For decades, those manning the phones at the Washington, D.C.-based National Association of Theatre Owners quickly grew used to callers asking about military alliances, treaties and other global affairs. In a town that loves acronyms, the confusion was easy to understand, since the trade org has the same moniker — NATO — as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The confusion ended once and for all earlier in March when association president and CEO Michael O’Leary announced the new name: Cinema United.
The decision by the org’s board to disrupt years of tradition is symbolic of O’Leary’s attempt to chart a new course for the world’s largest trade association for cinema owners. He is heavily focused on putting a positive spin on the current state of moviegoing in the post-pandemic era, even though the box office has yet to recover fully.
That messaging will be on full display when the newly anointed Cinema United hosts the 2025 edition of CinemaCon, the annual gathering of exhibitors and Hollywood studios at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, from March 31 to April 3.
CinemaCon comes amid another downturn at the box office. A month ago, year-to-date domestic revenue was up more than 20 percent over 2024. But the blues have returned due to a lack of product that continues to haunt cinema owners due to the pandemic and strikes. It has been five years since COVID-19 shuttered theaters around the world, but the damage is still being felt. Ditto for the impact of the writers’ and actors’ strikes in 2023. As of March 23, year-over-year revenue was down 7 percent over the same corridor 2024. More than ever, it’s a hit-or-miss business.
On a positive note, Sony is returning to present its upcoming slate at CinemaCon after skipping last year, while Amazon MGM Studios — the newly minted creative home of the James Bond franchise — is making its debut on stage at the Colosseum Theatre for the first time. That makes for the most major studio presentations at CinemaCon since 2018 before 20th Century Fox officially became part of the Disney empire in 2019 and dropped the “Fox” moniker.
Two years into the job, O’Leary spoke with The Hollywood Reporter in advance of the event to talk about the campaign to change NATO’s name and his overall goals. He also revealed for the first time that he, too, has concerns about dramatically shortened windows (don’t be surprised if he mentions his concerns during his annual state-of-the union speech). While the organization cannot negotiate windows because of antitrust issues — that is up to the individual studios — O’Leary can comment on the issue.
Why the name change from NATO to Cinema United after so many decades?
Obviously being in Washington, there’s a ton of trade associations and organizations, and they all have acronym-type names. Frankly, we wanted something that was unique and represented our industry and made people think not of a trade association but of going to the movies.
How much confusion did the name cause over the years?
I would say most of it was pretty lighthearted. We’d refer to ourselves as the “fun” NATO. But obviously there is some complexity when you are confused with a multinational military organization. We were at a point in time where we wanted our own identity. We wanted to be recognized by our name. And the other thing is, we also got their mail. You don’t always want to be getting NATO’s mail!
DC’s Superman is one of the 2025 tentpoles that will be touted during CinemaCon in Las Vegas.
Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection
There’s been a détente over the issue of theatrical windows. Around the pandemic era, the exclusive period a film has to play in theaters collapsed from at least 74 days to as short as 17 days for some films and 31 for others. Disney still sticks to around 60 days; others, 40 to 45 days. Your thoughts?
The current situation is one where there’s a lot of uncertainty out there. It’s causing confusion among movie fans. They don’t know if a movie is going to be in the home in two weeks, or is it going to be in six weeks? And in essence, what we’re doing is we’re cannibalizing both. And I do think that we need to look at the windows. Theatrical exclusivity has been critical to the success of this industry — not just on the exhibition side but on the distribution side. Things are settling down now after the pandemic, and we need to put a structure in place that creates certainty for consumers and for exhibition. We’re kind of clinging to pandemic policies that maybe don’t apply as much now. I firmly believe that we have to come together and figure out what the right structure is moving forward that benefits both distribution and exhibition.
Does 45 days, or 60 days, sit well with you?
It’s certainly preferable to what we have right now.
Are you worried in particular about indie circuits?
It’s a concern for everybody, obviously, but there are some acute issues when you’re a smaller circuit that maybe doesn’t get to movie right when it opens. You want to play something for the community that you’re serving, but it’s moving into a PVOD window around the time that you’re first getting a chance to show it. I think there’s always a desire to figure out better ways to get movies to independent theaters because they’re so important, not just to the economics of our industry, but to the cultural part of it. I was in Montana where I grew up about a month ago visiting some small independent theaters. They serve communities for miles around. You don’t want to effectively create movie deserts based on what zip code you live in.
This year, Amazon MGM Studios will make its first presentation — onstage at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace.
We are ready to work with anybody that supports theatrical exhibition, and they are serious about their commitment.
We’re seeing the another topsy-turvy time at the box office. Are your members nervous?
Look, our members feel good about the future and the direction we’re heading. One of the things that I think happens, and I’ve talked about this before in different places, is there’s kind of a horse race quality to our industry, which I think sometimes works against everybody involved in the industry, which is we tend to judge a weekend against the same weekend the year before.
I think we’re trending in the right direction. I do get asked all the time about my prediction for whatever year we’re in. I don’t look at it as one year at a time. It’s a little bit like checking the stock market. If you check it every 30 minutes, you’re going to be uncomfortable. If you take the long view. you’ll view it differently. That’s the kind of the way I play it.
You and the executive board spent the past year finding a new name to replace NATO. What was your personal favorite?
We asked all of our members to suggest their ideas. Some were anonymous, so I don’t know who, but one person suggested we make the other NATO change their name, which I thought was hysterical. I do know that we always referred to ourselves as the ‘fun NATO.’
A version of this story appeared in the March 19 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
Source: Hollywoodreporter
