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Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 05-30-1999, 03:45 AM:
Star Wars Episode 1, The Phantom Menace is playing 41 prints in 16
movie theatres in Denver. There are 239 published show times. Our
assumption is that there is an average of 200 seats per auditorium. This
means that there are 47,800 seats available per day. There are
approximately 2,000,000 people living in the greater Denver metropolitan
area. At that rate you could seat all of the population of Denver to see Star
Wars Episode 1, The Phantom Menace in 41.84 days. 8 weeks is 56 days. Therefor we can assume that Star Wars is in the movie
theatres 14 days too long. Of course these are statistical lies. Not
everybody is going to see this movie. Not everybody will see it in the first 8
weeks. There are the nut cases that will see Phantom Menace 10 times. I
don’t think there are enough of them to fill all the movie theatre companies
fantasies.
Posted by Paul Konen (Member # 41) on 05-30-1999, 03:45 AM:
Will Fox bow to pressure from the theater companies if after the second or
third week that auditoriums are not full enough. Or will owners move prints
and accept the consequences if it is discovered.
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 05-30-1999, 03:46 AM:
Let it be known that our theatre and every other theatre in our chain has a
12 week "can't even move the print" contract, not 8 weeks. 12 weeks
hogging our biggest auditoriums, making sure no other movie does any
business this summer. Anybody else around the country have this 12 week
"can't even move the print" contract? The industry will never listen to Lucas
again after it does not perform as well as he insists it will.
Posted by Ken Layton (Member # 133) on 05-30-1999, 03:46 AM:
Some theaters here in Washington State have 6 week contracts. We have
a mix of theaters playing Star Wars from single screeners all the way up to
20 plexes. Lucas has also said no slide ads before movie. Well just send
him a photocopy of the slide companies' contract. So far here in the lower Puget Sound region the crowds aren't showing up.
We're playing to only (at best) half full houses. In our area anyway, it looks
like a dud.
Posted by Brad Miller on 05-30-1999, 03:47 AM:
Well, everything is all hush-hush down here as to the length of "no print
moving", but I'd expect after 3-6 weeks, Fox will have to allow it or the
theaters will stop accepting Fox's future long film runs and keep citing Star
Wars as the reason why not to. Personally, I have 3 screens. Our 700 seat houses have been filling up from
10am to 1am every day so far. I expect this to continue through Sunday
when it should start to die off. However, I have been checking at other
area theaters and even the big flashy mega-monsterplex AMC wasn't 40%
full in their Star Wars auditoriums! The only other theater I've heard of as
doing truly good business other than mine is the Cinemark Plano. Anyone
in Dallas able to confirm this?
Perhaps people are finally learning where the good theaters are. Anyway
you look at it though, Star Wars will not survive a 12 week big house run.
It's no Titanic. (Oh yes, and that's why the Star Wars freaks are booing
Leonardo DiCaprio's trailer, because of Titanic's box office records.)
Posted by Adam Birge (Member # 20) on 05-30-1999, 03:47 AM:
I've noticed the same thing here, Brad... Tinsletown and Galaxy have
seemed to be packed, but I drove by AMC Central Park 7 or whatever
and the placed looked dead, as well as the mckinney 14...
Posted by Paul Konen (Member # 41) on 05-30-1999, 03:47 AM:
Saturday was an OK day. Sunday every show sold out about 2 hours
before hand, except for 9 and 10 am which were real close and maybe the
late ones like 11:30, 12 and 1. I think it will do well for Memorial day
weekend, but then lets see what happens.