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Topic: Entertainment Weekly article - "Why Isn't Anyone Going to the Movies This Year?"

Mike Blakesley
Film God

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

posted 05-28-2005 06:32 PM

Here's a blurb from the CBS News website:

And here's an early look at what we're working on for Monday’s broadcast:

The bust at the box office. Forget the lines for Star Wars, other than that hit, fewer of us are headed to the theatres. Is it the movies or the options? The story on Monday's CBS Evening News.

Well at least they spelled "theatres" correctly. You can tell by that text that their report is NOT going to focus on the real problem (early DVD releases, crappy movies). I guess the main consolation is that CBS is the lowest rated of the evening network newscasts, and most of the people who watch it don't go to movies anyway (old people).

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Mike Heenan
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1896
From: Scottsdale, AZ, USA
Registered: Mar 2000

posted 05-28-2005 07:27 PM

I don't know about CBS evening news, but their network is clearly #1 for most prime time programing (CSI, Survivor etc), so goes to show it's not just a geezer network. I'd wait and see the actual report before critizing as their blurb "is it the movies or the options" can be taken many different ways, including the ones you said they probably wouldn't cover.

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Jesse Skeen
Phenomenal Film Handler

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

posted 05-29-2005 12:45 AM

the real problem (early DVD releases, crappy movies)

quote: Mike Heenan was the last to post

AND overall lack of concern for presentation quality at many theatres- does it mention THAT?
I had a quick look at that Entertainment Weekly magazine, it mentioned someone from AMC saying something (in defense of high ticket prices vs. cheap DVDs) like it costs more to go out to a good restaurant than it does to stay at home and cook. What I would've liked to have said to him is that while theatres may be charging the "good restaurant" prices, the people they have in charge are of lower calibur than that of the average McDonald's worker! Would anyone go to expensive restaurants if they kept burning the food or making other mistakes to ruin it?? I would suspect that chefs at these restaurants are better paid than most booth people as well...
DVD ain't perfect, but video done right still beats film done WRONG!

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John T. Hendrickson, Jr
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 889
From: Freehold, NJ, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 05-31-2005 07:26 PM

Looks like more piling on. The Today Show on NBC did a segment this morning. DVD's and video games were reported to be competing for the public's dollars.

You have to hope that all the hype doesn't turn into a self-fulfilling prophesy.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

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

posted 05-31-2005 09:20 PM

The CBS News thing was not "too" bad, although they really made one really dopey observation.

"Last year, 'The Passion of the Christ' took in $370 million dollars. This year, the highly hyped 'Kingdom of Heaven' was a bomb. Is it because of DVDs etc etc?"

No, CBS --Listen carefully: "Kingdom of Heaven" WAS A MOVIE NOBODY WANTED TO SEE, while "The Passion" WAS A MOVIE PEOPLE WANTED TO SEE. Get it? Huh?

I'll bet none of the news services did a report on this past weekend, when EPIII did over $70 million in weekend #2, and Madagascar and Longest Yard each did over $60 mil -- the first time in history there have been 3 movies over $60 mil in one weekend.

Seriously, sometimes I feel like there are only a handful of people on the planet who have a clue. Thankfully, most of us are members of Film-Tech. [Big Grin]

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Jesse Skeen
Phenomenal Film Handler

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

posted 06-08-2005 02:51 PM

Entertainment Weekly printed a few letters in response to the article, one of them said in respose to the AMC guy's comment that they are charging "nice restaurant" prices, but giving a McDonald's atmosphere! And THAT, my friends, is why business is down.
I've had far more movies ruined at theaters than ruined burgers at Mcdonald's too, though I'm not as picky about that stuff.

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William Hooper
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1879
From: Mobile, AL USA
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-09-2005 01:42 AM

The 6/6/2005 issue of Time magazine in their 'Verbatim' column (a collection of short, topical quotes) had this one:

quote:
"I want to do things that confrom to my time frame, not someone else's."
-- Matthew Khalil, senior at UCLA, who says he goes to the movies about once a month, but, like many other Americans, prefers to watch DVD's at home

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Jesse Skeen
Phenomenal Film Handler

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

posted 06-09-2005 04:49 PM

That's why theaters have to make themselves WORTH people "confroming" their time frames to them- they've simply forotten about making going to the movies an EXPERIENCE, and at the prices currently charged that's what customers should get. You should make them want to get there early to see the lights dim and the curtains open up, not to see poor-quality ads and then have the masking come down to make the screen smaller for the feature! These days it's not uncommon for people to purposely arrive AFTER the starting time- my last couple years in the theater business I often started shows on time to empty houses or just a couple people, but have a lot more people seated by the time the actual feature was starting. Of course most of them were gone before the entire movie was over too.

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William Hooper
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1879
From: Mobile, AL USA
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-10-2005 01:22 AM

That looks very plausible to me. Mostly, even with theatres that purposefully provide a 'nice place' to see a movie, they're letting whatever title they're running do the work, & they pretty much stand or fall with it. If going to the movie theatre is not an attraction, then it just becomes something like shopping that is done wherever's convenient whenever is convenient. They used to call it 'going to a show', & that pretty much indicated that the point of the night out was going to the movie theatre.

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Paul J. Neuhaus
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 126
From: Iraq.. Again!
Registered: Jun 2005

posted 06-12-2005 03:31 PM

It's tooooo easy to download a bootleg. I'm deployed to Iraq right now and we had a copy of EP3 36 hours after it was released to the general public. And let me say this isn't the first time. When I was in Afghanistan last summer I didn't miss a single release. We had everything and some of it was high quality stuff. Bootleggers are getting good! Nobody is stopping them and the Internet has given them an open forum. For those digruntled with their local movie-going experience it is just the excuse they need to just buy a blank dvd and download. Then play it on their "home theater" I agree with an earlier post that in theatre only footage might attract curious movie fans.

Semper Fi,

Paul

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Robert Harrison
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 239
From: Harwood Heights, Illinois, USA
Registered: Jun 2005

posted 06-24-2005 05:48 PM

Interesting how this topic started in early May and yet this morning (June 24) on CNN, Mr. Moviephone was speaking on the same subject. I just caught the tail end of it (more graphs taken from surveys), but it seems to me that he should shut up about it. After all, why would the world need a Mr. Moviephone if everybody stops going to the movies? Perhaps he is already looking into doing voices for cartoons?

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Aaron Mehocic
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 804
From: New Castle, PA, USA
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-25-2005 09:32 AM

Two words: SLOW NEWSDAY.

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Thomas Hauerslev
Master Film Handler

Posts: 451
From: Copenhagen, Denmark
Registered: Aug 2000

posted 06-28-2005 02:02 AM

It´s time to bring back the splendour of 70mm prints !!!!!!

See 70mm releases in 1985 - only 20 years ago

http://www.in70mm.com/library/blow_up/year/1985.htm

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 06-28-2005 07:20 AM

quote:
It´s time to bring back the splendour of 70mm prints !!!!!!

"Preaching to the choir": [Smile]

Splendor of 70mm Part 1

Splendor of 70mm Part 2

Although, since you can count the recent IMAX "DMR" releases as 70mm, things are really looking better:

http://www.bigmoviezone.com/articles/?uniq=208

quote:

NEW YORK, Dec. 13 -- THE POLAR EXPRESS: AN IMAX 3D EXPERIENCE, from Warner Bros. Pictures and Castle Rock Entertainment, continues to break box office records this holiday season, and in just five weeks, has become the highest grossing IMAX DMR® (Digital Re-mastering) release ever, IMAX Corporation (NASDAQ: IMAX; TSX: IMX) announced today. Playing on 77 screens around the world, the film grossed an estimated $2.53 million over the three-day period from Friday, December 10 through Sunday, December 12, with the North American gross essentially unchanged compared to the previous weekend. The 15 international screens playing the movie contributed approximately $500,000 of the total gross. The picture has now grossed an estimated total of $18 million in five weeks in IMAX® theatres, considerably surpassing the IMAX DMR box office record set by THE MATRIX RELOADED: THE IMAX EXPERIENCE, which grossed just over $14 million in twenty- two weeks.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050606/nym044.html?.v=7

quote:
LOS ANGELES, June 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Warner Bros. Pictures will release Batman Begins: The IMAX Experience in select IMAX theatres beginning Wednesday, June 15th, concurrent with the 35mm release. Batman Begins, which explores the origins of the Batman legend, has been digitally re-mastered into the unparalleled image and sound quality of The IMAX Experience® with proprietary IMAX DMR® (digital re-mastering) technology.

http://movies.about.com/od/charliechocolate/a/charlie121604.htm

quote:
IMAX Corporation and Warner Bros. Pictures today announced that "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," the highly anticipated film reuniting Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, and produced by Brad Grey and Richard D. Zanuck, will be simultaneously released to IMAX(R) and conventional 35mm theatres on July 15th, 2005. The announcement follows on the heels of previous successful Warner Bros. Pictures' IMAX DMR(R) releases, including the record-setting holiday hit "The Polar Express: An IMAX 3D Experience."

http://www.blueskystudios.com/content/news-robots.php?id=17

quote:
ROBOTS, an animated feature from the creators of the 2002 hit ICE AGE, will be simultaneously released to both IMAX® and conventional theatres on March 11, 2005. The film will be digitally re-mastered into the unparalleled image and sound quality of The IMAX Experience® with proprietary IMAX DMR® (Digital Re-mastering) technology. ROBOTS marks the first day-and-date IMAX DMR release to open during the spring film season and serves to build IMAX's commercial film slate for 2005.

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Paul Mayer
Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under!

Posts: 3836
From: Albuquerque, NM
Registered: Feb 2000

posted 06-28-2005 11:15 AM

The story of the moment that refuses to die. NPR had a long story on this story on their Morning Edition news show today.

Link to the stream of it here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4721065

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