Studios can now own movie theaters

[wraith808]

This ruling hasn't been widely reported, and is only tangetial to things here, but I thought it worth discussing.

There Are No More Laws Preventing Studios from Owning Movie Theaters. Now What?

For more than 70 years, most big movie studios have been banned from owning movie theaters thanks to a ruling in a federal antitrust case. That's no longer true.

The Paramount consent decrees were established by a landmark Supreme Court ruling in 1948 in U.S. v. Paramount Pictures. The decrees banned major studios of the day from owning and operating movie theaters. Last Friday, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York ended the decrees, according to court documents.

More at the link.  Note that this happened just recently.  Not bad timing at all, right?

One of the quotes from the article:

"The 77-year-long law has allowed movie theater chains to build a wealth of screens across the country ... and if studios wanted to compete with those numbers, they have a lot of catching up to do," DiGaetano says.

"I don't think there's a lot of real estate for movie theater operations out there," he adds. "I'm not gonna say we're over-screened but there are a lot of screens out there."

Yes, there are a lot of screens out there.  And with the news out of Regal and AMC, they will be ripe for the taking.

[Deozaan]

I hope you're excited to attend your nearest Disney+ Theater to watch movies.

I saw an episode of something from RedLetterMedia a few years ago in which they predicted it wouldn't be many years before every movie in the theater would be a Disney (owned) film. I agreed at the time, thinking Disney would just buy out all the other studios. Now it seems Disney can just buy out all the theaters and show only movies they own, or movies from other studios that they charge a handsome fee for the privilege of showing.

[wraith808]

Hopefully not.  But the combination of the ruling and the pandemic doesn't look good...