Italian Exhibitors Decry Death of 500 Screens as Box Office Fails to Reignite
variety.comNick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItalian exhibitors are sounding an alarm over the country’s pandemic-prompted box office plunge and the removal of theatrical windows which they say are causing closure of 500 movie screens.Their cry for help comes amid what they say is a lack of signals in Italy pointing to the cinemagoing recovery that is instead currently underway in other European countries.Two years after Italy’s roughly 3,600 cinema screens were first shuttered, 500 of those screens have still not reopened across the country, according to Mario Lorini, head of local exhibitors org.
ANEC.Calling for action to counter this crisis, Lorini at a Rome confab urged the government to reinstate the country’s 90-day window between a film’s release in movie theaters and via streaming platforms and broadcasters that was lifted during the pandemic by Italy’s motion picture association.
Lorini said there are now hundreds of screens in Italian cinemas programming films that are also playing on platforms and TV stations at the same time, which is taking its toll on Italy’s cinemas’ ability to survive.Italian exhibitors are up in arms after the county’s box office in 2021 plunged more than 50%, compared to the average annual recent pre-pandemic intake, to €170 million ($192 million) in grosses for the year and 25 million admissions.
That is way below the 41 million movie tickets sold in 2021 in Spain, where the pandemic has not been as much of a deterrent to cinema attendance.
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