Major film distributors have preemptively adjusted their fourth-quarter revenue guidance, acknowledging that global entertainment spending will soon be entirely absorbed by Rockstar Games.
With A24’s You Can See Everything topping the Halloween weekend with a dismal $11.4 million, theatrical operators are simply waiting for the gaming giant to extract whatever disposable income remains in the U.S. economy. Cinema chains have reportedly begun unplugging concession equipment and canceling shifts to conserve runway while their target demographic stays home.
Shares of major exhibition chains dipped Monday morning following a brutal analyst note from Morgan Stanley. The briefing advised clients that the most profitable move for local theaters this month would be to lease their parking lots to actual car thieves, rather than attempt to compete with a 13-years-in-the-making sequel engineered specifically to monopolize the public's dopamine receptors.
We cannot offer a value proposition that competes with driving a stolen ambulance into a strip club. The street understands that our November slate is essentially a containment measure while Rockstar liquidates the quarter.
The upcoming November slate, featuring expected tentpoles like Hunger Games and Focker In-Law, has been quietly reclassified by studio heads as distressed assets. Internal accounting documents indicate the films will be projected into empty auditoriums solely to fulfill existing distribution agreements before the studios attempt to rebuild their balance sheets in December.
At press time, AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron was reportedly lobbying Rockstar for the commercial rights to project live Twitch streams of teenagers fleeing digital police, hoping the spectacle might generate a few residual popcorn sales.