Carmike, UA, Regal, and a few others will all be filing by the end of this year. The studios are very worried as this could mean gross revenue adjustments by as high as 60 percent off of reported figures. And with the way this summer went, damn hollywood is in serious trouble.

Normally if a major player bit the dust,or was even on the verge... the other major players would swoop down like vultures and pick the best that they could aquire as fast as they could.

However with all the major players in the same predicament, none are in a position to do that. Therefore one would think that the next logical scenario would be for the regional or smaller chains to come in and do the picking. But if all the major players default, and the lenders are stuck with astronomical loses the theatre industry will find inself in the same situation that it was in after television took hold. No bank or lending institution will want to have anything to do with theatres and there will be no money for anyone to buyout the bankrupt chains.

This will put the studios in a very precarious position....facing a major lose of income with so many screens unavailable. Either they will have to cut back the size of their release patterns...back to maybe 1000 to 1500 prints or.... buy the theatres themselves and go back into vertical distribution once again. With the justice department having looked the other way back in the late 80s and early 90s, when they got involved in theatre acquisitions once again on a horizontal plain, they might indeed be tempted to go at it vertically once again.

I have also thought about what effect this will have on the coming of digital projection. Always afraid that whatever happened, it would leave out the small independent who could not afford the change. I've often thought that if the little guy can't afford it...then how can the big guys (with thousands of screens) who are already in debt from building all those megaplexes afford it? The bankrupt situation of all the major players proved that they can't afford it either, and based on that I would predict that digital projection is now years away....ten years at least.

Personally, my feelings are: Sorry, the Twin Cities is full. Pack up and go home, Regal and take your wish-we-were-even-close-to-being-as-busy-as-the-Mall-Of-America amateur-run 16 screen with you.

They rose during a phase where they could show the venture capitalists a quick buck.

Now that reality is setting in, everybody sees that there is indeed a fixed ceiling on the entertainment dollars available in these markets.

We are left with the independants who knew better than to seek venture capital (READ: Give your company away), and the big boys who found themselves in possession of more money than brains.

A lot of these companies actually (and do) have decent, trained, professional people working for them. These folks don't have the luxury of the stock splits to fall back on.

Many a CEO saw his stock split numerous times. They will be okay in the long run.

Kinda makes ya long for the union days.

I think that the profitable theatres will be picked up by others, but some of these mega-plexes don't make sense.

I remember a story that I heard where a Regal-plex decided to get itself built in a "Sumner" town.

Darned if that Regal-plex didn't become the most expensive, luxurious sub-run ever!