Latest in The Screening Room

When a fresh face enters the exhibition biz, it’s a head-turner. Historically, exhibition in the U.S. had been built on family-run enterprises, from owning the brick and mortar to booking the movies. It’s why some sources say a preciousness exists among theater chains to protect the theatrical window: It’s been their…

At last year’s CinemaCon, the exhibition and distribution community was up in arms over Sean Parker and Prem Akkaraju’s Screening Room pitch to bring movies into the home simultaneously with theatrical. Among the verbal naysayers were filmmakers James Cameron, Todd Phillips and Nicolas Winding Refn, and even Warner Bro…

EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros. and Universal’s statements this week that they’re in discussions with theater chains for a new premium home window has raised more severe questions than answers in the exhibition and distribution community. While not a day-and-date release concept like the Screening Room’s proposal earlier this…

EXCLUSIVE: California and Hollywood have been very good to Hillary Clinton and her run for the White House this year – which is why the former First Lady is coming back to L.A. for another deep pocket fundraiser. The presumptive Democratic nominee will be feted at Sean Parker and wife Alexandra's home on June 28, I've…

The Screening Room’s proposed premium VOD service would be “a great way” to broaden the audience for films that Netflix introduces, Chief Creative Officer Ted Sarandos told investors today in a call to discuss company earnings and prospects. “We wouldn’t mind having our films available on that product,” he said — a…

On the day that Nicolas Winding Refn’s film The Neon Demon was selected to play at the Cannes Film Festival, the Drive director beamed into Amazon Studios lunch to give his support to cinema owners. Several times this week, many filmmakers and industryites on state here at Las Vegas have winked and knocked The Screenin…

“We’re making four epic [Avatar] films that stand alone but together form a saga. These movies were designed to be seen in theaters first,” said Oscar-winning filmmaker James Cameron, making a special appearance today at CinemaCon in Las Vegas. Originally, Cameron believed that there would be three, but now Avatar 2…

A new study from MarketCast shows that the consumer appetite to watch first-run movies at home day-and-date when a film drops in theaters is there, but a third of those same consumers said they did not want to pay for the service. The study, which was said to be commissioned by no one, queried 1,200 entertainment…

Sean Parker is the tech billionaire behind Napster and a founding partner of Facebook who recently turned his attention to disrupting the movie biz with The Screening Room. Now he has a new frontier in his sights: cancer. Parker said today he is donating $250 million to six cancer centers in the U.S. to fund immune…

Before talking about his upcoming comedy War Dogs at Warner Bros’ CinemaCon panel today, director Todd Phillips acknowledged “disruption” in the business as booming technologies seek to steal audiences away from the big screen. And as far as Phillips goes, you can count him on the side of exhibition. “This is the time…

So what do NATO and the MPAA think of the Screening Room? Their response was rather neutral today, and not as political as most reporters here in the room had hoped. “The discussion of the Screening Room is a huge distraction this week,” said NATO President and CEO John Fithian, “We have a lot of things to discuss…

Like so many established members of the Los Angeles legal community, Hollywood heavyweights Patricia Glaser, Marty Singer and Ken Ziffren have their own connections to the infamous O.J. Simpson criminal trial. Perhaps most significantly among the power trio, Glaser was at one of the very first meetings Robert Shapiro…