Unlike the hard-and-fast contracts that divvy up ticket revenue, most negotiations between distribs and exhibs are done on the fly. With the constant haggling over how a film plays out, a better relationship can impact whether it’s given the proper time and treatment to find an audience.

According to NATO president John Fithian, those relationships have been in freefall since the March surprise at CinemaCon, when exhibitors learned of the shortened PVOD window in Variety.

“Essentially everyone was emailing and texting me to try to find out what the hell was happening,” Fithian said, recalling the day the news broke. “The real problem was that the studios going forward with this plan never said anything about it and then haven’t communicated at all since … so this marks a real breakdown of trust between exhibitors and distributors.”

Read the entire Variety article at: Premium VOD: Will exhibs play favorites? – Entertainment News, Film News, Media – Variety