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Speaking In Canada, NATO President Challenges Early VOD And Announces New Support From Creative Community

Posted Wednesday, June 1st, 2011 - Comments Off on Speaking In Canada, NATO President Challenges Early VOD And Announces New Support From Creative Community
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(OTTAWA, ONTARIO, June 1, 2011) In a keynote speech at industry confab ShowCanada, NATO President & CEO John Fithian today urged Canadian movie theater operators to be vigilant in their focus on theatrical release windows.  Challenging a recently announced proposal from four Hollywood studios to release movies early to the home on “premium” VOD, Fithian explained the dangers of the model.  “Early VOD releases to the home could damage the movie industry in two significant ways,” Fithian asserted.  “Early releases will reduce movie ticket sales, and will exacerbate movie theft by giving pirates an early pristine copy of movies.”  Fithian also reiterated NATO’s call for the participating studios to release sales data from their experiment.  “How can the industry evaluate the studios’ test if they continue to hide the facts.”

Fithian’s remarks at ShowCanada marked an expanded, global phase in NATO’s work to preserve the theatrical release window.  Beginning with Canada this week, moving to Europe later in the month and onto Australia in August, Fithian will hold dozens of meetings with leading international exhibitors on the topic.  “We hope that this early VOD experiment begins and ends in the U.S.,” Fithian continued.  “But if not, we want exhibitors everywhere to be prepared.”

In his remarks, Fithian also praised the growing number of leading movie directors and producers who have publicly stated their concerns with shortened release windows.  “The creative community understands the vital importance of robust theatrical release windows to their art form and their business interests,” Fithian stated.  “We are pleased today to announce additional signers of our creative community letter, including directors David Dobkin, Jon Favreau, Chris Nolan, M. Night Shyamalan, and Quentin Tarantino, as well as producers Mark Boal and Jim Cardwell.”

ShowCanada will run through Thursday, June 2 in Ottawa.

About NATO

The National Association of Theatre Owners is the largest exhibition trade organization in the world, representing more than 30,000 movie screens in all 50 states, and additional cinemas in 50 countries worldwide. www.natoonline.org

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon