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Topic: AMC not updating exterior signs

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

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

posted 03-04-2015 10:03 PM

quote: Terry Monohan
Just think when Loews Theatres makes a comeback someday and buys out AMC from the Chinese they won't have to change the signs.

This is assuming movie theaters will still be allowed to exist by the time Loews could come back from AMC/Chinese ownership.

The sales droids running our global media companies seem hell-bent on further shrinking that theatrical release window and then even eliminating it altogether. It's kind of shocking at how fast "HD Digital" VOD becomes available after a movie's theatrical release. Some VOD releases precede the Blu-ray by more than a month and are within a couple months of the original theatrical release date.

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Mitchell Dvoskin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1869
From: West Milford, NJ, USA
Registered: Jan 2001

posted 03-05-2015 10:01 AM

quote: Bobby Henderson
Some VOD releases precede the Blu-ray by more than a month and are within a couple months of the original theatrical release date.

Or day and date with the theatrical release.

While it may be easy for the major circuits to boycott the Netflix theatrical release of Beasts of No Nation, this is a film that would have barely gotten a theatrical release regardless of who and how it was released. It will get harder once the major studios start doing day and date with streaming for "big" pictures.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-05-2015 02:35 PM

While a person should "never say never," at least for now the studios seem to recognize the value of a theatrical release for "big" movies.

Too bad there's no way to quantify how much money they leave on the table when a movie like "Big Fat Greek Wedding" comes along and is an unexpected hit. Released today, a film like that would be an ideal candidate for the spiffy new "quick-to-VOD" thing and would have probably grossed a 10th of what it did with the release pattern it had back in the day.

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Terry Lynn-Stevens
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1081
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2012

posted 03-05-2015 04:32 PM

quote: Mike Blakesley
Too bad there's no way to quantify how much money they leave on the table when a movie like "Big Fat Greek Wedding" comes along and is an unexpected hit. Released today, a film like that would be an ideal candidate for the spiffy new "quick-to-VOD" thing and would have probably grossed a 10th of what it did with the release pattern it had back in the day.

In all honesty, how many times does Big Fat Greek Wedding come along? On the studios side, there a lot of movies that would benefit from a shorter window as the movie did not do well at the theatre. I am all for longer windows BTW.

quote: Mitchell Dvoskin
It will get harder once the major studios start doing day and date with streaming for "big" pictures.

Eventually the big chains are going to have to realize that shorter windows are going to happen, what if the big chains had exclusive rights to VOD for 6 months after the theatrical release with a one month theatrical window? The big chains cut out Apple, Netflix and all the others.

quote:
There is a "Cineplex Odeon" operating as an AMC up at the mall in Burlington, WA. All signage outside says CINEPLEX ODEON complete with the Cineplex logos.

It's very confusing..... [Confused]

How long has AMC been operating it?

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-05-2015 06:16 PM

quote: Terry Lynn-Stevens
In all honesty, how many times does Big Fat Greek Wedding come along?

There's no way to know, because that environment doesn't exist anymore.

The "unexpected hit" used to be a pretty common phenomenon, or a movie taking a while to find its audience. Not everything can be an instant hit. The suits are so hell-bent on getting it out on video ASAP that a movie is out and flushed down the video toilet before it has a chance to take a breath.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

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

posted 03-05-2015 09:31 PM

Movie studios executives and their global media corporation higher-ups have attention spans no greater than a couple of weeks. Movies are now hyped with only the opening weekend in mind. After that they're pushing to get the movie out of theaters as fast as possible and onto home video fast as possible.

I think those executives are leaving a hell of a lot of money on the table with that short-sighted approach. That's because the various home video platforms are totally eaten up with race to the bottom economics. The studios are providing people with more choices, but the hard reality is many viewers gravitate to the cheapest option. Often that means waiting patiently for the movie to show up on Netflix or another low price subscription streaming service. Shit, that's even cheaper than going to the video store or Redbox.

Blu-ray sales are way down. That's partly due to the increasingly fractured home video market, but it's also due to all the price cutting. The studios have ruined a lot of the perceived value of Blu-rays and legacy DVDs. And they're making it worse by the reduced efforts they're putting into those movie disc releases.

In radically speeding up a movie's release cycle from theatrical all the way to Netflix and Walmart's $5 bargain bin end cap Hollywood studios are making their movies even easier to forget. Here and gone in a flash.

Meanwhile the Chinese movie market just bested monthly dollar earnings totals of the United States market for the first time ever. One could argue, "well China is a growing economy," but that would be wrong currently since that country is not doing so well economically (China may even be in a recession).

The sad thing is even if Hollywood movie studios want to go back and increase the theatrical window's amount of time they may not be able to do so.

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Terry Lynn-Stevens
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Posts: 1081
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2012

posted 03-06-2015 10:29 PM

quote: Mike Blakesley
There's no way to know, because that environment doesn't exist anymore.

The "unexpected hit" used to be a pretty common phenomenon, or a movie taking a while to find its audience. Not everything can be an instant hit. The suits are so hell-bent on getting it out on video ASAP that a movie is out and flushed down the video toilet before it has a chance to take a breath.

There are still unexpected hits its just that the demand for tickets is far less than the availability of screens and cinemas today. Back when E.T. or other long standing movies were released, there was not the infrastructure to get a wide release compared to what is available now. Also the marketing today is far more widespread and geared towards getting people to want to watch the movie sooner than later.

I do agree that a longer release window will help improve box office numbers, I just don't think that it will help with the numbers as much as people seem to think it will. There were just as many movies in the 80's that burned and fizzled in week one and week two, however there were longer runs for larger movies, but I remember that the screens and infrastructure to get mass audiences into the theater the first weekend was just not like it is today, thus there was a high demand for limited showtimes, screens and locations. Today, in large city it is almost impossible for someone to be turned away from a movie because there are no more seats or screens available to accommodate them.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

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

posted 03-06-2015 11:06 PM

quote: Terry Lynn-Stevens
There are still unexpected hits its just that the demand for tickets is far less than the availability of screens and cinemas today. Back when E.T. or other long standing movies were released, there was not the infrastructure to get a wide release compared to what is available now.

Bullshit. While there may not have been any 24 or 30 screen "megaplex" locations there was still many thousands of movie theater screens. Anything from twins & triples to 8 & 12 screen locations were very common in the early 1980's. There was a lot more single screen and drive-in locations still in business in rural areas. Truth be told there may have been more separate movie theater locations back in the early 1980's than exist now. During the past 30 years quite a bit of consolidation has taken place. Developements in home theater, competition between theaters, booking shifts and the conversion to digital has shut down many older locations.

quote: Terry Lynn-Stevens
Also the marketing today is far more widespread and geared towards getting people to want to watch the movie sooner than later.

I'm calling bullshit on that too. Back then marketing was more simple. It mainly consisted of ad buys in newspaper and TV. Back then the movie posters were much better; they actually featured real artwork rather than forgettable collages of Photoshopped actor heads on what passes for movie posters today. Today the advertising market is extremely fractured. If anything, movie advertising has regressed to a lesser state now. Not as much effort is put into it. Generic movie posters, generic movie trailers, banner ads on some web pages, some trailers on YouTube and that's about it. Hell, 15 years ago a movie studio would put some serious effort into a movie web site. Now most movie productions don't bother with that. They just post some crap on Facebook and Twitter then call it a day.

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Mark Ogden
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 943
From: Little Falls, N.J.
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-07-2015 05:11 AM

No, Terry is quite right, at least in his former point. According to NATO in the summer of 2013 there were just over 39,000 movie screens available in the U.S., this after the multi and megaplex construction boom of the mid-to-late nineties. Possibly the number is less now due to closures of older locations, but in 1982 there were only about 21,000 total screens, indoor and drive-in combined.

To continue with his example, E.T. opened with 1,103 screens, which for the times was a "wide" release (it eventually built through the summer to 1,778). Compare this to Guardians Of The Galaxy, which opened on 4,088 screens, nearly TRIPLE the amount. The difference is the availability of tickets, which Terry correctly points out is offset by the number of screens and showtimes available, as well as the general box-office downturn which has been well noted here. The wide-release "infrastructure" is far larger today, but the demand for tickets is proportionately less.

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Terry Lynn-Stevens
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Posts: 1081
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2012

posted 03-07-2015 12:15 PM

quote: Mark Ogden
To continue with his example, E.T. opened with 1,103 screens, which for the times was a "wide" release (it eventually built through the summer to 1,778)

Even 1,103 locations for the E.T. opening weekend was not as wide as it could of been (although it was very wide). Star Trek II opened at around 1600 locations a few weeks before, a few month before that a Richard Pryor movie opened on 1200 screens and there are other examples of course.

Nobody could of predicted the success and demand of E.T. when it was released, the theaters and studios eventually increased the amount of locations once it was determined that there was going to be a large demand. Same thing happened with My Big Fat Greek Wedding. For both of these movies, if the studios that were releasing knew there was going to be such an enormous demand, there would of been allocated even more locations for opening weekend.

In comparison to Star Trek II of the same year, the success of the movie was predicted and the release was as wide as it could possibly of been at the time, but after the first weekend the box office path of Star Trek II was no different that it is today as it had 34%, 33% and 27% drop off rates in week 2, 3 and 4.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-07-2015 11:49 PM

quote:
Nobody could of predicted the success and demand of E.T. when it was released,

Our booker did. The week before it was released, I was asking him about the movies for that summer...he was going down the list and giving his opinions. I can still hear him saying, "This "Extra-terrestrial' thing is going to do a lot of business." Which doesn't sound like much of a prediction, but he never said anything was "going to do a lot of business" unless he thought it was a blockbuster and he was almost always right.

I expect he wasn't the only booker to make that prediction.

"E.T." was a huge gamble, what with no major stars, a kid-oriented sci-fi story, and a director who had been successful being it's only real big draw.

I saw it on its opening day (at the Rimrock IV in Billings, I think) and given the hype it was getting (magazine covers and such, plus it being such a heartwarming movie) I knew it was going to be huge.

Star Trek II isn't a valid comparison as it was a sequel. There's always a built-in guaranteed audience with a sequel.

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Mike Frese
Master Film Handler

Posts: 465
From: Holts Summit, MO
Registered: Jun 2007

posted 03-08-2015 09:52 PM

Another item that I did not see being mentioned is that the opportunity to see a movie in the first week is even greater due to the now normal to make the big movie of the week available on multiple screens at these even more locations.

Of the 1700 locations for a wide release movie in the 80's, how many screen did it play on?

The next Avengers will be 4000 locations on what 12,000 screens?

Now even a modest new release like Chappie with an expected boxoffice.com opening weekend of $18m or so gets 3 screen at 12 plex I was at this past weekend.

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Mark Ogden
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 943
From: Little Falls, N.J.
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-09-2015 06:39 AM

Those ARE screen totals are being talked about, which should not be confused with the number of locations. Guardians Of The Galaxy opened on 4,088 screens. I don't know how many locations (theaters) that translates to. I imagine that most theaters that had the film showed it on at least two or three screens. If you divide by that you may get close to an accurate count, although record keeping for this sort of thing tends to deal with screen count rather than the number of sites. The number of theaters for an early 1980s release would hew much closer to the screen count, as there were more single, twins and triplexes still operating then, with fewer multiple screen showings in each.

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James Westbrook
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From: Lubbock, Texas, Usa
Registered: Mar 2006

posted 03-09-2015 02:49 PM

And back in the 80s, to run a movie on 2 screens involved running two movies interlock or bicycling the reels between two houses (When I worked at the Fox Theater it was still running 2 projectors per house on 6K reels.). Distributors rarely allowed two prints or more to be booked at the time.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-09-2015 05:34 PM

Another thing more common now is the same movies playing in each multiplex. 15 years ago, Billings had two plexes which would each be playing up to 7 different movies. Now, they have a 10 and a 14, and typically at least half of the movies at one (or more) are also playing 0on multiple screens at the other, sometimes on multiple screens.

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