As reported by The Hollywood Reporter this morning, a Texas judge issued an injunction against Regal Cinemas for their unfair practices toward the smaller chain iPic. Evidently, Regal had been making claims that they had what they called “clearance pacts” with the major studios, dictating that said major studios were only allowed to distribute their films specifically to Regal cinemas in certain areas of the country. This means that smaller theaters in those same areas wouldn’t be allowed, by law, to run first-run movies. As you can imagine, this is terribly bad for the smaller theaters’ business.
iPic, and other plaintiffs, have been filing various antitrust lawsuits against Regal AMC, and Cinemark – the country’s three largest movie theater chains – over similar claims for the last few years, going back at least as far as October of 2014. The three largest chains have been making deals with major studios for quite some time, evidently. This Texas case marks the first time, however, that a judge has stepped in to block these unfair deals. A trial is scheduled for October of 2016.
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To clarify: Yes, this is still something that happens. There was a time when studios owned their own theaters, and those theaters would only show, say Warner Bros. films or Universal films. That practice ended, however, back in the 1950s, with only a few hangers on for purposes of prestige (Disney, for instance, owns the El Capitan in Hollywood, CA). Recently, however, the major theater chains have been intentionally muscling out smaller theaters with these backdoor exclusivity deals.
It is important to give more people open access to more movies. This means allowing smaller theaters in more remote areas – with lower ticket prices – to open major Hollywood releases. This lawsuit may finally allow that to happen.
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Witney Seibold is a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. He also contributes to Legion of Leia, and Blumhouse. You can follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
