Luxury home entertainment tech company Kaleidescape — which develops and sells high-tech movie players and servers that deliver studio content to homes — is expanding into the cinema business with a sort of “on demand” service for library titles.
In doing so it aims to make older titles more accessible in theaters and open up ancillary revenue opportunities for content owners and exhibitors by attracting more moviegoers.
“We have an ability to bring all this wonderful content back to the big screen,” says Priscilla Morgan, chief operating officer of Kaleidescape. “It’s servicing all the empty screens out there. The exhibitor can curate different themes and be able to service their customers on demand.”
Per the plan, Mountain View, Calif.-based Kaleidescape would sell its hardware to theater owners, prep and supply the encrypted content, and “not take a cut so all the economics stays between the studio and the exhibitor,” explains Morgan.
Alamo, Brenden, B&B Theatres, Cinema West, Classic Cinemas, Epic, Megaplex and Star Cinema Grill are scheduled to participate in a pilot program for the new service. Morgan adds that Kaleidescape has signed its first major studio content provider though she declined to name the studio.
“It really is cinema on demand; it gives you access to a huge library [while streamlining] bookings and fulfillment,” Chris Johnson, CEO of Classic Cinemas, tells Variety. He adds while library titles are not his company’s core business, even a small percentage of its business is “still a lot of extra revenue.” He’s found that creating themes can generate excitement around library titles. For instance, he says a year ago Classic Cinemas offered the early Indiana Jones movies before “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” was released.
Kaleidescape is also teaming with cinema tech developer GDC, which plans to integrate Kaleidoscope’s service into its GoGoCinema app.