Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Can you show a movie before release date?

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Posted by Marc Hansen (Member # 705) on 07-05-2006, 11:23 PM:

How restrictive are the contracts with respect to showing a movie early and how aggresivly do they enforce them? The reason I ask is because I see quite a few theaters showing Pirates at 12:01AM Friday but one local independant theater is running it at 10:00PM Thursday. He's calling it a sneak preview. How much of a risk (if any) would you run doing that?

Marc

Posted by Christopher Crouch (Member # 3784) on 07-06-2006, 12:39 AM:

I had always been under the impression that such "sneak previews" were via special, pre approved arrangement only and any varience from the agreed upon start date would risk future bookings and relationships with the distributor involved.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-06-2006, 01:08 AM:

The independent theater running a 10pm show, unless specifically approved by the studio, is very illegal. I'm sure the studio would be very interested in hearing about it.

Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 07-06-2006, 01:30 AM:

ESPECIALLY Buena Vista. They are extra cautious/anal about stuff like that.

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 07-06-2006, 01:41 AM:

Maybe he'll run 121 minutes of trailers and then hit the screen at 12.01 Friday.
[Roll Eyes]

Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 07-06-2006, 02:39 AM:

It is possible (though not likely) that he was granted special permission for that show. However, I was told that Disney was not allowing ANY 10:00pm sneaks on Thursday and the '12:01' show was the earliest they'd allow.

Posted by Brian Michael Weidemann (Member # 2243) on 07-06-2006, 06:18 AM:

Yeah, if we run earlier shows, for instance a 10:00pm like we did with Superman Returns, it comes higher ups with approved permission. I read an e-mail explicitly denying the ability to run early shows for Pirates, though.

Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 07-11-2006, 07:16 PM:

The film companies will flip out over it!

I used to work at a location near some Universal Picture Offices (in Cincy, Ohio). We got prints in all the time that would sit around for weeks before the opening dates. Sometimes we would not even know what movies they were (when they came in unmarked). One time I got curious and ran a print for myself and a friend of mine (it happened to be "Apollo 13"). Well, I found myself in the DM's office the next morning explaining myself. I then had to write an apology letter to the head of the Universal office there. Man - I almost lost my job over that one! That was just a 'private screening' too, I couldn't imagine a public one. I heard that a chain ran a Buena Vista print before they were supposed to once - they didn't play Disney movies for over a year after that!

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-11-2006, 07:26 PM:

Turn the fucker in! Let's make an example of this Maverick!

Then maybe Hollywood will get with it and stop stupidly issuing all those DVD screener discs all the mafia and Chinese mass producer people want to get before the movie is released.
[Roll Eyes]

The rest of us "cattle" will still get to watch subliminal snippets of shit code, er, I mean "crap code" -eh, "CAP Code" (finally, got it right, yeesh!). We get to see the chicken pox shit on all the good, rapid fire action sequences. If it's a 3 frame edit, count on chicken pox firing itself on it. SPLAT!

Posted by Caleb Johnstone-Cowan (Member # 3710) on 07-12-2006, 08:31 PM:

Perhaps if they gave us decent prints as well, our one for Over The Hedge was atrocious considering we're the flagship site for our chain.

"One time I got curious and ran a print for myself and a friend of mine (it happened to be "Apollo 13"). Well, I found myself in the DM's office the next morning explaining myself."

What's wrong with doing that? Need to check the print after all [Big Grin]

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 07-15-2006, 02:52 PM:

It's entirely possible the show was legal.
We've had several of them in Washington State this year. I asked my booker about it the first time I saw it happen... it was at a Regal cinema, and the staff had such short notice they just had handwritten signs about it at their theatre. The booker checked and said that the studio had authorized the early show on Monday, too late for the theatre to change their advertising.

So... it is possible a theatre could fudge on a "early show", but they do happen legally.

Posted by Marc Hansen (Member # 705) on 07-15-2006, 07:58 PM:

No Jack I don't think it was. On my way home that night I went by (8ish) and the hand written sign in the window basically said "due to circumstances beyond our control we are FORCED to reschedule our 10PM show to 12:01AM" The forced was in BIG letters.

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 07-16-2006, 02:25 AM:

Yah... looks like you've got that one figured out! [Wink]

Posted by Andrew Peter Chobaniuk (Member # 3886) on 07-24-2006, 05:29 AM:

what about showing movies early to select staff only

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 07-24-2006, 06:43 AM:

It's like everything else in this business that goes beyond the master licenses. Some things fly under the studios' radar... other things do not.

While not specifically authorized under the master license (unless I've missed it), every responsible theatre I know of pre-screens their films before showing them to a paying crowd. Aside from operator error in building the prints (which almost never happens to anyone here), there are occasional defects in the prints. These need to be found immediately, and a pre-screening is where that's supposed to happen.

As for allowing staff to the screenings... and maybe their family and a friend or two... that easily falls within the wording of the contracts I'm familiar with. While the studios could do something about it... they might not. A single-screener in Bogalusa could probably do it for years and not get noticed... while any theater YOU work at would probably get nailed the first time you tried it.

How your theatre gets along with the competition can also have a huge effect on life around your place. Some theatres (and bookers) live to catch their competition doing something they think might get them in trouble, while others are pretty cooperative... just depends on where you are, I guess.

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 07-24-2006, 09:32 AM:

This happened at a first run theatre in Westwood, CA, during the opening weekend of "Batman". "Batman" opened at the Mann's Village Theatre, another theatre down the block got a print from somewhere. So the manager & the projectionist arranged to hold a staff screening at midnight. But the word got out around the Westwood area from the staff and family. So at midnight two people from Warner Bros. showed up. Because too many people found out about the screening. The said print was snuckout of the theatre before the Warner reps looked at the booth.

Posted by Ron Curran (Member # 3631) on 07-24-2006, 07:01 PM:

In our experience, if you ask the film distributor (telling them exactly what you intend) they will usually agree.

One such occasion - staff screening afternoon before opening night - the processor's power supply died. An expensive taxi pick-up of a new supply saved a disaster at our public screening.