This is topic Mummy Returns..any feedback in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by Scott Madsen (Member # 167) on 05-09-2001, 10:53 AM:
Hello,Well, Mummy Returns had a great weekend. Does anyone have any stories of huge business at their theatres, slower than expected business, horror stories from the weekend, predictions on if it will stay strong, etc?
Posted by John Keegan (Member # 290) on 05-09-2001, 11:16 AM:
We have "Mummy" on two screens at our Regal Cinemas. After a very strong weekend, the max patrons we are seeing is about 25 or so per house during the week. It may pick up for the weekend, but I don't think it's going to do as well as the first one did. One other little problem is that it is 2 hours and 25 minutes (with trailers and commercials) which we show at 10:45pm...It doesn't let out until after 1:00am which makes life a bit tough for me to get up the next morning at 5:30am. Wonder when we will go down to one print??
Posted by Jay L. Metcalf (Member # 838) on 05-09-2001, 10:45 PM:
Hey guys,
We actually had a great turn out for The Mummy Returns, however we only recieved one print. Well, knowing that this movie was going to be fairly successful, we made arrangements in our schedule to interlock this print in our two largest houses for the 7:00 showing on Friday and Saturday. WOW, that was not even close enough...we had to run the interlock all weekend long, even for our midnight shows, which have never yeilded much of a turn out.
I can't express how much we needed this revenue. What will be the next movie to make a smash at the box office? We are working on a huge Pearl Harbor Promo and also, hoping for a big turn out for Tomb Raider. ------------------
Jay L. Metcalf
General Manager
Carmike 10
Colorado Spgs, CO
[URL=http://www.carmike.com]
Posted by James R. Hammonds, Jr (Member # 673) on 05-09-2001, 11:18 PM:
The theatre I work at has 4 prints and we sceduled interlocks for two of them.
I was off the entire weekend for my graduation, but I was told that they had to interlock a 3rd print.
We are interlocking 3 prints this weekend also, which puts us at 7 screens.
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 05-10-2001, 01:15 AM:
May I ask why this movie is doing so well? I saw it a few weeks ago and I wasn't exactly blown away. Is it because there is nothing better to do? Is it because Freddy Got Fingered makes every other movie look like the best thing ever to hit a cinema?
Posted by Jonathan Haglund (Member # 807) on 05-10-2001, 03:16 AM:
You may ask, and I see you already did without permission 
My impression is that The Mummy is doing well because people have been so starved for a good movie, and this was "supposed" to be that movie. In my theatre circuit, we are doing very well because of Mummy. Its a big concession movie and we are making around $2.50 or higher per person in concession. On its opening weekend, and I assume during the week as well, Mummy has accounted for 63% of all the revenue in the circuit.
Pearl Harbor was supposed to kick off the summer season according to the distributors, but it seems like Mummy came in and already did the kicking. IMHO, Mummy wasnt that great. It was alright (read: poor 3D design of The Rock Scorpion thing, poor diolouge) but really? 70 million dollars?
------------------
Jonathan Haglund
Edwards Theatre Circuit, Inc
Park Place 10
Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 05-10-2001, 12:52 PM:
We sold out 7 of our 11 weekend shows on this (Friday 7:05, 10:05; Saturday 4:00; 7:05; 10:05; Sunday 1:05; 4:00). No interlocks here - against company policy. In the long run, it's gonna help the company. I have the only print within 30 miles, so if they're gonna see it, they're gonna see it here ... the later the better (lower rental percentage).
Posted by Jay L. Metcalf (Member # 838) on 05-11-2001, 12:52 AM:
Ouch!!! No one could have said it better, Joe. How did this "movie", Freddy end up on film. As a former projectionist, I was ashamed to show this on one of my screens. What the hell has cinema come to? I mean I hated the first Mummy and did not wish to see this sequel, but look at the trash that's been put out over the last year...
God, help us all.------------------
Jay L. Metcalf
General Manager
Carmike 10
Colorado Spgs, CO
[URL=http://www.carmike.com]
Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 05-11-2001, 11:31 PM:
Would have been a great 90 min. film, even with spectacular effects it runs out of gas half way thru.
Posted by Brian Potts (Member # 429) on 05-12-2001, 12:32 AM:
We sold out quite a few shows of The Mummy last weekend. If tonight is any indication, it dropped off by more than half at my theatre tonight. Even though the business is starting to drop for The Mummy, all is not lost. We still have Shrek and Pearl Harbor this month.
Posted by Jason Black (Member # 684) on 05-12-2001, 01:24 AM:
Just as I predicted at my theatre.. Box gross dropped 40% tonight. I knew this film didn't have the "ummmph" to make it 3 weeks. If Pearl Harbor & Shrek dont' pull us out, nothing will...And to be honest, I'm not banking much on Shrek...My bet is that , overall, this year will be pretty 
------------------
The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese!
Posted by Aldo Baez (Member # 790) on 05-13-2001, 03:08 PM:
We had every show sell out for the opening weekend, which has never happened. It was nuts but very orderly (only four refunds for the entire weekend!) This weekend is different, we only sold out the 7 pm showing friday night, ugh. It *really* dropped. And knights tale, oh man it was a mistake to get two prints, 4 people for the 10:50 showing?! eeesh.
Posted by John Keegan (Member # 290) on 05-14-2001, 11:23 AM:
Just a little update to my previous post about "Mummy" Well, The results are in and after seeing the numbers, I'm not surprised. Mummy did about half this weekend as what it did on opening weekend..Not surprising..We still have it on two screens which shocks me after seeing how this past weekend went. I'm sure now that we will be going down to one screen. Even the 7:00pm shows that we thought would sell out, didn't...Can anyone say FFZZzzzz..
And don't get me started on Knight's tale. Boy oh Boy...we got this on two screens too in our largest houses and we are lucky if the houses were HALF full, no sell outs at all...I overheard some viewers mention something about being too much like Gladiator...I haven't seen it yet and have no plans to even though I can watch it for free..There are other movies better to see..
As for Shrek, we are hoping more for the children audience, rather than the adult audience, so we will see... Pearl Harbor on the other hand is expected to make a killing...even though based on what I read is more fictionalized than anyone realizes..Why Is it that some of the biggest blockbusters are about topics which created the worst Tragedies??? Are we all that Morbid?? Sorry for all the rants...I'd be interested in anyone else's views... so Let's Hear It!
Posted by Scott Madsen (Member # 167) on 05-14-2001, 07:09 PM:
So from reading above, it sounds like the multiplexs are already running at less than capacity for this. Does that mean this is a another example of film rental terms ensuring that multiplexs will not receive any real profits out of this film? Wall Street people say not to buy stock in this industry because the economics do not yet work, and if this movie can do over 100 million this fast, and have this situation, then that sounds bad to me. Any thoughts?
Posted by Aldo Baez (Member # 790) on 05-15-2001, 02:33 AM:
Scott, I was thinking this too, have you seen Disney's terms for running Pearl Harbor? Well for us it has to be in our two biggest auditoriums for 6 weeks (yes, six). That's insane. I don't even think Star Wars did that. Maybe 4 weeks max. That's going to take a real bite out of our other revenues since newer movies like Tomb Raider and such will have to be in much smaller auditoriums. Sheesh
Posted by Joe Schmidt (Member # 822) on 05-16-2001, 02:41 AM:
Well, I never did see the first Mummy in a theatre because we have no theatres here in Billings, MT where I live ... but do have it in the film library, taped @2.35:1 from satellite ppv by a friend, and there are two scenes which make the whole flick worthwhile:1] The scene in the library where all the stacks tip over like dominoes, and
2] The scene where Brendan holds up the Cat, the Mummy goes ballistic and roars off in a cloud of dust and sheer panic.
As to Mummy II, I'll probably make the 90-mile drive to Forsyth MT and see it in Mike's house, unless reliably informed it's not worth it. But for sure I'll be going to see Pearl Harbor.