What’s that noise? Dun-did-dle-dun-dun dun-dun-dun . . . It’s Steve Wiener,
boss of Britain’s second-biggest cinema chain, dreaming of how much money
James Bond is going to make him.
“OK, the last Bond movie really stepped out,” says Wiener in his New York
drawl. “Up until then Bond movies were £35m UK box office at most, but
Casino Royale: £55m. So if this one’s £35m, I’m happy. If it’s £55m, I’m
ecstatic.”
And his hunch? “ I am betting £45m-£50m.” Pause. “Minimum.”
Wiener likes a bit of drama. As chief executive of Cineworld, Britain’s only
quoted cinema chain, he has a lot riding on Bond. But at 57, balding and
paunchy, he has also been around the block, running cinemas across America
before he started building multiplexes here. He knows the movie business
always surprises.
For instance, he was expecting the new Harry Potter film this winter. Nope,
delayed. But there are compensations.
“Yeah,” he says, “look at Mamma Mia, who would have predicted that? It’s the
second-biggest grossing film in British history. Wow.”
And if Quantum of Solace is a stinker? “Good movies, bad movies, that’s okay,
people talk about them. What you don’t want is indifferent movies.”
By now, Wiener will know if Bond is doing the numbers. It’s the first thing he
checks every morning. He stays happy anyway – and it’s not just Mama Mia. He
has another hit with High School Musical 3.
And that’s how cinema goes. Only last week, Cineworld released better than
expected figures in an interim management statement, and predicted even
better numbers to come. Cinemas always do well in a downturn – it’s the
cheapest way to get out of the house, says Wiener.
You can’t knock his confidence. The son of a New York truck driver, Wiener
exudes American movie savvy. And from his chain’s start-up 13 years ago to
its purchase by the Blackstone private-equity group in 2004, its acquisition
of rival UGC the same year and stock-market flotation in 2007, he has always
got another plot-twist coming.
It’s the same with his CV, working first as an usher in Miami, then into
management, jumping in and out of different movie-theatre businesses before
crossing the Atlantic in the 1990s – nobody in the cinema sector here has
Wiener’s depth of experience as an operator and dealmaker.
Some say he is the single biggest influence on how we watch movies in Britain
today. Just don’t call Cineworld a start-up.
“A start-up is a group of people with no experience and a great idea. We were
a seasoned management team temporarily without operating assets.”
He chuckles deeply. Cineworld began with £17m of investment and a strategy of
targeting smaller towns. It opened its first multiplex in Stevenage in 1996.
Now it has 75 sites and 775 screens, having surfed the boom in leisure-centre
development, and is breathing down the neck of market leader Odeon, owned by
Guy Hands’s Terra Firma. Odeon has 26% of the audience, Cineworld 24%.
However, Cineworld’s share price, which rose on Wiener’s trading statement
last week, remains a third less than the 170p at which it was floated on the
stock market. And Blackstone still owns 47% of the business. What are its
intentions?
“You’ll have to ask them,” says Wiener, “but I can’t imagine they are looking
to sell when the shares are close to 100p.”
So why be a public company at all? “Because it enables us to have the lowest
debt of any big cinema chain. We build nice cinemas and operate them well,
and so we’re the first choice of every developer,” he says.
It also gives Cineworld options. In the past there have been rumours that it
might be a target for break-up. Blackstone principal Matthew Tooth says it
could now be the acquirer, here and abroad, as other chains run into debt
problems. “And that’s where we can provide corporate-finance skills,” says
Tooth, “and access to capital when the debt markets are virtually closed.”
Wiener is cagier, preferring to highlight organic growth, increased control of
cinema advertising sales, and the push into digital. All his venues are now
equipped to handle digital, though only 10% currently do. Digital
downloading and projection, and showing live events like sport and opera,
should offer big opportunities.
But just kitting out a further 700 screens with digital projectors will cost
Cineworld £28m, according to Wiener. “And there’s the other equipment you
need, satellite dishes, new wiring . . .”
In America, the cost has been subsidised by the distributors, who will save $3
billion (£1.8 billion) from not having to ship prints. In Britain, there is
still haggling to be done.
Then there’s 3D, predicted to be a big hit from next year, when Hollywood
starts producing 3D versions of its blockbusters. Great for teen audiences,
munching their overpriced popcorn, but what about the rest of us?
“The older demographic is one we are chipping away at,” says Wiener.
“Baby-boomers are the fastest growth segment.”
So, more venues with bars, private boxes, better food, loyalty schemes -
Wiener prides himself on being innovative, hence the theatrical production
of Brief Encounter at Cineworld’s London Haymarket screen. But will he
promote more grown-up films too?
He scratches his grey head. “Yeah, I think you’ll see less of the Jerry
Bruckheimers, where every eight minutes someone has to get killed in an
explosion. I mean, how many times can you see someone get killed? Unless
it’s Saw 5 of course . . .”
In truth, Wiener’s multiplex cinemas don’t cater well for the affluent
overforties, who hate popcorn and prefer independent cinemas. Does he care
that these smaller outfits are under threat from the larger chains?
Wiener looks defensive. “Sure I care.” His advice to independent cinemas is
upgrade and invest. “Owning a cinema can be a gravy train if you are the
only one in the town but you have to put some money back. If you just keep
taking it all, you’ve not got a business eventually.”
But his money-first dictum will depress film buffs. He shrugs. “I never think
of films in terms of art but in terms of entertainment. If they get a
message across, so much the better.”
Wiener’s commercial nous is not hard to source. Born in New York, brought up
in New Jersey, he comes from a family with German/Polish roots that lost a
fortune in the 1920s crash. His grandfather delivered goods by buggy to make
ends meet. His father did it by truck. His mother was a bookkeeper. Wiener
inherited her facility with numbers, and a need to revive the family’s
fortunes.
He caught the cinema bug at university in Miami, working part-time as an usher
while he finished his business degree. He wanted a career in television, but
his employers had already seen his management potential.
By the time he came to Britain in 1991, he had worked with the best. When
Warner wanted a team with American know-how to buy into British cinemas, he
was a natural choice.
He arrived in London with his girlfriend, now his second wife, and stayed with
Warner Europe for two years. Then he joined a group buying MGM cinemas here.
He persuaded them to ditch that plan and build from scratch – Cine-UK (later
Cineworld) was the result.
Investment banker Tom Chandos, who put together Cine-UK’s funding, says Wiener
remains a great retailer and one of the best operating chief executives he
has seen. “Steve’s knowledge, obsessiveness and focus on detail are
outstanding.”
The one surprise is that, more than a decade on, the pugnacious Wiener is
still here. He has just finished building himself a large house in Florida,
and has yet to buy a home in London - he rents a flat in Mayfair. Does that
mean he is leaving soon?
Wiener shrugs this off – he lost money selling his home in New York
years back and vowed never to buy outside Florida again. But those who knew
him in the 1990s say he expected Cine-UK to be snapped up by a rival, giving
him a big payoff.
Instead, Cineworld just got bigger. And he can’t go now, he says, because his
wife Jenny, a former film buyer, has reinvented herself as a contemporary
artist. She recently sold a piece to Charles Saatchi. “She’d shoot me if I
told her we were going back. Her career is just starting.” So he will be
checking the numbers, watching the queues, thinking up ideas for some time
yet. His next innovation is a seating layout that allows customers to get in
and out without pushing past others. “We’ve played with the plan for six
months. Now, if we have the nerve, we’re going to put it in a brand new
cinema. Doesn’t it piss you off when people push past?”
No, popcorn pisses me off, and dumb movies, and mindless violence, and syrupy
soundtracks and . . . “Oh stop it with the popcorn,” he says, shaking his
head. He can’t imagine cinema without it.
The life of Steve Wiener
VITAL STATISTICS
Born: October 22, 1951 Marital status:married twice, with three children
School: Emerson High School, New Jersey
University: Miami
First job: cinema usher in Miami
Pay package: £1.1m including flotation bonus Homes:Orlando and Mayfair
Car:black Mercedes 350
Favourite book:Disney War, by James Stewart
Favourite film:Anything with Errol Flynn, or Field of Dreams with Kevin
Costner. “As the line goes, ‘If you build it, they will come’. But it’s not
true. We’ve built two cinemas that don’t make money. No, I’m not telling you
which. ..”
Favourite music:Frank Sinatra
Last holiday:Orlando
WORKING DAY
THE Cineworld chief executive wakes after 6am at his apartment behind the
Dorchester hotel in London’s Mayfair. Steve Wiener checks his cinemas’
overnight figures online, then he is driven to Cineworld’s HQ on a west
London industrial estate by 8.30am. “I have six or seven people reporting to
me. I’m the guy playing with all the toys, so I work on special projects and
monitor what’s going on. There’s always construction and new design ideas.”
He rarely eats out and works until 6.30pm. “The office is locked then, and I
am not allowed the passcode, otherwise I would never leave. I go home to do
paperwork.” Occasionally he attends a film premiere - he went to the James
Bond opening on Wednesday. Wiener has a film screening room at his office,
but is usually too busy to use it.
DOWNTIME
STEVE WIENER relaxes by watching old movies at home. He has a 52in flat-screen
televison in Mayfair but a proper home cinema in his new house near Orlando,
Florida. “It has a 9ft 2in screen, and seats eight people.”
Much of his money has been spent building the new home on a six-acre plot.
“No, it’s not alligator proof, but if you leave them alone, they leave you
alone.” He also likes to play golf, and is a member at the Buckinghamshire
club in Denham. “My handicap? The clubs,” he says.
