Steve Davis Looks Ahead To The New Year

Happy New Year!

I trust you had a pleasant and joyous festive period. Most of mine was spent at the cinema, although not as much as yours I imagine.

I felt rather elated this morning, as all the films I mentioned in my 2013 Christmas Close Up have all been BAFTA nominated. Over the festive break I’m glad to say my girls loved Frozen, and are pestering Daddy to take them again this weekend! I also saw Gravity for a 3rd time, this time with my son, who loved it. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and Walking with Dinosaurs also got a look in.

It was also a busy Christmas as DCM moved offices, finally leaving the West End after 13 years. We are now housed in a lovely new building, just off the Euston Road (350 Euston Road, London, NW1 3AX) which feels like a real gear change for the business. The move went really well, and when you are next in London, do let me know in advance and you can pop in for a visit.

As we move forward into 2014 it looks to be a busy and promising year. DCM will continue to connect with brands, films and people in the dynamic cinema environment before, during and after the movies. Looking ahead to 2014, once again we’re likely to have a varied range of big titles as opposed to one or two HUGE ones. As is always the case, Q1 is jam-packed with high quality awards worthy titles, including new offerings from the Coen brothers, George Clooney and Martin Scorsese.

Superhero sequels are set to dominate the summer with new entries for the X-Men, Captain America and The Amazing Spider-Man. The summer also looks set to throw up some terrific comedy with a sequel to the brilliant 21 Jump Street, Bad Neighbours and, perhaps most intriguingly, a sequel to the hugely popular Inbetweeners Movie.

Animation is set to continue to perform strongly with the first ever LEGO movie and a sequel to the terrific How To Train Your Dragon.

For the third year in a row, Q4 is going to be a barnstormer, with the third Hunger Games film, the final film in The Hobbit trilogy and, most tantalisingly, a brand new original sci-fi title from Christopher Nolan in Interstellar.

Our strategy for 2014 has already begun, with the first scene in our story, the DCM Cinematic TMS rollout, now in full swing. We’ll be in touch shortly with the next steps, however if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to drop me an email or give me a call 07415 473420.

Over the coming weeks we’ll be coming out to see you again, in order to understand your business better and really get to know you. This greater understanding will lead to further commercialisation and therefore deepened and increased advertiser participation, which will ultimately enable DCM to deliver you more revenue.

DCM is driven to continually improve, and as such, one of the key areas of focus for us in 2014 is Local Revenue. I’ll be personally driving Local Sales along with Rob Tomalin, DCM's Head of Business Development so it would be great to get your insights on this later in the year. This will be in addition to many other exciting projects I’ll update you on later in the year. Look out for my quarterly Close Up’s.

As mentioned in my ‘Christmas Close Up’, we want to keep you updated with the latest news and views within the industry, so do get in touch If you have any stories that you feel would be of interest to your fellow Exhibitors in 2014, or there’s anything you would like us to look into. Key stories read by you in 2013 included The Olympic Studios joins Digital Cinema Media’s Independent Exhibitor estate in time for its grand reopening and Digital Cinema Media and the cinema industry celebrates first year of fully digital operations.

If there’s anyone else in your business who would like receive our weekly ‘Close Up’s’, which include an invaluable link to our ‘Film Line Up’ (which is updated weekly) do let me know. Likewise if you have any general questions, comments or ideas, do get in touch.

So, all that remains is to wish you all the best for 2014 and here’s to a very busy, productive and profitable 2014.

Warmest regards,

Steve