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Amazon To Spend $1 Billion a Year On Theatrical Film Releases (cnbc.com) 31

Posted by BeauHD from the significant-investments dept.
Cinemas stocks got a boost Wednesday after a report said Amazon plans to spend $1 billion a year on theatrical film releases. CNBC reports: The tech company plans to make between 12 and 15 movies for movie theaters each year, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. A smaller number of films will be produced in 2023 as Amazon builds up its output, the report said. Cinemark jumped 11% on the news, with IMAX up 7% and AMC up 5%.
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Amazon To Spend $1 Billion a Year On Theatrical Film Releases More

Amazon To Spend $1 Billion a Year On Theatrical Film Releases

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  • Some people would pay it.

  • How? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by quonset ( 4839537 )

    The tech company plans to make between 12 and 15 movies for movie theaters each year,

    Unless they're half an hour long, I can't see a way to make that many movies each year. And certainly not for $1 billion. That's less than $100 million per movie.

    • Re:How? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2022 @10:33PM (#63076026)
      Most movies don't have $100 million dollar budgets. Only a few big tent pole movies get that much. There are plenty of movies made for a few tens of millions or less that are loads better than movies costing an order of magnitude more. Everything Everywhere All at Once has an estimated budget of only $25 million for example.

      • Shirley, you can't be serious. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Thursday November 24, 2022 @02:40AM (#63076280)

        I recently watched "Airplane" with my kids. It is, hands down, the greatest movie ever made. It cost $3.5M.

        Then my kids asked me, "Why don't they make movies like this anymore?"

        I didn't have a good answer. It was a ridiculously profitable movie. So was "Fargo" ($7M to make) and "Life of Brian" ($4M). "Rocky" was made for $1M!!

        Yet today, studios seem to be only interested in big-budget blockbusters.

        Let's hope that Amazon can bring back good low-budget movies with interesting stories and new actors while relying less on expensive CGI.

        • I recently watched "Airplane" with my kids. It is, hands down, the greatest movie ever made. It cost $3.5M.

          Then my kids asked me, "Why don't they make movies like this anymore?"

          I didn't have a good answer. It was a ridiculously profitable movie. So was "Fargo" ($7M to make) and "Life of Brian" ($4M). "Rocky" was made for $1M!!

          Yet today, studios seem to be only interested in big-budget blockbusters.

          Let's hope that Amazon can bring back good low-budget movies with interesting stories and new actors while relying less on expensive CGI.

          Exactly.

          I felt the same way about HDTV ... how about some better stories, instead of a better view of the actors' pores?

        • "Why don't they make movies like this anymore?"

          The question is wrong.

          This 'question' presumes that they DON'T make movies any more without having to prove it.

          It's not that they don't make movies like that any more or even that they make fewer movies like that any more. It's that there a lot more vies of all kinds being made all the time. There are so many that not only can you not see them all, you can't even hear about them all.

          This article has a graph of US cinema releases for year from 1980 to 2016: http [stephenfollows.com]

    • Unless they're half an hour long, I can't see a way to make that many movies each year. And certainly not for $1 billion. That's less than $100 million per movie/

      Hollywood used to do really well making what they call "mid-budget" movies that cost ~$25 million to make. Movies that were a single story, featuring people wearing normal clothes, mostly talking. Teenagers didn't go to see those movies, but adults would. Prestige TV shows ate into that market (shows like 'Sex and the City', 'The Sopranos', etc.)

      • If you go back to the 70s and 80s, there were a lot of mid budget movies aimed at teens, some better than others. Just off the top of my head, I'd include Fast Times at Ridgmont High, Valley Girl, Porky's, Animal House, American Graffiti, The Graduate. And yes, most of them were comedies. Now everything is in the context of superheroes and has to cost 200 million+. Maybe the target audience won't come out anymore unless its an "event," or maybe Hollywood is underestimating the intelligence of its audien
    • So movies aren't actually that expensive to make, if you're not literally inventing things like Industrial Light and Magic.
      Hollywood makes them expensive in order to launder money and take advantage of federal tax incentives. If you invest more than $1M in entertainment, that money gets taxed as active income, which is a lower rate.
      Very little of a budget goes into actual production costs. There's a reason why "Hollywood accounting" is specifically a thing.
      Money goes about 10x times further outside

  • Here is a novel idea (Score:3)

    by wakeboarder ( 2695839 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2022 @11:11PM (#63076072)
    Why don't they just cut the cost of prime and stop making movies. There is no reason for a company to be involved in every facet of ones life. You are the next GE Amazon

    • You are the next GE Amazon

      Even if so, not half bad for an online bookstore, wouldn't you say? :)

    • Prime membership is their source of income with razor thin margins business. Ask Costco. Taking invested capital in films to theaters may actually make them a profit on the films.

  • For just 0.1% of your budget, I will critically analyse each script prior to it going into production and tell you, objectively, if it's shit.

    This will save you a billion within 36 months. I guarantee.

    Hit me up ... anon_cowtard@gmail.com

    • They can't have anyone analysing the scripts objectively to see if they're shit. This will bring their output down to about one movie per year. Besides, as long as people continue to pay for shit, Hollywood will keep shoveling.
      • I second this. I have a track record of taking movies from pre to post and meeting presales requirements in 8 weeks. 1 week pre, 2-3 production, 4-5 post. Give me a point on the backend, and I'll do even better for you. Horror, coming of age, Stoner/psychedelic, SciFi, Action-comedy, thriller... if I have creative and technical control, my results are guaranteed. Right-to-work states only.

  • Is only logical to produce movies for theatrical release.

    Actually, 1Milliard per year for 15~20 movies per year will not allow to keep producing bond movies. Or, in bond years, uotput will drop dramatically

  • Or dozens of indie style films that focused on acting, with limited CGI and explosions.

    P.S. Movies based on the work of PKD have mostly been moneymakers, and nobody afaik has announced plans to bring The 3 Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch to the screen.

    Done right you can make a thinking person's film that still brought in scads of young people looking to see a thriller/horror film. The guy has steel teeth! lol

    P.P.S. Anyone who read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep knows that there's room for a movie that woul

  • .. They want to be eligible for awards season, primarily the Academy Awards, as AMPAS requires a film to be displayed theatrically for N days on X screens to qualify. Additionally, it's easier to attract A-list talent to films releasted theatrically, as it maintains their personal brand strength and visibility during awards season. "Movie Star" still has a little cache' above "streaming movie personality."

    • Academy Awards? What is that? Oh, you mean the TV show where the movie stars give political speeches for the edification of the unwashed?

  • Amazon goods are going to get more expensive after they finish flushing this money down the toilet.

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