Thomson have just signed some major deals and look set to roll digital cinema out with Dreamworks, Sony, Universal and Warner Brothers, negotiations are ongoing with Twentieth Century Fox, New Line and the Weinstein’s. This means an initial rollout of around 5,000 screens in the US and Canada starting early 2006!
That’s damn fast. However that 5,000 figure is expected to stretch over the next four to five years. However the plans are huge and are looking to hit 15,000 within ten years. From Kung Fu Cinema:
…have signed on to distribute content digitally and to pay a virtual print fee for each screen equipped with the DCI-compliant digital cinema system.
Sources said the Walt Disney Co. also is in negotiations with Technicolor but is still working through the finer financial points of the deal. Paramount Pictures is the only major studio not currently involved in Technicolor’s rollout effort.
There’s where the cost saving should be, the distribution of the prints themselves. We featured the average cost of a print some time ago and it’s huge, £1,000 just for a copy, never mind the shipping and security around it. So hopefully the cinemas will save money there and drop the ticket price a little?
Who am I kidding, the cost is probably going to rise to pay for the digital installation, and after that to make profit for the cinemas, after all they themselves don’t make that much money, it’s all on the extras.
