Can someone shed a little light onto the reasons for the split product? I believe it hurts more than it helps.. case in point: A customer wants 150 tickets for the first show of Harry Potter (on 11/16) so that his 7th grade class can attend the showing. Due to the split product, we are not getting that film... upon responding to his letter, he calls me and informs me that because we cannot show that film that he has lost faith in the company and will never return. Is that the kind of image we want portrayed to an already suffering industry? Suddenly we are the bad guy and we haven't done anything wrong. I hate to disappoint people, but in this case I have no say whatsoever. Meanwhile I am losing customers and there is nothing I can do about it.
 

As to the actual reason, I'm betting it has something to do with the fact that if this was to be the case, both of your theaters would be playing Harry Potter and none of the other studios would be able to get their product shown. I'm sure someone else can shed some light on this, as it's never been something that I've inquired about or given much thought.
 

Details are starting to come back to me. Let's say there are 3 theatres in the area. The studio may give him first pick out of three titles, and then the other two theatres would get to pick from what's left. But next time, he'll get second pick. It rotates. there are other methods, too. That's the only one I can remember.

Was that Harry Potter case just hypothetical?
 

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Was that Harry Potter case just hypothetical?

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No, it is real. On your other note, the way the bargaining goes... I think its a bit biased. Regal (mine) is seemingly getting the short hand of the stick... for example, the three big summer movies "Shrek," "Pearl Harbor," and "JP3" all went to the competitor. We got "America's Sweethearts," and "Final Fantasy." Looking at grosses from last year they got 7/10 big pictures--and are scheduled to get Harry Potter and Fellowship (understandable). We get Monster's INC, and some Jim Carrey film I haven't even heard of in their places. Monster's Inc. will be a good film, I hope.. but won't bring the kind of business that either of their films (especially combined) will in the long run. Perhaps the films companies can post an explanation?

At least here in Montana (possibly because of the smaller population) film co's will not license a print to two theatres that are less than "x" miles apart. (I don't know what distance "x" is, because all the large cities in Montana are Carmiked, hence no competition anyway.) I inquired around once about building a theatre in one of the larger towns and was told that the town wasn't big enough to put the theatre far enough away from the competition.
 

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"Asleep at the switch? I wasn't asleep, I was drunk!" - Homer Simpson
 

If you run an arthouse and have to split product you've got to keep the "Coming Soon" section of your website up to date. In Doylestown the Regal picked up Tadpole last week but the County is still listing that picture as "Coming Soon".

But at that time the business was moving west to Santa Monica.

The Cinerama Dome had a policy that the film would play only at
the Dome for x weeks, before going citywide. That was till the
mid 80's for the Dome.

A ind. chain filed suit againist Mann theatres over zone rights.
They won the case.

There was this one theatre I used to work for who ended up on Paramount's "shit-list" (evidently there is such a thing...who knew?) but even though our competitor (right across the street) got all of those movies, Sony was apparently "in love with us" and so we got all of that studio's movies.

As it turned out that was a VERY BIG summer for Sony ("My Best Friend's Wedding" and "Men In Black" were just two Sony hits that came out that summer).

I know of another instance where a theatre ran afoul of several distributors by not paying grosses on time.

Another case: a cinema did not complete construction on time and missed an entire season of first-run product.

And, still another case, where one cinema earned favors from Sony for running "Joan of Arc" when it was likely nobody in that market would patronize it. The payoff: an exclusive on "Stuart Little." Make no mistake, an exclusive on a kiddie flick during summer is a big, big deal.

~Manny (Behold: The Power of Cheese!)

You're absolutely right. But if you have paid much attention to the state of the exhibition industry recently you've seen that corporate bookers play right into the hands of the distributors. I haven't seen anyone give them too much credit for having any brains.

Bob
The Old Showman
 

The York Square Cinema is a 3-plex in New Haven that's nominally an arthouse. National Amusements has larger theaters nearby in Orange and North Haven. The only other theater in New Haven is a 4-plex that plays 20th Century Fox titles and mid-run arthouse product.

Spirited Away and Comedian have been allocated to the York Square. Secretary, Igby Goes Down, Bowling for Columbine, and Auto Focus have been allocated to National Amusements. That got the York Square angry enough to say on its phone message that it was not getting the movies it wants and was suing the studios. What are the movies the York Square wants? Secretary, Igby Goes Down, Bowling for Columbine, and Auto Focus.

This isn't the first time this has happened. The York Square sued all the majors and some of the minimajors a few years ago over the way they were allocating product. BV and Miramax have relented for now, mainly because the Connecticut attorney general's office got involved the first time.

Also, because the York Square gets shut out of the movies it wants it sometimes has to play a mainstream movie that's about to go subrun. Three weeks ago the York Square was playing Signs in a double-up.

Every 'rule' that the film distributors have set in the U.S. (zoning, split product, etc.) is being broken somewhere out there. I have managed theatres in over 30 cities and seen every 'rule' being broken somewhere. There are theatres out there -right across the street from each other- that are playing 'day and date' with each other. It is all a political process - much like our government. As long as the film companies control it - there is nothing we can do about it. My only advice - is to build a theatre where there is NO competition - whatsoever. And that is getting pretty impossible these days.

Think about it - we are paying an average of OVER 55% of the reciepts back to the distributors now. We are simply THEIR pawns in THEIR game.
We just have to deal with it.

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"Running through life at 24 frames per second"
 

Look...bottom line. Competition forces companies to work to be the best at what they do. When there are rules in place that ensure the dumpy theatres will get the big pictures, the patrons lose. It's a shame.
 

I play Santa Clause 2 so THEY get Treasure Planet
I played Hannibal so THEY get Die Another Day
I played the first Harry Potter so THEY get Harry 2
I played Austin Powers 3 so THEY get LOTR:2 Towers

My employees and customers are upset. I've thought about getting some phone numbers of distributors and telling customers to call them and complain about the situation. I've also heard one customer asking about a petition. You think if I sent a petition signed by X amount of people that the distributors would listen. People don't like the other theatre.

That's my two cents...
 

The best thing that you can do is to stay on top of the situation. I used to be in the same type of situation in Mankato, MN (we work for the same company, I believe). In Mankato, I had an 8-screen, but we split product w/ 2 4-screen Carmikes. Have you ever noticed how the allocations tend to be "feast" or "famine"? Create a relationship with your competitor's manager so that you can call on Mondays and find out what he's dropping. During your famine periods, pay attention - he will always be dropping stuff you can "move over" because of his feast. Call your booker first thing Tuesday (your booker is NL, I believe, he's very helpful ... helps me get subrun product here ASAP), and ask if you can move over the decent title. Once the distributors start seeing that a movie grosses more at your theater after the move-over, they will start playing more product there. To give you some examples from Mankato ...

2001 Buena Vista
played Pearl Harbor AND Monsters, Inc.

2001 Universal
Cinemark - Mummy Returns, Fast & Furious, Jurassic Park 3, K-PAX, Spy Game, Beautiful Mind
Carmike - Head Over Heels, Josie/Pussycats, American Pie 2, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Musketeer

2002 Sony Summer
Cinemark - Spider-man, Mr. Deeds, Men In Black II, XXX
Carmike - Stuart Little 2, The New Guy, Master of Disguise

You can definitely get them to play a good portion of their better product at your theater, but it takes a little bit of work. Email me if you want some more tips.
 

Look to lower Manhattan: The UA Union Square splits product with the Village East, two Loews multiplexes and four arthouses. UA opened Harry Potter last year and will do so again this year.

That depends on the zone. It also depends on whether you played the "A" picture from Warner Bros. this summer, Scooby-Doo. I'd be willing to bet Stephen's theatre played Scooby-Doo this summer. Warners is not going to allocate 3 "A" pictures in a row to the same theater in a 50-50 product split.