Vue CEO Tim Richards On The Company’s “Accelerated” Move Into Distribution, Using AI To Program Films & The Narrowing Gap Between Multiplex And Art House Cinemas — Cannes

Zac Ntim
·9 min read
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EXCLUSIVE: Vue founder and CEO Tim Richards caused a stir last month with an intriguing appearance in front of the UK Parliament’s British Film & High-End TV Inquiry.

Launched by the influential Culture, Media and Sport Committee, the bipartisan inquiry has spent weeks interviewing industry figures as part of an investigation into the current state of film and TV production in the UK. Richards appeared at the session alongside Picturehouse Managing Director Clare Binns and Alex Hamilton, CEO of Studiocanal UK, who both expressed fairly downbeat conclusions about the current and future position of independent British cinema. Richards, however, was the dissenting voice.

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The longtime Vue chief set out an optimistic vision for independent British cinema informed by the performance and variety of films on his screens across the UK and Europe. His only gripe was that the market isn’t unearthing enough projects to service operators, which is why he told us he has decided to “accelerate” plans to launch a distribution arm at Vue.

Earlier this year, Vue released the breakout Italian dramedy There’s Still Tomorrow from debut filmmaker Paola Cortellesi in the UK. Richards tells us Cortellesi’s film is just the first feature he and his internal team plan to launch directly. This morning in Cannes Richards also announced that Vue has partnered with producers Andy Paterson and Annalise Davis, and virtual production outfit Dimension Studios, to execute a slate of UK films. Richards and the Vue team are in Cannes where they’re busy at the market, identifying projects and collaborators.

Below, Richards speaks to us about stepping further into directly distributing films in the UK and Europe. The former BFI Chair also breaks down how Vue has been using artificial intelligence to program its cinemas and how he plans to “dramatically” change the cinemagoing experience with an update of Vue’s physical sites.

DEADLINE: Tim, my local cinema used to be the VUE just off Upper Street. And I’d often be surprised by the variety of the films showing there. Arthouse and commercial.

TIM RICHARDS: There’s this perception that certain cinemas play certain movies and others don’t. That may have been true 30 or 40 years ago, but not anymore. Right now, there’s practically no difference between an independent, art house cinema and a multiplex cinema operator. We are all playing the same movies. The multiplex operators are playing more independent films than Picturehouse. They’re also playing more independent films than Everyman cinemas. And part of the reason is that we have more screens. The industry’s future relies on getting as many people to see movies as possible. 70% of the grosses of independent films come from the multiplex operators, which speaks to how important we are to the ecosystem of independent film.

DEADLINE: Why do you think this binary still exists in people’s minds?

RICHARDS: I think people reminisce about the old days. The true demarcation point was when digital projectors were introduced. Before that, it was physically difficult to screen multiple movies in one day. The films arrived in cans and they were heavy. The big advancement in technology was putting them on self-winding platters. When digital projectors were introduced, it allowed operators to show more movies to more people. That was the beginning of the end of the classic art house cinema. There are probably half a dozen cinemas in the UK that still stick to those original ideals. I put Watershed in Briston in that category. I have a lot of respect for them and I love what they do. But as I said to the inquiry, when I checked the schedule at Watershed over one week, Alex Garland’s Civil War was on every major screen. Even Watershed is showing commercial films.  If you look at the three major operators, we showed 94 of the top 100 movies between the three of us. So yes, there were some movies that we didn’t show. But in general, we are actually delivering.

At Vue, we have been able to play more movies to more people because of AI. 46% of the movies we screen are actually foreign language and that’s not a number that many people would think or recognize, but that’s what we’re doing. And a lot of that is because of AI.

DEADLINE: How are you using Artificial Intelligence?

RICHARDS: We are pioneers in the technology globally. We started eight, almost nine years ago now. We are only starting to talk about it now. Before that, for corporate reasons, we’ve just got on with things. We hired a group from San Francisco that had been building AI models for hedge funds in New York. We began using very complex modeling to build our programs. We went through 53 models in beta over two years and it was around the 30th model that we knew we were on to something very special and started to roll it out across more cinemas as our confidence grew with the technology.

But AI is responsible for booking all of our screens and it determines what we play at what cinema on what screen and at what time. Our business is movies, but in periods where we’ve got a little bit of extra screen time, we’ve been hosting music, theater, and sporting events. And the AI will also schedule alternative programming events around our feature films.

DEADLINE: I’m sure all of your competitors are now are trying to find a way to copy this.

RICHARDS: Well, it’s not something that happens overnight. There are a few off-the-shelf packages right now that are available, but ours is a proprietary system that we developed ourselves and it’s a classic AI that is constantly learning and evolving. We’ve rolled it out in Italy and we’re seeing the same kind of very promising results there that we saw in the UK and we will be rolling it out across all of our markets.

DEADLINE: So VUE picked up Paola Cortellesi’s There’s Still Tomorrow and distributed it in the UK. And from what I understand, Vue will now be moving further into acquiring and distributing a slate. Can you tell us more about that?

RICHARDS: For us, it’s a circle back to something we tried 15 years ago, but we were too early. We co-produced three movies, ET 3D, Me and Orson Welles, and The Disappearance of Alice Creed with Gemma Arterton. So we are getting back into the business. This year there are some amazing movies coming out that I’m excited about personally and professionally. But we don’t have as many movies as we need. So we decided to accelerate our plans for a distribution vehicle. I saw There’s Still Tomorrow when it was released in Italy just through word of mouth. I was blown away by it. Some movies entertain, some movies scare, others make you laugh and there are some that are pure art. Paola managed to somehow combine all of those into one movie.  So I just thought it’s a movie that we have an audience for in the UK and no one was bringing it here.

We started discussions with the producers and Paola and agreed to bring it to the UK and promote it. So that’s our first movie. Our plan is to take the very best of local films from our markets, the best Polish and German, Dutch, and Italian films and show them to all of our customers across our markets.

DEADLINE: What kind of films will you be looking to pick up?

RICHARDS: Good question. It’s very movie-specific. Our AI knows a lot about our audience. So it knows there’s a small Turkish community near Islington where we could put extra screens on for that audience with Turkish films. We know there is a large Polish community in certain areas of the country where we would bring more Polish films. We can open a movie by virtue of the number of screens and locations we have in the UK and across Europe. We also have a market-leading website so we can use our website to communicate directly with our customers across all of our markets. We can show all these movies to our customers. And that’s our goal.

DEADLINE: That will be exciting news for many in the industry. This is something a lot of people have been calling out for, big pockets and ambition.

RICHARDS: I’ve spent the last 25 years of my life trying to help and promote British independent film, which is my true love. I know the benefit that filmmakers get by getting a theatrical release, even if it’s a short and limited one. It still helps drive the ancillary revenue streams, it helps get the message out that this is high quality. As a consequence, we have done a large number of film launches in Leicester Square to try and help emerging talent get their films out and screened. So this is a natural evolution for us to start to commercialize that through a distribution vehicle.

DEADLINE: Will you be building a specific acquisitions and distribution team? 

RICHARDS: We have a very talented team right now that was responsible for bringing There’s Still Tomorrow to the UK. But we’re going to be bolstering it with some very specific skills, particularly with Asian films bringing in.

DEADLINE: Will you be picking films up in Cannes? And what kind of directors and producers will you be working with?

RICHARDS: Everything is staying unnamed right now. But we are accelerating our plans on this. But equally, there were rumors in the artistic community that we were starting to do this and it has filled inboxes from everyone everywhere and that’s based on rumors. So there’s no shortage of discussions that we’re going to be having. But we are going to be very selective initially with the top films we believe in. And then we’re going to start to broaden it as time goes by.

DEADLINE: During your evidence in front of the inquiry you briefly said the BFI shouldn’t be afraid of commercial film and talent. Can elaborate on what you meant?

RICHARDS: The BFI is an internationally recognized organization and it’s class-leading. This is only part of what the BFI does but on the filmmaking side it’s responsible for identifying and nurturing emerging talent and that is something that it’s very good at. What I suggested was that it should try not to be afraid of commercial films. So with emerging talent, if it looks commercials but still needs a bit of help, they shouldn’t be afraid of supporting it.

DEADLINE: When you look five or 10 years into the future, what are you hoping your company will look like and what will it be doing?

RICHARDS: What I love about our industry is that when you think there’s nothing left to do, 20 things pop up. Between now and Christmas, we are completely refurbishing 14 major cinemas putting in leather recliner seats, and laser projectors, and we’re significantly upgrading them. But we also are going to be changing the look and feel of the cinema very dramatically. We’ve got some really exciting plans for our future cinema designs which are a major departure from the past and we will be unveiling that this summer.

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