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The name Village Roadshow might not ring a bell with every moviegoer, but the companys logo almost certainly will. Its shimmering, nested “V” of metallic ribbons that taper inward like a cinematic illusion played before dozens of movies that collectively spawned 34 No. 1 opening weekends, 19 Academy Awards, and $19 billion in worldwide box office gross. The veteran production house behind seismic hits like The Matrix, Oceans 11, and Mad Max: Fury Road has been delivering hits for decades, mostly through coproductions with Warner Bros. But last week, following a years-long decline in box office performance, the company filed for bankruptcy. How did a highly pedigreed cinematic powerhousethe same force behind some of this centurys biggest filmsend up in Chapter 11? Its a complicated answer, one thatlike several other recent corporate downfallsis rooted in the COVID-19 pandemic. From the drive-in to ‘The Joker’ Village Roadshow started in Australia in 1954 as a drive-in theater operation. Over the next few decades, it extended its tentacles into regular theater business and home video, before launching a film production shingle: Village Roadshow Pictures. True to the companys Australian roots, its first-ever movie, 1989s The Delinquents, was set in the Outback and starred a young Kylie Minogue. A few years later, the 1992 sci-fi flick Fortress delivered the companys first hit, but Village Roadshow became a true force in 1997, when it entered into a co-financing and distribution partnership with Warner Bros. It didnt take long for the Village Roadshow-Warner Bros. partnership to find explosive success. In 1999 alone, the team-up yielded several major, genre-spanning hits, including Sopranos-adjacent mob comedy Analyze This, schlocky shark horror Deep Blue Sea, and director David O. Russells breakthrough, Three Kings, and the culture-shifting sci-fi epic The Matrix. Though the initial partnership deal outlined a plan for making 20 features together over a five-year period, Village Roadshow ultimately ended up collaborating with Warner Bros. on 91 of 108 total movies over the decades that followed, according to its bankruptcy filing. The companys hitmaking era continued all the way through to 2019s billion-plus grossing Joker. It was around that time, though, that Village Roadshow made a decision that would factor heavily into its undoing: embarking on a mission to release more projects independently. From 2018 to 2020, following a shift in the Companys equity-holders and change in management, the Company expanded its business model and dedicated a meaningful portion of its resources to creating the Studio Business, the bankruptcy filing details. Village Roadshows pivot to a full service shop for developing new projects meant taking on more staff, forging more partnerships, and spending more capital on various deals. It would take years to realize they had bitten off more than they could chew. A ‘Matrix’-sized dispute Village Roadshows foray into studio business reportedly put into development 99 feature films, 67 unscripted TV shows, and 166 scripted TV shows. This flurry of content creation didnt bear much fruit, though. Only six of those films ended up going into productionthe most prominent of which may be Yassir Lesters little-seen bowling comedy The Gutteralongside five unscripted series and two scripted ones. As the filing details, Village Roadshow spent approximately $47.5 million on these efforts, none of which has yet to return a meaningful profit. The company might have been able to offset those costs with revenue from more Warner Bros co-productionshad that partnership not ruptured spectacularly in the early days of the pandemic. The Matrix Resurrections, the franchises feverishly anticipated fourth installment, was originally scheduled to debut in theaters back in May 2021. But with the box office still sluggish and the COVID-19 vaccines just starting to roll out, Warner Bros. delayed the would-be blockbusters release to April 2022, when it stood a better chance of performing well. That date was later shuffled again, though, this time as part of Warner Bross controversial strategy to release its entire 2021 slate of heavyweight titles like Dune and Godzilla vs. Kong on HBO Max the same day they hit theaters. The December 2021 release date for Matrix Resurrections ensured it would be part of that home viewing experiment. While the lukewarm reviews likely didnt help, the films immediate streaming availability likely contributed to its disappointing $157 million worldwide grossroughly a third of what the original Matrix earned 22 years earlier. Since Village Roadshows deal relied on theatrical revenue for its earnings from the movie, the company sued Warner Bros in 2022, alleging it had shoehorned Resurrections into its 2021 release slate in order to create a desperately needed wave of year-end HBO Max premium subscriptions. The two companies have spent the years since entangled in ugly, costly arbitration. According to the bankruptcy filing, Village Roadshow has already incurred $18 million in legal fees, nearly all of which remains unpaid. As the legal costs piled up and the projects Village Roadshow developed under its own banner devoured more cash, there were (understandably) no splashy new Warner Bros collaborationsin the hopper to keep the ship afloat. Even if the WB Arbitration is resolved, the Company believes that it has irreparably decimated the working relationship between WB and the Company, which has been the most lucrative nexus for the Companys historic success in the entertainment industry, reads the filing. (Neither Village Roadshow nor Warner Bros. responded to Fast Companys request for comment.) During the first half of 2024, Village Roadshow Pictures entered a wave of layoffs that saw its staff downsize from 45 employees to nine. That same year, the company brought in Goldman Sachs to explore the possibility of a sale that might preserve its production arm. But the dark cloud of an ongoing arbitration ultimately made such a sale impossible. The best option, Village Roadshow concluded, was selling off its library assetsthe filing mentions an unnamed bidder offering $365 million for themand selling its derivative rights separately. In the end, Village Roadshow decided that declaring bankruptcy would lead to a sale that maximized its assets. For a production company with such an illustrious history, its not exactly a Hollywood ending.
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The bible tells us to love your enemies, and major sports teams seem to be taking that doctrine seriously. Or at least their stadium concession stands are. Fans come to stadiums for the game, but they almost always indulge in the food, toowhich typically reflects the cuisine of their home teams city. But now, baseball and football stadiums have begun offering some local bites of their opponents teams in a bid to sell more concessions. On March 27, Major League Baseballs Opening Day, stadium food for the Washington Nationals will offer a new signature concession item: a platter of loaded nachos dubbed the Stolen Plate Special. The toppings on those cheesy chips will change throughout the season to incorporate the famous flavors of the opposing teams city, according to Levy, the hospitality group behind sports and entertainment arenas. This means more opportunity to satisfy visiting fans, increase sales, and even encourage some “culinary” competition. [Photo: Levy] As chefs, were constantly looking at the world around us for inspiration, says Adam Carter, regional executive chef at Levy who oversees food options at Nationals Park. Local connection is important, but we also find opportunities to incorporate flavors from other cities or regions, especially if we can represent the visiting team during a big series. Counter concessions Baseball isnt the only sport where opposing fans share greasy stadium food. Last year, the NFLs Buffalo Bills unveiled the Battle Boat: a two-foot-long boat of waffle fries that featured one half representing Buffalo fare and the other that of the visiting team. In a a stadium food review video, content creator Cameron Guzzo called the taste phenomenal.” Buffalos massive fry boat changed its toppings with every new opponent that visited the stadium. The Nationals will follow a similar formula to offer fans a taste of the visiting flavors. Sports concessions should be comforting, familiar, and nostalgic, Carter sayseven for visiting fans. The first iteration of the Nats nacho platter will be cheesesteak nachos for their three-game series against the Philadelphia Phillies. Of course, the dish is an homage to Philadelphias famous delicacy. Future Stolen Plate Specials will continue to incorporate different cities famous foods. During the Nationalss series against the New York Mets, the nachos will be topped with everything-bagel chips, pastrami, and swiss cheese sauce to reflect NYCs famous foods. And during the teams series against the Arizona Diamondbacks, hatch chile-braised chicken, chicharrons, and a spicy queso will load the nachos to represent the Dbacks. Fans are prideful when it comes to food, just like they are about their favorite team, says Carter. So we like to tap into that passion in a fun way.
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Over the years, the label M.M. LaFleur has gone beyond helping its customers look good for the officeit’s also helped them find new professional opportunities during hard times. During the pandemic, it launched a Slack channel to help customers who had been laid off find a new job. It hosts networking events so customers can get to know other women in their industry. And now, as the Trump administration lays off thousand of government employees, M.M. LaFleur is rallying the troops to provide support. The New York-based womenswear brand first realized something was amiss in January, when it saw sales dipping in its two stores in the Washington, D.C. area. These stores serve women who work in politics and government, along with the lobbyists and lawyers whose work intersects with those fields. D.C. is our second biggest market after New York, says Sarah LaFleur, the brand’s founder and CEO. We could tell that there was a lot of anxiety among our D.C. customers because of the looming job cuts. [Photo: M.M. Lafleur] The team began to think about how they could help these customers. It has already hosted a résumé review session. It has brought in authors who are experts on changing careers and building confidence. And it is hosting an event where people can get professional headshots taken for just $30. Sarah LaFleur, the brand’s founder and CEO, believes these efforts to support customers are crucial to building a lifelong relationship with them. And more broadly, she feels these efforts keep her, and her employees, passionate about their work. If you asked us to measure the ROI of these events, I don’t think we could, says LaFleur. But helping women is the reason we got into this business. Unfortunately, there are likely to be many more government job cuts, and workers in other industries are expected to lose their jobs because of the new tariffs. M.M. LaFleur’s approach offers a new model of corporate social responsibility focused on a brand’s immediate community and customers, rather than issues further afield. [Photo: M.M. LaFleur] An Unusually Intimate Approach While most brands try to cultivate relationships with their customers, they tend to do so at a distance, using social media. But from the start, M.M. LaFleur has taken a much more hands-on approach that is more common in very high-end luxury brands. M.M. LaFleur is known for creating Bento Boxes for customers, full of outfits they like. A team of stylists put these boxes together, and try to build personal, long-term relationships with their customers, helping them navigate through life changes, from new jobs to pregnancies. These stylists are at the frontlines of our business, says LaFleur. They have heard a lot of stories from D.C. customers struggling with this period of instability. [Photo: M.M. LaFleur] The brand also throws lots of store events that are centered around career development. They offer an opportunity for women to make friends and build their professional network. Over the years, customers have found jobs and met collaborators through these events and, at the end of each, M.M. LaFleur connects attendees by sharing everyone’s contact information (with their approval), so people can forge relationships outside of the brand. Indeed, this culture of intimacy has helped the company when it faced its own troubles. Last year, I reported about how M.M. LaFleur faced an an existential crisis when its lender went under and its working capital was about to dry up. In the end, a group of female investors, who happened to be customers, rallied together to invest $3 million in the company to keep it afloat. Now LaFleur wants to use the brand platform to bring together female investors for other startups in need of funding. For LaFleur, this intimacy with customers is key to building a long-term relationship. We don’t just want to be there at one point in your career when you need a new outfit, she says. We want to be there for all the twists and turns, and this means, being there for you in the difficult times as well. [Photo: M.M. LaFleur] Customers Affected by DOGE Cuts Now, there are many people facing hardships because of the Trump Adminitration’s mass layoffs. So far, more than a hundred thousand federal jobs have been cut. While these roles are spread out across the country, many are concentrated in the capital. The M.M. LaFleur team has hosted its $30 headshot event in other stores in the past, but now it seems D.C.-customers are in particular need of this support. A link to the event was posted on a resource board for job seekers in the federal government, and spots were filled within hours. Now the D.C. store is planning to offer two more of these sessions. To help attendees feel their best, there will be makeup artists on hand to provide touch-ups. And M.M. LaFleur’s stylists are there to help them put together an outfit that they feel will best represent them on their job hunt. In the past, government jobs have been fairly stable, so they’ve been in these roles for years, says Maria Costa, M.M. LaFleur’s director of brand, who has been involved in crafting these events. Now they need to apply for new jobs. It can be very emotional for them because they haven’t had to present themselves in this way for a long time. [Photo: M.M. Lafleur] M.M. LaFleur has also partnered with a local woman-owned bookshop, Old Town Books, to help program other career events. It brought on authors to talk about how to perfect your pitch at an interview, how to reduce your mental load during times of stress, and how to crack the confidence code. It also hosts résumé review events with career coaches. These are similar to events that M.M. LaFleur has done in the past. But in D.C., they have taken on a new urgency, as customers are struggling. But given that the brand has the infrastructure and experience to effectively throw these events, the in-store team can do more of these events quickly to keep up with the demand. For LaFleur, these events aren’t just good for customers and members of the community. They keep her and her team passionate about the work that they do every day. And she thinks this is valuable. We make clothes, but our mission is about much more than clothes, she says. We’re in the business of empowering women to thrive in the workplace.
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