MPA chief Charlie Rivkin celebrated a rebounding box office across genre and geographies in his annual speech today, telling exhibitors that his group’s major push is to get more films on more screens by encouraging production, tax breaks and “the freedom and agency” globally “for this great industry to do what it does best.”
“Remember last year? We felt the G-force rush of the US Navy’s F-18 Super Hornets soaring into the clouds in Top Gun: Maverick – before the film took the entire world by storm,” he said at his annual address.
“We slipped on our 3D glasses to immerse ourselves in the first global preview of Avatar: The Way of Water. And now it’s surging past $2.3 billion in global ticket sales and hitting a high-water mark as one of the biggest movies of all time. And the hits just kept coming.”
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“From the biggest franchise films to the smallest indie gems, people are showing us that they want to see the full range of great stories, well told. And best of all? They want to see them in theaters,” he said.
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This year, he said, “Our challenge now is to get even more movies on your screens for those hungry audiences to enjoy.” So the six-member MPA is “working around the world to ensure that more movies are being produced in more markets, with more authentic stories being told, so that more audiences can watch them on your cinema screens – from Manhattan, to Mexico City to Mumbai.”
Rivkin said his org is engaging and partnering with elected officials, regulators, and local industry around the world to help create the right conditions for global production, led by policies that encourage investment and a strong rule of law; robust copyright protection for creators; tax laws that give producers the means to invest in creating jobs; “and the commercial freedom that enables distributors like many of you here today to bring unique and exciting movies to your audiences.”
“This is at the core of every conversation that my team and I are having every day with leaders around the world. We make the case that creating attractive production hubs strengthens local economies. It develops a high-value, high[1]skilled workforce. It builds new infrastructure, and it improves a country’s global economic competitiveness.”
The data for investment supports his case, he said. In Australia, one example, every dollar invested in production has generated nearly six. A dollar of tax credit in New York generates more than nine. Every British pound spent on attracting investment in the UK film sector returned almost eight pounds in revenue.
Recent meeting include with Mexico’s Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard as well as the governor of Mexico City and conversations in Argentina, Colombia and Ecuador, in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia and Jordan, as well as New Zealand and Canada, the U.S. entertainment industry’s “production home away from home.”
After a Berlin meeting, the MPA invited Germany’s media and culture minister Claudia Roth in Berlin talk with member studios in LA.
The MPA has “heavily engaged” in South Korea, a big theatrical market, meeting with the prime minister in Seoul to about how best to help sustain the country’s recent boom in content. Rivkin said the group is hosting South Korea’s President Yoon and a delegation of top entertainment industry leaders in D.C. this week.
“The fact is, that we have the ultimate business calling card in the world: the magic of the movies,” Rivkin said.