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| Nearly 700 theaters in Germany are boycotting Disney's latest Avengers film. Image: dean bertoncelj / Shutterstock.com |
Although Avengers: Age of Ultron opened internationally to huge success,
German viewers had to head to big cities to see the film, as theaters in 193
cities are boycotting
the film. The cities, most of which are under 50,000 people, are home to
696 screens on which the film will not be playing until Disney makes some
changes to distribution.
Specifically, the problem is
that, without warning, Disney decided to increase the cost of renting the film,
the system by which distributors get ticket sales in the current digital
market, from 47.7% to 53%, which is just enough to hurt theater profits. Although
the increase doesn’t seem that significant, there are a number of reasons why it
hurts smaller theaters.
The theater industry in general
has been working to update and go digital for some years now, which
distributors love because it makes their job easier, since they don’t have to
send physical copies of films to theaters. Unfortunately, they haven’t been
helping the theaters cover the cost of those upgrades, costs that hit smaller
theaters harder. Increases to the German minimum wage also means an increase in
personnel costs. In addition, Disney in particular has been reducing the amount
of money it chips in to help advertise movies, and it has eliminated advances
on the cost of 3D glasses. All of this means that showing films in general, and
Disney films in particular, is increasingly expensive.
So about 100 theaters in
northern Germany decided to boycott the film in order to try and get Disney to
relent on some of their choices. If the film performs anything like its
predecessor, Disney will not suffer for profits, so taking it a little bit
easier on these theaters won’t hurt them. In fact, it can only help them, as
696 more screens showing the film means that much more revenue in the long run.
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