Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Midnight Shows

This is topic Midnight Shows in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Ramin Hashemi (Member # 2694) on 11-06-2004, 03:18 PM:

For those people who run midnight shows, how is your per cap affected. Do you run midnight shows because competition forces you? Those with no theatres within reasonable driving distance, do you do Midnight shows?

Posted by Dean Kollet (Member # 1789) on 11-06-2004, 03:57 PM:

We are the only place in the city that offers shows after 10pm, and our competition usually has the same movies and sometimes even more. Some nights it's crazy, some nights concession goes from 15 people to 2 at midnight. It depends on the movie. It's a college town, so the per cap stays decently high, but not close to the day..

Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 11-06-2004, 04:16 PM:

I was against the idea of doing Midnight Movies. I've done them before at other theatres in Denver. I've played Rocky Horror Picture Show for years. We had a very successful run of Stop Making Sense and sometimes Laurie Anderson's Home of the Brave.
However our managers were very high on the idea of doing Midnight Movies so we though what the hell, lets give them a try. So we started a series that we thought would go just between July 4th and Labor Day.

The town has 150,000 people, many retired folks and a small Junior Collage. Our 9:00 PM shows are very slow, so I thought there is no way people will come out for a midnight show.

For all you Late-Nighters we have our Midnights At The Rialto every Friday and Saturday Night, at Midnight. All seats $6

Date Title Gross
July 9, 2004 Ghost World $222.00
July 16, 2004 Mad Max $372.00
July 23, 2004 Hedwig and the Angry Inch $996.00
July 30, 2004 Purple Rain $606.00
August 6, 2004 Monty Python: The Life of Brian $1,152.00
August 13, 2004 Reservoir Dogs $1,201.00
August 20, 2004 Nightmare Before Christmas $1,818.00
August 27, 2004 Pee Wee's Big Adventure $1,032.00
September 3, 2004 Secretary $342.00
September 10, 2004 Donnie Darko: Director's Cut $3,000.00
September 17, 2004 Psycho $607.00
September 17, 2004 Donnie Darko: Director's Cut, Held Over $596.00
September 24, 2004 28 Days Later $510.00
October 1, 2004 High Fidelity $600.00 Guess
October 8, 2004 Enter the Dragon + Godzilla
October 15, 2004 Office Space
October 22, 2004 Trainspotting
October 29, 2004 The Crow

As you can see, we have held the program over in to the fall. We plan to continue thoughout the year. Sometimes our MIdnight Film is the best attended single show of the day. There seems to be a core 50-people who will show up no matter what.

Here's a list of potential films that we are looking in to booking. It is all dependent on print availability and terms.

Edward Sissorhands
Clerks
Army of Darkness
City of Lost Children
Big Lebowski
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Velvet Goldmine
Akira
Shaolin Soccer
South Park Bigger Longer and Uncut
Waynes World
The Jerk
and possibly a return engagement of Hedwig
Blues Brothers
Beetlejuice

We have a Midnight Concession deal as well. It is a small popcorn and a small drink for $5. This helps drive the percap up $.50 to $.75.

Posted by Chase Hanson (Member # 2779) on 11-06-2004, 06:55 PM:

Dude Ian,

you have all the good movies, where is your theater?

Posted by Don Anderson (Member # 397) on 11-06-2004, 07:30 PM:

We run Late Shows (11:30pm) during the summer. Our highest grossing Late Show was Monty Pythons Holy Grail. Our city has about 35,000 residents. We pull from Milwaukee (35 miles away), but that depends on the film. We have run the following films, of course, not all of them were money makers.

Edward Scissorhands ( nice print)
Monty Python & The Holy Grail (sold out)
The Crow (terrible splicy print that broke 4 times)
Pulp Fiction (so so attendance, print in terrible condition)
13 Ghosts
Blair Witch Project (sold out 225 seats)
Austin Powers (sold out)
Halloween 4
Friday the 13th (studio shipped Part 5, we booked Part 1)
Donnie Darko (near sellout)
House of 1000 Corpses (near sellout)
The Hidden (terrible turnout)
Saw (extra late show on opening day-near sellout)

Planning for next summer... Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Donnie Darko (again), Monty Python Life of Brian, Dawn of the Dead '04, South Park, Kids,Willy Wonka, and a few 3d titles. We may run a few shows during Christmas break.

We usually run some type of concession promo for the lateshow, that is noe one of our regular Combos.

My only word of advice. Watch for alcohol being carried in. We've busted a few patrons for drinking. Area cops love to do this...plus they also wait until the patron gets in their car, and well, you can guess the rest.

Posted by John Carpenter (Member # 1488) on 11-06-2004, 07:34 PM:

We run "late nights" in the 11:00 hour (up to midnight) all year long, as does our competition in town. They can be pretty busy - but we are a college town. We always run the regular engagements and this past spring and fall added some older "retro" films in the mix that did well. As for per cap - late shows only bring in about half of the normal day amount.

Posted by Brandon Willis (Member # 2345) on 11-08-2004, 12:58 AM:

The late shows at my theatre were a complete waste of time, when we ran them. They did not affect our per cap at all. Rarely did we have more than 80-90 people for the entire 11:00-12:00 set. We finally got rid of them a couple of weeks ago.