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.
