Cinemas - Leave the Bond Blockbuster Sugar-Rush Behind

Can the no-blockbusters crisis facing our cinemas now be the point where independent documentaries and dramas fill the gap, in the way that the 14-week WGA writers’ strike opened the door to Reality shows across the US networks from 2008? 

We’re shocked to see Cineworld close their doors until 2021 rather than to open to diminished audiences. But other cinemas are finding ways to pivot and thrive. My local cinema in East Sussex, the independent Depot, is as much an event organiser and hospitality venue as a screener of films. Last week, I tried to buy tickets for Rocks, but they were sold-out - despite it being available right now on Netflix too. Cinema is not about paying to see the film there because you can’t see it yet on your home screen, it’s about the joy of going to the cinema!

From October 23, the 30-venue Everyman cinema chain will debut a feature-length documentary directed and self-generated by a film-maker that Stern & Wild represents, the very talented Oliver Murray. It’s a declaration of the Everyman’s faith in their audience that they will screen an archive-heavy feature-length historical doc about a tiny Soho jazz club and its founder at all of their theatres simultaneously. The film, 106 minutes long, is Ronnies - Opening Night.

Terrestrial broadcasters woefully underestimated the hunger for high-quality intelligent factual television until Netflix and other streamers revealed a significant broad documentary audience, prepared to pay for quality in preference to watching much of the previous fare on PSBs and ad-funded broadcasters. This is the chance for producers, distributors and exhibitors to work together and feed an audience hungry for intelligent and gripping docs and drama, despite the restrictions of Covid and the time-worn feast/famine economy of the blockbuster releases.