Sony Pictures acquires Alamo Drafthouse Cinema

sSony Pictures Entertainment is getting into the exhibition business. The studio behind recent films like “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” It is “The Garfield Movie” has acquired distinguished movie theater chain Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, the companies said Wednesday. Included in the deal is the Fantastic Fest genre film festival.

Sony said it will continue to receive content from all studios and distributors in theaters.

Alamo Drafthouse was founded in 1997 as a single-screen family repertory theater in Austin, Texas, and has grown to 35 locations across North America. It stood out in the exhibition scene with drinks, food service and a cool atmosphere that became a favorite among moviegoers.

“We are so excited to join forces with Sony Pictures Entertainment to expand our company’s vision of being the best movie theater there has ever been or will be now in ways we could only dream of,” said Alamo Drafthouse founder Tim League in a statement. affirmation. “They have a deep respect and understanding of film’s ability to drive growth and create lasting cultural impact that aligns perfectly with everything Alamo Drafthouse stands for.”

For Sony, the Drafthouse acquisition is also tied to its experiential initiatives, including Wheel of Fortune Live! Traveling tour and the Wonderverse space in Chicago. Ravi Ahuja, president and chief operating officer of Sony Pictures Entertainment, also noted that the studio’s Crunchyroll films are particularly aligned with the interests of Drafthouse fans.

The Alamo Drafthouse has seen its ups and downs over the years. In March 2021, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, closed some locations and canceled plans to open new ones. Alamo emerged from bankruptcy in late May 2021 under the ownership of League, Altamont Capital Partners and Fortress Investment Group. Michael Kusterman, a former Caveman Foods executive, has been named CEO of Alamo. He will remain, heading the newly created Sony Pictures Experiences division and reporting to Ahuja, the statement said.

Last year, after the Barbenheimer frenzy, Alamo Drafthouse employees in Manhattan and Brooklyn voted for unionization. Similar efforts were attempted at sites in San Francisco and Austin and were met with resistance from leadership.

For many years, Hollywood studios were unable to manage movie theaters and control what was shown on those screens, following a landmark Supreme Court antitrust case in 1948 that prohibited practices such as “block booking,” in which studios required theaters to reserve a package of their films. Each of the major studios has entered into a consent decree with the Department of Justice, known as Paramount Consent Decrees, which required major studios that owned theaters at the time to divest distribution operations or their theaters.

Conflicts between the business practices of Hollywood studios and the federal government date back to the early 1920s, due to concerns about vertical integration and the monopolization of film production and distribution. In the 1930s and 1940s, most opening theaters had only one screen.

Distribution and exhibition have undergone major changes since the days of the Paramount Consent Decrees, including the proliferation of multiplex theaters that show films from different exhibitors throughout the day and the advent of television, home video, and streaming. The separation mandate officially disappeared in 2020 when the Paramount Consent Decrees were rescinded.

Now Netflix, for example, owns several theaters in New York and Los Angeles, and the Walt Disney Co., which was not part of the original “Big Eight” in the 1940s, owns and operates El Capitan in Los Angeles. Movie theater chains have also gone out of their way recently, with artists like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé direct partnership with AMC Theaters to distribute his concert films.