Top movie theater lobbyist calls for a minimum of 45 days before films hit streaming

LAS VEGAS — As movie theaters struggle to consistently bring back audiences, the nation’s top cinema lobbyist called on Hollywood studios to hold back movies longer from home video and streaming.

In a speech Tuesday at the CinemaCon trade convention in Las Vegas, Michael O’Leary, head of the Cinema United trade organization, proposed a minimum 45-day theatrical window, the length of time between a movie’s theatrical release and its availability for home viewing.

Such a move would further reverse the pandemic-era practices of some studios, which adopted dramatically shorter gaps before putting out newer movies on demand. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, studios had wanted to experiment with shorter windows, believing it would make better use of their marketing dollars and cater to changing consumer habits.

But O’Leary said shrunken windows are warping ultimate box office success and consumer demand.

“A clear, consistent starting point is necessary to affirm our collective commitment to theatrical exclusivity and to provide clear expectations for movie fans,” O’Leary told an audience of theater owners and entertainment industry types gathered in the Caesars Palace Colosseum amphitheater. “There must be a baseline.”

Before COVID-19, films would typically be in theaters for at least 80 days — sometimes 90 — before they became available for home viewing. But as the pandemic waned, that average window shrank to as short as 30 days. Last year, that number flattened out to about 32 days, according to data from the Numbers, a movie business information site.

Universal Pictures, for example, went as short as 17 days for many of its films before releasing them for premium digital rental.

Shorter windows have lessened the ability for so-called casual moviegoers — a segment of the audience O’Leary specifically highlighted in his remarks — to walk up to their local theaters and see whatever film is showing. It also has reinforced audiences’ pandemic-driven habit of waiting to watch a film by streaming instead of going to see it in a theater.

Although O’Leary acknowledged that the longer pre-pandemic windows are gone and that studios wanted the flexibility of being able to shift a film to a new platform once it had maximized its earnings in theaters, he said the shorter windows also undermined the ability of smaller or mid-tier films to get off the ground.

That leaves audiences with the impression that the moviegoing experience is only for big blockbusters, which he said would eventually “atrophy” the network needed to make even those films successful.

“We cannot sacrifice long-term success for short-term gain,” he said.

O’Leary also called for theater owners to moderate their investment in premium large-format screens, noting that although they bring in audiences, they also account for only 9% of global box office sales.

“If, in our collective zeal to promote large-screen experiences, we lead movie lovers to believe that the only reason to go to the theater is for large-screen formats, we are destroying the very heart of our business,” he said.