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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Author
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Topic: Where’s the innovation? Or, where’s the Steve Jobs of the exhibition business?
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 04-06-2006 12:43 PM
Funny how people want new buildings, digital sound, better seats, more employees (to keep a better eye on the audiences), more diligence in the projection booth, more security in the parking lot, less advertising, and better movies, and they want their environment to be warmed or cooled to their liking, but they don't want to pay for any of this even though the costs of providing it all are going up on a daily basis.
Going to a movie is still much cheaper than almost any other out-of-house entertainment there is. The misplaced sentiment that the movie theatre is too high priced is a marketing and perception problem.
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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 04-06-2006 04:36 PM
Getting back to the restaurant analogy, restaurants can spend all kinds of money on ingredients and wait staff, but if the food sucks, people will complain and probably not return.
If the food and/or service is average, people will let it slide if the prices reflect the level of quality they receive. When I go to McDonalds, I expect to get barely passable food, and I expect to have to fill my own soda and throw away my own garbage.
But when I go to a nicer restaurant, and order a steak that runs me a good deal more than a Big Mac, I expect the service to be good and the food to be good as well. I'm willing to pay the higher price for the better experience. Occasionally, I even willing to pay a much higher price to enjoy a meal at a restaurant with exceptional food and great service.
Hollywood has been putting out questionable content since the beginning, and theaters need to play the cards handed to them and quit complaining about the product and worry about the things they can do something about. There's an adage about glass houses and throwing stones that fits nicely.
This summer has plenty of movies that should pull in the crowds nicely. From dramas to comedies to popcorn action movies, there is plenty to choose from, and plenty worth seeing on the big screen and in a group setting.
I don't think the industry needs an innovator so much as it needs theater owners to have the courage to step up to the plate and do the best they can with the shows they're given.
Maybe what the industry does need is a cheerleader, but also someone who is willing to tell it like it is, and maybe even bring some resources to bear to help in the process.
Dan Glickman did a good start at Showest, hopefully he keeps it up and the MPAA and/or NATO gives their support where possible.
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Blake Zaugg
Film Handler
Posts: 57
From: Lafayette, LA
Registered: Sep 2002
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posted 07-25-2006 01:41 PM
Mark Cuban wants your help
http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000960073808/
From his blog website:
"The Movie Business Challenge
This is an open challenge. You come up with a solution, you get a job. Seriously.
This is the problem that consumes me more than what Free Agent we are going to sign. How to get the NBA to get their act together. Which 7-11 Im going to run by to get a sandwich. Its that important.
Only HDNet takes more time out my day than trying to solve this problem. Its the holy grail of the movie business. How do you get people out of the house to see your movie without spending a fortune. How can you convince 5 million people to give up their weekend and go to a theater to see a specific movie without spending 60mm dollars.
For those of you doing the math. You are right. Its not unusual to spend 8, 10 , 12 dollars PER PERSON that goes to a movie in the opening weekend. Shoot, its not unusual for studios to spend that much per person to get people to go to the theater through a movies entire run !
How crazy is it to spend more on marketing than the revenue recieved when they go to the movie ? Its double crazy because that revenue is split with the theater. So if a studio spends 12 bucks to get someone to go to the theater, they might only be getting 4 dollars back in return.
You would think that there has to be a better way than spending 1x, 2x, 3x or more times the initial revenue received opening weekend or week ? Right ?
For all of you thinking that there are other downstream revenues such as PPV, DVD, TV, whatever….no shit. Yes, those revenue streams will benefit from the initial spend, but they dont make the economics of getting people into theaters any less frightening.
We are looking at affiliate programs. So people with lots of myspace or other social network friends could get a buck or 2 or 3 if someone goes from their myspace page directly to fandago, moviefone, movietickets.com etc and buys a ticket to a film of ours prior to its release. Get 100 friends to buy tickets to a movie, get a 100 bucks from us.
We are looking at other similar ideas.
We already do movie marketing 101. We do buzz marketing. We put up videos all over the net. We set up websites, myspace accounts for the movies and its characters, we work with movie forums, we buy ads, etc, etc, etc. If its been done before, we are doing it.
So if you want a job, and have a great idea on how to market movies in a completely different way. If your idea works for any and all kinds of movies. If it changes the dynamics and the economics of promoting movies, email it or post it. If its new and unique, i want to hear about it. If its a different way of doing the same thing you have seen before, it probably wont get you a job, but feel free to try.
So go for it. Come up with a great idea that i want to use and I will come up with a job for you to make that idea happen.
for real."
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 07-25-2006 02:11 PM
Well as a multi-millionaire, he ought to be smart enough to know that no amount of marketing will make a phenomenon out of a crap movie that everyone hates. On the other hand, if a movie is great, it will generate great word of mouth and people will flock to it.
Take "The Sixth Sense." Disney thought they had a plain little thriller and they dumped it in the end of summer and barely cared about it. It captured everyone's attention and went on to gross hundreds of millions, revitalized Bruce Willis's career and made a superstar out of M. Night Shyamalan because people liked it.
3 years ago Disney had "Pirates of the Caribbean 1" which looked like a bloated mega flop to nearly everyone concerned. Again, it defied all odds and went to the moon. This was done from people seeing the movie and liking it....not from the marketing.
If you spend 60 million to get 10 million people into the theatres on the opening weekend and the movie is a piece of crap, then word of mouth will suck and your movie is doomed. (Think "Charlie's Angels 2" or "Speed 2.") If you spend 10 million to get 2 million people in and the movie is well loved, then you have "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and an eventual $250-million gross.
The REAL dilemma is knowing in advance what the public is going to fall in love with, and THAT is the ultimate holy grail. Not a bunch of marketing. The problem is unsolveable. Just have to keep throwing the best stuff possible at the wall and see what sticks. Sometimes the public will fall in love with absolute crap ("The Blair Witch Project," "Wayne's World") so there is just no way to guarantee anything. It's the nature of the beast.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 07-25-2006 04:36 PM
quote: Mark Cuban
So go for it. Come up with a great idea that i want to use and I will come up with a job for you to make that idea happen.
"A great idea that I will want to use..." If I had the "magic bullet" why would I just hand it over to Mark Cuban? Many business people who look at selling things in terms of pushing an ever-increasing quantity of widgets don't want to hear the underlying truth that corporatizing the movie industry does not work.
Creative efforts, whether its movies, music, written literature and especially various kinds of visual arts, are in their very essense UNPREDICTABLE in terms of how the public will react to them. You never know what the public is going to like.
quote: Mike Blakesley
The REAL dilemma is knowing in advance what the public is going to fall in love with, and THAT is the ultimate holy grail.
There was a documentary on HBO recently about big hit movies and big flops. It repeated the quote from some movie studio mogul whose name I unfortunately forgot at the time of this writing. The quote is, "nobody knows nothing." Sure, it's a double negative, but simply put there is no way to create any truly invincible hit making formula.
You can work your butt off creating an honestly good movie such as Cinderella Man and people may stay away in droves turning the flick into a box-office disappointment. An arguably mediocre (or even outright bad) movie like the 1989 version of Batman or the current #1 box office hit, that Pirates sequel can make a ton of money.
The only "formula" for success is filmmaking is assembling the best talent you can find and/or afford to hire. Pixar is a pretty good example of this. They don't hit it out of the park with every release, but they have a production ethic of working their asses off to push the boundaries of their art. And they work using long term schedules on their projects.
That same formula can be repeated for live action movies. But politics very often denies the most talented actors, story tellers and technicians to get a job in Hollywood.
Everyone knows there is quite a few folks in the entertainment business just there to make a buck and perhaps carve out some fame or power. Combine that with the short term day-trader widget selling ethic of many corporate boardrooms today and you have a good recipe for an industry that seems to be barfing out ever more derivative slop.
There's lots and lots more entertainment options these days, unlike the golden age of movies when stage plays and radio were your only alternatives.
quote: Mike Blakesley
Going to a movie is still much cheaper than almost any other out-of-house entertainment there is. The misplaced sentiment that the movie theatre is too high priced is a marketing and perception problem.
That depends on what you buy at the theater, who you take with you and what time you go to the theater. For a family with 1 or 2 kids, they're going to probably drop $50 for that 2 hours of entertainment. For some folks that may not be much. For others, they see that total and either wait for the show to play at the bargain theater or just wait a tiny bit longer for the DVD to rent or buy.
Ultimately, we need better quality, less derivate movies. But we also need fewer movie theater screens and have those existing ones improved. And the release windows between theatrical release and DVD need to be a good bit longer. However, the money people won't go for that. If anything, they want the movie hitting video instantly so they can get a faster return on their investment.
Basically, the movie theater industry is kinda stuck.
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 07-25-2006 05:21 PM
quote: Bobby Henderson
For a family with 1 or 2 kids, they're going to probably drop $50 for that 2 hours of entertainment.
OK fine. Outside of high-school or little league sports, how else can you provide 2 hours of entertainment in front of an audience, in air conditioned comfort, in a cushy seat, for 2 hours, any cheaper?
People who gripe that the theatre experience costs too much don't understand what it costs to bring them that experience. I'm more than happy to tell people the costs of our equipment, seats, film rental and anything else I can think of. After they hear what we have to spend to bring them a movie, they realize what a bargain they're getting.
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Jack Ondracek
Film God
Posts: 2348
From: Port Orchard, WA, USA
Registered: Oct 2002
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posted 07-26-2006 12:22 AM
Tough challenge, no matter how you look at it... though I wouldn't necessarily say that MOST folks can't spend 50 bucks now and then.
Fixing the problem wouldn't be easy... too many ways to point fingers at everyone but yourself.
Many people don't care for the advertising, but the exhibs are hooked on the income... so that's not likely to change.
Cokes have always been expensive in theatres. If they're $3.50, then it's because SOMEBODY's paying it. It's still cheaper than a beer at the ballpark. So... the exhibs aren't likely to drop those prices, either.
Ticket prices aren't likely to go down. The studios are taking nearly 3/4 of it to begin with, leaving the exhibs the rest to run their buildings on.
The studios aren't likely to lower the percentages. They've got stockholders and pampered actors to pay. They're gonna get the money, whether it's from the theatre, DVD sales or licensing to the cable networks.
All of this works because, like with gas prices, the consumer hasn't abandoned the movies in numbers great enough to get anyone's attention.
I'm still trying to figure out how a company can make a profit when their theatre has 15 screens, yet only the top 5 films are drawing any significant numbers.
Maybe the magic bullet is digital cinema. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) The industry is much more obsessed with it than whether the customer is happy with what they get for their entertainment dollar.
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Mitchell Dvoskin
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1869
From: West Milford, NJ, USA
Registered: Jan 2001
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posted 07-26-2006 08:21 AM
Like it or not, the motion picture theatre business is now an "event" business. The movie business abandoned the weekly family audience back in the 1970's, for various reasons that seemed sound at the time. Unfortunately, they broke the decades old cycle of weekly attendence, and we now are left with a generation who both themselves and their parents rarely attend.
The cost of attending a movie theatre is certainly an issue, but it is not the main issue. You could charge 25 cents, and people still would not come in significantly greater numbers than today. While there has always been competition for leisure dollars, the advent of home video has deminished the value of movie going in the eyes of the public. The same thing happened in the 1950's with the introduction of television. Then, the theatre business responded with stereo sound, CinemaScope, VistaVision, etc. The goal was to produce a theatre experience that you could not get at home, no matter how hi-end your consumer equipment was. This gave the theatre industry a 30 year reprieve. Today, the theatre business is responding to the same threat by making technological improvements to cut cost. This will untimately fail because those who care about good picture and sound can buy some really impressive consumer equipment to watch at home, and those who don't care are happy with their VHS and 19" tv's.
Until we give the public something exclusive to theatres, attendence will continue to drop with the exception of a few "event" pictures.
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