Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Rushed summer release schedule screws the single screen theater (RANT)

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Topic: Rushed summer release schedule screws the single screen theater (RANT)

Barry Floyd
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1079
From: Lebanon, Tennessee, USA
Registered: Mar 2000

posted 06-08-2007 02:18 PM

quote: Mike Blakesley
2. You can't share a screen between two movies. You can sometimes do a G-rated show in the afternoon and an adult movie in the evening, but only if the matinee is a flop and the evening show has no kid appeal. With a blockbuster like Shrek, forget it...they want all the shows of each day.

Rule 2 doesn't seem to apply to drive-ins.

I know our booker buys our films in "pairs" - with usually both films from the same studio. Very rarely do we stray from the studio-combo scenerio. When we do combine features from different studios, it takes some wrangling from all parties involved. That's why we have a booker.

Adding the second screen to our drive-in two years ago was the best thing we could have ever done. We usually end up opening a new movie each week. We're actually opening 2 new films tonight - Surf's Up & Oceans 13. I didn't even want to open Oceans 13, but the booker worked out a deal with the studios for both this week and next. This week it will play in front of our last week of Pirates, and next week it will play as the co-feature behind Fantastic 4 & the Silver Surfer. I had planned to bring back Spiderman 3 to play behind Surf's Up (ie. the studio combo), and pair Shrek with Pirates, (lower $%) but our booker managed to swing another week of Shrek 3 - which will make for a hell of a family friendly double feature.

I agree with everyone about getting slammed with all of the good summer blockbusters 3-4 weeks in a row. If they would have stagered them out about 3-4 weeks apart over the course of the summer, I think they could have made better grosses. Heck, Spiderman 3 only opened 4 weeks ago, and it's already old news.

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Caleb Johnstone-Cowan
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 593
From: London, UK
Registered: Mar 2006

posted 06-08-2007 05:21 PM

quote:
I know multiple prints are kept basically for customer convienience rather than sell out potential,

Surely multiple prints means less sell-outs and no need for staff-intensive assigned seating? I'm too cynical...

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

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

posted 06-08-2007 08:56 PM

The main reason for multiple prints is to get as many butts in the seats as possible on the opening weekend. This has two advantages for the studios:

1. They cash in on the highest percentage paid by the theatres.

2. They get maximum tickets sold before word gets around that the movie sucks.

Of course there is the side benefit of making the customers happy that they get to see the movie when they want to, but if there was no money in it, you wouldn't see the multiple prints.

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Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1400
From: Davie, FL, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 06-08-2007 09:17 PM

The multiple prints are also a growth of the operational theory of the megaplex. A megaplex was designed to play 5 prints of a movie in 5, 300 seat auditoriums instead of 1 print in a 1500 seat autitorium (also the ADA benefit of keeping less than 300 seats in a stadium auditorium adds to the reasons). I believe the theory is that you can serve the same number of people with a lot less staff because you are spreading out the arrivals throughout the whole day.

I don't know if the theoretical operation works in practice. I noticed at AMC Pleasure Island 24 that they were running Pirates on (I think) 8 screens but with 5 prints. I noticed that they were running extremely long (well over 1 hour) intermissions between shows on the same screen instead of running every 1/2 hour showtimes all day. Maybe having people coming in ALL the time doesn't work as well in practice as they thought it would in theory.

In the "old" days two prints was a big deal. Interlock was much more common. I remember GCC at their (then flagship) Miracle Center 10 in Miami had 2 prints of Jurassic Park. One print ran interlocked on 3 screens and the other interlocked on 2. If the current release practice was being used back then, I'm sure that they would have had 4 prints and no interlocks.

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