Disney's making 10 Star Wars and 10 Marvel TV shows

[embee]

Hardly. Of all the theaters in my town, one is in a shopping mall. The rest are in shopping centers of various kinds, sure, but nothing like a mall. Even the one at the local mall is it's own separate building with it's own parking lot, on the same city block but not actually attached to the mall. You could easily shut down the mall without shutting down the theater.

It might be a different building but it's likely owned by the same company. And those companies are in deep trouble.

Here's why these 7 U.S. mall owners, including Simon, are in trouble, S&P Global MI warns

As winter looms during the global health crisis, seven of America's mall owners face troubling days ahead, according to a new report from S&P Global.

www.cnbc.com

They are the landlord.

And as for the theaters, who are the tenants...

AMC, World's Largest Movie Theater Chain, Raises $100 Million Lifeline, But It Needs $750 Million To Survive Next Year

The firm is burning an average of $125 million in cash each month.

www.forbes.com

Warner Bros. shook the hell out of the industry last week with its streaming announcement.

Movie theaters looking for community support, $15 billion in federal relief

It’s been a box office bust this year, so some local movie theater owners are supporting a national effort to secure federal funding in an effort to save struggling cinemas.

www.wdrb.com

If the mall goes under, it takes the theater with it. There are only a handful of companies surviving: Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Home Depot, Lowe's. These are big box stores that are surviving by torpedoing brick-and-mortar, which is starting to shift to a fulfillment center model.

Stores move to the front and center fulfilling customers’ expectations - RetailWire

Over a year ago, Patricia Waldron asked in a RetailWire article if 2020 would be the year when retailers instituted supply chain improvements with an eye towards enhancing the customer experience. That's still the story today, but with much greater urgency. Do you see stores become the primary...

retailwire.com

You need foot traffic for traditional storefronts. Fulfillment centers don't provide any foot traffic. And without the foot traffic, you lose the storefronts. Without the storefronts, you lose rental income. Without rental income, you can't pay the mortgage on the property.

As COVID-19 shuts malls and hotels, their owners fall behind on loans, setting the stage for a changed landscape

Huge numbers of hotel and retail loans are going bad because of the coronavirus pandemic. Many of these properties will have to be repurposed.

www.usatoday.com

And then the mall goes under, taking the theater down.

This is the natural flowing consequence of overbuilding from the 90s.

I'll be honest with you...

Right now, I'm in my office, derping on the internet. Instead of suing people. Why? Because my clients, who are banks, don't want me suing people to collect what's due. Because they know that right now, those people don't have the money.

Something bad is coming. And a lot of stalwart chains might not survive it. Including movie theaters.

 

[Gradine]

Hardly. Of all the theaters in my town, one is in a shopping mall. The rest are in shopping centers of various kinds, sure, but nothing like a mall. Even the one at the local mall is it's own separate building with it's own parking lot, on the same city block but not actually attached to the mall. You could easily shut down the mall without shutting down the theater.

There are movie theatres in malls? Wild

 

[Zardnaar]

There are movie theatres in malls? Wild

Malls still exist wild.

 

[Istbor]

Let's say that I would prefer a 5e release schedule to 2e one. Long term brand management rather than focussing on next quarter's finances.

That became impossible once Disney started their own streaming service. Sorry. Pandora's box is open.

 

[MGibster]

On one hand, some of the best Star Wars material in recent years has been on the small screen. But I'm afraid I might get burned out. I'll give the new shows a chance though.

 

[Zardnaar]

That became impossible once Disney started their own streaming service. Sorry. Pandora's box is open.

This from memory Disney alone had something like 40% market share of the movies.

Disney+ like it or not I guess is the way forward.

 

[embee]

Malls still exist wild.

Even without the lockdown, the mall closest to me gets more foot traffic from raccoons than from people.

 

[Zardnaar]

Even without the lockdown, the mall closest to me gets more foot traffic from raccoons than from people.

Yeah malls are on the way out I think. Some will survive but yeah online shopping.

 

[Umbran]

There is really no part of this that I can agree with.

- Movies and TV shows are a very different experience, from pacing, to release schedules, accessibility, and methods to watching them. You can't just sum the run-times and claim it's a fungible experience.

You are correct - big movies generally contain less content than the same runtime of TV show. They are spending lots of time on special effects sequences and prolonged fights that TV shows don't.

So, those 23 MCU movies are less than 2-4 seasons of content, really. I am not sure that you're helping the posit that their being intertwined is a problem.

- I just explained how intertwining can be a problem on something the scale of the MCU in my last post.

- We don't know yet how much "this much content" is. It sounds to me like it's much more than just a "couple seasons of TV".

Ah. I think you lost the narrative - the "couple of seasons of TV" was the MCU to date.

If you sat and watched it like we watch TV series - an hour or two at a sitting, one or two sittings a week, I don't think anyone would have an issue with the intertwining of the MCU. The plot just ain't that complicated.

I can see that people can lose the connections in movies because they are separated in realtime. If it was a TV show, it would be weeks between linked episodes, but in movies it is years. But that won't apply here, as teh bulk of it is TV content, not movies.

Looking at the release schedule - we have the four Avengers-based short series, scheduled one after the other. So it is like you have one episode to watch each week. These are limited series to carry us through the first year of this stuff.

The next four we knew about don't have release dates yet - some of them are still casting. We probably won't see them until 2022. And, since these are targeted to a subscription streaming service, you can expect the same kind of schedule - giving you one thing to watch each week, so you have reason to keep subscribed. This won't be hard to follow.

Ironheart and such... those are 2023 and later. We can reassess when the time comes.

 

[Zardnaar]

You are correct - big movies generally contain less content than the same runtime of TV show. They are spending lots of time on special effects sequences and prolonged fights that TV shows don't.

So, those 23 MCU movies are less than 2-4 seasons of content, really. I am not sure that you're helping the posit that their being intertwined is a problem.



Ah. I think you lost the narrative - the "couple of seasons of TV" was the MCU to date.

If you sat and watched it like we watch TV series - an hour or two at a sitting, one or two sittings a week, I don't think anyone would have an issue with the intertwining of the MCU. The plot just ain't that complicated.

I can see that people can lose the connections in movies because they are separated in realtime. If it was a TV show, it would be weeks between linked episodes, but in movies it is years. But that won't apply here, as teh bulk of it is TV content, not movies.

Looking at the release schedule - we have the four Avengers-based short series, scheduled one after the other. So it is like you have one episode to watch each week. These are limited series to carry us through the first year of this stuff.

The next four we knew about don't have release dates yet - some of them are still casting. We probably won't see them until 2022. And, since these are targeted to a subscription streaming service, you can expect the same kind of schedule - giving you one thing to watch each week, so you have reason to keep subscribed. This won't be hard to follow.

Ironheart and such... those are 2023 and later. We can reassess when the time comes.

This the first ones won't land until 2022. Probably around the time Mandalorian is wrapping up or one more season in the tank.

If they gave 5 premium shows (MCU/Star Wars) 8 episodes each spaced out two weeks apart (to avoid people canceling subscriptions) that's enough material for 2022-2030.

We know some are going to be shorter, all the Disney Star Wars stuff so far has been 2-4 seasons.

Some might overlap as well to fill in those gaps. By the time one show winds down the next is ready to go or might be on season 2-3.

Even one premium show in at any one time isn't that much. How many hits has Netflix had this year?

When seasons are 6-10 episodes often shorter than 42 minutes.....

Notice a lot of shows traditionally go downhill after season 5 or so? Very short seasons also avoid that problem since 5 seasons are shorter than 2 traditional ones.