I think it got buried among all the complaints about the treatment of AP holders, but there was some pretty big legal news recently-
The end of Paramount could eventually make your local theater a Disneyplex
Of course, we've seen studios get around the specifics in the Paramount ruling recently (or at least not be challenged). The Paramount ruling made the practice of selling films in 'blocks' illegal- that is, stipulating that if a theater wanted to show the latest feature film, they must also purchase and show a handful of shorts and newsreels as well. Of course, we all remember the Olaf's Frozen Adventure nonsense that was shown before Coco that huge amounts of moviegoers did NOT want to see. Disney included it as if it were a preview, part of the Coco film. Strictly speaking, it should have been illegal to require a theater chain to show it with Coco (or any of the Pixar shorts that have traditionally played before Pixar films) but they were never challenged. Likewise, demanding that, if a theater wanted to show The Force Awakens, they must dedicate their largest screens to showing only that movie for the first X number of weeks of release (I think it was 4 weeks?) should have been illegal under the Paramount ruling, but it happened anyway.
Completely vacating the ruling and allowing Disney (and other movie studios) to own its own movie theater chain would remove the incentive to sell distribution rights to other theater chains- small independent theaters, or even places like Alamo. The above article makes the point that the only reason these smaller, artsy theaters are able to stay in business is because they do occasionally show current films to draw in enough ticket sales to support the purchase of small, indie films.
Anyway this could, in the short term, actually be good, in a way, for consumers- I'm sure watching a movie at a Disney Movie Theater would be a pleasant experience, with more magic than your standard sticky-floor Regal- but in the long term, this could be exactly like the situation we have with streaming services now- if you want content from a certain studio, you have to go to that studio's theater. And while that won't be a problem in major metropolitan areas that already have multiple movie theaters, it could be a problem in towns that currently only have one.
