Kino Marquee

Overview

Kino Marquee is a virtual cinema platform built by Kino Lorber in March 2020 to keep arthouse theaters earning revenue after COVID-19 forced physical closures. The platform lets participating theaters sell streaming tickets to Kino Lorber theatrical releases through each theater's own branded web page. Revenue splits 50/50 between the distributor and the exhibitor, matching the economics of a standard theatrical engagement. Kino Lorber received a Special Award from the New York Film Critics Circle for the initiative.

The platform launched with Bacurau (directed by Kleber Mendonca Filho and Juliano Dornelles) on March 19, 2020, priced at a universal $12 ticket. Three theaters signed on at launch: Film at Lincoln Center (New York), Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Jacob Burns Film Center (Pleasantville, NY). Within weeks, 60+ arthouse cinemas across the United States had joined. Wendy Lidell, SVP of Theatrical Distribution at Kino Lorber, designed the platform to emulate the theatrical experience rather than function as a standard VOD rental: films were booked Friday to Thursday, theaters promoted their own screening pages, and buyers received a "ticket" rather than a rental link.

Kino Marquee was built on top of Kino Now, Kino Lorber's transactional VOD platform launched in late 2019. In 2023, Kino Lorber launched Kino Film Collection, a subscription streaming service at $5.99/month, and Kino Now transitioned into that product. Kino Marquee customers were offered 20% off annual Kino Film Collection subscriptions using the code NOW20 through December 31, 2025.

How Virtual Cinema Works

The Kino Marquee model involves four parties:

• Kino Lorber (the distributor) licenses the film for virtual exhibition and provides the streaming infrastructure
• The theater partner promotes the film through its own channels (email blasts, social media, website) and sells tickets on a branded page hosted on the Kino Marquee platform
• The viewer pays the ticket price (originally $12, later variable by title) and receives a time-limited streaming link
• Revenue splits 50/50 between the theater and Kino Lorber, matching standard theatrical terms

This structure preserves the theatrical distribution chain. The theater remains the point of sale and receives its share of gross revenue. The viewer interacts with their local cinema's brand, not Kino Lorber's brand directly. Kino Marquee deliberately avoids the word "streaming" in its user-facing language, using "ticket," "screening," and "admission" to maintain the theatrical framing.

The platform also supports virtual holdovers: films that perform well extend beyond their initial week, just as in physical exhibition. Theaters can aggregate multiple Kino Marquee titles on their virtual marquee, creating a programming slate that mirrors their physical screening schedule.

Historical Context

Kino Marquee was the first-to-market virtual cinema platform in the United States. Kino Lorber launched it within days of the March 2020 theater closures, leveraging the existing Kino Now VOD infrastructure to build the theater-branded portal system rapidly. The company chose speed over polish, a decision SVP Wendy Lidell later defended explicitly in an IndieWire interview.

Within months, other distributors followed with their own virtual cinema models, including IFC Films, Music Box Films, and Grasshopper Film. The rapid proliferation created market confusion and content saturation. Lidell noted that some distributors released films straight to VOD without theater partnerships, undermining the virtual cinema model by cutting exhibitors out of the revenue chain.

The New York Film Critics Circle awarded Kino Lorber a Special Award for the Kino Marquee initiative, recognizing it as an effort that preserved the arthouse exhibition ecosystem during an existential threat.

What Filmmakers Should Know

Kino Marquee is not an independent acquisition platform. It is a distribution channel operated by Kino Lorber. Films appear on Kino Marquee only as part of Kino Lorber's theatrical distribution activity. Filmmakers seeking distribution through Kino Marquee should approach Kino Lorber's acquisitions team, not the Marquee platform directly. Kino Lorber releases approximately 30 titles theatrically each year under its Kino Lorber, Zeitgeist Films, Milestone Films, and Kino Lorber Repertory banners.

For filmmakers whose films are acquired by Kino Lorber, the virtual cinema model extends the theatrical window's reach. A film that would normally open in 5 to 15 arthouse markets can potentially reach 60+ theater partner audiences simultaneously, including markets without a physical arthouse cinema. This expanded reach benefits films with niche audiences spread across geographically dispersed markets.

The 50/50 revenue split means filmmakers should understand that virtual cinema gross revenue is shared between distributor and exhibitor before any filmmaker participation. The distributor's share is then subject to standard distribution fees (typically 25% to 35%) and recoupment of P&A and delivery costs before the filmmaker receives their share. Filmmakers should model these splits carefully when evaluating a Kino Lorber offer that includes virtual cinema distribution.

The Transition to Kino Film Collection

In November 2023, Kino Lorber launched Kino Film Collection, a subscription streaming service priced at $5.99/month or $59.99/year with a 7-day free trial. The service is available in the United States and Canada on web, mobile, Apple TV, Fire TV, Android TV, Roku, and as an Amazon Prime Video Channels add-on. Kino Now, the transactional VOD platform that hosted Kino Marquee, was closed and its catalog folded into Kino Film Collection.

Kino Film Collection features new theatrical releases direct from theaters alongside curated library titles and restored classics from Kino Lorber's 4,000+ title library. New films are added monthly. The service sits alongside the Criterion Channel and MUBI as one of the three primary owned streaming destinations for curated arthouse and world cinema in North America.

Kino Lorber also operates MHz Choice (acquired 2022, merged with Topic in 2024) for international series and Kino Cult (ad-supported, launched October 2021) for genre and cult films. The company's streaming portfolio now covers SVOD (Kino Film Collection, MHz Choice), AVOD (Kino Cult), and transactional (Kino Film Collection rental/purchase options).

Notable Kino Marquee Releases

The first Kino Marquee title was Bacurau (2019), a Brazilian thriller that had premiered at Cannes. Other early virtual cinema releases included Bacurau holdovers and subsequent Kino Lorber theatrical titles that shifted to virtual exhibition during the pandemic closure period. The platform also carried repertory titles from the Kino Lorber library, allowing theaters to program classic cinema alongside new releases.

See Also

For how virtual cinema fits into the broader theatrical distribution landscape, see Streaming vs Theatrical Revenue. For Kino Lorber's overall distribution activity, see the Kino Lorber directory entry. To model revenue from a theatrical-plus-streaming release strategy, use the Revenue Forecast Calculator. For understanding how distribution fees and revenue splits affect filmmaker receipts, see What Does a Distributor Keep?.