Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Shortest Runs

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Posted by Richard Greco (Member # 2032) on 11-25-2003, 09:00 AM:

Today I'm losing Master and Commander and Looney Tunes afterr 12 days in order to make room for 4 new movies. However we have been selling very well for Master.

Just wondering, How long was the shortest run of a movie for you guys and girls out there. Anything that is shorter than 12 days?

Posted by Evans A Criswell (Member # 381) on 11-25-2003, 09:25 AM:

How many screens are at your theatre? I'd say the fewer the screens at a complex, the shorter the runs. I'd think many movies would only run one week at smaller multiplexes, or less in the case of Friday releases followed by Wednesday releases.

Posted by Richard Greco (Member # 2032) on 11-25-2003, 11:33 AM:

We have 8 screens. Master And Commander and Looney Tunes were Friday Releases and Haunter Mansion, Bad Santa, Timeline, and The Missing are all Wednesday. You Might Be Right. [Smile]

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 11-25-2003, 11:51 AM:

I've run a couple of three-day runs: Traces of Red which bombed horribly and Players Club. I had a Sunday morning 3am phone call with the director of operations of the chain discussing the problems we (and mall security and the sheriff's department) were having with the crowds and I told him that Sunday would be the last day of the run. Lucky for me, he agreed.

Posted by Gary Crawford (Member # 2038) on 11-25-2003, 11:51 AM:

Run an old single-screen sub-run house. We run shows for a week or two for the most part. Shortest run we had was for "Pay It Forward" 2 years ago. We ran it for 3 days, then closed for Christmas week. Longest run we had, and this was for a rare first-run for us, was "Greek Wedding" for 17 weeks, summer 2002.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 11-25-2003, 12:02 PM:

Regal Cinema World 8 here booked 2 prints of Matrix Revolutions, and dropped one of the prints after 1 week. Normally 2 weeks seems to be about the shortest normal run. Gigli and Pluto Nash come to mind (they were doubled up in the 2nd week too).

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 11-25-2003, 12:18 PM:

Since you didn't specify anything about them: I have run more films that were booked for 1 and 2-day runs than I can count...

As far as standard 'megaplex' fare goes, The shortest runs have been only a week in duration.

-Aaron

Posted by Marcial Feliciano Ramos (Member # 1989) on 11-25-2003, 12:28 PM:

Our shortest is one week.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 11-25-2003, 12:40 PM:

Most repertory houses change programming daily, so that would usually mean a "run" of one or two shows per title. Same for colleges, military bases, etc.

Split weeks (e.g. one program for Fri->Mon and another for Tues->Thurs) aren't uncommon in singles in small towns. In second-run houses, it's rather rare to keep anything for more than two weeks, while one is more common.

Even at commercial art houses, one-week runs are fairly common. Films which completely bomb sometimes leave before the end of the week ("Gerry"--which was a great film--comes to mind as one which lasted for six days in at least one major market).

In most other cases, "first run" generally implies two weeks minimum, although that may be negotiable if a film does terrible business in its first week.

Posted by Paul Konen (Member # 41) on 11-25-2003, 01:45 PM:

I believe that Cinemark Tinseltown in Plano, when I was there, ran BullWorth for less than a day. They brought in another copy of a title that opened that weekend.

Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 11-25-2003, 01:50 PM:

We are just ending our run of Party Monster. It has played one show per day for 5 days. Last night it made $7. Good riddence.

Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 11-25-2003, 02:01 PM:

I remember running "Dog Park" for 5 days. 4 people for the whole run. And they wanted us to do a huge promotion with the humane society, too [Roll Eyes]

=TMP=

Posted by John Carpenter (Member # 1488) on 11-25-2003, 05:18 PM:

In a 16 screen theatre we ran Irreversable for only 3 days... scheduled to run for a week or so, but after our home office saw the weekend results - they called Monday and pulled it right then. Of course there may have been some complaints about it that I never knew about.

Posted by Charles Everett (Member # 889) on 11-25-2003, 06:12 PM:

In New Jersey there have been the odd cases where a film runs less than a full week.

The Montgomery Cinema in Rocky Hill ran The Opposite of Sex for 5 days, then dropped it to open Armageddon. [Roll Eyes]

The Regal Commerce Center in North Brunswick ran some Bollywood picture for 5 days, then dropped it to open Sidewalks of New York (day-and-date with Manhattan). The Princeton Garden Theatre ran Novocaine for 5 days, then dropped it to open The Fellowship of the Ring. The AMC Hamilton ran Y Tu Mama Tambien for 6 days, then dropped it to open Star Wars Episode 2.

If memory serves me, the Amboy Multiplex in Sayreville ran The Spanish Prisoner (arthouse film with Steve Martin) for 5 days. That too was dropped to open Armageddon.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 11-27-2003, 06:35 AM:

In mainstream houses here it's not uncommon for a film to be 'pulled' after the first weekend (i.e. it only plays Friday to Sunday) if it really bombs. The most spectacular recent example I can think of is Honest, which was pulled from the whole Odeon chain - around 100 sites if memory serves me correctly - after just three days. It was assumed that the film would do well because it was a vehicle for a successful and well-known 'girl band' pop group. When it became obvious that, regardless of their singing, they couldn't act to save their lives, that was the end of that.

And as Scott says, some arthouse venues will programme titles for just one or two shows.

Posted by Jeffry L. Johnson (Member # 453) on 11-27-2003, 12:21 PM:

{Can't include URL because of parentheses.}

Heaven's Gate (movie)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Heaven's Gate (1981) is a big-budget western movie about the war between land barons and European immigrants in 1890s Wyoming. The biggest Hollywood flop of the 1980s, Heaven's Gate became synonymous for troubled and overbudget film disasters.

Directed by Michael Cimino (who got a Golden Raspberry for worst director for this film), the film starred Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, Isabelle Huppert, Jeff Bridges, John Hurt, Sam Waterston, Brad Dourif, Joseph Cotten, Geoffrey Lewis, Richard Masur, Terry Quinn, Mickey Rourke, and Willem Dafoe.

Cimino had just won an Academy Award for The Deer Hunter, so United Artists had every reason to believe he was creating magic on location in Wyoming. But after months of delays and unforgivable cost overruns, Cimino finally delivered his masterpiece—a 5-hour version of Heaven's Gate. The studio balked and sent him back to recut it to a more managable length. His recut version was still 3 hours and 40 minutes. The Cimino version was pulled from release after only one screening: its premiere in New York City on November 19, 1980. It surfaced six months later with 70 minutes cut by the studio in a desperate attempt to recoup some of its losses, but it was too late. The adverse publicity was largely responsible for a dismal box-office take.

The plot of Heaven's Gate is easy enough to follow. The film opens up in 1870 as Kris Kristofferson graduates from Harvard University and makes his way West. This seems to go on forever, and in the end has nothing to do with the rest of the story. The 1890 scenes which take up the bulk of the running time tend to show off Cimino's attempts at cinematic mastery. The epilogue takes place in 1903.

Even though Cimino uses subtitles when non-English characters are speaking in their native tongue, some of the English dialogue is totally obscured by blaring music or sound effects.

The movie's unprecedented USD$40 million cost literally sent United Artists into bankruptcy and eventual led to its purchase by MGM.

Posted by Dennis M Dow Jr (Member # 1970) on 11-27-2003, 01:49 PM:

Shortest film I had was Belly..... ran Friday night and then pulled due to Public nuisance ordinance

Posted by Jason Black (Member # 684) on 11-27-2003, 04:46 PM:

The Human Stain ran 5 days. I din't recall the total # of people, but it was quite low.

Dennis: I *wish* we could pull due to public nuisance. Well, maybe that would actually be a bad thing, we'd likely have to close on Friday eveings due to obnoxious kids. [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Dennis M Dow Jr (Member # 1970) on 11-28-2003, 03:57 PM:

We had a riot at the theater and the police basically said that we would be liable if it happened again.... called corporate and they said pull it... had dark screen for 6 days

Posted by Mitchell Cope (Member # 32) on 11-29-2003, 07:08 AM:

I recently read where Francis Ford Coppola pulled "One from the Heart" (1982) after a run of about a week and a half. According to IMDB, its budget was $26M and it made $0.9M. He is now regretting that hasty decision, and it's to be re-released in January 2004, with a prompt DVD release following. This is the movie that broke his Zoetrope Studios. I seem to remember that his lead actress, Teri Garr, worked on a $10,000 salary to do this film.

Posted by Timothy Eiler (Member # 383) on 12-01-2003, 02:43 PM:

From a 5-plex drive-in in western minnesota

Shortest run ever The Hulk $138 box for the week
Longest run was Anger Management Open to close 19 weeks