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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Topic: Expendables 3 Leaked Online, Downloaded 189,000 Times in 24 Hours
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 08-13-2014 01:49 PM
quote: Monte L Fullmer
I thought studios got rid of the old 90/10, 80/20, and so on splits and went to the "aggregated" booking where percentages of 50 to 55 (?) percent were in place so the theatres didn't take such a big hit in the first two weeks and could make a little money with the flat percentages throughout the lease contract?
Some studios have done that but it still depends on the movie. Disney for example uses a sliding aggregate model that ranges all the way up to 68% if a movie is a blockbuster hit. But if a movie is a few weeks old and not a hit, they'll still sell it for a 40% rental sometimes. But if the movie is any kind of a sizable hit, you still have to pay the aggregate percentage unless you play it just before it hits video.
The old 90/10 thing is of course based on a "house nut" that is based on seating capacity and is deducted from the gross before the 90% is figured. I think those studios that have adopted the sliding aggregate have done away with that, but the others still use it.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Then we got the multiplex building boom and the slow decay of the remaining classic movie theaters, including many of those bad examples of twinned and tripled theaters. The omnipresent multiplex finally ended the notion that going to a movie is some kind of event
Movie palaces are very cool but how do you think the "biz" would be doing if it was still just a few screens in each big city, with 1000 or 1400 seats, and it took you weeks to be able to get into a movie? Until the mid/late 70s it took our theater up to 18 MONTHS to get a movie because we had to wait until the city theaters were done with it. Even a marginal movie would take 3 or 4 months to get here sometimes. So while today has its problems, no way would I want to go back to those "good old days."
I don't know, around here I think people still think of going to the movies as an 'event.' Maybe because there's not much else to do in this town?
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 08-13-2014 04:22 PM
Back during the time when large, single screen palaces (or twins & triples) were common movies weren't released "wide" in thousands of theaters. There wasn't any home video industry either. During that time it was feasible, but not very fun, for a movie to take a year or more migrating from big city theaters to screens in small towns.
There's no way we could return to that distribution model. The genie is out of the bottle in terms of how both multiplex theaters and the home video sales/rental industry have changed and sped up the life cycle of a movie.
I think the far more brief life cycle of modern movies today contributes to what makes so many so forgettable. We're now at the point where a movie can go from opening day at the box office to being played out on cable and relegated to the DVD bargain bin and Netflix streaming in under a year. 30 years ago it could take years for a movie just to go from theater screens to home video and premium cable. The movie stayed around in some form for longer. I have an easier time remembering bad movies from the 1980's than I do bad movies released in the last few years.
quote: Mike Blakesley
I don't know, around here I think people still think of going to the movies as an 'event.' Maybe because there's not much else to do in this town?
That could be part of it. But it may also be a generational thing. How much value do people who came of age in the 60's, 70's or 80's place on the theatrical experience versus high school age people now?
I think it's critical for a movie theater to provide a quality "experience" similar to that of a good restaurant, that way the customers feel like they are attending an event. It sure doesn't need to give off a "fast food" vibe. Unfortunately, I think a more than a few people both young and old see going to movie theaters in just that respect. They don't see the value in it and are perfectly happy watching at home, legally or illegally.
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 08-13-2014 08:05 PM
As a kid, I NEVER heard ANYONE, kid or adult, say "I hate[/] going out to the movies." You hear that all the times now. Something has drastically changed. And while we can moan about the short legs titles have now before they go to video (although in the theatre it IS video, but you know what I mean), you don't hear people saying the reason they hate going to the movies is because they know they can wait to see it on video -- that might be a factor in why they might choose to see it at home, but it still isn't the reason they "hate" going to the movies. That reason is because of a combination of a myriad of things that make the assembly line, utilitarian experience of the multiplex very unpleasant in their minds. So far, exhibitors seem to be unable or unwilling to address reason so many people feel this way. In fact, I would wager that even those who GO to the cinema go IN SPITE of that perception.
As Bobby rightly points out, we are never going back to the pre-video days when GOOD films had legs that lasted months, and the blockbusters could play out for years, moving from the big cities to the smallest hamlets. I don't think that was a terribly bad system; everyone knew that they eventually would get to see the film, even if they had to wait a bit. In fact, that wait period engendered a strong desire to see a movie, more-so than if they could go see it immediately...anticipation is not a de facto a bad thing. Good marketing could actually turn it into a positive -- one of the chains in my neighborhood even played on that aspect. They had 1-sheets in all their second run theatres that said, "Movies, MOVIES, [i]MOVIES (in ever-enlarging font size), Everyone should have one to look forward to!" People looked forward to a film that would be in a month or two.
That pattern certainly was good for the consumer -- we knew which theatres were get the "flag ship" houses and if we missed it there, a few weeks later we could catch it at the first run house and if we missed it there, we knew which were the "under-belly" houses where we knew we still had a chance to see if even though it was long gone from the first and second tier cinemas months prior.
Today the picture opens everywhere and closes everywhere and either you catch it on its opening playout or your are forced to go the video route, even though you very well may have intended to see that film in an actual movie theatre, but you weren't fast enough. Oh yah, and then any film that did well at the box office, would more than not a good chance at being re-released as they used to say, "at popular prices."
No, we will never be able to go back to those slower paced distribution patterns, but slowing how picture playout might just profit everyone.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 08-14-2014 12:14 AM
Not to contribute to thread drift, but I see no problem with Rhonda Rousey working on making it in action movies. She is a great MMA fighter, easily one of the very best female MMA fighters in history (if not the best ever), but it's only a matter of time before some younger, faster fighter comes up and rings her bell. It happens to every fighter eventually if they stay in the ring long enough. Rousey is a beautiful woman. So she ought to work on her acting craft or at least have some plan of being a broadcast play by play sportscaster while she can still do so.
Shit, look how fast people forgot about Chuck Liddell. He seemed unbeatable, but got surprised by Rampage Jackson. He tried to cross over from MMA to movies, but hasn't been very successful. Randy Couture (who Liddell beat for the UFC Heavyweight title) has had a more successful career -having roles in all 3 Expendables movies by the way. I think Couture was already working on trying to cross over to movies, sportscasting, etc. before he was "washed up" as a champion fighter.
A female MMA fighter may have an even shorter window of time to get established in movies or sportscasting. Rhonda Rousey obviously has to take advantage of her sex symbol status, much in the same way Gina Carano has been doing. BTW, I'm skeptical the UFC will succeed in getting Carano to re-enter the Octagon against Rousey. They would have to pay Carano a ridiculous amount of money to do so. Carano has a lot to lose and little to gain by coming out of retirement to fight Rousey.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 08-14-2014 04:16 AM
Personally, I'm not advocating the "old model" of the big movie houses getting the premieres and the small-town movie theaters having to wait until prints are available after they ran to shreds in the big city theaters. It's not like this was ever the ideal model to begin with. In this day and age where a "print" fits on a cheap hard disk and end-to-end digital distribution is starting to be the norm, there really is no excuse like "print shortage". Actually, you would say that the fact that a movie can now go into premiere on a global scale on almost any screen simultaneously, could also push the grandeur of such a release. Unfortunately, the grandeur is almost nowhere to be found.
On the contrary, this whole exercise has diminished the value of movies considerably. The illness of the ever decreasing attention span of our society also got hold on movies. And like Bobby already mentioned, that also made many of them so forgettable. They are literally produced that way. Make the movie look good in the trailers and marketing, try not to bore them away and just in case the stuff might stick, make sure there's at least room for a sequel or two...
If a big budget movie doesn't recover its production costs at the box office within a week or so, it's already considered a failure. Allowing a movie to build an audience by word of mouth (or social media for what it's worth), rarely ever happens anymore.
quote: Mike Blakesley
I don't know, around here I think people still think of going to the movies as an 'event.' Maybe because there's not much else to do in this town?
I can't comment on the experiences in your town. The "small town experience", where the nearest city is a hour and a half away isn't something that's very common around here ![[Wink]](wink.gif) . So, going to the theater will probably be a larger social event than it is here.
But, around here it's not very much different than any "(sub)urban experience" in the U.S. It's much more like fast food than a restaurant. The last "restaurant" around here, closed just a few days ago, it lost out to the newest "fast food chain" with all the newest gimmicks but an overall utterly mediocre experience.
Multiplexes aren't designed for the "big event experience", although some of them have recognized that money can be made by selling "special experiences", hence the whole PLF fad.
But still, there are those many small things that could be done to make the experience just a little bit more noteworthy.
Try to get rid of those stupid commercials for example. I can live with two or three trailers, actually, I'm sometimes even looking forward to them. But, did I just pay for a ticket and a bunch of concessions just to be treated like I would be watching this stuff free on TV?
And what's so bad about reintroducing an Intermission? Skip the commercials and you're about even on the running time scale and everything you lost on not showing the commercials will be earned back by selling additional concessions. People aren't used to intermissions? They get one every 20 minutes or so when they're watching TV, so I guess they will manage. Heck, maybe they will even like it?
Also part of that multiplex experience is the general lack of excitement. There's nothing that's trying to get you into the mood. Generic radio blaring trough the speakers, a blank white screen in front of you. It all feels clinical, automated and without the slightest hint of dedication and love.
The big movies of the past used to have an Overture, Intermission reel and often even an Entr'acte. If you spend like 100M+ dollars on a movie, is it really so hard to create a bunch of them and distribute them alongside your DCP? Maybe even create a separate CPL that includes all the goodies. Maybe, but just maybe, you could even include a few items from your soundtrack in your distribution. Stuff a theater could play before the show starts or during the above mentioned intermission. Damn, I would give another buck just to avoid having to listen to "Wrecking Ball". It's rather unbelievable theaters willingly pay an extra fee to be able to play this kind of shitty music throughout their lobby and in their theaters.
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