The rise of Netflix has changed the way many people watch and make movies. It has been called a “theater killer” by many Hollywood practitioners. In 2016, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings had Public attack Cinema:

Cinema is killing the film industry. The film industry hasn’t innovated for the past 50 years.

▲ Photo from: Observer

Now that Netflix has become one of the world’s largest streaming media platforms, with a market capitalization of more than three Baidus, this year’s “theater killer” opened a movie theater.

According to According to The Verge , Netflix has signed a lease and officially takes over the fifth largest in New YorkParis Theatre, a movie theater that shows Netflix movies, is currently showing the movie “Marriage Story” starring Scarlett Johansson.

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Paris dramaThe Paris Theatre is the last single-screen cinema in New York. It has been around for 71 years, and it mainly shows art films. But changes in the film industry and high rents made it impossible for the Paris Theatre to make ends meet, and in June this year it announced it would close the theater in August.

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In fact, this is not the first time that Netflix has shown interest in operating a movie theater. According to foreign media Deadline reported earlier , Netflix plans to acquire the Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, a century-old movie theater.

▲ Photo from: Deadline

The acquisition is said to be in its final stages, but no deal has been reached. Sources like Variety Magazine Disclose If Netflix acquires the Egyptian Theater, it will be used for events such as premieres, awards and cocktail parties, and American Cinematheque will be invited to host special screenings.

Netflix is ​​not the first streaming platform to plan to acquire a cinema, according to Bloomberg Report , which has streaming media Amazon, the Prime Video platform, is preparing to participate in a bid for Landmark Theatres, a Wagner / Cuban-owned theater.

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Why are there offline distribution channels on the streaming platform? One of the important reasons is to successfully compete for some mainstream film awards.

This year, in order to allow “Rome” to participate in the Oscar competition, it also broke the convention that homemade movies are not shown in theaters, and arranged for movies to be shown in more than 100 theaters. However, most cinemas still cannot accept Netflix to show movies at the same time. Released in theaters and streaming media, even if the window period is shortened, it is unacceptable.

In this context, Netflix’s involvement in the cinema distribution business has the opportunity to increase its voice in movie distribution. But for Netflix, cinema is not a good business. After all, compared to the streaming media industry that is constantly burning money, the growth of the physical industry of cinemas has begun to stagnate.

Picture from: Navbharat Times