As 2019 turns into 2020, the Cineplex Board of Directors has given Canada a present, one that has the potential to change the mediascape into something never seen before: the option to have control over our country’s movie screens.
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Recall that Cineplex accepted an offer from the United Kingdom’s Cineworld to buy it for $2.8-billion on December 16, 2019.
It then entered a 7-week “go shop” period in which it can accept better offers until February 2, 2020.
In a nod to nationalism, the Cineplex Board made the terms more advantageous for a Canadian offer by halving the deal termination fee of $56-million.
My modest proposal: let’s add a movie theatre chain to the pipeline the people of Canada already own!
Why control the movie screens in our country? To enforce screen quotas, of course. The reason Canadians don’t see Canadian movies at the local mutiplex is because those theatres would rather show American movies. Embarrassingly, we had to give up our national policy target of a measly 5% of the box office because we missed the mark so badly year after year.
With almost 1,700 screens in 165 locations and approximately 75% of the audience, we could finally see our own stories on the big screen. It’s about time, eh?
It worked for Canadian music on Canadian radio, and it’s called CanCon.
My take: as much as I would love to see this happen, I’m afraid it won’t, if only because the remaining movie theatre operators in Canada will complain that Cineplex CanCon would have the unfair advantage of unlimited (taxpayer) funding. Fine, I say, we’ll buy you out too! Imagine if the people of Canada owned every movie screen in Canada!