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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Author
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Topic: Why aren't classics shown on the biggest screens?
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 08-17-2019 03:03 PM
quote:
Definitely booking restrictions. The exhibitor has signed a contract to play it in X sized auditorium for X number of weeks.
I get that Mark, a studio may require their title to play every day for X number of weeks (usually that X is WAY longer than the customers wanting to see it, leaving the exhibitor to play it to near empty rooms, with not enough sales to pay for the electricity, but that's another story), but I have never seen a master contract that said the studio had exclusive rights to the exhibitor's screen 24 hours a day. If that is what they are going for, then they should just build their own damn theatres and be done with it.
And that would be a piece of cake today, given as how there is no such thing as anti-trust any more...you know, the Justice Department asleep or drunk at the wheel. Disney+Fox+LucasFilm? Come on.
If a studio's title pays normal scheduled hours, say 1pm to 11pm on Friday and then it plays a normal schedule again on Saturday, i.e., 1pm to 11pm, how does the exhibitor playing a midnight show of MAX MAX on Friday midnight violate any contract to play the studio's film 7 days a week? Screening the classic at midnight doesn't impinge on the 7 day requirement, not that I would consider anything to worry about contractually.
Plus, I have seen quite a number of screen splits at the Regal Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn where they will run animated titles specifically targeted for kids only in the daytime and play an adult feature for evening shows in that same theatre. Then again, the answer may be that they are Regal and without them whatever studio would balk at such a split might find itself without that screen at all. Yah, no question it depends what exhibitor is wanting to do the odd unconventional thing on whether or not the studios allow the rules to be bent or broken. The studios may have the ball and will take it and go home if the game isn't played by its rules, but in the case of the big chains, THEY have the ball park and THEY can shut that down and go home as well. The small independent exhibitor doesn't have that luxury...too many other ballparks in town.
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William Kucharski
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 244
From: Louisville, Colorado, United States of America
Registered: Oct 2012
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posted 08-17-2019 03:29 PM
The thing is, no one who wants to see the classic in a theater on a big screen isn't going to not go because it's on a smaller screen; the fact that it's in a theatre at all is enough.
It's very difficult to find a theater screening Fathom releases like the TCM showings on a truly large screen, the closest I have come in Colorado is the AMC Westminster 24.
It's truly a shame when the TCM release being shown is one truly worthy of presentation of a large screen, like the recent run of Hello, Dolly! or when they run The Sound of Music or It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
That's why I've been so utterly grateful when the Cinerama Dome has occasionally run the latter, or when the Egyptian has run The Sound of Music off 70 mm.
In both cases, the showing was worth flying to Los Angeles to see. (Or San Francisco, when I got to see Dunkirk in 15/70, completely worth it.)
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Geoff Jones
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 579
From: Broomfield, CO, USA
Registered: Feb 2006
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posted 08-17-2019 05:30 PM
quote:
The thing is, no one who wants to see the classic in a theater on a big screen isn't going to not go because it's on a smaller screen;
I guess I am "No One." I make this decision frequently. I skipped MM:FR. I own it on Blu-Ray and can watch it on a 125" 2.4:1 screen at home. Over the next several weeks, Drafthouse Westminster is showing Creepshow, Stand By Me, and Pulp Fiction. I'd love to revisit those films (and introduce my teen to them) in the theater, but it isn't worth it to me to see them on a screen that isn't (perceptively) much bigger than what I have at home. Hell, I wanted to revisit It: Chapter One before Chapter Two comes out, and several theaters showed it recently, but on their smaller screens, so yup, I opted to watch it at home.
It's actually a pretty silly statement. The same people who are likely to want to see classics in theaters are the exact same people who are likely to have big home theaters. Cinemas need to give them a reason to bother. Putting classics off in the corner isn't enough.
Signed,
A Man Has No Name
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 08-18-2019 04:28 PM
quote: Marcel Birgelen
you need to build an audience, you can't just randomly schedule a classic movie in your otherwise first-run schedule and think a whole bunch of people will show up. It needs time, so people actually start to watch your programming and decide to free up their busy schedule to come to you.
Exactly. This is what a good arthouse does and why it is such a different animal than a first run cinema. When we started, we could barely pay to turn the lights. Our very first opening show was YENTL -- 4 trk mag no less. We are located adjacent to a fairly large Jewish neighborhood and I thought we would get a good turn-out as the opening film in a series "The Great Romantic Musicals." We had so few tickets sales that the joke was, we were going to send the ushers to go and stand next to each patron as their personal valet usher. By the time we closed our operation a decade later, we were nicely in the black, with about 500 loyal patrons who love our programming. Of course, this was before streaming video services and before titles on DVD were released only months away from the theatrical release. I am not sure we would have done as well or even survived in the age of Netflix. Arthouse...it's a hard row to hoe.
quote: Mitchell Dvoskin
Everyone says that they would like to see their favorite classics on the big screen again, but when it comes to putting their cold hard cash down at the boxoffice, it seem that most are nowhere to be found.
So true. Reminds me of an argument I heard between the owner of a single screen in Brooklyn who had turned to playing porn as a way to survive. He was surrounded by a dozen or so protesters who wanted to stop him from playing "smut." The theatre never even put titles on the marquee, just "ADULT CINEMA" is all it said. That wasn't good enuf for them. They insisted he stop running the porno altogether. Why couldn't he run G and PG titles. His answer was, "Because I did run G and PG titles and you people never showed up; where where you when I was about to go bankrupt?" So the cry of "Why can't you run classics?" could easily be met with, "You buy your tickets up front and I'll show whatever you want." Actually we did a little of that with our subscription system. Buy the subscription booklet with vouchers and that gives you a discount and it gives us operating cashflow.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 09-10-2019 11:25 AM
quote: Jesse Skeen
I'd go so far to say that theaters shouldn't even HAVE those smaller screens. Some of them are downright embarrassing. You might as well tell the patrons that they have crappy taste in movies to see something that they put on those screens.
I'm pretty sure when theater chains design the auditoriums in typical modern multiplex theaters they're basing most of their choices on anticipated attendance levels for that specific theater location and adjust the primary and secondary auditoriums for it. They balance those expected attendance numbers with the cost of utilities (heating, air) and other operational costs per seat.
To use an exaggerated example, no theater is going to build a secondary house with 700-1000 seats and a giant sized screen if movies are being moved to that room after 3 or 4 weeks of play time.
I don't like tiny auditoriums, but my biggest complaint about modest sized rooms with low seating capacities is the screens are often very small in relation to the size of the room. I wouldn't mind seeing a movie in a room with less than 100 seats if the screen was big enough to fill much of my field of vision. Some boutique "ultra luxury" theaters actually do that. Typical multiplex theaters usually do not. The secondary screens in typical multiplex theaters often have the audio turned down to something akin to TV speakers volume. I don't like that either.
The model of modern theatrical releases is very different from what it was 30-40 years ago when single screen houses with lots of seats (and 70mm projection capability) were still common. The typical theatrical release today blows its wad in just a couple or so weeks. Very few movies today have any staying power at all. Distributors set it up that way. The wait time for a movie to reach home video is very short. Meanwhile there are lots of theaters and lots of theater screens. It's very easy to see a new movie during its opening weekend, even if it is an extreme demand blockbuster. It's rare for any theater in any city to have people waiting in line for hours to see a specific movie.
Today theater chains prefer to have a specific, high demand movie play on 3 or more screens with staggered show times rather than play the movie in one huge house with fewer available show times.
The premium priced theater screen is really the only exception to this trend. Those kinds of theaters cater to a certain kind of audience. Not everyone is willing to pay $18 or more to see some new sequel in "IMAX." Some cash conscious movie-goers prefer to pay less to see the movie in a smaller house and with lower, less dynamic volume levels.
New movies also tend to be "platformed" in their release timing. Often we don't see more than one "big" movie get released during a specific week. No two would-be blockbusters are going to go head to head with each other. That gives theater chains even more incentive to build just one big, premium house, a few mid-size rooms and some tiny auditoriums when the movie has gone into terminal, clearance shelf mode.
quote: Geoff Jones
Note: This is not a one-off - it's typical. Classics almost always sell more seats than the current release in the big screen.
I don't think that statement is scientific at all. At best it could only apply to specific niche theaters in giant city markets.
Last week I was on vacatation in Colorado Springs visiting family. During that time I took in a Tuesday afternoon matinee show of The Matrix. The movie was playing on a recently installed Dolby Cinema screen at the AMC location in Chapel Hills Mall. This was my first time visiting this theater since they remodeled the big house for Dolby Cinema (it was formerly a Carmike Big-D house). They had the sound cranked up really well, which I found a little surprising. Usually if I see a movie at a theater in Colorado Springs the sound tends to be turned down lower than usual (and really low in non-premium houses).
Anyway, I had been monitoring reserved seat activity for this movie. I chose a Tuesday matinee for the early show pricing combined with Stubs Premiere discount: $10. Despite the relatively cheap ticket price hardly anyone was in the theater. My parents and brother weren't interested in watching a 20 year old movie they could just as easily watch on Blu-ray. So I ended up going to the show by myself. I could have easily booked great seats at any time during the previous weekend. Meanwhile, It: Chapter Two was selling much better than The Matrix. The prime 7:00pm Fri-Sat shows had all the good seats going fast. The matinee shows weren't doing bad either.
The Matrix was originally released at the end of March, 1999. Yet this 20th anniversary engagement was booked in the last week of August. That was likely the only time Warner Bros could get The Matrix booked onto any Dolby Cinema screens. Late August is usually a very slow time at theaters, just like early January or late April. Those periods tend to be a time when studios release crap product they need to clear off the shelf. It's easier during this time for a classic movie like The Matrix to get access to premium big screen houses. During other times theaters are only sticking new, higher profile releases into the premium houses.
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