Where is the film industry headed in 2021?

Thankfully, 2020 is over and 2021 has begun. It was a rough year of intense disruption for nearly everyone worldwide. While 2020 is over, its effects linger as we appear to be on the brink of an economic depression. No major industry has been immune to the strife that this has caused, and no one really knows what’s going to happen next.

With the COVID-19 vaccine in the early stages of rollout, we have reason to be optimistic, even if the rollout isn’t proceeding as planned. The failure of this rollout in the US is likely to leave scars on every industry, perhaps especially the film industry. Nobody really knows how deep those scars will be, but some of us who have been watching closely have educated guesses.

Before I give you my take, given that this is my first post to a new Medium account, it’s probably wise to do something of an introduction. My name is Ben Yennie, I’ve been working in and around the Film industry for about a decade. In that time, I’ve been the executive producer of around 20 films, I wrote a book on film markets, started an angel investment group or two, and I’ve also started a film-oriented SAAS company that closed its doors in early 2020.

In June of 2020, I partnered with three of my favorite collaborators to start Mutiny Pictures. Since then, we’ve released 8 films with another 20 on the way. As such, I’ve been watching the industry closely, and I thought now was as good a time as any to share the insights I’ve gleaned from my work as the CEO and Partner in charge of acquisitions at Mutiny Pictures, as well as my much longer tenure as a Producer’s Rep.

Theatrical is going to change forever.

Most major theatrical chains had to lay off most of their workers. Too many of these layoffs look like they’ll be permanent. Some indie theaters have been able to barely tread water using virtual cinema platforms, but many will likely close forever. Laemmle and Alamo Drafthouse are leading the way on this with custom partnerships, and we over at Mutiny Pictures have been expanding a low-bandwidth program for indie cinemas to be able to make money with little more effort than wharing a link to their audience. (If you’d like more info, reach out.)

If I had to venture a guess, I’d say that these virtual cinemas are going to stick around even after the pandemic is largely in our rearview mirror.

The major players like AMC, Regal, Cinemark, Landmark, and perhaps a few others just got a bailout in the last covid relief bill, but I’d be surprised if we didn’t see significant downsizing or a few acquisitions in the next few months, as some have already stated an intention to declare bankruptcy.

Some have floated the idea that Netflix, Amazon, or Disney may acquire these failing chains. Personally, I don’t see it as incredibly likely that Streamers like Netflix would pick up these chains wholesale. I think there’s a chance they might pick up a closed location or two, but nothing that would be as wide a scale as some think pieces allege.

I can see some level of business sense in it due to the increase in their retain shopping offerings for Amazon or Disney, but I’d say that’s a long shot as well. It seems more likely that many of these existing locations will be abandoned and left vacant for quite some time.

Yet, upheaval and disruption create opportunities for those willing and able to act on it. There may emerge conditions for a re-emergence of independent theater owners with significantly more diversified slates, and films that can be acquired at a much more advantageous revenue share.

Such films will likely include diversified, independent cinema that break from the larger superhero films as of late, as well as more legacy content from decades passed. Further, well-capitalized theater owners to take over those spaces and convert them for multiple use outlets and specialty and second-run theaters like the Castro theater un SF or as hubs for various other arts organizations. However, I don’t see this happening without significant government grants or foundational support from large organizations.

More event-oriented screenings such as Livestream concerts, big games, or award shows may also come into vogue, particularly at theaters with enhanced food and beverage offerings.

Regardless, bigger budget first-run movies are likely to go Day and Date with streaming for the foreseeable future. This in and of itself will change the way theaters operate in significant ways. This will greatly decrease the value of the theatrical window for large feature films. With luck, it will create at least a bit more of a lane for well-produced indie films to take a showing a day or something of the sort, as the demand for major blockbusters will decrease but only time will tell.

The big question is whether or not the giant superhero spectacle films will remain viable in their current iterations. If the fact that MGM is looking to sell off its studios division is an indicator, they will be. Personally, I think we may be looking at companies beginning to budget down their work to a price point close to where they were in the 90s. Admittedly, that last one is more a gut feeling than a data-backed prediction.

We’ll be facing a big content backlog on the top end and a lack of small to midrange content.

Due to long-term theater closures, most studios haven’t been able to release their marquis content in the US for quite some time. However, many other countries have been able to control the spread of COVID-19 much more adequately than the US has, so many theaters have opened across the globe much sooner than the US.

That’s part of why HBO Max is getting such high-end content so early in the content’s lifecycle this year. However, we’re still facing a pretty large content backlog from other studios that will likely be competing for screens when they open in a diminished capacity. This is likely to create a bottleneck for the next 1–2 years unless studios can space out their releases for the films that have delayed shooting due to the pandemic.

However, on the small to midrange end, new content has been very tricky to create due to the additional costs when it comes to insurance, COVID compliance, and general safety issues. As such, this leaves a lot of small-midsize distributors with gaps in their pipelines they’ll be looking to fill. This creates something of an opportunity for the well prepares filmmaker, so long as their content doesn’t look like it was shot in a tiny apartment during the quarantine.

It should be noted that there has still been a lot of shooting going on, so while the market is likely less oversaturated than it has been in recent years, it’s not like the big players will snap up any old thing to keep people’s attention.

Shooting won’t be back to normal any time soon.

Unfortunately, even with the vaccines developed, the rollout is much slower than we would like it to be here in the USA. As such, it’s unclear when we’ll be able to get crews back on set. I’m hoping restrictions will be lifting come June or July, but we’ll have to see how well the next administration handles vaccine distribution.

Shooting still happens, but it’s going to be inadvisable to shoot large crowd scenes for the near future.

Physical Media gets to Stay

Physical media has been on the decline since the 2008 recession, however, due to the poor internet connectivity in much of the midwestern United States coupled with the pandemic, we may be seeing a stay of execution on the medium. I know that we’re still doing alright with it at Mutiny, in fact, one of our titles, I Am Lisa just launched in Redbox Yesterday, and we have other content dropping in big box stores later this month and even more in March. If you’re a filmmaker, I wouldn’t write off DVD just yet.

AVOD and SVOD will continue to surge

With people stuck at home for a while longer, Advertising-supported Video On Demand is likely to continue to grow as they have for a few years. With these surges in viewers, they will also continue to expand their content libraries.

So far, however, the AVOD content library expansion has largely been older catalogs from major studios. Even though sometimes a tiny indie film will be a hit, it’s not something that filmmakers can do without additional help from distributors. It’s also unclear whether the acquisition price or revenue share will become advantageous than it has been in the recent past despite my next point.

I think there’s lots of room left in the marketplace for the expansion of AVOD platforms, however, I think that we’re approaching peak SVOD. I can’t see too many large platforms emerging in the crowded space with competition like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Hulu, and HBO Max. AVOD has the freedom to be much more specialized with their content libraries, and with most millennials and younger remaining Cord Nevers, they may take the place of the thousands of TV channels bundled in various TV packages.

The key here will be for platforms to mean a hell of a lot to a niche group of people more than a little bit to everyone. Happi.TV is a great example. If I were running a platform like that, I’d start with a totally free AVOD offering, and upset to a low cost per month to remove ads on at least SOME of the content. The licenses are a bit tricky on this front, as most SVOD licenses are excluding and AVOD are not, so it might or might be something that requires a phase-in.

Thanks for reading. If you liked this and would like to learn more about me, my work, and Mutiny Pictures, please check us out at www.mutinypictures.com. IF you’d like more educational content like this, please check out www.theguerrillarep.com/blog.