It’s a real squeeze play, signed Megarama, and directed at subsidized municipal theaters that often sell their tickets a little cheaper. The network, which has about thirty municipal theaters in France, denounces a “distortion of competition” by these small theaters. And is now urging distributors to boycott these small municipal theaters.
Since early March, the cinema in Perreux-sur-Marne in Ile-de-France has been receiving films with three or even four weeks of delay. It is part of a list of theaters sent by Megarama to distributors that, I quote, “creates a distortion of competition for national releases.” As a result, tomorrow, director Christophe Ubelmann will not be able to screen the highly anticipated “Devil Wears Prada 2.” “Audiences used to come see the films on their release. Now, they are quite patient and prefer to come anyway to our theater. But in the long run, it will definitely cost us some audience. It’s seriously threatening access to cultural goods.”
This kind of pressure is not new, but these kinds of emails are unprecedented for François Aymé, director of the Jean Eustache cinema in Pessac in Gironde: “The majority of entries, that is to say about two-thirds, happen in the first two weeks, so if we have the film delayed, we have a significantly lower potential.”
The CNC (National Center for Cinema and Animation) informs us that it is studying with the cinema mediator the next steps to take regarding this email from Megarama that we have contacted, without response. Other small operators have mentioned similar pressures from other groups, multiplexes that suffer, according to several industry actors, more from the decrease in attendance than municipal or arts and experimental cinemas.
