Starting March 29, people who buy tickets to select movies at select AMC theaters will see five days of video messages starring…Jason Blum?

It’s a far cry from Nicole Kidman, whose breathtaking “We Come to This Place for Magic.” branding spot has become a legend. But Mr. Blum, a producer of horror films, has been working to build his entertainment company Blumhouse into a more consumer-oriented brand. The aim is to create a connection between the name and everything scary, a bit like Marvel and superheroes. That, in turn, could make Blumhouse more valuable as an acquisition target in the coming years.

AMC and Blumhouse, which has made more than 200 horror films and shows, are teaming up for what they’re calling the Halfway to Halloween Film Festival. (It’s more than 40 percent of the total.) Previously released Blumhouse horror films, including “Split,” “Ouija: Origin of Evil,” “The Purge,” “The Invisible Man” and “Insidious,” which is in its 13th edition will have its anniversary on April 1 in 100 AMC theaters in 40 cities.

Mr. Blum, 55, will introduce each film with a tailor-made message, with an anecdote about the production or a small tidbit. James Wan, who directed “Insidious,” will appear in a video, as will Mike Flanagan, who directed “Ouija: Origin of Evil.” Ticket buyers will also see extensive advertising known as sizzle reels for Blumhouse, which will promote the event through its social media channels.

“Horror has always attracted mavericks, including myself, and participating in events like this allows me to celebrate that,” Mr. Blum said, before referring to one of the company’s signature films. “I like to take risks with stories that other people find too risky – like ‘Get Out’ – and having a brand allows me to do that.”

For AMC, the collaboration with Blumhouse is a way to compensate for the shortage of supply. Box office analysts expect the major Hollywood studios to release about 100 films in 2024, up from 124 last year.

Some studios pushed back planned releases, citing delays caused by two union strikes that paralyzed Hollywood for months last year. “Disney’s Snow White,” “Mickey 17‘ and ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ have disappeared from the March release calendar. Other studios have started releasing fewer films to save money.

A24, another film company that pays close attention to its brand, has similarly taken advantage of the shortage, for example by teaming up with AMC in February for an event called A series for lovers featuring some of his previous releases. A24 announced something similar on Wednesday screening series with IMAXin which the large format cinema company will digitally remaster old A24 films such as ‘Hereditary’ and ‘Uncut Gems’.

Mr. Blum has long built up a reputation as an outsider. Most film producers keep a low profile; sometimes he promotes his films by attending premieres in costume, such as in late 2022 when he dressed as M3gan, a murderous doll with artificial intelligence. In December, he posted a video to X of himself in his underwear. (He was take a dive in an icy stream in Connecticut. Don’t ask.)

His penchant for promotion, both self and otherwise, has helped make Blumhouse Hollywood’s premier horror factory. It releases four to five films a year. Most are hits, including the recent “Five Nights at Freddy’s.” Some aren’t, including “The Exorcist: Believer.” Blumhouse is working to significantly increase film production as part of a merger with Atomic Monster.

Mr. Blum and Abhijay Prakash, the president of Blumhouse, are also building companies focused on original video games, merchandise and live events.

“Our biggest plans have yet to be implemented,” Mr. Blum said.

Disney is using Taylor Swift and Moana as part of a campaign to revitalize its entertainment offering.

The company said Wednesday that it had reached a deal with Ms. Swift to release her blockbuster “Eras Tour” concert film on streaming for the first time. “The Eras Tour (Taylor's Version)” will feature five additional performed songs, including fan favorite “Cardigan,” and will release exclusively on Disney+ on March 15.

The film 'The Eras Tour' has sold more than $260 million worth of tickets in cinemas around the world. Disney CEO Robert A. Iger called it “exciting” and “a true phenomenon” in a statement.

In addition, Disney said it would release a big-screen sequel to “Moana” in theaters on Nov. 27. The first “Moana” was released in 2016 and grossed $687 million against a production budget of about $150 million. But streaming is where the characters really took off. “Moana” was the No. 1 streaming movie last year on any service, with 11.6 billion minutes watched, according to Nielsen. Nielsen said streaming customers have watched nearly 80 billion minutes of “Moana” over the past four years.

Auli'i Cravalho (the Polynesian princess Moana) and Dwayne Johnson (the tattooed demigod Maui) are expected to reprise their vocal roles in “Moana 2.” The sequel is a musical directed by Dave Derrick Jr., whose credits include “Raya and the Last Dragon” and “Encanto.” The storyline for “Moana 2” centers on an unexpected phone call from Moana's ancestors, prompting her to travel “to the distant seas of Oceania and to dangerous, long-lost waters.”

Disney struggled at the box office last year. The animated “Wish,” superhero sequel “The Marvels” and the ultra-expensive “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” were all box office failures, raising concerns about the vitality of several Disney studios. Pixar's “Elemental” had a disastrous opening, but ultimately grossed a respectable $496 million worldwide.

The overall poor performance — in stark contrast to previous years, when Disney released one billion-dollar movie after another — has contributed to attacks on the company by activist investors. For example, Trian Fund Management is waging a proxy battle for multiple board seats. Disney is trying to combat such attempts.

“Moana 2,” originally conceived as an animated Disney+ series, joins a theatrical lineup for the year that Walt Disney Studios says will mark a dramatic turnaround. Other planned releases include 'Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes', 'Deadpool 3', 'Inside Out 2' and 'Mufasa', a spin-off of 'The Lion King'.

AMC Theaters has apologized to Rev. William J. Barber II, a civil rights leader, after he was escorted from a theater in Greenville, NC, after employees refused to allow him to use a seat he needed to attend a ceremony. treat a painful medical condition. said.

Mr. Barber, 60, attended a screening of “The Color Purple” on Tuesday afternoon with his mother, Eleanor Barber, 90. He said he tried to use the chair, which an assistant carried for him, by placing it in a reserved area places. for handicapped seating, and said he had done this before in theaters, at Broadway plays and even while visiting the White House.

He said a theater employee told him he wouldn’t be able to use the chair, which looks like a small stool, because it didn’t meet American with Disabilities Act guidelines.

Employees then called Greenville police and told officers they wanted Mr. Barber to leave or face trespassing charges, according to Mr. Barber, who shared video of the encounter with The New York Times.

Mr. Barber said he agreed to leave the theater and that no charges were filed. The video shows a police officer escorting him out of the cinema, thanking him for his cooperation and apologizing “for the way this turned out.”

His mother stayed and watched the movie with an assistant, he said.

“I just wanted to go to the movies with my mom,” Mr. Barber said.

In a statement to a local news station, the AMC theater chain said it “sincerely apologizes to Bishop Barber for the way he was treated, and for the frustration and inconvenience caused to him, his family and his guests.”

Both the statement and Mr. Barber said that AMC CEO Adam Aron had spoken with Mr. Barber by phone and that the two planned to meet in Greenville next week.

Neither AMC Theaters nor the Greenville Police Department responded to requests for comment.

Mr. Barber has a condition called ankylosing spondylitisand walks slowly with the help of a cane. He said the disease attacks his joints “like a guided missile” and has left him living with chronic pain for nearly 40 years. “I describe it that way because it’s a war to live with it,” he said.

He added that people with disabilities often face invisible struggles that are difficult for people without disabilities to understand.

“People with disabilities have the right to appear,” Mr Barber said. “Period of time.”

Mr Barber said he was grateful that Mr Aron had immediately reached out and apologized, and that he looked forward to their meeting.

“I’ve had very positive conversations with him and with the police chief,” he said, adding that he didn’t believe police even wanted to be involved.

Maria Town, president and chief executive of the American Association of People with Disabilities, an organization that advocates for the rights of people with disabilities, said she found the theater staff’s response “simply mind-boggling.”

“People with disabilities face so much discrimination every day,” Ms Town said. “They encounter so many types of physical barriers that should not exist under the law.”

The Americans with Disabilities Act, signed in 1990, is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination in several areas and requires widespread accommodations in public places. “And that’s what movie theaters are,” Ms. Town said.

Mr. Barber rose to national prominence in the 2010s after leading protests against a North Carolina voter ID law that was later struck down by a federal appeals court. knocked downcalled it an unconstitutional attempt to “target African Americans with almost surgical precision.”

Mr. Barber, a former head of the NAACP in North Carolina, is a fixture at rallies, marches and civil disobedience actions. He said he has been allowed to use his chair in numerous theaters and other places, including in prison after being arrested at demonstrations.

Jack Goldstein, a conservationist who responded to the destruction of several venerable Broadway theaters in the 1980s as part of a Times Square redevelopment plan by helping organize a successful campaign to give more than two dozen other theaters landmark status give, died June 16 in Cold Spring, New York, in Putnam County. He turned 74.

The cause was a heart attack, said Tom Miller, his executor.

For more than 30 years, Mr. Goldstein himself as an effective performer behind the scenes on Broadway. He was the executive director of the non-profit organization Save the Theaters, which was created to prevent the future destruction of theaters.

He was a manager Actors Equity Association, the trade union, and with the Theater Development Fundwhere he initiated the design competition that led to the creation of a new TKTS discount counter in Duffy Square, topped by a dramatic cascade of 27 ruby ​​red structural glass steps rising above West 47th Street.

“Jack had a great artistic eye and a deep commitment to good governance,” Gretchen Dijkstra, said the former president of the Times Square Business Improvement District in a telephone interview.

Mr. Goldstein arrived in Manhattan in the spring of 1982 during a difficult financial period for Broadway and around the time of the major demolition of the Helen Hayes and Morosco theatres — the most notable of the five theaters between West 45th and 46th Streets on Broadway that were razed to the ground to make way for the towering New York Marriott Marquis Hotel.

The sites of the Hayes and Morosco theaters had become the center of protests by actors, playwrights and other activists until the wrecking balls started swinging in March.

Mr. Goldstein told a conference at the Skyscraper Museum in Manhattan in 2014: “The destruction in the center of Broadway of beloved, important and, from the actors’ point of view, irreplaceable instruments of their art form and communication, was an insult.”

Mr. Goldstein, with a background in historic preservation, initially volunteered for the Committee to Save the Theaters, which was set up by Actors’ Equity. He soon moved on to join and then run the spin-off organization Save the Theaters.

“As it was clear that the city no longer recognized the value of Broadway theaters,” he told Metropolis, an architecture and interior design magazine, in 2004, “No. 1 on the agenda was to remove all available legal impediments to demolition in practice and apply it to the historical theatres.

For six years, Mr. Goldstein and other conservationists helped find a solution that focused on getting protection for as many theaters as possible from the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Part of the process involved examining the interior and exterior of the theaters to determine which landmarks to designate—and convince the committee of their worthiness. He brought actors to the committee hearings to impart their knowledge of the theaters. And he collaborated with an architect, Hugh Hardy, on a report that emphasized the full geometry of the theaters—their shape, layout, and acoustic properties—rather than just their decorative details, as standards for landmark designation.

For example, speaking at the Skyscraper conference, Mr. Goldstein mentioned the “spatial relationships and building techniques behind the walls” that allowed actors to speak without a microphone or in a whisper and be heard by 600 to 1,400 theatergoers.

“He was eloquent and extremely energetic,” said Kent Barwick, a former chairman of the monuments commission, in an interview. “He did what he had to do at the time. Was he always right in his judgment? No. Was he always fair? No. Was he dramatic? Of course – he came from Actors’ Equity.”

In 1987, the commission designated 28 theaters as landmarks, some for their exteriors, some for their interiors, some for both. (The sale of the Mark Hellinger Theater to a church in 1991 brought the group to 27.) The city’s Board of Estimate, a powerful governing body at the time, approved the nominations in March 1988.

Theater owners objected to the landmark “as a confiscation of the building’s value because it limited its use to live theater”, Rocco Landesman, a former president of Jujamcyn Theaters said over the phone. He said of the buildings: “You couldn’t tear them down, and it was hard to build on top of them if you didn’t have the rights. Value was taken without compensation.”

The owners sued to revoke the landmark status of 22 of the theaters, but in 1992 the United States Supreme Court declined to hear the case after the state Supreme Court and Appellate Division upheld the designation.

Jack Lewis Goldstein was born on March 5, 1949 in Jersey City, NJ. His father, Joseph, was an army officer and physician whose work took him and his family to various posts, including Maryland and Germany. His mother, Thelma (Ginsberg) Goldstein, was a homemaker, potter, and political activist. The couple eventually divorced.

His maternal grandmother took Jack to see his first Broadway show, the musical Oliver! by Lionel Bart, which opened at the Imperial Theater in 1963.

“‘Olivier!’ was the first time I experienced that suspension of disbelief,” he told Crain’s New York Business in 1998. “I wanted to play the character myself.”

Although he tried acting in school, he said he lacked the talent.

After graduating from the University of California, Berkley, Mr. Goldstein graduated from George Washington University in 1972 with a bachelor’s degree in English literature. He worked in Manhattan at the National Design Center, which exhibited home furnishings, before moving to Washington, where he became an assistant to the director of programs at the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, a small federal agency that would play a role in persuading him to go to Broadway.

While in Washington, the Department of the Interior, in response to a petition from conservationists, determined that the Morosco was eligible to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and that if the developer of the Marriott Marquis wanted to abort, it would need a waiver from the advisory board. Mr. Goldstein argued in an affidavit that Lyn Nofziger, an aide to President Ronald Reagan, told the board to allow the waiver or lose state funding — an allegation Mr. Nofziger denied.

Frustrated, Mr. Goldstein soon left Washington to join the Broadway conservators, whose efforts to save the Morosco were by then doomed.

After leaving Save the Theaters in 1988, he was a special assistant for government affairs to Ron Silver, the actor and president of Actors’ Equity, and the project director of the Broadway Initiatives Working Group, which was formed to evaluate the future of Broadway . From 1998 to 2001, he served as executive director of the nonprofit Theater Development Fund, which makes theater more affordable and accessible.

When he announced the competition to design a new TKTS booth in 1999, Mr. Goldstein realized how beloved and important the casual, pipe-and-canvas structure had become to theatergoers over 26 years. But, as he told The New York Times, “time and weather have taken their toll.”

The new TKTS booth was not completed until 2008, a year before Mr. Goldstein returned to Actors’ Equity as the national director of governance, policy and support.

In 2012, he became an antiques dealer in Cold Spring. He previously owned a seasonal antique store in Rehobobo, Del.

Mr. Goldstein – who is survived by his brother, Leonard – acknowledged his influence on Broadway.

“I think I’ve made a contribution when I walk down Times Square and see theaters full – many would have been wiped out,” he said. The Stream of the Highlands from Cold Spring in 2014. “I feel, ‘job done.'”