Going out to the cinema to watch a movie in the company of friends and family is one of the best things you can do if you’re looking for a fun weekend activity.
However Josh Dickey, entertainment editor at Mashable, suggests that trips to the cinema will be shunned in the future as people may choose to view films at home instead.
Talking on the panel ‘Where the Kids Are At’ during the 13th Dubai International Film Festival, Dickey emphasised the threat movie theatres faced against films being made available on Video On Demand (VOD) platforms.
“Cinemas are diversifying what they offer because they have to,” he stated.
Dickey believes that the only thing keeping cinemas alive is the window of exclusivity they have over films before they are made available on VOD platforms like iTunes and Netflix.
“The value proposition of the moviegoer today, and I believe it will be the value proposition for the moviegoer for years to come, is the fact that you are seeing something that you cannot see anywhere else.”
He mentioned that the window of exclusivity, traditionally, is around 90 days but if that number becomes significantly smaller, cinemas may run into trouble.
“If you look at all the day-to-day experiments that they’ve had, so [for example] releasing a movie on a VOD platform the same day that it goes into cinemas - they’ve all failed, it doesn’t work.”
Another factor, he argues, that could contribute to the decline in cinema outings is that the technology we have in our homes can practically produce the same effect as a movie theater.
Dickey said, “My 60 inch, Ultra HD, 4K television at home looks and sounds amazing and if I sit at a certain distance from it, it’s the same aspect-ratio, to me, as going to a movie theater.”
It is nowhere near certain that this is the future of cinema; as long as they continue to innovate and maintain and preserve that element of exclusivity, cinemas will continue to be relevant to moviegoers for years to come.
— The Young Journalist Award (YJA) at Diff is a training programme for high school and university students who are aspiring writers and reporters. Eight students are competing at the festival this year. One winner will secure a monthlong internship with Gulf News.
