Exclusive: Three-week film rental row between major distributor and exhibitor hitting box-office.

Finland’s current B.O. champion, the local comedy Man and a Baby produced by Solar Films has lost more than half its predicted income. Markus Selin, the Finnish film mogul and head of Solar Films, should be celebrating the success of his latest comedy Man and a Baby (Yösyöttö) by Marja Pyykkö which just won Best Nordic Film at New York’s Nordic International Film Festival and is ruling at the Finnish B.O, with 107,918 admissions, ahead of My Little Pony-The Movie and Blade Runner 2049.

Instead the producer is frustrated and angry. Because of a dispute between the film’s distributor Nordisk Film and Finland’s leading cinema chain Finnkino (which holds 70% of the exhibition market share), Man and a Baby has been prevented from playing at Finnkino’s cinemas and lost at least half of its potential revenues. “We were expecting more than 200,000 admissions at this point, but maybe the worse is yet to come, laments Selin. “On Friday The Unknown Soldier [one of the most anticipated Finnish films of the year] opens wide and most cinemas - will remove our film because of their prior engagement with SF Studios [distributor of The Unknown Soldier]. Consequently, our film which is number one at the BO, could very well find itself without a single screen, which is unheard of!” said Selin.

Chinese owned
The dispute started in the spring, when the exhibition group Finnkino - part of AMC, majority owned by the Chinese Wanda Group - asked to renegotiate with Nordisk Film Finland the level of film rentals to get a higher share of film revenues (both parties declined to unclose the levels of rentals negotiated).

The Scandinavian distributor refused on the ground that this would have ‘serious consequences on the small Finnish theatrical market’. Katarina Nyman, Nordisk Film Finland’s managing director told nordicfilmandtvnews.com: “This [lowering of distributors’ share] would be harmful to local films, but it would also seriously narrow down the import and distribution of all films, especially arthouse European and Nordic films, if bringing these films onto screens becomes more risky than it already is today.”

The negotiations came to a halt when Finnkino refused to confirm the rental deal on Man and a Baby on normal terms, a few days before the film’s premiere on October 6, cutting off the film from all of Finnkino’s 102 screens in 14 cinemas located in 11 Finnish cities. “This was catastrophic, both for the film and the filmmakers,” said Nyman. “We strived to get on board, compensating theatres and screens to replace Finnkino and did manage to open the film well, even without them on board."

Selin said the Finnish comedy which is number one in Finland for the second weekend in a row, is now playing in 106 screens – a mix of small repertoire cinemas, to school auditoriums, concert halls…."any venue that had never shown a movie before! The audience struggles to find the film, so we’ve hired busses to get people to the screening venues,” noted the producer.

Nordic casualties
However Man and a Baby is not the only casualty of the Finnkino and Nordisk Film fall-out. The Swedish film Borg vs McEnroe which opened on October 13 was also unable to access Finnkino’s major cinemas. Nyman said this was ‘particularly harmful, since Borg is very much a film for bigger cities where Finnkino has a near and total monopoly’. Last weekend the cumulative total was only 3,307 admissions from 25 screens.

Other Nordisk Film recent releases such as the US animated film My Little Pony-The Movie was able to play on Finnkino’s screens as due to ticket pre-sales, the two Scandinavian groups had agreed on the terms of showing the film before the start of the row. But the release of the new US action franchise American Assassin due to open last Friday was postponed by Nordisk Film.

As of yesterday, the dispute was still at a standstill, although both parties agreed that a settlement was now ‘urgent’ and in everyone’s interest. Nyman said: “We are in dialogue with Finnkino to solve the situation and hope we can go back to ‘normal’ and get our films back onto Finnkino’s screens. But we need to make Finnkino understand that taking a bigger share of producers’ income from cinema tickets is not a solution we can accept,” re-asserted Nyman. "On our very small market where everyone is dependent of each other, that would eventually harm everybody, including Finnkino. If producers’s ability to make great films is weakened, all of us will suffer from the lack of high quality films.”

Finnkino’s Marketing Director Kalle Peltola told nordicfilmandtvnews: “Finnkino’s priority is to create exceptional movie experiences for its customers. That means both first class cinemas and services as well as a broad and interesting selection of national and international movies. Our aim is to continue negotiations with Nordisk Film and we hope to agree on terms of co-operation very soon so that we can continue showing movies distributed by Nordisk Film. Our goal is to have a customer focused and fair agreement with Nordisk Film.”

Asked to comment on the dispute, Tero Koistinen, CEO of the Finnish Chamber of Films (representing both the Finnish Exhibitors’ and Film Distributors’ Associations) said his associations usually ‘do not intervene’ in the business practices of their members. He added: “Nordisk Film is a big distributor representing 20th Century Fox, Lionsgate as well as numerous independent filmmakers. Nordisk is also a major exhibitor in the Nordic region. On the other hand, Finnkino is no lightweight either when it comes to distribution. I feel confident, that these two companies will find a solution which will be acceptable to both parties, professionals as they are."