Paramount said Thursday it will offer qualifying exhibitors payments for playing its films on digital screens.
Theater operators in the U.S. and Canada will get payments amounting to a "virtual print fee" every time they play a Par pic, provided they haven't dipped into d-cinema funding through studio-funded consortiums. Additionally, the exhibitor must have converted half of its screens to digital or boast at least one 3-D digital auditorium, Par exec vp distribution Mark Christiansen explained.
"There's no upfront money involved," he said. "We're not offering to buy the equipment. But if the exhibitor goes out and acquires the equipment on their own, we will pay them for playing Paramount films over a proscribed 10-year period."
The distribution exec said he hopes other studios follow Par's lead.
"Paramount is getting out front on this critical industry transition, and we applaud them," said John Fithian, CEO of the National Association of Theater Owners.
Theater operators in the U.S. and Canada will get payments amounting to a "virtual print fee" every time they play a Par pic, provided they haven't dipped into d-cinema funding through studio-funded consortiums. Additionally, the exhibitor must have converted half of its screens to digital or boast at least one 3-D digital auditorium, Par exec vp distribution Mark Christiansen explained.
"There's no upfront money involved," he said. "We're not offering to buy the equipment. But if the exhibitor goes out and acquires the equipment on their own, we will pay them for playing Paramount films over a proscribed 10-year period."
The distribution exec said he hopes other studios follow Par's lead.
"Paramount is getting out front on this critical industry transition, and we applaud them," said John Fithian, CEO of the National Association of Theater Owners.
- 1/22/2009
- by By Carl DiOrio
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Orlando -- Lionsgate has inked a pact with AccessIT to help fund thousands of additional digital screen conversions, becoming the fifth studio to sign aboard for the digital-cinema integrator's next wave of system rollouts.
AccessIT already has virtual print fee agreements in place with Disney, Fox, Paramount and Universal. So with Lionsgate now also aboard for its Phase Two deployment of digital theater systems, AccessIT boasts the same group of five studios backing another systems integrator -- Digital Cinema Implementation Partners -- and will turn its attention to securing bank loans needed to back up the studio funding and get hardware rolling into the marketplace. AccessIT helped implement an earlier round of about 4,000 screen conversions.
The integrator's Phase Two agreement with Lionsgate was announced at the ShowEast exhibition confab here, where earlier Tuesday a panel of d-cinema proponents hashed through the challenges of waging the digital revolution. Chief among them:...
AccessIT already has virtual print fee agreements in place with Disney, Fox, Paramount and Universal. So with Lionsgate now also aboard for its Phase Two deployment of digital theater systems, AccessIT boasts the same group of five studios backing another systems integrator -- Digital Cinema Implementation Partners -- and will turn its attention to securing bank loans needed to back up the studio funding and get hardware rolling into the marketplace. AccessIT helped implement an earlier round of about 4,000 screen conversions.
The integrator's Phase Two agreement with Lionsgate was announced at the ShowEast exhibition confab here, where earlier Tuesday a panel of d-cinema proponents hashed through the challenges of waging the digital revolution. Chief among them:...
- 10/14/2008
- by By Carl DiOrio
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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