Gower Street CEO Dimitrios Mitsinikos once again featured on the latest CJ Cinema Summit, the regular webinar event presented by Celluloid Junkie and Filmgrail. Introduced by Celluloid Junkie Editor Patrick von Sychowski, the 54th CJ Cinema Summit took place on Thursday Jan. 20.
Patrick began in conversation with J. Sperling Reich, Celluloid Junkie’s Executive Editor, looking at a global news overview including recent positive announcements about Cineworld December results and cinema advertising spend. They also discussed the impact of inflation on cinemas around the world with rising ticket prices and concession costs.
Patrick then introduced “Cinema Summit regular” Dimitrios.
Dimitrios took the online attendees through a presentation looking at both 2021 results and 2022 projections. He kicked off looking back at the 2021 projection discussed on the 50th CJ Cinema Summit and how it compared to the final estimate.
He then discussed the findings of our recent articles on the dominance of SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME and NO TIME TO DIE in terms of the #1 titles of the year in markets around the world as well as the global box office comparison of top performing titles in 2021 compared to 2020 and 2019. To explore the top performing titles closer he then focused in on the top 40 – first looking at the global outlook, and then contrasting 5 specific markets: Domestic, UK/Ireland, Australia, China, and Russia.
Dimitrios then moved ahead to discuss our long-range 2022 projection, first announced in December 2021. He also shared our 2022 projection for the EMEA region, announced by UNIC (The International Union of Cinemas) earlier this month. The final slide looked at some major titles coming for summer 2022, that provide some of the basis for a bullish 2022 projection. He revealed that projections for the Domestic summer in 2022 are $3.3 billion (2019 was approximately $4bn).
Following Dimitrios’ presentation, Patrick passed across to Sperling who introduced Thomas MacCalla, partner at Covergent Group. The two then introduced Universal executives Niels Swinkels, Executive Vice President International Distribution & Managing Director, Universal Pictures International, and Julien Noble, President International Marketing, Universal Pictures International to start a discussion.
The two executives took questions from Sperling and Thomas on SING 2, 2022 expectations, hybrid release models for family titles, working with Christopher Nolan on his next movie OPPENHEIMER, China concerns, and more.
Niels said they were “thrilled” with the results for titles including NO TIME TO DIE, F9: THE FAST SAGA, SING 2 and HOUSE OF GUCCI. “We had 25% global market share of the studios – the biggest share we’ve had since 2015.”
Looking ahead to 2022, Niels said that the 2021 titles showed that “if you have the goods people will come and with [titles like] JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION and MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU we believe we do.” He also highlighted other titles in Universal’s strong 2022 slate including Valentine’s Day-release romantic comedy MARRY ME, which he said Universal was spending money on at pre-pandemic levels. Other titles include DOWNTON ABBEY: A NEW ERA, Michael Bay’s AMBULANCE, Jordan Peele’s NOPE, and Blumhouse’s THE BLACK PHONE.
In terms of hybrid-release models, Niels said it was important not to be naive and to accept “the pandemic will have trained customers to consume differently.” He said it was important to understand the new consumer.
A full recording of the event will be accessible here or by clicking on the image below as soon as it is available.
