The two largest movie theater companies (Regal and AMC) are forming their own movie distribution company called Open Road Films, that will release 8-10 wide-release films a year, with the first hopefully to come out later this year.
These films won’t just be shown in their own movie theaters. Tom Ortenberg is the new CEO. He used to work for The Weinstein Company and Lionsgate. According to Ortenberg Open Road will go after independent movies which often have a tough time finding a distributor. The goal of the new company is to get more of these stories to a larger audience.
What I find surprising is that, as theater chains, AMC and Regal are big rivals. In Times Square their theaters are right across the street from each other. Nice to see them coming together for this.
One group that isn’t happy about this is the Hollywood Studios. Having theaters buying and distributing films directly takes them out of the mix. And they could lose screen space at AMC and Regal theaters and others as well.
This is a interesting move. If it works we could see more theater chains buying films directly and this could hurt small studios such as Lionsgate and Summit Entertainment who are also competiting for the top independent films each year.