Netflix strengthens position as theater owners assess industry future

As movie theatre owners converge on Las Vegas for their annual convention, one topic that keeps coming up is how they contend with a company that has resisted their traditional business model: Netflix Inc.

The world’s most successful streaming service sends some movies to theatres but has insisted on making them available on Netflix at the same time, or just a few weeks later. That has upset big movie chains, which refuse to show Netflix films and want a longer “window” of time to play films exclusively.

The issue of how Netflix fits into, or threatens, the theatre business dominated a press conference on Tuesday at CinemaCon, the theatre industry trade show.