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Cinemas under Spotlight as Cineworld Stares at Possible Bankruptcy

A Cineworld cinema near Manchester, Britain, October 4, 2020. REUTERS/Phil Noble
A Cineworld cinema near Manchester, Britain, October 4, 2020. REUTERS/Phil Noble
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Cinemas under Spotlight as Cineworld Stares at Possible Bankruptcy

A Cineworld cinema near Manchester, Britain, October 4, 2020. REUTERS/Phil Noble
A Cineworld cinema near Manchester, Britain, October 4, 2020. REUTERS/Phil Noble

The potential bankruptcy of world No.2 cinema operator Cineworld is shining a spotlight on the wider industry as it struggles to recover from the pandemic and compete with the growing popularity of streaming, Reuters reported.

Debt-laden Cineworld, which owns the Regal chain in the United States and runs theatres in nine other countries, said last week a lack of blockbusters was keeping movie-goers away and impacting its cash flows.

Last week, AMC Entertainment Holding Inc also flagged a tough third quarter due to a slim film slate. Its shares plunged 38% in early US trading on Monday.

Cineworld shares, which hit a record low on Friday after the Wall Street Journal first reported its potential bankruptcy, were down 26% to 3 pence at 1340 GMT. That compares with a peak of more than 310 pence in 2017.

Cineworld, which had $8.9 billion of net debt at the end of 2021 and had already said it was looking at ways to restructure its balance sheet, confirmed on Monday one option was a voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in the United States.

"Cineworld would expect to maintain its operations in the ordinary course until and following any filing," said the London-listed company, which operates more than 9,000 screens and employs around 28,000 people.

While Cineworld's specific issue is its debt pile, the broader change in how audiences want to watch movies is a trend unlikely to reverse or get any easier for cinema chains, Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Sophie Lund-Yates said.

"Cineworld's challenges are a warning for the entire sector," she said.

A Chapter 11 filing can allow a company to stay in business and restructure its debt.

"But since the company owns so little in the way of tangible assets, much of its debt will be unrecoverable and its equity holders will be wiped out," said Barry Norris, fund manager at Argonaut Capital.

Cineworld, which declined to comment on the hedge fund's remarks, said it was in talks with many of its major stakeholders, including lenders and legal and financial advisers, and reiterated any deleveraging transaction would lead to very significant dilution of existing equity interests.

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Movie Review: ‘Piece by Piece,’ a Very Odd Lego Doc about Pharrell Williams Snaps Together Somehow

This image released by Focus Features shows lego characters voiced by Jay-Z, left, and Pharrell Williams, in a scene from "Piece By Piece." (Focus Features via AP)
This image released by Focus Features shows lego characters voiced by Jay-Z, left, and Pharrell Williams, in a scene from "Piece By Piece." (Focus Features via AP)
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Movie Review: ‘Piece by Piece,’ a Very Odd Lego Doc about Pharrell Williams Snaps Together Somehow

This image released by Focus Features shows lego characters voiced by Jay-Z, left, and Pharrell Williams, in a scene from "Piece By Piece." (Focus Features via AP)
This image released by Focus Features shows lego characters voiced by Jay-Z, left, and Pharrell Williams, in a scene from "Piece By Piece." (Focus Features via AP)

A movie documentary that uses only Lego pieces might seem an unconventional choice. When that documentary is about renowned musician-producer Pharrell Williams, it's actually sort of on-brand.

“Piece by Piece” is a bright, clever song-filled biopic that pretends it's a behind-the-scenes documentary using small plastic bricks, angles and curves to celebrate an artist known for his quirky soul. It is deep and surreal and often adorable. Is it high concept or low? Like Williams, it's a bit of both.

Director Morgan Neville — who has gotten more and more experimental exploring other celebrity lives like Fred Rogers in “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain” and “Steve! (Martin): A Documentary in Two Pieces” — this time uses real interviews but masks them under little Lego figurines with animated faces. Call this one a documentary in a million pieces.

The filmmakers try to explain their device — “What if nothing is real? What if life is like a Lego set?” Williams says at the beginning — but it's very tenuous. Just submit and enjoy the ride of a poor kid from Virginia Beach, Virginia, who rose to dominate music and become a creative director at Louis Vuitton.

Williams, by his own admission, is a little detached, a little odd. Music triggers colors in his brain — he has synesthesia, beautifully portrayed here — and it's his forward-looking musical brain that will make him a star, first as part of the producing team The Neptunes and then as an in-demand solo producer and songwriter.

There are highs and lows and then highs again. A verse Williams wrote for “Rump Shaker” by Wreckx-N-Effect when he was making a living selling beats would lead to superstars demanding to work with him and partner Chad Hugo — Kendrick Lamar, Justin Timberlake, Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes, Gwen Stefani, Missy Elliott and Jay-Z. All those superstars sit for interviews and have hysterically been depicted as Lego minifigures, right down to No Doubt's Adrian Young's mohawk. (Take my money, Lego.)

We also learn something about his wife, Helen, and his anguish over being a solo artist, an opportunity he spurned when it was his for the taking. Ultimately, we learn to understand his futuristic approach to fashion and music. “What I am is a maverick,” he says. No one will question him on that.

The 3D world the filmmakers have made is astonishing, with waves of clear Lego pieces washing up on a beach made of slats of Lego baseplates and Williams' collection of cool beats depicted as bouncing bricks with lights in them. There's Lego McDonald's nuggets, Lego pretzels, singing Lego fish and a Lego Anna Wintour, chilly and haughty in plastic, too.

Lego, while seemingly a restrictive medium — the hands are clips and everyone's walking is robotic since there are no Lego knees — can also, apparently, in the right hands soar, and here they do, with Williams in one gorgeous dream sequence watching the Earth's lights as a distant astronaut. It is when the filmmakers make Lego appear as water and music that are their crowning achievements.

Music credits are notoriously hard to pin down — Williams claims to have created McDonald's notoriously mysterious jingle “I'm lovin' it” — and the filmmakers try to cover any misinformation with a simple disclaimer in the end credits: “Not everything in this film is 100% accurate. For example, Pharrell never went to space.”

There are also some extraordinary moments that snap by but likely took months to make, like a Lego glimpse of the “I Have A Dream” speech by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lincoln Memorial and protest footage from Black Lives Matter figurines shouting “Don’t shoot!”

The documentary lags a little during Williams' way up and rushes the years on top, although recreations of some of the music videos he fueled are too funny. Why he and Hugo broke up is papered over and the filmmakers struggle to find an ending, making several stutter steps.

“I think we're done,” are the last words we hear as the filmmakers finally give up. But they've left behind a trippy, sweet portrait of a genius, forever in building blocks.