Are we gonna see movie theaters going the way of TV and radio -- only 5 or 6 companies dominating the business?

At least the story acknowledges that Cinemark walked away from a merger with Cineplex Odeon in the 1990s. Swallowing up Cineplex Odeon was the worst thing that ever happened to Loews.

Cinemark and Century BOTH have this unwritten rumor in thier manager ranks that filmguard destroys prints. They don't have any basis in fact and also wont make it written rule because they know better, they just don't want to go the extra mile and BUY THE STUFF!!!

As for any merger between loews and cinemark, who the hell cares? Merge to thier hearts content and I hope that more of them close! Shrink you giant theater eaters shrink I say!!!

Dave

NOTE: These are just opinions not that we have any control over what will or will not happen if the merger does come to pass. We will all work and deal with what ever happens. That is just how this business goes.

Jim, there's a million excuses regarding Cinemark and FG, but the real reason is actually very cut and dry. Care to email me the flavor you heard? (Odds are I've already heard it, but it continues to provide humor.)

Anyway, overall IMHO both companies have their pros and cons about the way they are run. Ideally if both got together and took the best of both worlds, it could be a good company, but I don't see it happening that way. I don't think Lee Roy will want to miss out on all that real estate profit for new construction, so the way I see it, if he doesn't get full control, he won't do it.

When I was in Oakland last year touring Century's operations, I spoke with several managers and all of them had this opinion that Film Guard is nasty and destroys prints. Even after asking if they are confusing it with some other chemical they all just went apeshit on me about the stuff about how terrible it was. That was the key reason I did not join the company.

Now that was just eight GM's and about half a dozen MIT's, and even though they had the claim that this was how ALL of the GM's felt, it doesnt necessarily mean that that is so. I have also known of two Century GM's that love the stuff, so there are some century's out there that use it religeously. So I retract my previous statement that insinuated that ALL century managers hate the stuff. I think that there are plenty of operators that just dont want to be bothered with anything that requires five minutes of thier time.

As for Cinemark? I have known 11 different GM's, and they all have a pretty nasty opinion of thier home company. I do agree that the penny pinching has saved thier buts to some degree, but what has really saved thier buts is thier multi-billion dollar overseas operations. Even if the states operations lose money, they still have ungodly profits to be had elsewhere to cover expenses till things pick up.

As for would I want a business just coming out of bankruptcy to handle business affairs, the answer is yes. Any business that can come out of reorganization and be stronger for it has my vote of cautious confidence. The only way out of the bankruptcy is by losing the ends of the business that lose money or do not profit, and by changing accounting practices in such a way that ensure timely payments of debt. I think that Loews can emerge as a power player if they do take over operations. Even if Cinemark and Loews merge, I am sure that only the stateside operations of Cinemark would be effected during an operations change to loews, otherwise, cinemark would swallow up loews like it was breakfast cereal.

Speaking of breakfast cereal, I love fruity pebbles and cinnamon life.

Dave