by Thinus Ferreira
The number of South African cinema screens is set to remain mostly flat in the foreseeable future with little to no growth in the local exhibitor space, with neither Ster-Kinekor nor Nu Metro planning to add theatres or screens and with pop-up drive-in screens basically filling the gap left by screens lost over the past two Covid-pandemic years.
With the stagnant number of South African cinema screens - and as more consumers watch films on-demand through video streaming services and are still wary to return to physical theatres except for blockbusters like Spider-Man - it means that local South African box office revenue will remain under pressure and will struggle to show any significant growth.
At a panel session about where South Africa's cinema industry is as it emerges from Covid, at kykNET's 10th Silwerskermfees film festival, TVwithThinus asked what the future of the number of cinema screens in South Africa is.
Tanya Rossouw, regional content scheduler at Ster-Kinekor, with the cinema chain which just got its business rescue plan approved, said "Ster-Kinekor doesn't have any immediate plans to shut down any sites at this point in time. We also don't have any plans to expand at this point in time".
"We've got to maintain what we've got. There is a project that is ongoing that I'm not at liberty to discuss but we're hoping that soon that will be finalised and completed but we're hoping to keep all of our sites as they are."
Salome Cromhout, Nu Metro content manager, said "Nu Metro just reopened its theatre complex at The Boardwalk in Summerstrand in Gqeberha in the Eastern Cape - it was shut for over a year and we're very excited that we managed to reopen this site even with the current financial circumstances".
"We currently don't have any plans to shut down cinemas but for the foreseeable future we'll also not be able to invest in opening further cinemas."
Helen Kuun, managing director: Indigenous Film development & distribution, said independent cinemas "have pulled through; others stopped in the middle of Covid and some are starting to open again".
"It seems to be stable - if you had to say there were 700-odd screens in South Africa before Covid. It seems to be still in that vein, maybe 20 or 30 this way or that. What has happened is pop-up drive-ins have become a business model on an entrepreneur-scale that wasn't a consistent circuit."
"I think in the end there will be the same number of screens but within that there will be the variables of the big exhibitors with luxury screens and budget screens, and indie exhibitors, plus the drive-in circuit," she said.
SA restaurants packed - cinemas not
Salome Cromhout said that South Africa's cinema industry will have to do and try new and different things to grow local cinema attendance. "We need to try different things. We can't just continue doing what we have been doing".
"When Nu Metro reopened in August 2020 we had to make a decision to trade weekends only, we traded in certain cinemas only and that was purely based on a cost factor".
"We had to take into consideration the customer confidence at the time versus the cost of running cinemas in terms of staffing, electricity, and the added cost of suddenly these Covid-protocols of having to defog the cinemas after every performance versus the number of customers who want to attend."
"As we opened and got shut down again, then reopened, you have to reevaluate and reassess all the time - it's unchartered waters for all of us. We operated full week during school holidays and after the October school holidays Nu Metro Cinemas decided to try it full week."
"I think there was a lot of confusion under customers in general, walking into shopping malls on a Wednesday afternoon and the shutter doors are closed. I think a lot of South Africans just assumed cinemas are no more."
"We are definitely seeing an uptick on cinema attendance although it's slow. It's going to take for us and we're going to have to rebuild but there is an uptake. It's important to make sure that people know we are still there and we are open."
Helen Kuun said "everybody is going out now again with friends. So you walk into a shopping complex and the restaurants are absolutely packed to the brim, but the cinemas are not yet."
"There certainly seems to be a sense from the public that safety is only now starting to reach a level of confidence."
Tanya Rossouw said Ster-Kinekor "is also seeing an uptake in attendance slowly but surely. It's getting there - not obviously where we want it to be."
She said "we're just hoping that as more people get vaccinated and more people are comfortable with coming outside they will remember that cinema is still an option for them".
Struggle to get audiences back for mid-tier films
Salome Cromhout said films in traditional 2D-format in South Africa remain popular.
"You have to take economy into consideration. If we play across formats a lot of time the 2D film, the attendance is higher. There is price consciousness out there. Lockdown certainly changed a lot of behaviour on film content - people got used to seeing these films through video streaming at home."
"That's where we need to work hard as an industry to make sure that people want to come and see films in cinema - and not just the blockbusters."
"We saw now with Spider-Man: No Way Home - it's sitting at phenomenal numbers - even pre-Covid standards. So for blockbusters, people will come to cinema and the slate for 2022 we have huge blockbusters coming up."
"The work is to get people back into cinema in South Africa to see the mid-tier films."
Thandeka Zwana, Indigenous Film Distribution director of development, said "local films have always had a tough time competing for screens and now it became even worse because all of the blockbusters are now releasing in this period and there's tough competition to slot in your local films".
"In the two years there were only six local films released and of those six only two went above the R1 million box office mark and the rest struggled."
"Barakat was close to R1 million but didn't quite get there and that was also as a result of releasing it, and then another hard lockdown came and we had to stop it and then later release it but then the momentum is gone."
She said "just before Covid hit local cinema was beginning to get a really steady audience and we were consistently getting between R2 and R5 million at the box office with local films and then Covid hit and then that just snapped right back to between 15 to 20% of what we used to get and not it's a struggle to build it up again."
Video streaming and release windows
Helen Kuun said "we're all lucky that Netflix came into this space, and so did Amazon Prime Video, as did MultiChoice's DStv BoxOffice and e.tv with eVOD and Showmax has been in this [video streaming] space for a long time".
"These platforms have advocated for titles going directly to their platforms for a long time but it never happened but it became a necessity during Covid, so a number of titles from a planning point of view followed that route."
"Now you've got cinemas - and cinemas remain important. How do you utilise it, when do you to cinema and which films do you go to cinema with, and how long? It equally requires us to work much closer with exhibitors to look at windows - to look at windows of play and plan it right up front."
She said it's "time to accept the reality that releasing a film isn't a one-size-fits-all".
About growing South African cinema appreciation and attendance, especially for local films, Tanya Rossouw said "it would be incredibly meaningful to get Ster-Kinekor, Nu Metro, the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), the department of trade, industry and competition (DTIC), all the exhibitors in a room together with filmmakers, so that we can all talk openly."
"There are constraints, there are different models at play here, different expectations and intentions for the various parties, but if we speak openly and have ongoing conversations then we are better equipped to come up with new models that serve everyone better."
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