Brett Rosengarten, one-time sales director of Roadshow Films, is the surprise new chief executive of Independent Cinemas Australia (ICA), one of the two organisations that represent Australian cinemas. Members include the Dendy, Palace and Wallis groups.
“It’s likely you’ll find the identity of the new CEO, somewhat of a surprise, jaw dropping even,” said ICA president and regional exhibitor Scott Seddon before revealing the news in his opening address of the annual ICA conference in Adelaide on May 9.
He is referring to Rosengarten’s 28 years in major and independent distribution. In other words, the new CEO is from the other side of the fence to exhibitors so an unexpected appointment.
Rosengarten replaces the very highly-regarded Adrianne Pecotic, who stood aside after 11 years in the role.
Seddon described the past few years as “the roughest I can remember” but also said “I would much prefer to be in our business to the streaming business”.
Quoting CinemaCon speaker Jeffrey Cole, director of the Centre for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California, Seddon said there are eight major streamers in North America – with some losing up to a billion dollars a year – but only space for two and a half.
“A strong theatrical release with a reasonable window to PVOD then SVOD gives a movie absolutely the best chance of making a profit and giving the best return on investment,” he said, continuing to draw on Cole’s speech. “Wall Street has already seen this and spoken. Two companies. Apple TV and Amazon Studios, have each announced a billion dollars for production of theatrical movies this coming year.”
Seddon said all of the major US studios have now confirmed their commitment to theatrical release and the theatrical window: “We’re not going back to the 53-week window of the 1990s but, importantly, there is an acknowledgement that the window adds value to the production. That is a key factor in our future.”
The ICA president also spelled out what he calls Scotty’s law of tents: “We have the tentpoles: The big shows. Marvel, DC, Top Gun, Avatar …. The canvas that goes in between the tentpoles is those mid-range titles; those five to 10 million dollar titles, which by proportion are more highly represented at the box offices of independent cinemas. Neither can stand up by themselves. You need both to have a stable tent and thus a stable industry.
“Internationally it has been noted the 50 -plus years demographic have been slow to return to cinemas and it was assumed that it was some remnant of Covid reluctance but, Jane Hastings of Event Cinemas told CinemaCon they had interacted with the seniors in their loyalty club and that wasn’t it. They were happy to come to Top Gun; Maverick and Mrs Harrisand so on. The issue is they don’t see movie titles big enough for them to get out of the house. That’s what they said in Australia and New Zealand.”
ICA is helping with the challenge of finding those appealing mid-range movies from June 10 when it makes available – exclusively to ICA members – a recording of a tribute concert to celebrate Willie Nelson’s 90th birthday, held at the Hollywood Bowl.
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