Theater Owners Say They Won't Prevent You From Seeing Summer Blockbusters

On Wednesday, it was reported that the National Association of Theatre Owners would protest the planned Home Premiere on-demand service that Warner Bros., Universal, Sony and Twentieth Century Fox are participating in by limiting the screen space offered to those studios during the busy summer months. Apparently, those reports weren't exactly correct.

NATO released a statement on Thursday condemning the reported organized collusion, while simultaneously reaffirming their negative stance on Home Premiere.

The National Association of Theatre Owners does not and could not encourage its members to engage in any boycotts of any movies distributed by any company. Recent press reports to the contrary are completely false.

[...]

NATO has often articulated our concerns about the possible release of "premium VOD" movies in an early window. Our association issued statements on June 16, 2010 and again on March 31, 2011 regarding those concerns. But as our 2010 statement made clear, "individual theater companies must and will make decisions about release window changes in their own company's interest." NATO cannot and will not make those decisions for them.

That statement was signed by NATO president and CEO John Fithian, which may strike you as surprising -- assuming you remember his comments to The Financial Times from earlier this week:

"Let's say you're Regal Cinemas and it's a busy weekend with a couple of big pictures opening," said Mr. Fithian. "If it's 50-50 between this picture and that picture and you have a partner that respects your model and another one that doesn't, you're going to give the screen to the partner that respects your model."

Expect to see this story develop even more over the course of the summer.

· Theater Owners: We're Pissed, But No Boycott [Deadline]