There are some big uncertainties though. For example, now that studios can own theaters I wouldn't be surprised to see Disney buy one of the chains to show only their movies. It would be a huge problem for Alamo and other chains if they didn't get Marvel, Star Wars, and Pixar movies at the same time as a Disney-owned theater would.
One of the strengths of Alamo is that they do showings for indie films and have weekly nights of older films. So cheaper to screen these and they make bank on the food and drinks.
And the biggest part for me is they have ZERO commercials while you're waiting for it to start. They show silly bumpers, youtube clips and internal promos.
> For example, now that studios can own theaters I wouldn't be surprised to see Disney buy one of the chains to show only their movies.
DOJ vacated the consent decree on studios owning theaters, but that doesn't mean that a studio exclusively screening its films at its own theaters will be allowed.
I kind of doubt there will be a big investment in studio owned theaters anyway. Maybe studios will pick up some of the closing locations to make sure there's a theater within reasonable drive of everyone, and maybe some flagship theaters in Hollywood.
I could imagine Disney owning their own theaters could be quite profitable for them.
I can't find an online source for this, but a decade ago I heard that the IFC Center in NYC was the most profitable (per-screen) cinema in the US, due to IFC Films already being the distributor of the films they show -- so no added distribution costs.
Then again, they've also controversially used non-union projectionists, so this might have just been a talking point on one side of that debate.
> DOJ vacated the consent decree on studios owning theaters, but that doesn't mean that a studio exclusively screening its films at its own theaters will be allowed.
Who's going to stop them? "We're pro-business" says both R and D.
