Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: The Road Show is back!!

This is topic The Road Show is back!! in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Martin Brooks (Member # 1269) on 12-15-2006, 08:20 PM:

The Ziegfeld in NYC is playing Dreamgirls in a reserved seat, twice per day, exclusive showing at $25 per ticket, which includes a souvenir book. The next three or four days are already completely sold out. The Ziegfeld has about 1150 seats, which means they're grossing over $57,000 a day not counting candy counter sales in only two shows. The Ziegfeld, like most NYC theatres, usually schedules at least four to five shows a day, sometimes more.

I imagine they'll do this until the film goes to wider release when other theaters in NYC will also be playing the film.

I can't decide whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand, it harkens back to the days of first-run showings of films like West Side Story, Lawrence of Arabia, etc., which used to play on Broadway for a year before moving out to other theaters. It makes going to the movies a special event and at those prices, you would presumably get a classier crowd. And if theaters can really get $25 per ticket, it seems to me that 70mm or some other advanced technology could once again be viable.

On the other hand, I like picking out my own seat and who wants to pay $25 for a movie that got mixed reviews (or almost any movie for that matter.)

Thoughts?

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 12-15-2006, 08:46 PM:

There's another thread about that here.