Recent blockbusters, such as Top Gun: Maverick, Avatar: The Way of Water, and The Super Mario Bros. Movie, have noted a mix of personal tastes for high-end theaters amid the existing inadequate availability of those top-tier viewing reports relative to demand. So today’s announcement of Dolby Cinema’s expansion comes at precisely the right time, starting with the sequel to director Christopher McQuarrie’s Tom Cruise franchise, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.
Because there simply weren’t enough high-end theaters to meet global demand, viewers of the Dolby Cinemas and IMAX reports had to wait and buy tickets weeks after the film’s release, to ensure they were given the seats they were looking for (and, for example, families and teams of friends, to gather enough seats in a row).
For Avatar: The Way of Water, this resulted in a weaker-than-expected opening weekend and some initial fear that the film wouldn’t live up to workplace expectations. However, despite an increasingly slow start, The Way of Water had some fixed weekly hits and even some occasional increases, precisely thanks to all the moviegoers who were hoping to see it in high-end theaters when they could get the seats they wanted.
So, on the one hand, it opened on weekends below its potential, due to the lack of premium theater spaces. On the other hand, it helped to extend the legs at the box office.
But the bigger the opening weekends, the bigger the exhibition and the more anticipation, the more media policy and public awareness, and probably the greater the chances that more people will see the film in theaters around the world.
The impressive optics created through those more powerful shots due to the audience having to wait to get premium tickets is illusory, because those are other people who would have also noticed the movie earlier if more premium features were available, and more people will watch. ASAP. The more word-of-mouth there is at the beginning, the more chances there are to generate an even greater stir and a larger audience from those who would not possibly have seen the film in theaters at all. Similarly, other people probably wait in hopes of seeing it later in premium seats, but end up missing it and simply watching it at home entertainment.
So, yes, we want more high-end cinemas to meet the demand. Greater availability of such reports will also allow more people to spread the gospel about why those premium viewing features make a difference and are also worth the higher ticket prices.
While there is likely to come a point where excessive market saturation goes against the interests of high-end cinemas, where too many screens equal half-empty theaters, we are still a long way from that point. Even the supposedly “dead” trend of watching movies in 3D is still popular and is only declining at the domestic box office: entertainment journalists simply have a tendency to see the domestic box office as the most meaningful and revealing place of what audiences want, even when it’s contrary to the rest of the market. The real trends of the global audience.
Dolby Cinemas will triumph on its 500th film in premium format when Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One opens on July 14. The Dolby Prestige cinematic experience is also approaching three hundred locations around the world. IMAX, which has been around for more than a half century, is a leader in high-end movie theaters with more than 1,700 theaters worldwide.
I don’t hide my preference for Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, whether it’s in the cinema or in my home entertainment. I’m picky and specific when it comes to entertainment, and once I’ve figured out what’s right for me, I rarely bother. deviate from it. While I’m not exactly what you’d call an audiophile and I’m far from an expert on the intricacies of color and photography, I’m obsessed with the videos I love and the paintings featured in them, adding — especially, for a big popcorn display — visual effects, colors, and sounds. I don’t have to be a subject matter expert to perceive and appreciate how good it looks on the screen.
The spectacular diversity of colors that Dolby Vision offers has been especially vital for me because I’m color blind, so for most of my life I’ve missed a lot of colors in videos and never got the full three-dimensional effect. Dolby Vision, because it’s able to reproduce shades of color and tones of sunshine that I’ve never noticed before, allowed me, despite everything, to see some shades of color that I’d never noticed before, and despite everything completely revels in 3-D.
Similarly, Dolby Atmos is my private audio experience. Nothing else comes close to Atmos’ “3D sound,” which is created with such precision that it feels like someone is whispering right next to your ear or like a dragon is flying overhead. In the cinema or in my living room, it’s the most productive sound.
I moved to Los Angeles over a decade ago and had the excitement of attending many movie premieres at Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre, as well as attending the annual Academy Awards rite for many years before the Covid pandemic. This week I’ll be on Enjoy My Favorite Position with My Favorite Projection and Sound, but that’s the subject of another post later this week, so stay tuned for that one!
The thing is, I discovered the Dolby Cinema experience in the most productive way imaginable. It won me over and became a vital component of my overall Hollywood experience, and forever replaced my understanding of experience. instead of watching a movie.
With today’s announcement from Dolby (which also includes the announcement of a complex new speaker called the Dolby System 126 Screen Channel Speaker System for smaller theaters), I was curious to know what the company thinks about how many high-end theaters have played that role at the box office. Current occasions and how audiences expect to see films to secure those theaters, and whether there is an ideal number of movie theaters or if it will continue to evolve.
So I asked Jed Harmsen, Dolby’s director of film and group entertainment, to listen to his point of view. You can watch our exchange below.
MARK HUGHES: Blockbusters like Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick attract a significant percentage of the overall box office in premium theaters, and audiences need those premium seats so much that they wait days or even weeks to watch those massive videos. just to make sure they get seats on premium screens.
Do you think this means we want as many premium screens as possible?Or do you think the longer those movies last, the greater it will be financially for movies and theaters, as word of mouth spreads for longer and longer to build up also to increase attendance from those who maybe just waited to watch the movies at home?
Either position has convincing arguments; however, are there a “good number” of premium cinemas, in general and/or for Dolby?
JED HARMSEN: High-end productions, such as Dolby Cinema, perform better than before the pandemic when measured as a percentage of the overall box office. For reference, premium productions accounted for approximately 10% of the domestic box office in 2019. where they now account for around 14%, an expansion of 40%.
When I look at that in combination with the fact that the two videos you mentioned, Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water, were two of the highest-grossing videos of all time, what I understand is twofold. It is evident that consumers are willing and need to go to the cinema to see wonderful films; And second, they want to see it in an immersive way that’s noticeably different from what they can get at home, even if it comes at a modest additional cost.
Social media enables studios, brands, and exhibitors to succeed with consumers immediately and at scale. Moviegoers not only look for facts about theatrical releases on social platforms, but they can also share their minds and ideas, which has evolved the classic word. Word-of-mouth marketing has become an even more influential resource. While this real-time sharing has narrowed the window for sharing data, it has prolonged delays in verbal exchange, which in the end can increase the number of other people watching a movie in a movie theater.
Considering all those factors, it’s hard to know precisely what the ideal number of premium submissions will be; However, at this point it is evident that consumers need more.
Thanks to Jed Harmsen for taking the time to answer my questions about trends and expansion of premium cinema!
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