AMC Entertainment Holdings has acquired London-based Odeon & UCI Cinemas Holdings Limited from private equity firm Terra Firma. When the transaction closes, expected on or about November 30, the combination of AMC and Odeon & UCI will make AMC the largest movie theatre operator in the world.
Creators, artists, musicians and filmmakers, on the one hand, defend their legitimate right to reap the benefits of their work. Internet users and public at large, on their part, claim a fundamental right to access information and culture online on fair terms and by means of more attractive business models. How can the current copyright laws respond to all these challenges? What should be the role of internet intermediaries in the enforcement of copyright online? And more generally in this context, how to combine effective protection with the principle of net neutrality?
In one of the biggest deals in the emerging digital cinema business, the Ymagis Group has acquired Eutelsat’s 50.2 percent stake in DSAT Cinema and now, effectively, controls the company.
GDC Technology and Dolby Laboratories have reached an agreement to resolve the litigation filed by GDC against Dolby.
The Event Cinema Association has launched a new initiative with its members to help raise the profile of the Event Cinema industry worldwide. The newly-formed ECA Advisory Committee includes nine members and four ECA staff members from the exhibition, distribution, public relations, marketing, cinema services and satellite transmission industries and aims to address some of the key issues that face this growth market in order for the sector to continue to flourish.
Ymagis Group has released its three-year strategic plan, Perform 2020. Following a build-up period that saw revenue quadruple since Ymagis’ initial public offering in 2013, the group is setting the framework for a new profitable growth phase based upon the rationalization of its organizational structure and services offer as well as innovation and international expansion.
If the Hollywood studios want to thrive in the era of Google, Amazon, and Netflix, they are going to have to think differently about communicating with their customers. In order to do that, they are going to have to make gathering and analyzing data on customers a priority. Consider the instructive story of how Steve Jobs revived Apple and transformed it into one of the most successful businesses in the world. The story in general is well known, but we’d like to focus on one aspect of it that gets less attention than it should: how Apple used connections with customers and data on customers to turn itself around.
Fandango has expanded its ticketing coverage in Southern California, Chicago and Washington, D.C. by adding ArcLight Cinemas.
After 37 years in Manhattan, the Independent Filmmaker Project’s Film Week is moving across the river to Brooklyn. The event will set up shop in DUMBO anchored around its headquarters, the Made in NY Media Center By IFP. Film Week will run September 17-22. The IFP has also expanded to support television, digital, web, virtual reality and app-based series at its upcoming IFP Film Week. Series showrunners and creators will take part in the IFP Project Forum, the only international co-production market in the U.S. featuring stories for all platforms
Research and Markets has announced the addition of the Cinema Industry Research – Scandinavia report to their offering. The countries of Scandinavia and the Baltic region have very different cinema markets with attendance rates ranging from among the lowest in Western Europe to the highest in Iceland, and some potentially fast-growing markets in the Baltic States.
