Easycinema in trouble
June 29th, 2003
Comfortably winning the coveted ‘Least Surprising Business Story of the Year’ award, Easycinema has announced that its no-frills cinema at Milton Keynes may be forced to close because it can’t persuade the major distributors to let it show first-run films in return for a flat fee.
Goodness knows whether the inevitable complaints to the consumer protection bodies in London and Brussels will come to anything - and even if they do it’ll probably be years down the line, long after Easycinema has closed - but it’s safe to say that something needs to be done to inject some genuine competition and innovation into the film distribution system. If you removed all identifying logos from the three multiplexes within reasonable distance of where I’m typing this post then you’d be hard-pressed to tell they were operated by different companies based on the mix of films on offer, the facilities available or ticket prices.
At the moment only one of the chains offers an internet-based credit card booking service, and right now that’s pretty much the only reason I have for preferring the Odeon round the corner from my office to the Warner multiplex a fifteen minute walk away or the UCI Cinema which I pass on the bus ride home every weekday. I don’t necessarily think that Stelios Haji-Ioannou’s venture is right to insist that the distributors should be obliged to adjust their pricing to suit his business model, but at least he’s trying something different.
July 30th, 2003 at 5:04 pm
20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Disney, Columbia, Universal and Entertainment are all currently bracing themselves for an investigation with the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) which might bring around a surprise for Easy Cinema. If they discover that these large billion dollar companies are illegally price fixing the UK Cinema market then they may be forced to reduce their pricing structure which would then be a victory for Easy Cinema. The only problem is with the painfully slow track record of the OFT it may be too late for Easy Cinema to survive that long!! Unfortunately ticket prices will rise as movies continue to cost more to make with the ever advancing visual effects and greedy movie stars (why doe’s Arnie get paid so much for Terminator 3 when he can’t even act!) and since the American public pay high prices the studios see it as fair game to charge ever increasing prices to the UK cinema industry who then pass this cost to the consumer. Although the production companies do claim that movies cost a lot more to make I somehow doubt that is true as in this world the fat cats just want to get fatter….
Cineworld (in Milton Keynes) now charges around £6.60 for an adult seat on a Saturday afternoon. Don’t forget it was around £5.00 a year ago so it doesn’t take a genius to work out how much it will increase year upon year. Easy Cinema has a great idea but the UK government is obviously spooning in the cash somewhere as the last time these giant movie companies were challenged for price fixing this government didn’t find anything illegal (although it blatantly was) so we shouldn’t hold our breathe, after all this is rip of Britain.
I have been to Easy Cinema twice now, watched “Xmen 2” and “Fear Dot Com.” One of local cinemas wasn’t screening “Fear Dot Com” so for 80p for two tickets you couldn’t go wrong. Some people feel that paying a low price attracts unwanted attendees who will prat around throughout the movie. I don’t feel this is the case as this unwanted behaviour will continue in any cinema in the UK so I don’t feel anyone raising this as an argument is anyway justified. Ok the screens are not the largest around and also some of the movies may also be out on DVD but do you have a screen the size of the Milton Keynes Easy Cinema one in your living room? I think not….. Who cares about buying popcorn and coke, why not take your own food in? Some people may say that a mess will be left afterwards but this happens in very cinema, even the £12.00 cinemas in London. You will always get slobs who treat cinemas like their own rubbish bin (although I would like to go to their house and pour popcorn and coke all over their seats and carpets) so this is also unavoidable. People should stop moaning and start supporting this cinema to show that the high ticket prices shouldn’t be tolerated.
Before I get down from my soap box just one more thing, Easy Cinema will hopefully open the doors to a change in the UK cinema market and you have to stand up and give Stelios a round of applause for having the guts to stand up to these greedy movie industry giants.
(Please note I do not work for the cinema industry or work for any Easy company)
July 31st, 2003 at 12:09 am
I think the EasyCinema initiative is a very good thing, and that there’s definitely a place for a chain of second run/cheap cinemas.
I just can’t help thinking that Stelios might end up as the cinema world’s equivalent of Freddie Laker, rather than Richard Branson.
August 6th, 2003 at 2:08 am
Aaron, you clearly don’t have a clue. I work in a cinema, and it’s not easyFailure. We CLEAN up the popcorn that people leave behind as we have real staff, not computers.The screens are always clean before we let people in to the next showing.
Our REAL staff are also empowered to remove disruptive customers from the cinema, in this way customer satisfaction is ensured for the vast majority of our customers. I would imagine Stelio’s understaffed no frills dump cannot do this for you. Or maybe there is a rancid orange “Customer Ejection Machine” in the corner of each screen?!
The reason your local cinema wasn’t screening fear.com was because it had such a poor open in the US. You probably realised this when you finished seeing the film as you realised just how appalling it was. Maybe you thought “that wasn’t so great” or maybe your underprivileged brain could not discern the difference between a good and bad film As Stelios failed to sort his cinema out, he couldn’t screen the decent films so had to screen that dire production instead.
Oh yes! a conspiracy theory! What could be a better explanation! Being a professional in the film industry you are clearly qualified to make such a sound, well argued and supported accusation that the government fixed it all. Actors can charge so much because people are prepared to pay lots of money to watch their films, get real you peenarse!
Neil
August 7th, 2003 at 1:29 am
Actors can charge so much because films make so much money. If they didn’t the studios would take it for themseleves.
Haven’t seen fear dot com but I have seen many a bad film in a UK cinema so there’s no protection from bad films everywhere else. Easycinema did show some films I’d like to have seen
July 5th, 2004 at 11:46 am
NEIL IS A WANKER!!!!
July 8th, 2004 at 1:05 pm
I think that it’s good to have Neil’s comments as a member of the film industry so that we do have some balanced discussion. I would like to know which cinema chain he works for since all the ones I have been to have very few real staff (over the age of 16) and little interest in keeping the place clean or disruption free.
I believe the clue to the real problem is in Neil’s third paragraph: ‘ wasn’t screening fear.com was because it had such a poor open in the US’. How often are we going to be fed pablum which suits a bland US audience and ignore challenging or innovative cinema because it doesn’t bring in the mega bucks (I haven’t seen fear.com myself so can’t comment on it’s quality).
Finally, I think it’s unfair of DAD to call Neil a wanker since he is clearly running the cinema with one hand and cleaning up with the other. What is a peenarse please?
It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment, independence now and independence forever. Daniel Webster
October 6th, 2004 at 4:39 pm
Hi guys.. Im currently doin a research regarding EasyCinema in UK.. I personally think its a great idea by Stelios! n it will survived!! Well, we gotta really balance de movie industry in this realistic world here! we shdnt allow too many monopolies in de UK cinemas.. theres good n bad bout EasyCinema but it also goes to the other cinemas in UK! we jux gotta be thankful tat theres actually sumbody coming up wit such a splendid idea! how many of us here actually got the guts and capability to make such decisions?! :)
n Aaron im way behind u.. Strider, ure really cool.. ;) but Neil, wats de prob wit u?!! cheers all!