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Author Topic: Midnight for Return of the King. Thomas Procyk Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1842 From: Royal Palm Beach, FL, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 12-22-2003 01:01 PM                     quote: Roadshow tells us our competition theatre -down the road- will be holding our print to ensure we don't do the midnight show WHOA! That's not right at all. What's to keep them from screening the print for themselves and screwing it up? Or deliberatley messing up the reels or mis-labeling them so that when you finally get your print at the last minute and build it up in time for your first show, you find that it's all screwed up. Yeah. Competition is great. In fact, I would see if somehow the studio is in breach of contract. Why is your competitor holding YOUR product?? Absurd... =TMP=  |  IP: Logged Carl Martin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1424 From: Oakland, CA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 12-23-2003 03:53 AM                        is there any particular reason they don't want a midnight show? are they worried about making too much money too fast? they should just make sure the print is delivered at 1 am. what's to stop the competition from having a public midnight show if they have the print? sure, they'll get busted, but so would you. carl  |  IP: Logged Kevin Baglow Expert Film Handler Posts: 135 From: Yeppoon Qld, Australia Registered: Dec 2000 posted 12-23-2003 10:53 PM                        I got bullied out of the midnight show and changed the midnight show to the following night, but the distributor still sent me & the competition theatre an email saying they were to hold my print and not give it to me untill the morning when their theatre opens for the first show. That gives me about 1/2 an our to make up check the print and fill up the pre sold session. Seems like business practice in still in the dark Lord of the Rings Age in Oz.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 12-26-2003 08:16 AM                        quote: Hmm...think of all the screens a single print could play on if you were running 20 minute reels. The one problem with Thomas' idea is the projectionist manpower needed to implement it. For one or two special shows I was just about able to operate a 3-screen with 20-minute changeovers running in one auditorium and platters in the other two, but this needed very careful planning to allow for rewinding, relacing and making sure I wasn't somewhere else when a changeover was imminent. Trying to do that in a big multiplex environment would be nigh on impossible, I'd have thought, unless you have one person dedicated to looking after the changeover show. The cost of him or her over several weeks compared to the cost of striking an extra print probably doesn't add up. In the days before long-play systems, splitting prints between venues and transporting reels between them while shows were in progress was a widespread practice. I've read British trade papers from WWII (when print stock was strictly rationed, as it all had to be imported from the US during the Battle of the Atlantic) which describe exactly what Thomas was talking about - only in this case reels were shuttled between theatres, often a mile or two apart. When reel 1 finished in theatre A, it would be taken by bicycle to theatre B and so on throughout the show. The next performance would then start in theatre B and the process would be reversed. 'Crossing over' was especially widespread with newsreels, where the high turnover of prints meant that stock was at a premium. At the end of 1943 it was estimated that 700 prints (across all five newsreels) for each bi-weekly release was enough to supply all 4,100 of Britain's cinemas.  |  IP: Logged Pravin Ratnam Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 844 From: Atlanta, GA,USA Registered: Sep 2002 posted 01-11-2004 06:35 PM                     Charles, you said quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's gonna be The Matrix Reloaded all over again -- open huge, fall off huge. You're gonna be glad you have those Xmas Day releases when Return of the King has a big 2nd-weekend drop! It's been #1 for only a month now. Nice prediction Charles. I pointed this lack of basis for this comment way back in the Oscar Jam is about to Slam thread. I am not a fan of the Weinstein Bros. But I think you let that color your analyses of some of their movies - Miramax or not.  |  IP: Logged

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