifically? And how has that part of 

your business evolved? 

Vistar began supporting the exhibitor 

concessions and food service space around 

25 years ago, with the acquisition of Liberto 

Distribution. We were able to retain many 

of the great people from this company and 

capitalize on their experience in theaters 

and concessions. As our business grew, 

so did the level of trust with our amazing 

business partners—and today, support of 

the exhibitor space is strongly woven into 

the fabric of our business. 

In our Boxoffice Barometer poll, voted 

on exclusively by exhibitors, Vistar 

was voted, far and away, the best 

F&B vendor of 2020. What was your 

strategy for working with these 

theatrical customers during the awful 

year we all had in 2020? 

Vistar’s longtime commitment to doing 

business with a strong customer-centric 

approach set the stage for us to support 

our customers through unprecedented 

challenges. We are as passionate about 

the movie theater business as they are, 

which made 2020 particularly difficult 

to navigate for all of us. That shared 

commitment and belief, that going to 

the movies has been and will continue 

to be an important part of our culture 

in America, helped us work through 

the challenges in the best ways possible. 

While the sales impacts are still being 

felt today, it’s exciting to see the industry 

slowly rebound. 

What lessons has Vistar taken from 

2020 that will serve you as we move 

beyond the pandemic? 

Vistar has been investing in a customercentric 

approach for a long time. The 

challenges of last year in theaters and 

concessions reinforced for us the need 

to continue building on those strong 

customer relationships. We spent many 

hours moving inventory to the right 

operating centers, working with our 

suppliers to take product back or move 

it through other channels, and helping 

countless customers manage through 

shutting down in the best way to support 

the eventual reemergence of their 

business. I am very proud of our team for 

staying engaged and connected with our 

customers and for their creativity and 

innovation as they looked for alternatives 

and solutions with each twist and turn. 

What are the top challenges that 

Vistar faced during the pandemic, 

and how did you work through them? 

At the height of the pandemic, several 

Vistar customers were forced to shut down, 

almost overnight. That shifted our focus 

from getting product to the right place at 

the right time, to helping our customers 

respond to a total loss of sales. Our 

commitment to sustaining those customer 

relationships is helping us now as we start 

to see the industry slowly rebound. 



When it comes to distribution 

logistics, what are some of the 

innovations that have positively 

impacted your business over the 

last several years? 

We believe it’s almost impossible 

[for others] to match the national 

distribution reach that Vistar has built 

for our customers! With our own fleet and 

warehouse network, we have control over 

how we invest in our equipment—and, 

more importantly, how we invest in our 

people, who deliver for our customers 

every day. We take advantage of technology 

in many aspects of our business, including 

to help us mitigate production and delivery 

issues many suppliers are currently facing. 

We can offer any concessions, food service, 

janitorial, or nonfood items required in a 

concessions setting, including frozen and 

refrigerated products. 

Across the exhibition industry, we’re 

seeing how data and digitalization 

have streamlined procedures in so 

many ways—from ticket sales to film 

booking. How does Vistar use data to 

better serve its cinema clients? 

“That shared commitment 

and belief, that going to 

the movies has been and 

will continue to be an 

important part of our culture 

in America, helped us work 

through the challenges in the 

best ways possible.” 

Vistar’s approach to our business blends 

strong relationships with our customers 

and our supplier base with solid 

understanding and use of data. With a mix 

of suppliers that are national consumer 

goods companies and niche players in the 

concessions space, we can identify trends 

from a more unique perspective. We work 

tirelessly with our suppliers to incorporate 

trendsetting products and gain category 

insights to help customers maximize 

the consumer experience and improve 

check averages. We build success for their 

business and ours when we combine 

data with our experienced theater 

representative base. The innovation our 

team brings to our customers supports 

them in offering variety and unique 

consumer experiences. 

ADVERTISE IN 

BOXOFFICE PRO’S 

CENTENNIAL ISSUE 

Celebrating 100 Years as Exhibition’s Reference Publication. 

Reserve Your Space by November 4 

Contact susan@boxoffice.com for details. 


73 


THE ENTIRE TEAM 

AT STRONG 

ENTERTAINMENT 

JOINS IN CONGRATULATING 

MIGUEL 

MIER 

on receiving the International 

Exhibitor of the year Award 

strong-tech.com 

strongmdi.com 

74_AD-MDI-Mier.indd 74 16/09/2021 12:07

Ghostbusters: Afterlife 76 | The Addams Family 2 84 | Mass 90 

ON SCREEN 

“People would line up around the corner at every one of the 

movie palaces. It was a privilege to wait two hours to see 

movies in late-’80s, early-’90s Westwood.” 

Ghostbusters: Afterlife, p. 76 


75 

75_OnScreen-Opener.indd 75 16/09/2021 12:07

On Screen GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE 


76-82_Ghostbusters.indd 76 16/09/2021 12:08

THE 

REIT 

STUFF 

Ghostbusters: Afterlife 

Continues a Family Legacy 



77 



Ghostbusters: Afterlife is a family 

affair. Unlike the previous three 

Ghostbusters films, it’s about a family: 

single mother Callie (Carrie Coon) and 

children Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and 

Phoebe (Mckenna Grace), daughter and 

grandkids of the late, great ghostbuster 

Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis). The idea of 

family legacy extends to behind the camera 

as well, to director/co-writer Jason Reitman 

(Juno, Up in the Air, Thank You for Smoking) 

and his father, Ivan Reitman, who directed 

and produced the first two Ghostbusters 

films (and myriad other comedy classics) 

and returns as a producer this go-round. 

It’s not surprising to learn that the 

younger Reitman grew up at the movies— 

and values the theatrical experience, 

especially now, when there are “fewer and 

fewer places of singular attention” and the 

industry was kept at a temporary standstill 

for so long. Reitman spoke exclusively to 

Boxoffice Pro about his history with 

movie theaters and the experience of 

making Ghostbusters: Afterlife, in theaters 

from Sony Pictures November 19. 

Pre-Ghostbusters: Afterlife, you served 

as producer for most of the films you 

directed. How is the process different 

for you, when you’re also producing a 

film versus when you’re not? 

From moment one, it made sense on 

this film for my father and I to partner 

up that way. My father’s a producer [on 

Ghostbusters: Afterlife]. I am the director. 

We knew that we were going to enter in a 

different producer-director relationship 

than any filmmaking team ever has, even 

in cases where families have worked 

together on projects. My father was a 

producer on Up in the Air. It was a much 

different thing for me to pick up this story 

that he had created, and I think that’s 

what made this different. 

For a lot of people, including myself, 

the first two Ghostbusters films are 

baked into our childhood. But this is 

the first Ghostbusters film to center 

on child characters—or at least to 

feature them in a big way. What was 

the thought process behind that 

shift? What does it bring to the story? 

It’s interesting. If you think about the 

three Ghostbusters films up until now, 

they’ve always been about a group of 



“Those moments where 

you somehow discover 

who your family is by 

going through the attic 

or going through the 

basement or going 

through some old trunk.” 

people who go into business. That was 

always at the core of what their stories 

were about, and it’s what bonded the main 

characters. I wanted to make a movie 

about a family. That’s how the first kernels 

of the idea started coming to me, before I 

even really knew that I was going to make 

this film. I pitched it to my writing partner 

[Gil Kenan] as exactly that: It’s a movie 

about a single mom and her two kids. 

It’s about ghosts, both paranormal and 

figurative. It’s about a broken family. 

It really came down to, what is it like 

to discover the ephemera of previous 

generations? What got me excited about 

it were those moments of going through 

my grandparents’ basement and finding 

my father’s short films from college. Those 

moments where you somehow discover who 

your family is by going through the attic 

or going through the basement or going 

through some old trunk. And I thought, 

what would it be like to find a proton pack in 

your grandparents’ basement? What would 

that mean about who you were? And thus 

began the story of these young people who 

have to figure out what this ghostbusting 

equipment is, why it’s there, and why it’s 

found its way into their hands. 

Given the family-based nostalgia at 

the heart of this movie—I know you’ve 

worked with your father before, but 

with this one in particular—did the 

process change your relationship with 

him at all, professional or otherwise? 

It was absolutely wonderful and very 

challenging. I ask of anyone: Imagine your 


79 



father sitting next to you at work and in 

real time reviewing every decision you 

make. It is lovely to spend that much time 

with your parents. It is also really tricky. 

My father and I are both ... [long pause] 

confident in our own opinions. 

Good way of putting it. 

Thank you. And it wasn’t always easy. 

But what I found myself thinking all the 

time was, my father was around the same 

age when he made Ghostbusters. And 

as I would revisit ideas and locations 

and props and music, I found myself 

wondering what was behind my father’s 

decisions at every turn. And the thrill was 

being able to actually just turn [to him] 

and ask him. 

Was going to the movie theater a big 

part of your childhood? 

I lived at the movie theater. The movie 

theater was my babysitter. I would be 

dropped off, and I would go from one 

screen to the next. But, as a child of 

privilege, I actually bought tickets for all 

the films I saw, so I wasn’t sneaking in 

from theater to theater. 

That’s good! Our readers in exhibition 

will be happy to hear that. 

There are fewer and fewer places of singular 

attention. And I cherish having them back. 

I’ve gone to the movies many times over the 

summer. I find myself returning not just for 

the movies, but for the act of being inside 

the movie theater. Buying the popcorn. 

“As I would revisit ideas 

and locations and props 

and music, I found myself 

wondering what was behind 

my father’s decisions at 

every turn.” 

Watching the trailers. Experiencing a 

screen bigger than my eyes can fathom. 

Real sound. And laughing and crying with 

strangers. These are things that I had been 

missing the last year. From Zola to A Quiet 

Place—I still haven’t seen The Suicide 

Squad. I’m just happy to have it back. 

Zola was so good. The conversation 

among some people is, “Oh, the big 

screen is so important because where 

else can you really, fully experience 

these big, special-effects-laden 

spectacles?” But a film like Zola on the 

big screen—that was the place to see it. 

One hundred percent agree. The music in 

Zola is amazing. The audience experience 

of Zola is amazing. One thing I’m jealous 

of you, you’re in New York, so you got 

to see Shiva Baby on a big screen, and 

I didn’t get to do that in L.A. I finally 

watched that. Oh my God, that movie’s 

amazing. It is the most Jewish movie I’ve 

ever seen. It’s also just an amazing thriller. 

It’s fantastic. 

Ghostbusters: Afterlife was originally 

supposed to come out in June 2020. 

When you did you finish it? Was it 

ages ago? 

Yes and no. The movie’s been done for 

months. But also, we just added something 

for the end of the credits. 

That was going to be my follow-up: 

Are you a tinkerer? 

For the most part, no. I know directors 

kind of fall into two categories. I am 

definitely in the category of “... and I am 

done.” I am a director of instinct, and I 

generally follow that. 

What’s it like seeing the final cut of 

a film, 100 percent done, in a theater 

for the first time? Because you’ve 

seen every other iteration of it, also 

on a big screen. Is it different when 

you know, “This is the movie”? 

What’s different is finally seeing it with 

an audience. That was the big difference 

this year. When I think about my previous 

movies, they were all in a breakneck 

race for Telluride or Toronto, where we 

would finish the movie, and three days 

later, we would be with an audience at a 

film festival watching the movie. It was 

a thrill, but I had no time to think about 

it. On Ghostbusters, for what feels like a 

year, we sat. And then finally we had a 



BOX OFFICE 

BUSTERS 

GHOSTBUSTERS 

June 8, 1984 

Opening Weekend: 

$13.5M 

Domestic total 

$229.2M 

test screening of the movie. And it played 

beautifully. But I had to wait a long time 

to just sit amongst people eating popcorn 

watching the movie, to hear them laugh 

and cheer and gasp and be surprised. It 

was worth the wait. The exciting part was, 

having not seen it for a long time, I got to, in 

some ways, watch it for the first time again 

with them. 

I hate to ascribe anything positive to 

the pandemic, but that sounds like a 

nice little silver lining. You get to take 

a step back and experience it for the 

first time. 

Very well said. This is the first time I’ve 

watched one of my movies where I really 

felt like I was an audience member. 

You mentioned going to the theater a 

lot as a kid—did you have a particular 

childhood theater that you went to 

most often? 

I don’t know how familiar you are with 

L.A. I have so many movie theaters, I 

honestly don’t know where to begin. 

I grew up at the moment when the 

Westwood Village in Los Angeles was the 

epicenter of movie exhibition. People 

would line up around the corner at 

every one of the movie palaces. It was a 

privilege to wait two hours to see movies 

in late-’80s, early-’90s Westwood. I’d go to 

the Mann Village, and I’d go to the Bruin. 

All the way up to seeing Pulp Fiction at the 

UA, before they tore that down. The AMC 

Century 14—that was a huge theater for 

me. It’s the theater of my first kiss: Don’t 

Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. 

A very romantic film. 

[Laughs] Yes, exactly! I remember when 

they built the CityWalk. It was a Cineplex 

Odeon at that time. That was a big theater 

for me. That’s one where I would just sit 

there all day. I would sometimes go theater 

to theater, just to watch the trailers. I 

remember when the Cliffhanger trailer 

came out. I would go to three theaters in 

a row just to watch that trailer over and 

over. But then I remember being in New 

York—I remember, with my dad, seeing Big 

Trouble in Little China in New York and 

RoboCop in New York and watching those 

movies crush. 

I love trailers. There’s an art to them. 

The two Ghostbusters trailers that’ve 

come out so far have both been really 

good—they each evoked different 

tones and hit it in different ways. 

I’m right there with you. The trailer is as 

much a part of my experience of a movie 

as the movie itself. They’re people who 

care. And I’m really lucky that [Co-Head of 

Motion Picture Group, formerly President 

of Worldwide Marketing and Distribution] 

Josh Greenstein over at Sony and [Sony 

Pictures Entertainment’s EVP Creative 

Advertising] David Fruchbom, who put 

together this trailer, understand and love 

Ghostbusters. And look, that’s the thing 

about this franchise. It exists before all of 

us. It doesn’t belong to any of us. Anyone 

who worked on this film knew that they 

were trying on someone else’s clothes. 

It was our job to honor that. Whether 

you were creating costumes or building 

puppets or doing practical effects or 

GHOSTBUSTERS II 

June 16, 1989 


$29.4M 


$112.5M 

GHOSTBUSTERS 

July 15, 2016 


$46M 


$128.3M 


81 



writing music—or, honestly, editing the 

trailer—there’s a reverence that was a part 

of the work. That had to be a part of the 

work. Because you’re cooking a recipe that 

people know. You know when someone’s 

gotten your grandma’s recipe right. And 

you know when they got it wrong. 

You can’t see me, obviously, but 

when you said “practical effects,” I 

did the human equivalent of a dog’s 

ears perking up when they hear 

“dinnertime.” 

That’s all part of the language of the 

movie, right? That was something I really 

admired about J.J. [Abrams’s] The Force 

Awakens. It was made by not only a person, 

but by people who clearly love Star Wars. 

When you watch Force Awakens, you knew 

that BB-8 was practical. And you could tell 

that they wanted to get the patina of the 

Star Destroyers and the X-Wings and the 

buttons and the clothes and the puppets. 

They all felt of a world that you’re just as 

familiar with as you are your own world. 

I’m in my mid-30s, and I won’t claim 

to know what teenagers today grew 

up with. Had Finn and Mckenna seen 

Ghostbusters? 

Oh, oh, oh. Mckenna had been a 

ghostbuster multiple times for Halloween 

as a young child. Mckenna used to do 

“Mckenna was a Ghostbusters 

fanatic. The day that she got 

to put on a proton pack for 

the first time, she squealed, 

she cried.” 

paintings of Slimer. Mckenna was a 

Ghostbusters fanatic. The day that she 

got to put on a proton pack for the first 

time, she squealed, she cried. This was a 

huge deal for her. And Finn is a student 

of comedy, a student of film, a student 

of Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. They 

were very much of this world. 

As long as they both appreciated 

Annie Potts’s Janine being back. 

That was my favorite moment from 

the trailer. 

Every day, it’d be like, “You know, tomorrow, 

you’re working with so-and-so.” Or 

“Tomorrow, you’re going to work with this.” 

Or “Tomorrow, you get to hold that.” Or 

“Tomorrow, you’re driving Ecto-1.” And they 

freak out every single time! The number of 

times one of them looked at me—and this 

is for [child actors] Celeste [O’Connor] and 

Logan [Kim] as well—and went, “How cool 

is this?” But Paul Rudd was the same way! 

And that must come through on the 

screen—that they’re really having 

a good time, and it’s not just a 

paycheck role. 

There isn’t a day on the set of 

Ghostbusters that you are not somehow 

interacting with something that you fell 

in love with as a kid. 



THE 

COMPANY WEBEDIA GROUP 

Congratulations to 

CineEurope and 

ShowEast’s 2021 

award recipients. 

CineEurope 

Niels Swinkels 

International Distributor of the Year 

Ivar Halstvedt 

UNIC Achievement Award 



ShowEast 

Rolando Rodriguez 

Dan Fellman Show "E" 

Miguel Mier 


Lisa Bunnell 

Bingham Ray Spirit Award 

Elizabeth O'Neil 

Al Shapiro Distinguished Service Award 

Paul Holliman 

ShowEast Hall of Fame 

Mark Christiansen 

ShowEast Salah M Hassanein Award 

83_AD-Boxoffice.indd 83 16/09/2021 12:10

On Screen THE ADDAMS FAMILY 2 

ADDING 

MORE 

ADDAMS 

The Addams Family 2 Co-Director Conrad 

Vernon Delivers a Sequel for Halloween 

BY JESSE RIFKIN 


84-89_Addams.indd 84 17/09/2021 16:48

“We were mainly thinking, 

where do people typically go 

when they’re taking a family 

road trip, but then where 

would the Addamses go?” 


85 



Regardless of your age or generation, 

you can probably sing “The Addams 

Family” theme song, finger snaps 

included. But many years before the 

iconic TV show, the macabre title family 

first appeared, in 1938, in a series of 

single-panel cartoons in The New Yorker, 

and afterward went on to star in a liveaction 

movie franchise in the 1990s. In 

2019, Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan 

directed The Addams Family, an animated 

installment that earned $98 million 

domestically and $201 million globally. 

Now, the two filmmakers are back for the 

United Artists Releasing and MGM family 

comedy sequel, The Addams Family 2, 

exclusively in theaters October 1. 

Vernon previously directed or codirected 

Shrek 2, Monsters vs. Aliens, 

Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted, and 

R-rated animated comedy Sausage Party. 

He spoke to Boxoffice Pro about the 

challenges of recording a voice cast from 

home, especially when you have noisy 

neighbors, why the film’s title changed 

during production, and how Snoop Dogg 

wrote an original song for the film. 

Where were you in the production 

process on Wednesday, March 11, 

2020, “the day everything changed”? 

We were still in storyboards. We hadn’t 

started animation or effects or anything 

like that. This was a very shortened 

schedule that we were on. We went from 

script to screen in two years. 

What were the biggest challenges 

with making this movie during the 

pandemic? 

Making it at home was a challenge, for sure. 

But once everyone was at home, they had 

their setups, their rigs at their houses— 

it went pretty smoothly. The biggest 

challenge was really just getting this done 

in time and making it as good as we could. 

Many of us had to work from home 

during the pandemic, but it’s hard to 

picture making a movie from home! 

The whole cast did have to do it from 

home. Oscar [Isaac, who voices Gomez] 

did go into a studio, but he was dropped 

off at the back door, let in with a mask, and 

then left completely alone. Everybody else 

did it from their houses. We had to mail 

them a microphone and a computer with 

the [audio-recording] program. Then they 

had to have people come in, with masks 

“Making it at home was a 

challenge, for sure. But once 

everyone was at home, they 

had their setups, their rigs at 

their houses—it went pretty 

smoothly.” 

and everything, to set up the microphone 

and the baffles [which provide better 

acoustic balance]. 

I think Bette [Midler, who voices 

Grandmama] did it all by herself. There was 

like a good hour before we recorded where 

the tech team was on Zoom with her saying, 

“You’re going to hit this button, then 

you’re going to take this and put it over 

here ...” She kept saying, “Isn’t technology 

amazing?” She couldn’t believe it. 

When you’re dealing with recording 

people at home, there’s cars going by, 

there’s gardeners with their leaf blowers. 

There’s all this stuff that we had to stop 

and wait for. Chloë [Grace Moretz, who 



FAMILY 

HISTORY 

1938 

New Yorker Cartoon 

The Addamses first appeared 

in a one-panel cartoon by 

Charles Addams. 

1964 

“The Addams Family” 

(TV Series) 

The 30-minute television 

series was created by David 

Levy and Donald Saltzman 

and shot in black-and-white, 

airing for two seasons on ABC. 

1973 

“The Addams Family” 

(Animated TV Series) 

The first animated series 

produced by Hanna-Barbera 

Productions ran on Saturday 

mornings on NBC. 

1991 

The Addams Family (film) 

The first live-action Addams 

Family film, directed by Barry 

Sonnenfeld, introduced a 

new generation to the spooky 

Addams clan. 

voices Wednesday] actually had to go 

out once and ask the gardeners across 

the street at her neighbors’ house to stop 

blowing for half an hour. 

Can you get her to come over and ask 

my neighbor, who’s always using his 

chainsaw, to knock it off? 

[Laughs.] I’ll see what I can do. 

In this installment, the family goes on 

a road trip to visit iconic sites around 

America. How did you decide which 

sites they would visit, and whose 

idea was it for Pugsley to blow up the 

Grand Canyon? 

The idea for blowing up the Grand Canyon 

came from the writers, though I don’t 

know exactly who. I think that was always 

in the script. 

We had other destinations planned for 

the movie. They went to Vegas at one time, 

they went to Seattle at one point, they 

took a wrong turn and wound up in Alaska. 

But that was a one-line gag, so we said, 

“Let’s not build Alaska [in the computer 

animation] just for one line!” So we did 

take out certain locations. 

We were mainly thinking, where do 

people typically go when they’re taking a 

family road trip, but then where would the 

Addamses go? Death Valley is the happiest 

1993 

Addams Family Values (film) 

Sonnenfeld returned for the 

second 1990s Addams outing— 

the final Addams film until the 

animated The Addams Family 

came out in 2019. 


87 



place on earth to them! They went to 

Sleepy Hollow [a village in New York state 

that some believe to be haunted], where 

they camped out. They go to San Antonio 

to visit the Alamo. So it was a mixture of 

typical family vacation places like Niagara 

Falls and the Grand Canyon and Addams 

Family types of destinations. 

Addams Family Values, the second 

installment for the live-action movie 

series, came out in 1993. When 

thinking about how to approach the 

concept of an Addams Family second 

installment movie, did you look to 

that film in any way? 

We try to stay away from those. Not 

because we don’t like them—we love 

them, they’re really great—but we want to 

make sure these stand on their own. You 

don’t want people saying, “Yeah, they just 

animated the live-action movies.” 

During production, the studio held 

The Addams Family Voice Challenge, 

in which anybody online could submit 

a recording of their best “spooky 

voice,” and one winner would be 

selected to record a voiceover in the 

actual film. How did that work out? 

Our marketing team did that. They 

came up with the concept and picked 

the winner, who went into a studio 

somewhere and recorded some lines. 

What’s funny is we cut out the scene that 

the winner was going to be in, so we had to 

have them back to re-record and put them 

in another part of the movie. It was just a 

bit part, a crowd member at a Cousin Itt 

concert [voiced by Snoop Dogg]. 

Speaking of Snoop Dogg, I don’t know 

which two songs I was expecting to 

play in the trailer, but they definitely 

weren’t “Ridin” by Chamillionaire and 

“What’s My Name”? by Snoop Dogg. 

How did you approach the music for 

this film? 

We listened to a ton of different Snoop 

songs for the Jet Ski scene. Not a bad way to 

get paid! [Laughs.] Rock Mafia wrote songs 

for the first movie [including “My Family” 

by Snoop Dogg featuring Migos and Karol 

G] and they also wrote songs for this movie. 

They make the movie’s style unique. It’s 

all its own, because of them. Snoop wrote 

another song for this one as well. 

As far as the score, we have Mychael 

and Jeff Danna returning. For both movies, 

“We want to make sure 

these stand on their own. 

You don’t want people 

saying, ‘Yeah, they just 

animated the live-action 

movies.’” 

we wanted a kind of gypsy feel to the score, 

which felt very singular to the Addamses. 

What was the hardest thing to 

animate? 

The end of the movie. I don’t want to give 

it away, but it’s pretty spectacular. We 

spent a lot of time animating each one of 

those shots, because there was so much 

going on. There were other challenges, 

things that you wouldn’t think would be 

challenging. The beach, having the sand 

crunch under their feet. You wouldn’t 

think it would be that hard, but you need 

to make footprints. Then when Morticia is 

dragged through the sand, her dress drags 



“Going to the movies is 

a communal experience. 

The movie is more fun, it’s 

funnier, it’s more exciting 

when you’re watching it on 

a big screen, surrounded 

by people.” 

through it, which makes the sand move 

differently. 

Most other animated sequels from 

the past year had a subtitle—The Boss 

Baby: Family Business, Peter Rabbit 2: 

The Runaway, The Croods: A New Age. 

That really seems to be the trend with 

animated sequel titles. Why did you 

choose not to? 

We wanted to! We had The Addams Family, 

a colon, and then there was some play on 

words. I can’t remember exactly, but it 

was something related to the phrase “road 

trip,” but then we had the word “death” in 

there somehow. But everyone just rolled 

their eyes whenever we said it. So we all 

just decided to call it The Addams Family 2 

and leave it at that. One of our first teasers 

has Wednesday breaking the fourth wall 

and saying “A sequel. How original.” So we 

leaned into that. 

Why should audiences see this on the 

big screen? 

Going to the movies is a communal 

experience. The movie is more fun, it’s 

funnier, it’s more exciting when you’re 

watching it on a big screen, surrounded by 

people. And when you go to a theater to 

see it on the big screen, you see things that 

you don’t notice on a smaller screen. You 

also have this feeling of an entire audience 

laughing or screaming or cheering. We 

human beings crave that. To be able to sit 

in a movie theater with a hundred or so 

people and hear an audience around you, 

it’s very contagious. Perhaps that’s not 

the word I should use during these times. 

Strike that! [Laughs.] 

But that excitement, that thrill, it 

uplifts people. It makes them feel that 

they’re part of something bigger. You 

don’t pause and go to the kitchen to do the 

dishes in the middle of it. You don’t say, 

“Oh shoot, I’ve got this email to write for 

work.” For two hours, you turn the rest of 

your life off and you’re taken on a ride. 


89 


On Screen MASS 

It’s ironic that a movie called Mass, 

Fran Kranz’s directorial debut, 

opened at Sundance in the first year that 

crowds couldn’t gather en masse in Park 

City. Regardless, critics watching from 

their laptops heaped praise upon the 

film, which was subsequently acquired by 

Bleecker Street and slated for theatrical 

release on October 8, 2021. 

To put it mildly, Mass deals with 

difficult subject matter. Six years after 

their son is murdered in a shooting spree 

by a classmate, Gail (Martha Plimpton) 

and Jay (Jason Isaacs) schedule a faceto-face 

meeting with the parents of 

the gunman—Linda (Ann Dowd) and 

Richard (Reed Birney)—in an effort to 

move forward with their lives. Set almost 

entirely in a small church antechamber, 

the film largely sidesteps the political 

implications of the tragedy, instead 

offering a raw, deeply personal look at 

grief, rage, forgiveness, and the all-butimpossible 

task of making sense of the 

unimaginable. 

For Kranz—an actor best known 

for his roles in films and TV shows 

produced, written, or directed by Joss 

Whedon, including The Cabin in the 

Woods, “Dollhouse,” and Much Ado 

About Nothing—Mass is the culmination 

of a nearly lifelong dream to become a 

filmmaker. After trying and failing to 

garner interest in bigger-budget projects— 

including a script about an alien 

invasion—he realized it was time to scale 

down his ambitions and focus on a more 

contained story. He found that story in 

the wake of the Parkland school shootings 

in February 2018, which sent him down a 

rabbit hole of research that eventually led 

to the script that became Mass. 

Kranz spoke with Boxoffice Pro 

about casting his four leads, how 

horror movies inspired the film’s 

cinematography, and why he hopes 

Mass’s exclusive theatrical window holds. 

Mass is your directorial debut. How 

long had you been wanting to 

become a filmmaker, and what made 

you decide to finally take the leap? 

I dreamed about writing and directing 

most of my life. I made attempts at writing, 

and they either weren’t very good, they 

were never complete, [or] they were big. 

I wrote a script about an alien invasion 

that I really thought was amazing, but 

people looked at me like I was crazy, like, 

“What do you expect to do with this? No 

one’s gonna give you money to make this 

thing.” So I started, with some frustration, 

realizing I needed to have a smaller scope. 

A 

SHAreD 

TRAGEDY 

Fran Kranz’s Mass Explores the Emotional 

Aftermath of a School Shooting 

BY CHRIS EGGERTSEN 


90-93_Mass.indd 90 17/09/2021 09:14

And then the Parkland shooting 

happened. My daughter was a little over 1 

year old, and it affected me differently. I 

was really overwhelmed by it, and I felt 

this need to learn about these shootings. 

And that started two years of research, 

reading nothing else but about the subject, 

and researching different shootings, 

reading about families, reading stories, 

articles, things online, anything I could 

find. I was pretty obsessed and could not 

pull focus away from it. And the film kind 

of came out of that research. 

I think a lot of times the family 

members, or the parents specifically, 

of school shooters are not really 

talked about or sympathized with or 

humanized in any way. But this movie 

does a really good job of humanizing 

the parents of the shooter. I saw 

“And then the Parkland 

shooting happened. My 

daughter was a little over 

1 year old, and it affected 

me differently. I was really 

overwhelmed by it, and I 

felt this need to learn about 

these shootings.” 

a TED Talk from a few years ago 

with Dylan Klebold’s mom from 

Columbine— 

Yeah, Sue Klebold. I’ve seen that, yeah. 

I’m wondering if that informed how 

you wrote the two parents of the 

shooters. 

Absolutely. I think I’ve read everything 

you could find from Sue Klebold and 

listened to that TED talk as well. I wouldn’t 

say any one character is modeled off any 

one person. They’re sort of combinations 

of things that I found in real life and then 

things I brought to the character, but 

you’re obviously going to see connections 

and feel those connections because Sue 

Klebold was a big inspiration. 

I say this with I think a healthy amount 

of insecurity and humility, because I 

can only hope that families, victims, 


91 


On Screen MASS 

communities will appreciate or accept 

the film. I’ve never experienced anything 

like this directly. I wrote it really out of 

fear of these situations, and frustration 

and anger and confusion, because I had 

a child, and I don’t want it to be my story. 

But I am not a victim. 

But it was honest, hard work, and two 

years of crying in front of a laptop, or 

another year of crying in front of Adobe 

software or Vimeo or—I guess we used 

Avid also. Before the action of the film 

takes place, you learn Martha Plimpton’s 

character, Gail, wrote Ann Dowd’s character, 

Linda, a letter asking her to know her son. 

This was a line and an idea that came out 

of doing this research and feeling like I 

want to feel closer to these people so that 

I care, so that I feel empathy and I can try 

to transmit those feelings to audiences 

through this film in order to bring 

awareness and compassion and change to 

this awful epidemic in our country. 

You brought up Martha Plimpton, 

and she’s really extraordinary in this 

movie. I don’t recall ever really seeing 

her quite this way before on-screen, 

I guess because she’s known more 

as a comedic actor. Can you talk a 

little bit about how she got involved? 

To broaden that question a little bit, 

all four actors are known for being 

supporting players for the most part. 

Was there something about not 

casting “movie stars” that you found 

worked for the premise? 

Yeah, it’s funny. Because A, I never 

imagined getting actors of that caliber or 

that well known. But at the same time, yes, 

there was a discussion internally, just on 

my own and with producers, to achieve 

the kind of realism that the film depends 

on. Because you really want to be in that 

room and not be distracted by anything 

else and feel like you’re watching real life. 

It was important that you didn’t have a 

recognizable face. We sort of joked about a 

Tom Hanks in a role, and how maybe that 

couldn’t work necessarily. And at the same 

time, who are we kidding? Tom Hanks 

would be amazing. So it’s this sort of a 

strange hypothetical where, yes, you want 

the actors to disappear, but we’re also 

trying to get a movie made and sold, right? 

When Martha’s name came up—I 

know you said you think of her and a lot 

of her more recent comedic work—I’ve 

seen her onstage many times and she’s 

an incredible actor. One thing that 

inspired me about the choice was her 

work going all the way back to Running 

on Empty. That is a really deeply human, 

restrained performance. She has this 

really emotional scene with River Phoenix 

in Running on Empty, but she doesn’t let it 

overwhelm her. She contains the emotion 

in a way that’s really beautiful and honest. 

I saw the movie as sort of a suspense 

film, in the sense that you take a 

while to set it up. I get that part of 

the reason for doing that is to set 

up the very delicate nature of this 

impending interaction, but I also saw 

it as being a way of kind of building 

suspense, right? Did you approach it 

in that way too? 

Absolutely. It’s obviously such sensitive 

subject matter, but I’ll be honest 

that with Ryan Jackson-Healy, my 

cinematographer, we approached a lot of 

shots by speaking about horror films, or 

even Spielberg, in particular War of the 

Worlds or Jaws. I mean, it’s undeniable 

the film is very dark subject matter. And 

we did make a choice to approach certain 

technical compositions that way. Another 

inspiration was Michael Haneke and a lot 

of his films that obviously cover a lot of 

dark subject matter as well. 

I’m really proud of my supporting 

actors, and of the opening 15 minutes of 

the film. To me, it was always important 

and necessary to introduce the four 

parents with regular people, so to speak. 

People that haven’t experienced incredible 

tragedy and have these damaged lives. 

People that feel more like the audience. 



“I mean, it’s undeniable 

the film is very dark 

subject matter. And we 

did make a choice to 

approach certain technical 

compositions that way.” 

So it’s not meant to sort of feel irrelevant 

or a tonal change, the first 15 minutes. It’s 

leading you down a very specific path so 

that these four parents arrive when you’re 

primed and ready for them. 

The title here seems to have sort of 

a double meaning. Mass could mean 

mass shooting. It also takes place in a 

church, so it can mean a church mass. 

Can you talk a little bit about the 

double meaning in the title and how 

it pertains to the film’s themes? 

Yeah. I like a third meaning, the 

assembling of bodies, the gathering of 

people, you know, a mass of people, a 

crowd. You go in a dictionary, and “mass” 

has a few definitions. It’s not just this sort 

of double entendre. But to me, the division 

between a secular and a religious meaning, 

that’s kind of where the movie is for me, 

this ambiguous kind of spiritual realm. 

I love the title moving between those 

spaces—the religious mass and then the 

secular mass of just the gathering of bodies. 

That’s why the title has a special place in 

my heart. The idea of being with people 

and seeing them and seeing their humanity 

face to face. To experience the things they 

do and to achieve the kind of reconciliation 

that they’re looking for is only possible 

through physical human connection. 

This is sort of another conversation, 

but I worry about the world we live in and 

how it becomes increasingly more isolated. 

And I worry about the way we behave and 

treat each other online through avatars 

and through social media platforms. I 

think when you’re in person, when you’re 

face to face with someone, you behave 

differently when you can see someone’s 

humanity and share in their experience 

and understand their grief and experience 

shared suffering. 

I know this is coming out in October; 

Bleecker Street is releasing it. Do you 

know what the release strategy is 

going to be? Because we’re seeing a 

lot of day-and-date streaming and 

theatrical premieres. 

I’d be reluctant to say anything with too 

much certainty in the world we live in. 

But the release right now is October 8 

exclusively in theaters, hopefully for a good 

run. I think that’s really up to the audiences 

showing up. I believe we will not be on video 

on demand or pay TV for a while after the 

exclusive theatrical release … that’s the hope. 

Obviously taking into account people’s 

sensitivities with Covid-19 and going 

into a theater to watch a movie, is 

there a preferred way that you would 

want people to see this movie? 

We’ve certainly talked a lot about it 

internally with Bleecker Street, and one 

thing that we agreed on was that the 

movie’s pretty overwhelming. We had one 

screening before the pandemic, it was 

a rough cut, and there were probably 50 

people in a theater that could fit about 

300. So it was not very crowded, but it was 

intense. It was an intense experience. 

I don’t say this because I think the 

movie’s so great. I say it because the story 

is fiction, but the events that inspired it 

are not. Obviously because of Covid-19 

and the pandemic, but also because of the 

subject matter, it would not be appropriate 

to host or create a screening that had 

more than 150 people or a capacity over 

50 percent. We want the space and the 

intimacy and also kind of the privacy to 

experience that, if that makes sense. 

At the same time, kind of going 

back to the movie’s title, there is 

that communal experience that you 

have in a movie theater, that shared 

communal experience with other 

people. 

In 2019, when we finished shooting, that 

was a goal of mine—that this was a movie 

where I wanted people in a crowded 

theater crying together. And when the 

pandemic started, I remember there was 

a lot of talk about submitting to festivals 

and just trying to sell the movie. “Hey, 

we got a movie in the can, we should 

sell it when no one else can shoot.” But I 

strongly believed, “No, we have to wait as 

long as it takes to make sure we can have 

people in theaters together watching this 

movie.” And look, that was early 2020, and 

so much has changed. So I come at it with 

a different perspective. 

It’s funny because I actually felt the 

power of the Sundance virtual screening. 

I know being at the Eccles Theater and 

having 2,000 people watch this movie 

would have been amazing. But I felt so 

much joy and affirmation and humility 

just being a part of that Sundance virtual 

screening. So there are ways to achieve 

resonance and connection in the world we 

live in today. 


93 


On Screen EVENT CINEMA 

EVENT CINEMA 

CALENDAR 

Updated through September 13. 

Contact distributors for latest listings. 

CINELIFE ENTERTAINMENT 

cinelifeentertainment.com 

HALLOWEEN 

From Sept. 1 

Genre: Classics 

FATHOM EVENTS 

fathomevents.com 

855-473-4612 

GOD’S NOT DEAD: WE THE PEOPLE 

Oct. 4, Oct. 5, Oct. 6 

Genre: Inspirational 

STUDIO GHIBLI FEST 2021: SPIRITED 

AWAY 20TH ANNIVERSARY 

Oct. 3 & Oct. 6 (dubbed), 

Oct. 4 (subbed) 

Genre: Anime 

EVIL DEAD 40TH ANNIVERSARY 

Oct. 7 


SCREAM (25TH ANNIVERSARY) 

Oct. 10, Oct. 11 

Genre: Horror 

TIMES OF FIRE-THE 7 CHURCHES OF 

REVELATION 

Oct, 11. Oct. 12 


TCM BIG SCREEN CLASSICS: THE 

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (30TH 

ANNIVERSARY) 

Oct. 17, Oct. 20 


ENDS OF THE EARTH 

Oct. 18, Oct. 21 


THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: BORIS 

GODUNOV 

Oct. 9 (Live), Oct. 13 (Encore) 

Genre: Performing Arts 

TCM BIG SCREEN CLASSICS: 

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS 30TH 

ANNIVERARY 

Oct. 17, Oct. 20 


STUDIO GHIBLI FEST 2021: HOWL’S 

MOVING CASTLE 

Oct. 24 & Oct. 28 (dubbed), Oct. 25 

(subbed) 

Genre: Anime 

THE METROPOLITAN OPERA LIVE IN 

HD: FIRE SHUT UP IN MY BONES 

Oct. 23 (Live), Oct. 27 (Encore) 


RIFFTRAX LIVE: AMITYVILLE 4: THE 

EVIL ESCAPES 

Oct. 26 

Genre: Comedy 

SABINA 

Nov. 8, Nov. 9, Nov. 10 


TCM BIG SCREEN CLASSICS: HIGH 

SOCIETY (65TH ANNIVERSARY) 

Nov. 10, Nov. 14 


STUDIO GHIBLI FEST 2021: CASTLE 

IN THE SKY (35TH ANNIVERSARY) 

Nov. 14 & Nov. 18 (dubbed), Nov. 15 

(subbed) 

Genre: Anime 

JOURNEY WITH JESUS 

Nov. 15, Nov. 16, Nov. 17 


PARANORMAN 

Nov. 16 

Genre: Family 

GINTAMA THE VERY FINAL 

Nov. 21 (dubbed & subbed), Nov. 22 

(subbed) 

Genre: Anime 

TCM BIG SCREEN CLASSICS: WEST 

SIDE STORY (60TH ANNIVERSARY) 

Nov. 28, Dec. 1 



HD: EURYDICE 

Dec. 4 (Live), Dec. 8 (Encore) 


STUDIO GHIBLI FEST 2021: MY 

NEIGHBOR TOTORO 

Dec. 5 & Dec. 9 (dubbed), Dec. 6 

(subbed) 

Genre: Anime 

THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: THE 

MAGIC FLUTE HOLIDAY ENCORE 

(2021) 

Dec. 12 


TCM BIG SCREEN CLASSICS: 

ON GOLDEN POND (40TH 

ANNIVERSARY) 

Dec. 12, Dec. 15 



HD: ARIADNE AUF NAXOS 

Mar. 12 (Live), Mar. 16 (Encore) 


THE METROPOLITN OPERA LIVE IN 

HD: DON CARLOS 

Mar. 26 (Live), Mar. 30 (Encore) 



HD: TURANDOT (2021) 

May 7 (Live), May 11 (Encore) 



HD: LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR 

May 21 (Live), May 25 (Encore) 



HD: HAMLET 

June 4 (Live), June 8 (Encore) 


ROYAL OPERA HOUSE 

roh.org.uk/cinemas 

cinema@roh.org.uk 

LA BOHÈME 

From Oct. 17 

Genre: Opera 

THE DANTE PROJECT 

From Jan. 25, 2022 

Genre: Ballet 

TRAFALGAR RELEASING 

trafalgar-releasing.com 

TOM PETTY, SOMEWHERE YOU FEEL 

FREE 

Oct. 20 

Genre: Music 


HD: CINDERELLA 

Jan. 1 (Live), Jan. 5 (Encore) 


THE DOORS: LIVE AT THE BOWL ‘68 

SPECIAL EDITION 

Nov. 4 

Genre: Music 

Scream (25th Anniversary) 

Oct. 10, Oct. 11 


HD: RIGOLETTO 

Jan. 29 (Live), Feb. 2 (Encore) 



94_Event-Cinema.indd 94 17/09/2021 09:17

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