CineEurope kicks off Monday in Barcelona with one major player absent from the schedule: Sony Pictures.
Sony is understood to have made a strategic decision to skip presenting new products at the trade show this year based on several factors, including the perceived strength of the studio’s upcoming slate — which this year includes Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — plus the timing of the event and Sony materials, a potential yearlong schedule of releasing looks at movies instead of all-at-once, and a focus on other tactics leading more directly toward ticket sales.
The company is still expected to send a team to CineEurope to meet with exhibition partners and show support for the event. Sources at CineEurope declined to comment on Sony’s decision.
The move, following on Sony’s absence from CinemaCon this year where it became the first major studio not to attend that event since 2012, suggests the company may see the business model changing. While the flashy trade shows give international exhibitors a sense of the movies they’ll be booking in the year ahead, studios are also interested in nurturing a direct dialogue with local exhibition partners and giving product a more local voice through their global teams.
Sony seems to be making the call about event attendance on a case-by-case basis. For example, the studio gave a presentation for French exhibitors during the Cannes Film Festival.
Alongside Tarantino’s last feature, Sony’s upcoming slate includes titles including Spider-Man: Far From Home, Zombieland 2, Elizabeth Banks’ Charlie’s Angels, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood starring Tom Hanks, Greta Gerwig’s Little Women and the sequel to box office hit Jumanji.
Last year at CineEurope, Sony brought in Claire Foy, Jason Reitman, Yann Demange, among others, to introduce new films including The Girl in the Spider’s Web, Venom, Frontrunner, Goosebumps: Haunted Halloween, The Equalizer 2, White Boy Rick, Alpha and A Dog’s Way Home.
On this year’s schedule of the 28th edition of CineEurope, produced by The Film Expo Group in the Spanish seaside city from June 17-20, are product presentations from Warner Bros. Pictures International, Universal Pictures International, Paramount Pictures International, Walt Disney Studios, UniFrance and Creative Europe, StudioCanal, Event Cinema Association and STXinternational.
