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Topic: Spider-Man: Homecoming - no clearance

Alexandre Pereira
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 126
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Jan 2016

posted 07-06-2017 07:07 PM

"What they do like though, is to drink expensive wines. They also like to spend a lot of money on rather expensive and more exclusive snacks and menu items."

This may work in Europe - but not here. You are dealing with a very base crowd in the GTA when it comes to 'art pictures'. It is not a problem limited to the Kingsway Theatre - it is a problem throughout the locations that are saddle with clearance issues. I have alcohol sales here and a full menu - but that makes NO difference. It is not that they do not want popcorn - they just do not want anything. It is simply NOT enough to live off of ticket sales. Even if the percentage of rent is 35% - even if you are busy. RPP is everything and that can only be achieved by running first run in Toronto - whether blockbuster films or middle of the road dramas - but not art films.

People come to a theatre to have a good time and a night (or afternoon) out. It's a place to take a girl on a date, get the kids out of the house for the afternoon, for Grandpa and Grandma to enjoy a shared experience with little Johnny and Sally, and to get out of the house and get away from the kids for a night.

I sincerely believe that a movie theatre has a special kind of a magical atmosphere that isn't found anywhere else. I've owned and operated my theatre for a few years now and haven't changed my mind about that yet; if I ever do it might be time for me to retire or find something else to do.

"Find something you love to do and you’ll never have to work a day in your life."

"Take an objective as possible look at your operation. Are you providing a happy and fun place and that magical atmosphere for your customers to enjoy when they come to a movie at your theatre? The movie title might be the overt reason that people walk in the door once, but the atmosphere is the reason why they walk in the door a second time."

YES YES and more YES - however, that is not what a large part of the art house crowd wants. That is what SHOWGOERS of all ages want - fun and good times.
Art films bring in a morose clientele that are the antithesis of what the movie crowd should be. I am not talking about the revival showgoers - similar to the New Beverley Cinema (comes to mind). I have played revival 35mm and DCP shows and the people who come really appreciate the experience.
The art house crowd are imbeciles, cheapskates and rude entitled idiots - but worse is that they do not BUY. All judgements are reserved based on the RPP - and at the end of the day it is all that matters.

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Adam T. Holland
Film Handler

Posts: 2
From: Oak Grove, La, USA
Registered: Jul 2017

posted 07-06-2017 08:44 PM

As a single screen with my nearest competitor being a Cinemark 60 miles in Monroe, La. I for one think this is a great move, if they will all just get on board. Walt Disney has become a nightmare to work with over the past two years requiring us to wait longer and requiring us to keep a film for two weeks while still charging 60% plus for film rental.

In a small community with a population of less than 2,000 in the city and just 20,000 in the Parish two weeks is to long to keep a film. Its time they realize that we all are equal players in the game and give us all the opportunity to have equal playing time.

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Frank Cox
Film God

Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011

posted 07-06-2017 10:13 PM

We aren't equal players, though, in the way that matters to the movie companies. There isn't a chance in the world that my theatre could ever sell the same number of tickets as a theatre in a large city. While disappointing in that way, I can also understand why the large theatres get the most attention from the movie companies.

When it comes to getting movies on the break, the best explanation that I've seen for them not wanting to give it to "everybody" is that the smaller theatres like mine will drag down the per-screen average for the first two weeks of release, and that number is very important when negotiating downstream deals like television and video rights. I don't know if that's the actual reason or not, but it sounds like it could be.

As for Disney, I just don't play many Disney movies any more. The last one that I played was Beauty and the Beast and I don't know what I'll play next. I haven't played any of the new Star Wars movies and nobody around here really seemed to notice.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

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

posted 07-06-2017 10:18 PM

quote: Adam T. Holland
In a small community with a population of less than 2,000 in the city and just 20,000 in the Parish two weeks is to long to keep a film.

I don't know about that...we're in town of 1700, a county of 9500 and the nearest "city" has about 9000 people and has a theater of its own. We play 12 to 15 movies a year on the break, most for 2 weeks but we've done a handful for 3, and the Star Wars movies have been 4 weeks. I would rather have a fairly dead 4th week than wait six weeks after the break and wind up with 1/3 or less of the crowd we'd have gotten on the break, and still pay the high percentage for it.

The trick is to educate your crowd that it's not "all about the opening weekend." For multi-week movies, we usually put the opening-closing dates on our marquee. This tends to even out the crowds. I've found at least half of the audience could give a crap about the opening weekend...and if you use your marquee to let them know the movie will be around a while, you'll still be getting decent crowds at the end of week 2 or 3. At least, it works for us.

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Marcel Birgelen
Film God

Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012

posted 07-07-2017 04:04 AM

quote: Alexandre Pereira
This may work in Europe - but not here. You are dealing with a very base crowd in the GTA when it comes to 'art pictures'. It is not a problem limited to the Kingsway Theatre - it is a problem throughout the locations that are saddle with clearance issues. I have alcohol sales here and a full menu - but that makes NO difference. It is not that they do not want popcorn - they just do not want anything. It is simply NOT enough to live off of ticket sales. Even if the percentage of rent is 35% - even if you are busy. RPP is everything and that can only be achieved by running first run in Toronto - whether blockbuster films or middle of the road dramas - but not art films.

I'm not implying your solution is to try to feed your existing customer base expensive wine or something more exclusive than pizzas, hot dogs or grilled cheese sandwiches.

What I was trying to say is: You do have an audience, which is already worth something. It is often harder than people think to build an audience, especially in a competitive market. So, instead of ditching your existing audience and target one that everybody else already targets, it might be a worthwhile exercise to try to figure out how to make more money from your existing customer base. And it might not be imported wine, specialty beers or fancy-pants menu items, but it might be something totally else. Whatever this "else" is, is most likely something you can better judge than me.

quote: Frank Cox
When it comes to getting movies on the break, the best explanation that I've seen for them not wanting to give it to "everybody" is that the smaller theatres like mine will drag down the per-screen average for the first two weeks of release, and that number is very important when negotiating downstream deals like television and video rights. I don't know if that's the actual reason or not, but it sounds like it could be.

I'm pretty sure those averages aren't worth anything right now. For example Disney being such a major force in the industry, they can set the demands even without the numbers backing them up.

I think the reasons behind this selective distribution mechanism are rooted in the fact that most of those Hollywood studios are absolute control freaks. I've seen this personally, when I was part of rights negotiations for on-line distribution quite some years ago. They really want to dictate everything what happens to their content, if it would be possible even when it should expire in your head.

They also seem to think that some kind of exclusivity increases interest in their product. It's essentially the Apple way of doing business: See this new shiny toy we have for you? Want to have it? Well, get in line...

Besides that, there's the more Mafiaesque part of the business, where they simply divide the market among competing exhibitors. They will never publicly acknowledge the reasons why this happened, other than that it's "better" for all parties involved.

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Dave Bird
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 777
From: Perth, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Jun 2000

posted 07-07-2017 10:05 AM

I get what you're saying Alexandre. Our little dog and pony show of a drive-in (near Ottawa) had cheap pricing when we took it over, and though they certainly weren't an "arthouse" crowd, they were CHEAPSKATES. In higher numbers than I'd ever served in other business. And they are the complainers. I like to often say (to my wife or friends), "We're raising prices to serve you better." Having no choice, we did raise prices, cleaned the place up, got a far better clientele of families (who can't believe how CHEAP this place is as they load up on crap) who are legitimately stoked on our sometimes crappy (they're excited on Facebook about our bonus Transformers to go with Despicable Me this week) movies. So I hear you. FUN people like to have fun. They're the ones that go to the ballgame and don't bitch about the price of hot dogs, they're there to watch a game and eat a hot dog. I think Hollywood misses the boat with not using small indoors as a way of making people love movies with their 2-week runs and non-splitting of screens. It wouldn't touch Cineplex's bottom line if you played the latest kids Christmas movie. Those are the "fun" people. Then the "fun" parents might say, hey, nice little theatre down the block, playing some interesting artsy film AND we can have a beer or wine and pretty soon it's "their" place. I don't envy anyone trying to please the "high class cheapskate", they're never satisfied. We got the other cheapskates back. We proved we weren't going to take their crap, but we also backed it up by being clean, efficient purveyors of popcorn & popcorn accessories (to paraphrase Hank Hill). They saw the "fun" people taking over and didn't want to be left out! I hope Hollywood at some point gets this.

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Alexandre Pereira
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 126
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Jan 2016

posted 07-07-2017 12:15 PM

Hi Dave...you are dead on! Here in Toronto the Festival Chain ran for years with art, second run and a lessening number of older titles. They were called repertory in the most derogatory way = cheap. The Festival chain was far from perfect but they kept many older theatres including the Kingsway open.
But by keeping prices cheap and catering to the so called art crowd they went tits up in 2006. Even then the crowd blamed the family that owned some of the theatres for closing them,
It was appalling the mob mentality and entitlement of nit wits who rarely went to the show anyway and had no problem paying the higher prices at cineplex.
When I reopened in 2009 I received much the same attitude. I subsequently raised the prices to match the CP base price. Still my concession, alcohol and food pricing are well below CP. Yet the tards still complain. However, the action and hollywood crowd love the place and never complain.
The art crowd is not an audience but a plague. CP has abandoned the art market for a reason - and only plays many of these films to fill screens. The Cumberland was closed a few years back - that was a hotbed of art pictures for cp. The Lightbox plays all so called art - but they do not count because they are subsidized - both by the government and the distributors that give that outfit exclusive films.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

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

posted 07-07-2017 01:34 PM

quote: Frank Cox
I just don't play many Disney movies any more. The last one that I played was Beauty and the Beast and I don't know what I'll play next. I haven't played any of the new Star Wars movies and nobody around here really seemed to notice.

Uhh, you didn't play Guardians of the Galaxy 2? Pirates? You didn't play the last two STAR WARS movies?! These were all top 5 of the year material for us. We haven't played Cars 3 yet but it's coming up next week.

I guarantee you your crowd notices....they're going to those movies elsewhere.

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Frank Cox
Film God

Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011

posted 07-07-2017 02:41 PM

Those who want to see those movies are indeed going elsewhere to see them. But since I can't play them until six or eight weeks after their release (or longer) there remains little point in playing them at that point. The fans will have gone elsewhere to see it long before then, and the few that are left will come to see something else that I'm playing that's newer, even if it's a less "important movie". If I'm going to be playing something for a moderate crowd I can play something that won't cost me 65%.

I did have people ask when I will be playing the first Disney Star Wars movie right around its release date. At the time my answer was, "Probably at some point but I don't know when yet." Without exception their response was, "Well, I've already seen it myself and..."

I play most movies on their third week, sometimes the second week and maybe once or twice a year I play something for the first week.

I do still play occasional Disney movies, but it depends on what else I could get that week.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

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

posted 07-07-2017 02:50 PM

The difference is in the concession sales though. I'd much rather pay 64% for the movie and get big concession buying crowds, than pay 40% and get a quarter (or less) of the crowd and hence, a quarter of the concessions.

Four or five weeks in is just too close to the video release for these hyped up blockbusters, considering that Amazon and the rest start promoting the video about two minutes after the movie hits the theaters.

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Jesse Skeen
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1517
From: Sacramento, CA
Registered: Aug 2000

posted 07-07-2017 03:38 PM

I've noticed that two theaters in the same area are now playing the same movies- most areas in Sacramento have both a Century and a UA theater, and movies would usually play at one or the other but now they're showing up at both. I don't really like this because it further reduces the overall selection of movies you can see and how long they play; it's already bad when something plays on 3 screens at one theater and no shows even come close to selling out.

I see prices are now all over the map too instead of in increments that allow for just keeping quarters in the box office for change, that must REALLY suck.

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Dave Bird
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 777
From: Perth, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Jun 2000

posted 07-08-2017 10:38 AM

We started out at our drive-in with the rather odd arrangement whereby we bought the place from a guy who managed the local indoor which was owned by our booker (who actually kind of wanted to buy the drive-in but didn't know it was for sale). The indoor was basically dying and falling apart but they were keeping it open to pay taxes, occasionally asking me if I wanted it. They had two screens and opened everything on the break, and we would play everything 3rd or 4th week at 35% and occasionally break the odd one. They'd done that for years and we got along fine. When they closed, we immediately went to first-run at 60-50 mostly (and gasp! even the odd 65-55 over the years). I gotta say, it was never the big shocker I expected to the numbers. We're so weather dependent as an outdoor, and some things changed like being locked into 2 weeks (and as a single, missing every-other release during the summer), but I gotta say overall, sunny evening to sunny evening, we draw more this way. We certainly sell more concessions, and karma seems to look after us sometimes when we do lose our minds and take a 65-55% deal, it always seems to rain the first weekend and the bigger crowd shows up second week! Really looking forward to Screen 2, coming in the spring if we can get this construction going....

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