In retrospect, NATO was an unnecessarily confusing acronym for a trade organization that represents film owners. For 60 years, the National Association of Theater Owners It has promoted the interests of cinemas, from the largest chains to the mothers and pop stores of a single screen. They have also regularly received mail and telephone calls for The other NATOThe North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
But the theater owner organization is looking towards the future, with a new name and a re -enforced mission. The group will now be known as Cinema United, said President and Ceo Michael O’Leary to The Associated Press on Tuesday.
“It can be a bit complicated to have the same name as a multinational military alliance,” O’Leary said. “We felt it was time to look at our name and make a brand change.”
They wanted the new name to reflect the “passion and energy of the people who run the theaters,” said O’Leary, and re -focusing the focus on exhibitors and cinemas. Cinema United represents more than 32,000 film screens in the United States and more than 30,000 screens in 88 countries. His work, O’Leary explained, is to promote and support the theatrical exhibition. To the cinema, the new motto says, it is its mission.
“We have had four or five challenging years.” I think we are at the precipice of the next great era of cinema. “
Just a few weeks ago, the filmmaker “Anora” Sean Baker He made his own case for cinemas on the national stage. By accepting your best director OscarHe used his podium time to make a “battle cry” for theatrical experience, so that the filmmakers continue to make films for the big screen and for the studies to continue freeing them there.
“People were ecstatic about it,” O’Leary said. “The unshakable loyalty of the theater owners has been won worldwide for their strong support over the years, and certainly in the Oscars.”
Large and small film theaters were beaten by the pandemic, many closed and never reopened. Last year, they also faced an exhausted release calendar due to Hollywood attacks. Everything results in an exhausted domestic box office that has not yet reached pre-pondemic levels. In 2024, the industry ended just over $ 8.7 billion, 3.3% less than 2023 and 23.5% since 2019.
A more complete launch calendar is expected this year, but currently the total box office decreased approximately 5% from where the industry was last year.
“It is really important that we do not put too much emphasis on a single year as 2025. We need to build constantly and grow and move forward,” O’Leary said.
Despite the challenges, it remains a hobby of entertainment for all ages and affordable. A recent study by the National Research Group said that 76% of the American population aged 12 to 74 attended at least one film in 2024.
And although theater closures often reach the headlines, such as the Cinema E Street in Washington DC, where Cinema United has its headquarters, there have also been a series of investments and renovations in cinemas throughout the country, some headed by filmmakers and famous actors.
Jason Reitman along with more than 30 directors, including Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan and Bradley Cooper, last February acquired Westwood’s Village Theater in Los Angelesdating back to 1931. Patrick Wilson also bought and helped restore a historical theater in New Canaan, CT, joining large screen disciples such as Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino, who have invested in film theaters.
The past fall, the eight largest theater chains in the United States and Canada announced that they planned to invest more than $ 2.2 billion to modernize 21,000 film screens in the next three years. This includes anything, from projectors, lighting and sound to characteristics in the concession area. But the updates in theaters are not new, O’Leary said, they are just helping to attract attention to it.
“All membership reinvested in its theaters regularly,” O’Leary said. “Part of the reason we made that announcement was because I don’t think it is obvious to people that theater owners are constantly in the process of reinventing and reinvesting.”
The announcement occurs just over a week before some 6,000 film employees around the world meet in Las Vegas for the annual Cinemacetic Conferencethan host cinema United.
All the main studies of Hollywood, including the Walt Disney Studios, Photos of Warner Bros., Universal images And even Amazon/MGM will make great starry presentations on the main stage of the César Palace, where executives and stars will show new images and trailers to argue that they have the products so that the public obtains the public in theaters.
NATO was coined in 1965, a merger of the largest commercial film organizations in the Nation: the owners of theater in America, a product of a fusion that dates back to 1948, and the Association of Film Exhibitors of the states of allied states, which dates back to the 1920s.
Those in Cinema United like to say that “we are not a Hollywood industry. We are a main street industry.”
“At the end of the day, the vast majority of our members are small businesses, so they feel the same thrusts and pulls that other small businesses feel throughout the United States and worldwide, said O’Leary. They are in Knoxville, Dallas and Kansas.”
