The most expensive movie in the history of Spanish cinema is being clicked in front of ‘Eight Moroccan Surnames’ and Netflix wants to hide it

Snow Community It hit the big screen three weeks ago, on December 15th streaming. This fact has given rise to a practice contained in a policy. Opacity by platform.

The multinational is known for its lack of transparency: it was less than a month ago that it first shared audience data on its content, and He didn’t even give the number of viewers., but can be watched for hours. When you release movies in theaters (like you did before) Rome, Irish anyone don’t look up– There is a complete lack of information. Today, There is no reliable box office data on these films.only guesses because Netflix refuses to provide them and prohibits theaters from transmitting them to Comscore, the industry’s main audience measurement company.

The second also happened in Spain. “We automatically send ticket sales figures to Comscore,” explains Fernando Lobo, owner of Cines Embajadores in Madrid. “But these Snow Community We do not send them. Netflix ordered not to air them; They told us not to send it to any media other than them. “This is very unusual.”

If rooms weren’t required by law [ver BOE] To submit ticket sales data to the Ministry of Culture, We would never know whether the highest-budget movie in our cinema history was a success or a failure. Actually the first audience data Snow Community It did not appear in the catalog of the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA) until Thursday, January 4, three weeks after the premiere, and Completely coincidence.

According to agency sources, the process of uploading data to this website The amount of time your employees have to do this and when theaters send them out (they have to do so at least once a week). “The numbers usually appear in the catalog on Thursdays,” film analyst and producer Pau Brunet of Prensa Ibérica Group tells El Periódico de España. “This time they coincidentally appeared on the day the movie was released on Netflix and a week lateBecause the normal thing was that they appeared two weeks after the release, that is, on December 28th.”

‘Eight Moroccan surnames’ received six times more attention

According to official figures, Snow Community gathered 255,707 euros I collected and saw 38,289 people. Although the catalog does not specify which date these numbers correspond to, Brunet firmly believes that: These are from his first two days in the cinema (Friday, December 15 and Saturday, December 16). It was this expert who warned about the transparency that would accompany the film on his Twitter account before the premiere.

“They even told me at the ICAA that official figures would not be published. I was so surprised. “I talked to the editor of the magazine I wrote for, he couldn’t believe it,” he says, and continues as follows: “I believed that they would come out eventually, because they had to come out as per the legal obligation, but there was nothing. time period.” Based on your estimates and other unofficial information, Snow Community It would raise 1.6 million euros in the first three weeks. This information will be verified in due course when published by ICAA.

Since information on the remaining films is publicly available and richer in detail, Compare the premiere of Bayona’s movie to other recent movies. For example, with Eight Moroccan surnames, It was released on December 1. Directed by Álvaro Fernández Armero, the story collected almost 1.7 million euros in its first weekend alone and was watched by 230,452 people. As Brunet points out, Eight Moroccan surnames The second best Spanish premiere of the year. Daddy there’s only one 3 By Santiago SeguraIt debuted with a gross of 2.4 million.

Besides these millionaire exits, The movie, which is the highest-budget movie in the history of Spanish cinema, seems to have pocketed 255,707 euros.Although it should be taken into account Snow Community It was released in only 110 theaters. Collections per room in the first weekend reached 2,324 euros.

Eight Moroccan Surnames With a collection of 4,677 Euros per room, it ranks first in this metric. It started to be shown in 360 cinemas and reached 1.3 million viewers today. 8.9 million in collection. Its budget was ten times less than before. Snow Community: 5.5 million euros. Christmas is in your hands, The film, starring Santiago Segura, cost 3.6 million and debuted with a box office revenue close to Bayona’s film.

All this data is available on the ICAA website. The organization publishes weekly data on audiences, collections and theater numbers. From the 25 most watched movies in Spain and all Spanish movies in cinemas, even if only one chamber publishes them. This data, unlike the data sent to you by cinemas by law, comes from Comscore, an organization with which the Ministry of Culture has a contract for this purpose.

As the owner of Cines Embajadores explains, cinemas, They will send your data to Comscore unless Netflix prohibits it. When asked about the veto, he says, “We don’t get involved. When we screen a film, we reach an agreement with the distributor.” “Sometimes the contract includes that condition and we have to respect that.”

In return, theaters, distributors and other agencies in the industry pay Comscore for real-time market information. Comscore did not respond to this newspaper’s questions about the Netflix veto, and Netflix declined to comment.

“Netflix cannot conceive of failure”

“Netflix is ​​afraid of the idea of ​​failure. It can’t conceive of it. He is alarmed that the data invites us to think that a movie with a budget of 60 million is a failure because it collected two million.“I think Netflix has a conflict when it comes to publishing box office numbers because that’s not their job. Their premieres don’t respond to that: they don’t have the ambition to make a certain amount of money on the weekend or to promote the theaters where it’s going to be released,” says Brunet.

Hiding the numbers, according to this expert Snow Community “It touches the soul a little bit. It’s almost patriotic because “Bayona is the highest-grossing Spanish director, a huge star.”. Even so, he feels that the theatrical release has no commercial purpose, it is for the movie-loving community and cannot be compared to a theatrical release. Eight Moroccan Surnames. In an interview with the same group’s media outlet Levante EMV, Bayona noted that its release in theaters and then on Netflix was “a different type of exhibition.” He said Netflix “makes a living by showing its movies on its platform” and “When it comes to producing a product, there is no need for showrooms to have muscle” film“.

Brunet continues: “They are different. Netflix is ​​holding screenings in a few theaters with a few screenings to attract the attention of the movie-loving sector. Their idea is to hold an event with more presentations by directors.” continues Brunet. “In this case, the Bayonne team pushed for the premiere to be as large as possible. But didn’t have all the Mediaset machines behind it Eight Moroccan Surnames. like comparing Anatomy of a fall with Wonka“. Likewise, he also believes in it”Making more than 2,000 euros per copy is great value without a big TV behind it. “To achieve such solid numbers is an achievement that it is impossible to separate both the press campaign and Bayonne.”

Lobo from Cines Embajadores said, “If it wasn’t on Netflix, Snow Community It will be one of the biggest blockbusters of the year, especially since its release coincides with Christmas. But I don’t think Netflix is ​​interested in getting into the debate about whether or not it should bring more movies to theatres. “If there are no numbers, there is no discussion.”Ditch.