Phil Clapp, CEO of the UK Cinema Association and outgoing president of the International Union of Cinemas (UNIC), is receiving this year’s UNIC Achievement Award at CineEurope 2026. The award recognizes outstanding dedication and contributions to the European cinema exhibition sector.
Clapp has worked in the cinema exhibition sector for nearly two decades. He was appointed chief executive of the UK Cinema Association (then known as the Cinema Exhibitors’ Association) in October 2007 before being elected president of UNIC in 2013. Throughout his tenure, he has consistently championed the cultural, social, and economic importance of cinemas, strengthening collaboration across the sector and reinforcing the voice of European exhibition on the global stage.
Boxoffice Pro caught up with Phil Clapp ahead of CineEurope to discuss his tenure at UNIC, the legacy he’s leaving behind in the role, and his continuing role at the UK Cinema Association.
What are you most looking forward to at the convention this year?
The main thing I’m looking forward to is surfing the wave of optimism and good humor we’re currently enjoying, not just in the European sector but worldwide. 2025 had its challenges for all of us, so it’s great to see the way 2026 has started—with a number of big titles hitting their heights—and I’m looking forward to an incredible slate of films over the rest of the summer and towards the end of the year. My impression of conventions is that their mood is very much dictated by the general good humor, or otherwise, of the industry at large. At the moment, both exhibition and distribution appear to be knocking it out of the park.
A big challenge ahead of us is the potential merger between Paramount and Warner Bros. How would that consolidation affect European cinemas?
It remains the case that U.S. studio titles make up the bulk of box office in every European territory, even in France, where local content is particularly strong. Although there are differences in both timing and context, our most recent benchmark for this is the Disney acquisition of Fox. Both sides went into that merger in good faith, believing that the combined entity would be even stronger than the two constituent parts. But here we are in 2026, and we have something like 30 percent, maybe even 40 percent, fewer films than were released by Disney and Fox as separate entities. Unarguably, it’s a less diverse slate of films than those two companies produced when they were separate.
The general position taken by the European trade body, the UK Cinema Association, and Cinema United in the U.S. is the same: We understand that business is business, as it were, but we think that without some legal safeguards in place, the acquisition is likely to be detrimental both to cinema operators and ultimately to audiences, in terms of providing them with less choice and less diversity of films in the cinema. We’re working as hard as we can to get the deal brought into a competition scrutiny process, so that we can get some legal underpinnings for safeguards around the number of films, diversity of films, marketing of films, and, of course, the release window, which is a complex beast in Europe, because you have some territories, such as France, where domestic content or content that has public funding, has a regulated window. In most European territories, it’s a commercial agreement, as it is in the U.S., but the specifics vary from one territory to another. For example, let’s take the 45-day window: In most European territories, it would be a significant step back from where we currently are. It’s both about managing the headline around our concerns and ensuring that any remedies put in place are appropriate on a territory-by-territory basis.
Netflix made a welcome announcement recently, shifting the release of Greta Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew from a Thanksgiving Imax exclusive, to a traditional wide release with a 49-day exclusivity window in February 2027. How did you receive that development?
I don’t think it can be presented as anything other than good news. Netflix taking a further step into the theatrical space, even if it’s just a tiptoe, is welcome. When they were considering acquiring Warner Bros., having been skeptical of the theatrical model for a number of years, we heard from Netflix that they were struck by the model’s viability. I think the concern has always been that once they stepped out of that competition, they might revert to their previous position, which was to use theaters primarily to drive awards buzz. This is no criticism of them; it’s their business to drive marketing of their streaming platform.
In general terms, trade bodies don’t get involved in the commercial side of the business. But we do view anything that restricts cinemas’ access to content, whether in terms of screen types or locations, as detrimental. It’s clearly detrimental to cinemas that aren’t allowed to play the content, but it’s also detrimental to audiences who may not be in the big cities that host specific types of screens. The move away from one particular premium large format (PLF) to a broader theatrical release with some element of exclusivity baked in—that’s very welcome.
I think it behooves people on the exhibition side to make this as big a success as possible to encourage Netflix to take a bigger step with us next time. To be perfectly honest, it’s undoubtedly true that we can all point to Netflix content over the last few years that didn’t get any or significant theatrical release, which would have been very, very welcome by cinema operators, and I’ve no doubt it would have been welcomed by cinemagoers.
You’ve served as president of UNIC since 2013. What have been your most memorable moments in that role?
I came into the U.K. role in 2007. The digital transition was at the top of my list at the time, ensuring everyone got from one side to the other. I think it was always likely that larger operators would secure financing to do so, but it was very much an open question whether smaller operators would be able to. We set up a buying group in the U.K., while some of our European counterparts found other alternatives. By the time I came into the UNIC role in 2013, the heavy lifting of digitization had essentially been done. From there, it was all about ensuring both sides of the house received the benefits promised from that investment. To be honest, it’s still a work in progress 14 years on.
Although none of us would have chosen the dark days of the pandemic, I think it is true that exhibition and distribution have come out of it stronger together than before. It may be a slight council of despair, but my sense is that, both in the U.K. and Europe-wide, the relationship between exhibition and film distribution, particularly with U.S. studios, is the strongest it’s been in the time I’ve been doing my job. It’s like being in a family. There’ll always be disagreements, but there’s a greater understanding of what each side is trying to achieve and what we might collectively achieve. Ad Weststrate, who was my predecessor as president of UNIC, began the work. Then Jan Runge joined as CEO, and he and I worked closely on this. Laura Houlgatte has taken it to a new level. It’s the ability of the European cinema sector to speak as one voice. I have no benchmark against which to judge other sectors, but my sense is that the cinema sector needs no encouragement to drop into factions and different, dissolute voices.
With regard to the key role of UNIC in lobbying the European Commission and the European Union, we are now seen as part of the top table in a way we certainly weren’t before 2010. And it’s not just me saying it. It’s evidenced by the extent to which the commission now comes to us for advice. It’s incredibly useful for us to have that voice, and I think it’s incredibly useful for us to have influence on the things that matter to us as a sector.
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