Universal and AMC Reach Deal on Movie Release Window: Live Updates
LOS ANGELES — Universal Pictures and AMC Entertainment, the No. 1 movie chain in the world, have reached a deal to allow movies to move to homes after a mere three weeks in theaters in the United States, almost certainly changing the way that Hollywood does business.
The deal, announced on Tuesday, gives AMC the exclusive right to show movies from Universal and its Focus Features division for just 17 days in the United States — down from roughly 90 days, long the industry norm. After that, the studio has the option to make its movies available in homes through premium video-on-demand services. Universal may opt to let big-ticket sellers play exclusively in theaters for longer than 17 days. The studio controls the “Fast and Furious,” “Jurassic World” and “Despicable Me” franchises.
“The theatrical experience continues to be the cornerstone of our business,” Donna Langley, chairman of the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, said in a statement. “The partnership we’ve forged with AMC is driven by our collective desire to ensure a thriving future for the film distribution ecosystem and to meet consumer demand with flexibility and optionality.”
No firm start date for the deal was set because theaters remain closed because of the pandemic. AMC has said that it hoped to begin reopening in “mid to late August,” but has pushed that time line back several times as virus cases have surged in the country. Universal has cleared its schedule until October, when it will release “Candyman,” a remake of the horror classic, directed by Nia DaCosta and co-written and produced by Jordan Peele.
AMC and Universal said they would start negotiations for international releases in the coming weeks. AMC has major operations in Europe and the Middle East.
— Brooks Barnes and
The Trump administration said on Tuesday that it would extend a $765 million loan to Eastman Kodak Company to begin producing critical pharmaceutical components, in an effort to allay American dependence on foreign countries for essential medicines.
The project relies on funding by the Defense Department, which will be channeled to the film giant through the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, a development bank set up by the Trump administration to replace the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
The unusual arrangement leverages the Defense Production Act, a Korean War-era law that gives the government vast powers and resources to direct certain kinds of production in the interest of national security. In an executive order in May, President Trump gave the International Development Finance Corporation, which typically funds projects in poorer countries, the authority to use the Defense Production Act to help in the response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The investment is “the beginning of American independence from our pharmaceutical dependence on foreign countries,” Peter Navarro, the director of the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing policy, said in an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business Network. He said that the facility and a companion factory in Minnesota would eventually produce a quarter of the active pharmaceutical ingredients for generics needed in the United States.
The project will be set up in the Eastman Business Park in Rochester, N.Y., and will support 360 direct jobs, the company said.
The pandemic has revealed the extent to which domestic companies rely on foreign suppliers, which may be risky in industries like pharmaceuticals, said Kaitlin Wowak, a professor at Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business.
“Having domestic companies such as Kodak start producing key ingredients for generic drugs allows domestic pharmaceutical companies significantly more control over the supply chain,” she said.
Advertisement
Airlines are trying all sorts of things — from leaving middle seats empty, to requiring everyone to wear masks, to health checks at terminals — to instill confidence in passengers who may be leery of air travel amid the global pandemic.
But Dubai’s flagship airline, Emirates, has taken it a step further.
The airline said it would now provide all passengers with free insurance covering medical expenses up to 150,000 euros (about $175,000), and 100 euros daily for a 14-day quarantine period, should a passenger be diagnosed with the coronavirus within 31 days of flying on Emirates.
To qualify, customers must book a ticket before the end of October.
Restrictions are detailed in a seven-page document. For example, the insurance applies only if you are outside your country of residence. It does not cover testing for the virus. And the coverage will pay only health care providers directly; it will not reimburse passengers for medical expenses.
But should a passenger die from Covid-19, the airline will also provide 1,500 euros toward funeral costs.
“Emirates is proud to lead the way in boosting confidence for international travel,” said Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, the Emirates group chairman and chief executive.
The Federal Reserve said that it would extend its emergency lending programs through the end of 2020 as the coronavirus continues to surge across the nation.
Many of the Fed’s nine programs were originally set to expire on or around the end of September. The initiatives are meant to keep credit flowing through the economy by buying corporate bonds, backing up the market for asset-backed securities, and by offering loans to midsize businesses, among other efforts.
“The Board’s lending facilities have provided a critical backstop, stabilizing and substantially improving market functioning and enhancing the flow of credit to households, businesses, and state and local governments,” the Fed said in its statement.
The extension will “provide certainty that the facilities will continue to be available to help the economy recover from the COVID-19 pandemic,” it said.
Many of the Fed’s programs are backed by funding from the Treasury Department to protect against credit losses, including money that Congress supplied in its first coronavirus relief package. Seven of the programs were initially set to sunset at the end of September and have now been extended, while two of them already had later expiration dates.
Some of the newly-extended programs, including the “Main Street” program that loans to midsize businesses, have only recently gotten up and running. One, which helps the market for short-term business funding, or commercial paper, extends into March 2021.
U.S. stocks fell on Tuesday as investors awaited a batch of corporate earnings results and the details of a new federal stimulus bill in Congress.
The S&P 500 closed nearly 1 percent lower. European stocks were mostly lower, after Asian markets closed mostly higher.
The price of gold briefly hit a record of $1,980 an ounce before dropping lower. In Turkey, the lira fell and the country’s central bank appeared to be running out of ammunition to stop its decline toward record lows.
In industry news, a global airline group said airline revenues were not expected to recover to last year’s levels until 2024.
The Federal Reserve announced Tuesday that it would extend its emergency lending programs through the end of 2020 as the coronavirus continues to surge across the nation. Many of the Fed’s nine programs, which are meant to keep credit flowing through the financial system during times of stress, were originally set to expire on or around the end of September.
Meanwhile, coronavirus cases continue to surge in parts of the United States. On Monday, Texas became the fourth state (after California, New York and Florida) to report more than 400,000 cases. Investors are watching Washington lawmakers try to negotiate another round of stimulus payments for businesses and individuals, with current enhanced unemployment benefits set to expire on Friday. Democrats and Republicans still need to reconcile their vastly different proposals.
Advertisement
Best Buy followed Walmart, Target and Dick’s Sporting Goods by saying on Tuesday that it will close its stores on Thanksgiving Day this year. The chain said that it would start offering its holiday deals earlier and enhance the way it fulfilled orders “to meet our customers’ changing lives this holiday.” Best Buy said that it started opening on Thanksgiving Day in 2013, after opening at midnight on Black Friday in 2012.
A global airline industry group says it expects the recovery to take longer than expected as a rise in infections around the world slows the reopening of borders. Airline revenues are not expected to recover to last year’s levels until 2024, according to the group, the International Air Transport Association.
Selfridges, a British chain of high-end department stores, said Tuesday it would cut about 450 jobs, 14 percent of its work force. The flagship store, which opened in 1909 and includes several restaurants and a cinema, is in central London’s main shopping district, where foot traffic has plummeted because of the pandemic.
As coronavirus cases surge across the country, MGM Resorts International said on Monday that it would not restart live entertainment events before Aug. 31. The company also expects to lay off the majority of employees working in the entertainment division on that day, according to July 27 letter sent to employees.
Regal Cinemas, the No. 2 movie theater chain in the United States, consisting of 7,128 screens in 42 states, pushed back its planned reopening until Aug. 21. Regal, owned by Cineworld of Britain, had previously said it would start relighting marquees on Friday. But studios have since postponed release plans for new films. The No. 1 theater chain, AMC, said last week that it hoped to reopen in “mid to late August.”
McDonald’s said Tuesday that it continued to suffer the impact of the global coronavirus pandemic, reporting that net income fell 68 percent to $483.8 million in the second quarter compared to a year ago.
McDonald’s said global same-store revenues fell 24 percent in the quarter, an improvement as restrictions eased in parts of the world and restaurants were able to reopen.
Fast-food chains with drive-through operations like McDonald’s have fared generally better than other restaurants during the pandemic. But executives said on Tuesday that the company had spent $200 million since the beginning of the pandemic supporting its franchisees, including on advertising to boost sales.
“Our strong drive-through presence and the investments we’ve made in delivery and digital over the past few years have served us well through these uncertain times,” said Chris Kempczinski, the president and chief executive.
McDonald’s has reopened 2,000 restaurant dining rooms with limited seating capacity in the United States.
Nissan said on Tuesday that it expected to make an annual operating loss of $4.5 billion in fiscal year 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic puts pressure on its attempts to reboot its struggling business.
The announcement came as the Japanese automaker reported its results for the three-month period that ended in June. Operating profit during the period, when much of the world’s economies were in lockdown to prevent the spread of the virus, plunged $1.46 billion compared with the same period a year ago, with automobile sales dropping by nearly 48 percent.
The results followed an annual loss of $385 million in fiscal year 2019.
If Nissan’s projections for the fiscal year prove accurate, the 2020 annual loss would be the largest for the company since it was pulled from the edge of bankruptcy by its former chief executive and chairman, Carlos Ghosn, nearly two decades ago.
Nissan has been struggling to reinvent itself since the 2018 arrest of Mr. Ghosn on charges of financial wrongdoing. He has maintained his innocence and fled Japan late last year, saying he would not be able to find justice there.
Mr. Ghosn’s era was marked by an attempt to increase market share at the cost of profits and quality, executives say. Now Nissan has said it plans to retrench and rebuild its business by focusing on its alliance with French automaker Renault, cutting costs, producing fewer cars and focusing on introducing new vehicles to a lineup that has long been criticized as stale.
Advertisement
Omnicom Group, one of the world’s largest marketing conglomerates, made “very difficult and permanent” changes during the pandemic as companies slashed advertising spending and events were canceled, its chief executive, John Wren, said Tuesday.
Omnicom’s revenue sank nearly 25 percent to $2.8 billion in its second quarter. The decline “is expected to continue for the remainder of the year,” according to the company, which suffered a loss of $24.2 million; a year ago, it recorded $370.7 million in net income in the quarter.
To adapt to the pandemic, Omnicom laid off 6,100 employees, shed more than 1 million square feet of office space and dropped several smaller businesses. It also tapped wage subsidy programs from several governments, froze hiring and salary increases, scaled back its use of freelancers and implemented some pay cuts.
Similar streamlining is happening throughout the advertising industry, as brands and agencies weigh years of wasteful traditions and bloated bureaucracies against uncertain budgets. “Old habits die hard, but people are being forced out of necessity to adapt faster,” said Marcelo Pascoa, the vice president for marketing for the beer brand Coors.
Mr. Wren said on an investor call on Tuesday that Omnicom’s future could be affected by a second wave of coronavirus cases, the timing and content of government stimulus packages, and shifting consumer sentiment. But he was optimistic: “We think the worst is behind us.”
The Remington Arms Company, one of America’s oldest and largest gun manufacturers, filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday after years of litigation and a loss of investors took a heavy toll on its finances.
The Chapter 11 filing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Decatur, Ala., is the company’s second restructuring in two years. Remington has been in search of potential buyers and had been in talks with Navajo Nation to acquire it out of bankruptcy, but the negotiations collapsed in recent weeks.
The filing by the company comes as demand for firearms is down, despite a recent uptick in sales during the coronavirus pandemic.
But a slump in gun sales is not what drove Remington to file for bankruptcy, said Adam Winkler, a professor at the U.C.L.A. School of Law who specializes in gun policy.
“Remington’s problem is mostly a problem of Remington mismanagement and not a reflection of larger trends in the gun world,” he said. “I don’t think we’re going to see a whole bunch of gun companies going under now.”
In 2012, 20 children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and Remington faced a fierce public backlash after it was reported that the company had manufactured the AR-15-style rifle used by the gunman. Families of the victims sued the company, and Remington took on debt to pay legal fees and to buy out investors who wanted to divest. That debt would follow the company for years.
—