On today’s earnings call for the No. 1 financially challenged exhibitor AMC, CEO Adam Aron took the high road in not damning Disney for their recent seisimic-shifting choice to take Mulan to Disney+ instead of theaters where the streaming service is available.
“You might thing I’m disappointed that Mulan is moving, but AMC has no bigger friend than Disney. They provided us with more content last year than other studio in the world. As both companies do businesses, we will thrive,” said Aron.
“Disney just announced earnings. Just like AMC, they’re under duress. They are under pressure too and at some point need to monetize their slate. We’ll benefit from Disney titles with or without Mulan. We understand what they did,” he continued.
“Our biggest reaction to the Mulan announcement, is how much it reaffirms our wise decisions last week (with the Universal PVOD deal) to take the risk and sign on to PVOD because right now Disney’s choice under the current world order are two choices: Take it to the home or they take it to theaters. They can’t do both. Under PVOD, they could take it to PVOD and theaters at least with that 17-day lag.”
“I’d like to give them an opportunity to do an ‘and’ and not an ‘or. We’d make far more money on Mulan if it was released to our theaters then to PVOD, especially if we got a cut than if Mulan went to straight to the home and us not benefiting from it. Some of our competitors are are anxious about this change. Change is difficult for some to cope with.”
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