The great releases of the Hollywood summer will allow Cinemex to reopen half of its theaters as of May 26, after two closures that in total added just over 13 months of hiatus due to the pandemic. Titles like Cruella, the third installment of The Conjuring, Fast and Furious 9, and the sequel to A Silent Place will inject that new energy so that the exhibition chain resumes its activity and recovers part of the income that it stopped receiving during the last year. : around 7 billion pesos.
“We decided to return to Cruella because it is a very great product that generates a huge affinity with the public, but it is not only that film, we will have practically everything that was not released last year. We want to relive what we know as the ‘cinematic experience’. These months helped us to reinvent ourselves; We will open 153 complexes, which are the most important around the country and gradually the rest ”, Francisco Eguren, director of Programming, Marketing and Commercial at Cinemex, told M2.
“Our topic was liquidity, not enough income was generated to maintain the operation, it did not make sense to open; Today the conditions allow it and we are going to leave quietly. We never think of closing, on the contrary, we have done everything to become more profitable. The health issue has worked substantially and that has helped us to increase capacity, which allows us to have greater profitability (40 percent in traditional rooms and 60 percent in VIP spaces) ”, added the executive.
The blockbusters will be the hook to recover the spaces and the public, but there is an issue to consider: some of the titles that will reach theaters will also have simultaneous or delayed premieres in streaming. The usual deadline for a film to go from theaters to any other format, including digital platforms, was 90 days, today agreements such as Universal and AMC are known, which include 17 days, up to the 45 days set by Disney + and Paramount + for some of its titles.
“We do not see it as a competition, we must choose where to see the content we want to see, cinema is lived in cinema, streaming is a different experience. Yes we are going to share certain movies), but not all at the same time. The cinema window is very important and generates a lot of income for distributors worldwide, they are going to keep it has happened normally; many films are going to go straight to the cinema ”, Eguren explained.
Refurbished
During this time, the chain took the opportunity to renew its spaces, its application, and website: “This pause allowed us to rebuild and reinvent ourselves, we are better than ever, we maintained our complexes, from the seats to the air conditioners, to have spaces sure, much more than they were before. We kept practically all of our collaborators, only from February they were on hiatus, but now we are reconnecting with them to return ”, Eguren explained.
The exhibition industry in the country stopped receiving 17 billion pesos, of which around seven correspond to Cinemex; this figure translates into 110 or 115 million tickets not sold in both closings. Eguren cannot say for sure the number of complexes that will close their doors definitively, but “it will be few”, as the chain seeks to gradually reopen its more than 300 complexes, totaling 2,900 rooms.
Source: enfoqueinformativo.mx
