Cinema Guru

This is my 4,000+ word take on the incredible story of Chinese authorities three-year crusade to take down the greatest film piracy ring ever, and 'Ghost No. 1', the rogue server at the heart of it. lnkd.in/eqRgFgf

The plan? Keep the Cinerama Dome abandoned for 20 years for a demolition by neglect. Use it as a tax shelter while we wait. Issue no PR statements to the public. Hope the public forgets. @Decurion @TaitForman

happy international women's day👸

Solid reporting from the great journalist @kristenklopez for @goldenglobes on the overall state of theatrical moviegoing and the often mischaracterization of the health of the industry. An honor to be quoted alongside Andrew Stewart at @cinema_united. The death of the movie theater has been greatly exaggerated, says @Comscore @csMoviesUS @CSGlobalMovies senior analyst Paul Dergarabedian (by way of Mark Twain). “The health of the movie industry is: You take its temperature one week and it could be riding high,” “The next week people are tolling the death knell for the movie theater.” “What is clear from the data is that China is a powerhouse second only to North America in its box office generating power particularly with their homegrown titles that often bring in staggering amounts of revenue in China alone,” “The North American market of course remains the top grossing territory,” “But it is indeed the collective horsepower of all countries, including notable films from France, the U.K., Mexico, Spain, and India and others that drive the global box office.” goldenglobes.com/articles/box-o…

Seven days ago Netflix walked away from an $83 billion deal for Warner Bros. The stock jumped 12%. Wall Street cheered the discipline. And the very first move Netflix makes with its newly preserved balance sheet is buying a 16-person AI startup that's been in stealth mode for four years. That's the signal. Netflix looked at two paths to competitive advantage: spend $83 billion to acquire a legacy content library, or spend an undisclosed sum (almost certainly sub-$100M) to acquire technology that changes the economics of every piece of content you produce going forward. The math on InterPositive is what matters. Netflix spends ~$20 billion a year on content. VFX and post-production typically run 20-25% of a production budget. That's $4-5 billion annually flowing through color correction, relighting, environment work, and continuity fixes. If InterPositive's dailies-trained model can reduce even 10-15% of that post workflow, you're looking at $400-750 million in annual savings that compound across every title in the slate. And Sarandos already told you the strategy in 2024: "There's a better business and a bigger business in making content 10% better than making it 50% cheaper." InterPositive lets Netflix do both. Train a model on a production's own footage, use it to fix continuity errors, adjust lighting, handle environment work. The filmmaker stays in control. The post-production timeline compresses. Quality goes up. Cost per title goes down. What Affleck built is also strategically different from what every other AI company is doing. Sora, Runway, Kling, they all generate video from text prompts. InterPositive trains on a production's actual dailies and works within the existing filmmaking pipeline. That distinction matters because it means Netflix can offer this to creators without triggering the "AI is replacing artists" alarm that nearly shut down Hollywood in 2023. Netflix just walked away from the biggest media acquisition in history. Its first acquisition after? A 16-person team that could reshape the cost structure of a $20 billion content machine. That tells you where the leverage is moving.

The aviation industry just declared pre-Covid demand benchmarks “ancient history”: those days aren’t coming back. They moved on. They found new metrics. They stopped apologising. The cinema business would do well to adopt a similar posture. patrickvonsychowski.substack.com/p/the-2019-ben… by @patrickvons

It’s not just China and Russia where Hollywood films have lost their dominance - now Japan too. (Plus they never dominated India.)

Check out our exclusive @Comscore @csMoviesUS @CSGlobalMovies Weekend Box Office Overview -  It was a scream at the multiplex this weekend as @ParamountPics #Scream7 @ScreamMovies finally scared some excitement into the movie marketplace with a franchise high weekend domestic debut of an estimated $64.1M for the 3-days demonstrating the enduring popularity of the series. The film earned $33.1 million internationally for a global franchise record of $97.2 million! For reference, the first #Scream film opened in 1,413 theaters over the weekend of December 20, 1996 to a mere $6.3M but went on to earn 16.21x that number, going on (after some 31 weeks in theaters playing through mid-July of ‘97!) to ultimately earn $103M in unadjusted theatrical domestic revenue. Horror has been a hot commodity with audiences (especially last year when the genre hit a record domestic high of $1.426Bn) who find the immersive and communal environment of the movie theater to be the optimal delivery system to ensure the greatest scare quotient. Sunday Morning Early Weekend Stats Overview: This weekend with an overall gross estimated at $111M, paced 97% higher than the same weekend a year ago that managed to only generate $56.3M (Top film: Captain America: Brave New World” wknd. #3 at $14.85M) and thus the YTD percentage advantage rose from 5% through last weekend to an estimated 9.4% through Sunday. This is a great way to kick off a very eclectic month of March with some great titles on the way in the coming weeks! Paramount Pictures hashtag#Ghostface

Sadly I did not have time on this trip to Berlin to re-visit the reopened jewel in the Yorck Kino Gruppe crown, but I hope to visit Kino International on my next visit. Congratulations to Christian Bräuer and the whole Yorck Kino Gruppe team. timeout.com/news/one-of-eu…

The artwork is too good not to share. Thanks 🙏🏻 ✨ 🍌

“Share Four Years of War, Two Kinds of Conscience: How the Global Film Industry Split Over Russia” Read how much Hollywood studios lost due to the principled withdrawal from Russia - and the profits of those who didn’t @Lionsgate @patheuk @a24 @STXfilms patrickvonsychowski.substack.com/p/four-years-o…

🎬 CinemaNext at the EDCF Conference, Warsaw — 10-11 March 2026 We're pleased to announce that CinemaNext will be represented at this year's EDCF Conference in Warsaw, with Araceli Vaello attending on behalf of our Solutions Business Unit. cinemanext.com/blog/industry-…

It's crazy how much the world's third-largest movie market has turned off Hollywood - and how unconcerned studios seem to be. Trend I highlighted a few years ago is only accelerating: bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

Very, very proud of this.

Important reading.

🎬 We are thrilled to share how CinemaNext helped transform Athens' historic Athinaion cinema from a beloved 2-screen neighbourhood venue into a modern 4-screen destination with full Dolby Atmos. cinemanext.com/blog/news-5/hi…

💡 Did you know? Beyond our expertise in image and sound, CinemaNext also delivers innovative seating and outfitting solutions to elevate every cinema experience. See how we’re transforming cinemas across our markets through our latest case studies. cinemanext.com/cinema-outfitt…

A cinema where every detail tells a story 🎬 When Filmtheater Cinebergen in the Netherlands expanded with a second screen, choosing the right seating was about more than comfort - it was about character. (1/5) cinemanext.com/blog/news-5/wh…

🏆 Golden Globe Best Supporting Actor winner Stellan Skarsgård implored fans to watch his film "Sentimental Value" in a movie theater: "In a cinema, when the lights goes down and you share the pulse with some other people, that's magic." We agree! #GoldenGlobes #WeLoveCinema

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In 1995, Sandra Bullock became the first person in history to buy movie tickets online. She did it to promote her film THE NET. Only 30 years ago, but things have changed a lot.