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This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
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Author
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Topic: digital conversion gone bad
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 08-29-2014 10:51 PM
Rumor has it that pretty much the same thing has just happened with the theater owned by Quentin Tarantino in LA, the New Beverly. He bought it several years ago when rising rents almost forced it out of business, and allowed its former owner to carry on running the place as a leaseholder for a peppercorn rent. As I understand it, he (the leaseholder) bought a digital projector earlier this year, basically because he had no choice if he ever wanted to show newly released or re-released movies. All this was happening at around the time Tarantino delivered his infamous anti-digital rant at Cannes.
Anyway, at the start of this week, pretty much everyone in these parts was talking about how Tarantino had just terminated the poor guy's lease, thrown him out and told him to take his infernal machine (I doubt if that was the precise phrase he used, but you get the idea) with him. Apparently the theater is to close for the whole of September for a major refurbishment, which will include a major upgrade of the 35/70 film installation, and when the place reopens it will be proudly film only.
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Kyle Mitchell
Film Handler
Posts: 23
From: Streator, Illinois, USA
Registered: Jan 2014
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posted 08-30-2014 12:49 AM
Tim certainly isn't any Tarantino. The difference is one can afford to do that, the other can't. Poor Tim, had to sit out in LA and read in the newspaper about someone else saving his theatre. I think it is nothing more than an insecure person with a bad temper and a huge ego just having it totally shattered, that is depriving my entire community of having the ability to enjoy motion picture entertainment, despite the donation of $130,000.
Maybe some stars would would be willing to provide some individual support, but "Hollywood", as in the media conglomerates, does not care at all about what the movie-goers end up with.
They don't honor the consumer choice and book movies based on the merits of individual theatres as the 1948 Supreme Court decision known as the Paramount Decrees says they should. By booking films based on how many locations the theatre owner has in that region, many independent theatres do not have a chance at free enterprise and being able to exist even when they clearly provide a better service and can perform better. I have absolutely experienced it for myself. This practice clearly limits competitive choice and its benefits to the movie-goer, but Hollywood doesn't care and DOJ is asleep at the wheel on regulating what they do(like the mortgage industry regulation a few years ago).
I keep hearing about independent theatres that made the huge investment for digital to save the studios big money on releases and they are still limiting them to let the chains in nearby markets skim the cream off the product and leave the independents starving.
They just hand the product to the chains with no regard for what the movie-goers end up with.
I had a two screen, sloped floor, 25 year old theatre competing against a chain 11 screen, stadium seated, less than ten year old complex that had advertised that it was THX for five years but never had one auditorium certified ever. How's that for cheating the movie-goers and degrading the industry?
My theatre was not only voted best all five years I was there in the newspaper's Best of competition, but by movie-goers with their wallets at the box office.
Of course I was never allowed day and date to show direct comparisons of which theatre could perform better, but my theatre easily provided the highest average percentage of national gross.
However, Hollywood would not provide anywhere near the product that providing those numbers deserved. I was typically given bottom of the barrel product and thrown a mediocre bone once in a while. The chain was allowed to book some product and keep pushing opening dates back and sometimes never opening it, just to keep me from having it and push me further down the food chain. At times, the chain was allowed to open new films that I had offered a full screen of course, on a split schedule. They were allowed to drop films making over 4K on a weekend to bring in an art film to keep me from being able to have it. The list goes on.
Basically, I provided a better movie-going experience than the chain, but Hollywood just did not care and let themn drive me out of the market. They convinced the mall that I was in with the planned expansion that I could not fill a bigger complex with product since I couldn't provide an adequate share of product for my two screens. The chain made a deal with the mall for their new complex, but then backed out. Seven years later the movie-goers there still have no consumer choice or competitive benefits.
Hollywood does not believe in free enterprise for the theatre industry and works against many independents. This digital conversion seems to have the added benefit for them of cleansing the industry of many independent theatres.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 08-30-2014 04:05 AM
quote: Leo Enticknap
Anyway, at the start of this week, pretty much everyone in these parts was talking about how Tarantino had just terminated the poor guy's lease, thrown him out and told him to take his infernal machine (I doubt if that was the precise phrase he used, but you get the idea) with him.
I'm not saying those rumors are false, but while I could find the article that they bought a digital projector, I couldn't find anything about Tarantino cancelling the lease of the previous owner. Also, like Terry put it, the theater still has digital shows on their program.
quote: Kyle Mitchell
Hollywood does not believe in free enterprise for the theatre industry and works against many independents. This digital conversion seems to have the added benefit for them of cleansing the industry of many independent theatres.
To be fair, it seems that an internal cat-fight has "cleansed" this theater and not Hollywood.
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Kyle Mitchell
Film Handler
Posts: 23
From: Streator, Illinois, USA
Registered: Jan 2014
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posted 08-31-2014 04:28 PM
When I ran the theatre, I bought a commercial building across the street. After Tim burned me, I watched the Rentrak grosses and the lack of cars out front or people at the box office(visible from my bedroom window), I stopped worrying a long time ago about Tim every seeing any profits from the place.
When you screw over someone who the community watched working so hard on the place as I did, I don't think that business really ever recovers.
Knowing the expenses of the place, I was confident that Katie who owns a realty office in Ottawa(20min away) was using home sales commissions to support the business for years.
I would see that she would drive over here in bad weather and just end up with two cars there or the marquee shut of by 7:30 with her heading home.
As far as what happened after the install, a newspaper article came out that touted Katie and Bob Endress saving his Majestic Theatre. His huge ego was just crushed and his terrible temper and insecurities took over, that is my feeling.
Here are some photos of the Majestic on facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=900359003325972&set=pcb.900359833325889&type=1&theater
Last night was cruise night here in Streator.
The first photos are around and at cruise night when I ran the place. I worked very hard working on that marquee for years. I ran all new circuits up from the box office and repaired/replaced bad sockets and neon. I sanded, bondoed, replaced sections of sheet metal and did a lot of repainting on it, but never did get to finish.
The cruisers would each get their photos taken in front of the grand marquee. The Hollywood Nights show that you see advertised for after cruise night was a big hit. It was a benefit show that allowed me to donate over $1000 to the Streator Downtown Beautification Fund. We took every opportunity that we could to give back to our community instead of soliciting donations for a for-profit business and then trying to siphon the value out of it, to take to LA.
The other pictures are of the protests there after he boarded it up. I'm glad that his cronies(the kids of the flooring contractor that I'm pretty sure he is taking legal advice from) turned on the marquee to taunt the protesters. It gives you a chance to see what the AJESTIC looked like after of few years of Tim at the helm.
Last night was great cruise night, one of the better ones. Tens of thousands of people in our downtown for it. I didn't break out my propane old fashioned popcorn cart this year, because I have been busy putting together a theatre in Kentucky, but I sold a few hundred light up swords, wands, etc in front of my son's store on the bottom floor of my building.
It was completely dark on that end of the street. That dark Majestic tower sticking up from the front of the building looked like Tim just flipping off the entire community.
People like him ruin our industry in my opinion.
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![[Wink]](wink.gif)
. Seems like their schedule covers exactly one month, so they could just be lazy or not sure about what to play yet...
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