Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Why Is Business Down?

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Topic: Why Is Business Down?

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 09-08-2002 01:51 PM

I think discount business is up largely because many customers aren't willing to pay a full admission price to see a lot of the crap being released these days. I mean there is a LOT of

films out there. When I see a trailer for some film like "Eight Legged Freaks" or "Master of Disguise" I automatically start thinking "wait for the DVD if I even want to see it at all". Many other films are mediocre at best and not worth full admission price. I might gamble a matinee fee for the movie, or if there is a decent bargain house playing it, maybe I'll see it there.

Theaters get clogged with mainstream garbage at the same times every year. Right now we're in one of those blah-quality times. The "summer movie season" seems to start and end earlier every year. For the past few years it has started in early to mid May and fizzled by the end of July. All of August through mid to late September is usually a wasteland of low quality films Hollywood majors are trying to empty off their shelves.

The January-February period is another time which I would call the "holiday hangover" slot. The would be hits from the holiday season have already been released and dropping off in earnings. The oscar-caliber films are in extremely limited release in this time and only platforming to a few other theaters. Some might go wide after the oscar nominations are announced. But you can depend on this particular "season" to deliver a lot of the same terrible quality new releases as what you see in late summer.

The lead up before the summer movie season (April to early May) can also be really bad. Not only do you see low quality releases, but often there are few releases in this period while all the distributors try to "position" the releases of all their intended top-quality summer product.

What ever happened to a Hollywood studio just releasing a great movie whenever it could do so? This "summer movie season" thing really didn't get ingrained into schedules until the 1980's. I seem to recall both "MASH" and "Patton" being released in January of 1970. That wouldn't happen today because the studios think no one is willing to visit a theater in winter. If so, why did "Titanic" rack up most of its sell-out shows and many consecutive number-1 weekends during winter? It may have been released in December of 1997, but it took a lot of the early months of 1998 for it to gather its $600 million domestic gross.

At any rate, Hollywood deserves a lot of blame for the periodic downturns in movie release quality. They could spread a lot of their great releases all throughout other months that normally get overlooked.