Mark Cuban
Mark Cuban
Indie theaters in Detroit and two other cities are doing battle with Mark Cuban-owned Landmark Theatres in federal court in a federal anti-trust lawsuit in D.C.
The theaters claim Landmark Theatres has monopolized the market with art films, demanding that smaller film houses like Cinema Detroit on Third Street in Midtown not show the movies while Landmark does.
In the latest development, Cuban, who also owns the Dallas Mavericks, has called the claim nonsense. He's asking that the lawsuit be dismissed.
The Hollywood Reporter writes:
In new court papers, Mark Cuban-owned Landmark Theatres insists there's no antitrust conspiracy from seeking the exclusive rights to exhibit a movie in a geographic region as long as the theater chain is not using its nationwide footprint to coerce distributors.
Landmark is facing a lawsuit from a group of independent community movie theaters who complain about being deprived of art films. According to the complaint in D.C. federal court, Landmark demanded and obtained clearances from those distributing such films as Moonlight, Birdman and The Illusionist. The plaintiffs, operating movie theaters in Washington, D.C., Denver and Detroit, suggest Landmark accomplished this by exploiting its circuit power.
But in a motion to dismiss filed Friday, Landmark tells the judge that plaintiffs have failed to spell out "who, what, when, where, or how" the indie-cinema giant leveraged its circuit power in communications with distributors over film licenses.
"Plaintiffs fail to allege facts sufficient to plausibly suggest that Landmark entered into any agreement with any distributor at any time at all," states the memorandum in support of dismissing the lawsuit. "Indeed, the most that can be gleaned from Plaintiffs’ allegations is that Landmark in some instances preferred to not show the same film as theaters located near its own in these three cities, and that unnamed distributors have agreed in certain situations to honor Landmark’s preference. Far from supporting an antitrust claim, these facts reveal a competitive market where distributors and exhibitors are unilaterally and rationally choosing the terms on which they do business with one another on a theater-by-theater, film-by-film, and city-by-city basis."
Other art houses involved are the Avalon Theatre Project and West End Cinema, both in D.C., and the Denver Film Society.
