quote: John Wilson

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7 minutes is not enough time to go pee, buy popcorn and whatever...the second feature's start is going to be missed by a lot of patrons and they won't be happy.

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quote: John Wilson

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7 minutes is not enough time to go pee, buy popcorn and whatever...the second feature's start is going to be missed by a lot of patrons and they won't be happy.

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quote: Cameron Glendinning

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send in retro tray sellers during the trailers, then you would sell some popcorn

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And sell cigarettes too. Just like the old days!
 

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Posted by Caleb Johnstone-Cowan (Member # 3710) on 04-06-2007, 03:52 PM:
 
I like the tray idea. I would put a note on the door of the screen about the presentation. If there was actually something wrong with the print or the auditorium we'd have a sign at box office and/or tell people when they bought the tickets.
 

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Posted by Alex Grueneberg (Member # 2652) on 04-06-2007, 03:53 PM:
 
Here at Cinemark the ring leaders wanted the house lights to come up, and then go back down at the 2nd "feature presentation" snipe. Honestly I'm supprised our automation could handle it...

VVV
Yeah we got the Holloween Trailer. I also bumped up the "following are prevues" snipe to the front so it opens the show out of the pre-show with some of the dirtiest leader I could find in our booth. Some of the other operators flipped because I put the start cue during the leader.. ITS OK!
VVV

[ 04-11-2007, 01:37 PM: Message edited by: Alex Grueneberg ]
 

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Posted by Mike Schindler (Member # 1309) on 04-06-2007, 04:29 PM:
 
Did anyone get the promised HALLOWEEN trailer? I so badly wanted to put trailers for HALLOWEEN, HOT FUZZ, and HOSTEL: PART II on front of this movie so that people would get to see real trailers for movies by all the guys who did the fake trailers. That would have been awesome.

Also, is it true that Canadian theaters got trailers for the trailer contest winner, HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN, to put on the front of their prints?
 

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Posted by John T. Hendrickson, Jr (Member # 849) on 04-07-2007, 01:56 PM:
 
Neither of my prints had the Halloween trailer enclosed.
 

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Posted by Aaron Mehocic (Member # 15) on 04-07-2007, 06:40 PM:
 
Nor mine. However, if I may return to this point:

quote: John Wilson

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7 minutes is not enough time to go pee, buy popcorn and whatever...the second feature's start is going to be missed by a lot of patrons and they won't be happy.

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quote: Aaron Mehocic

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Why does everything with these guys have to be so macabre or alternative?

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quote:

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'Blades' Stays on Top With $23 Million

Sunday April 8 1:35 PM ET

Movie audiences were more interested in light comedy over Easter weekend than in Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's "Grindhouse," a double-feature ode to bloody exploitation flicks.

Paramount and DreamWorks' figure-skating romp "Blades of Glory" remained the No. 1 movie with $23 million, followed for the second weekend by Disney's animated comedy "Meet the Robinsons" with $17 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

"Grindhouse," a three-hour reinvention of the down-and-dirty B-movie double features Tarantino and Rodriguez grew up watching, debuted at No. 4 with $11.6 million.

It finished behind Sony's family comedy "Are We Done Yet?", starring Ice Cube in a sequel to "Are We There Yet?", which opened at No. 3 with $15 million.

Released by the Weinstein Co., "Grindhouse" fell well short of expectations. Box-office forecasters had figured the movie would premiere in the ballpark of Tarantino's two "Kill Bill" movies and Rodriguez's "Sin City," whose opening weekends ranged from $22 million to $29 million.

The weak debut for "Grindhouse" was a blow to the Weinstein Co., formed two years ago by brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein after they departed their old outfit, Disney-owned Miramax. The "Grindhouse" directors were steady providers for the Weinsteins at Miramax, which released Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" and "Kill Bill" films and Rodriguez's "Spy Kids" movies.

"Grindhouse" presents two full films. Rodriguez's "Planet Terror" features Rose McGowan as a go-go dancer who becomes a zombie fighter with a machine gun for a leg. Tarantino's "Death Proof" stars Kurt Russell as a serial killer who stalks women with his beefed-up car.

"With these two filmmakers' pedigree and the overall cool factor that this film had going for it, you would have figured it would have done a lot more business," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers.

The movie's running time was an impediment, limiting the number of screenings theaters could fit in.

Harvey Weinstein said disappointing returns for "Grindhouse" resulted from the "novelty in America of releasing a double bill and asking an audience to make a three-hour commitment."

"Grindhouse" played to big crowds on the East and West coasts but failed to click with audiences in the Midwest and South, Weinstein said.

With theatrical receipts, overseas sales, television and home-video revenues, "Grindhouse" will turn a profit on its $53 million budget, Weinstein said. The company hoped that word of mouth from those who did see it would sustain it at theaters in coming weeks, he said.

"If you go see it with any audience, walk into any theater, you'll see people screaming and applauding like a rock concert," Weinstein said. "Maybe we didn't educate the audience that it's such an experience."

Movie-goers clearly were in the mood for something lighter. "Blades of Glory," starring Will Ferrell and Jon Heder as skating rivals who team up as the sport's first men's pair, raised its 10-day total to $68.4 million, its receipts dropping a slim 30 percent from opening weekend.

"There's a real hunger out there for something that you can go to and say, 'Hey, let me get away from the terrible things we have to watch and read every day,'" said Marvin Levy, spokesman for DreamWorks, one of the studios behind "Blades of Glory."

"Meet the Robinsons," the animated adventure of a time-traveling orphan boy, also held strongly in its second weekend, raising its 10-day total to $52.2 million.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Media By Numbers LLC. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. "Blades of Glory," $23 million.

2. "Meet the Robinsons," $17 million.

3. "Are We Done Yet?", $15 million.

4. "Grindhouse," $11.6 million.

5. "The Reaping," $10.1 million.

6. "300," $8.8 million.

7. "Wild Hogs," $6.8 million.

8. "Shooter," $5.8 million.

9. "TMNT," $4.9 million.

10. "Firehouse Dog," $4 million.

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quote:

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'Grindhouse' Dilapidated Over Easter Weekend
by Brandon Gray
April 8, 2007

Grindhouse had a fawning barrage of media hype behind it and a seemingly built-in audience primed for its brand of nihilistic thrills, but Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez' attempt to revive 1970s schlock was mostly ignored over Easter weekend.

Instead, Blades of Glory held well to capture the gold for the second weekend. Down 30 percent, the figure-skating comedy drew an estimated $23 million, lifting its total to $68.4 million in ten days or about the same as DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story through the same point. Meet the Robinsons clung to second place with an estimated $17 million, off 32 percent for $52.2 million in ten days.

The top debut turned out to be Are We Done Yet?, a combination sequel to Are We There Yet? and loose remake of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House from 1948. The family comedy nailed an estimated $15 million at 2,877 locations for $19.1 million in five days. It packed less punch than its predecessor, the 2005 surprise hit Are We There Yet?, which opened to $18.6 million, but sequels in this genre seldom live up to their predecessors.

Grindhouse churned out a shabby estimated $11.6 million, the least-attended nationwide start for directors Tarantino and Rodriguez. At 2,624 theaters, the horror double feature wasn't the widest new release, but it had the highest screen count—an estimated 3,700 screens—making up for a showtime-limiting three-hour runtime. If many moviegoers had wanted to rip into Grindhouse, they had plenty of chances.

While nihilistic movies frequently open to higher numbers, Grindhouse rang particularly hollow. The last pictures from Tarantino (the Kill Bill movies) and Rodriguez (Sin City) each debuted to well over $20 million. Each was an unusual success, leading to expectations (including this writer's forecast) that a double-billed event could follow suit.

However, Grindhouse was sold on the directors' names, the style and the novelty instead of story or character. Much of the promotional campaign was dedicated to explaining the term "Grindhouse," blanking out on the point of emulating niche cinema from the '70s in the first place. It couldn't work as a spoof because it lacked identifiable references for today's audiences that patronize similar trash, and it suffered the usual horror comedy dilemma that afflicted Snakes on a Plane and Slither among others: too funny to be scary, too scary to be funny.

What's more, Grindhouse was essentially a horror anthology, and that sub-genre has never been big business. Grindhouse was also a self-referential movie about the movies, and such navel-gazing often leaves the public cold. The promise of lurid thrills can only take a picture so far.

For distributor The Weinstein Company, Grindhouse marks the ninth weak box office performer in a row. Their last hit was Scary Movie 4, which started with $40.2 million on Easter weekend last year. Despite Grindhouse's failure, overall weekend business this year was up five percent from that frame.

Also opening, The Reaping harvested an estimated $10.1 million at 2,603 sites for $12 million in four days. The Warner Bros. supernatural horror's opening was comparable to the studio's previous entry in the genre, last year's The Wicker Man remake.

Firehouse Dog fetched a meager estimated $4 million at 2,860 venues for $5.3 million in four days, which was below average for a live-action animal picture aimed at families.

Among holdovers, March stalwarts 300 and Wild Hogs remained strong, down a little over 20 percent each. 300 claimed an estimated $8.8 million for $193.9 million in 31 days, surpassing the final tally of Gladiator (which still has a five million plus advantage in attendance). Wild Hogs snared an estimated $6.8 million for $145.5 million in 38 days.

In limited release, Lasse Hallstrom's The Hoax hatched a modest estimated $1.5 million debut at 235 sites, while Paul Verhoeven's Black Book bore a soft estimated $120,000 at nine locations.

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quote:

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EXCLUSIVE: Harvey Very Disappointed; May Re-Release 'Grindhouse' As 2 Pics

EXCLUSIVE (keep refreshing for latest): Harvey Weinstein told me this morning that he's "incredibly disappointed" with the half-than-expected $12 mil box office for Grindhouse released on Easter Weekend (a controversial move itself). So much so, that he's considering abandoning the double feature as a single feature concept and re-releasing the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez movie around the U.S. "in a couple of weeks" as two separate feature-length movies with additional footage put in. That's what Harvey says The Weinstein Co. is already intending to do with the film's release in Europe: split it into two separate pics, Tarantino's Death Proof and Rodriguez's Planet Terror. "Quentin's movie goes out first in competition at Cannes. He'll do an extensive 4 to 5 month tour. And the trailer will be all Quentin's," Weinstein told me about his European plans. "Then we'll release Robert's a couple of months later. By splitting it up, we're going to do a hell of a lot better internationally than we did here." Weinstein noted that, even in Grindhouse's video deal as well as its TV deal with Starz Entertainment Group, it's been sold as two separate movies. "Our deal with Encore is that they can play it any way they want." So this is why The Weinstein Co. is now deciding to suck it up and do in this country what it probably should have done all along. "First of all, I'm incredibly disappointed. We tried to do something new and obviously we didn't do it that well," Harvey told me today. "It's just a question of how is it going to hang in there. But we could split the movies in a couple of weeks. Make Tarantino's a full-length film, and Rodriguez's too. We'll be adding those 'two missing reels' that's talked about in the movie." (At one point in Grindhouse, a sex scene is interrupted because of "two missing reels" -- one of the many conceits and indulgences.)

Weinstein pointed to several reasons why Grindhouse did so poorly in theaters over Easter weekend. "Our research showed the length kept people away. It was the single biggest deterrent. It was 3 hours and 12 minutes long. We originally intended to get it all in in 2 hours, 30 minutes. That would have been a better time. But the movies ran longer, the [fake] trailers ran longer, everything ran longer," Harvey told me. Weinstein also criticized his own marketing plan. "We didn't educate the South or Midwest. In the West and the East, the movie played well. It played well in strong urban settings. But we missed the boat on the Midwest and the South." But he denies others' thinking that the Grindhouse subject matter was too foreign for mainstream audiences in mainstream theaters. He's wrong, of course. (In many theaters, before the pic began, either a leaflet was handed out or an usher came out to tell audiences that Grindhouse was designed to look old and scratched and to have "missing reels", and that the intermission, including the fake trailers, was also part of the movie. Obviously the managements had received some complaints at earlier shows.) Yet The Weinstein Co. wouldn't give the film to actual Grindhouses, or even the Grindhouse Film Festival, to screen and create buzz. That may be one reason the advance tracking on the film prior to Friday was only so-so. The hype seems to have been all Internet-generated, which is why New Line's Snakes On A Plane flopped.

Weinstein admitted to spending at least $30 million on U.S. promotion and advertising for Grindhouse, which, added to what I'd already heard was a $67+ mil budget and not the low-50s cost he has claimed, makes this at least a $100 mil movie. So the first weekend's take of just $12 mil is all the more disastrous. On the other hand, Harvey (and independent observers) says the film is heavily pre-sold overseas and expects it to do well there. That's not surprising, since many movies recently (Babel, Apocalypto) have run out of gas here only to pump up the total with international box office. But a re-release in the U.S. could prove almost prohibitively costly for The Weinstein Co.: new prints, new marketing, new everything. It may not be worth it, especially with Spider-Man 3 and the rest of this summer's tentpole onslaught just around the corner.

Weinstein admits that he thought the film would do much better than it did and sees the failure of Grindhouse's U.S. release as a rap on his reputation for movie savvy. He's in a bind here because, let's face it, he doesn't dare blame the directors. After all, he is closely tied to Tarantino and Rodriquez personally and professionally and, what's more, he and brother Bob made that relationship and Grindhouse a cornerstone of their fledgling company's financing. (No doubt that's why Harv, who has a long history of imposing his iron will on filmmakers, gave the two directors a pass when it came to Grindhouse's extreme length.)

But Harvey is adamant that the flop will not be a body blow to The Weinstein Co. "We're smart businessmen. Thank God, we protected ourselves economically. I've spent the last year diversifying the company. We're making profits everywhere but the movie business. But on DVD sales, we're doing well," he claims. The Weinstein Company's diversified investments include the home video company Genius Products, the private online community aSmallWorld, the cable TV hit show Project Runway, the independent cable channel Ovation, and, most recently, the Halston fashion brand. Harvey admitted to me that his attention may have been too diverted from the movie biz as a result. "This Cannes, I'm going to change all that. I'm back to being me. We wanted to diversify immediately. Now I have to go back to being Harvey."

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Posted by Mike Schindler (Member # 1309) on 04-10-2007, 01:30 AM:
 
I really really hope that this is true.
 

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Posted by Mark Strube (Member # 4190) on 04-10-2007, 02:03 AM:
 
@ the Marcus UltraScreen near Racine, WI: http://i16.tinypic.com/4bgi1j6.jpg
 

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Posted by Jarryd Beard (Member # 2543) on 04-10-2007, 09:54 AM:
 
Though I don't have it with me at the moment, that appears to be an excerpt straight from the info sheet in the can.
 

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Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 04-10-2007, 11:31 AM:
 
When and if they do re-release the individual films, I hope they take out all the defects not just ad footage back in.
 

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Posted by Mark Strube (Member # 4190) on 04-10-2007, 11:50 AM:
 
Especially with Rodriguez's movie... I found his fake grain and dirt really distracting with how unrealistic it was. (stupid stuff like more dirt, grain, and jitter when big action scenes happen, or the already fake-looking film grain structure completely changing for different scenes) I liked Tarantino's restraint... I also noticed how he had the dirt and scratches become more pronounced right before a reel change, which was a nice touch. However, wouldn't that then carry over to the start of the next reel? It seemed to instantly get clean again as soon as the splice hit.
 

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Posted by Christian Appelt (Member # 1067) on 04-10-2007, 05:54 PM:
 
I bet allsurviving low budget & schlock filmmakers cannot stop laughing at the idea of spending $100.000.000 on two sleazy movies and expect them to make a nice profit...

However, it might have worked, then QT and RR would have been heroes. A few years ago, someone in Europe tried to make a number of American-International-type B-films, but I doubt they were successful except for specialized festivals:

Planet B: Detective Lovelorn and the Pharao's Revenge
Planet B: The Antman
 

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Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 04-11-2007, 12:43 AM:
 
I'm gonna have to try and see this somewhere while it's still out. Wonder if I'll be able to spot what crappiness was intentional, and what was that of the theater running it?

I'm gonna make a movie called "Chain Theatre", where I'll make the movie like it's supposed to look and sound really good, but then purposefully add print damage and focus problems. I might even have a part in the middle where the film accidentally stops and screen ads come on.
 

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Posted by Sonja O'Reilly (Member # 1322) on 04-11-2007, 05:37 AM:
 
I'm very tired right now, but i hope this makes sense:
i enjoyed how the "damage" interacted with the story, especially in Planet Terror.
<spoilers ahoy?>

Examples: When Dr. Block mentions the word "cut" the film jumps, like a frame had been removed.
Or when the love scene gets.. hot.. the film melts.
Also, when Dakota's son opens the glove box, the film goes 3D (or i may be imagining it), like Sharkboy and Lavagirl.
You can see the emotion and the characters' mental states reflected in the quality of the presentation, and i don't think the damage was strewn around willy-nilly. I haven't recieved any complaints about the presentation, I forwarned all the other department heads so they could be the ones to inform the customers.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-11-2007, 10:27 AM:
 
Question: Are you all showing "real" trailers with this film, or just the feature(s) with the fake trailers? It seems as if the presentation should be pseudo-crappy from beginning to end -- a bunch of pristine-looking trailers would ruin the effect.

(A real cool thing would be if they made special versions of the real trailers that had scratches, edits, missing footage etc.)
 

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Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 04-11-2007, 11:39 AM:
 

quote: Mark Strube

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I also noticed how he had the dirt and scratches become more pronounced right before a reel change, which was a nice touch. However, wouldn't that then carry over to the start of the next reel? It seemed to instantly get clean again as soon as the splice hit.

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quote: Dennis Benjamin

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I don't think there are any TRUE grindhouses left.

Ohhh... there's a business idea....

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SHHHHH....everyone will be doing it!

quote: Jack Ondracek

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Some of the old films we used to run at the drive-in had a lot of oil at the ends... leaders on the floor, maybe.

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I remember those days. When we first got our platter, sometimes the reels were nearly impossible to splice together with all the crud. (Not a problem with the old cement splicer though!)
 

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Posted by Alex Grueneberg (Member # 2652) on 04-11-2007, 01:01 PM:
 
I used to run a ghetto plex at Clark and North ave in Chicago. We did'nt have heat in theater 2 all winter and the roof was always leaking Not to mention we had a huge subway rat problem. There was also a FOR RENT sign up over the broken marquee for the last 2 years. The theater has recently since closed . I'm sure Grindhouse would have done well here.



[ 04-12-2007, 03:27 AM: Message edited by: Alex Grueneberg ]
 

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Posted by Mike Schindler (Member # 1309) on 04-11-2007, 01:57 PM:
 

quote: Mike Blakesley

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Question: Are you all showing "real" trailers with this film, or just the feature(s) with the fake trailers? It seems as if the presentation should be pseudo-crappy from beginning to end -- a bunch of pristine-looking trailers would ruin the effect.

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quote: Jesse Skeen

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I'm gonna make a movie called "Chain Theatre", where I'll make the movie like it's supposed to look and sound really good, but then purposefully add print damage and focus problems. I might even have a part in the middle where the film accidentally stops and screen ads come on.

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Muwahahahaha!
 

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Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 04-13-2007, 07:12 AM:
 
Marcus Crosswoods, in the display ad in the newspaper, is advertising the two Grindhouse films separately with separate showtimes in its Ultrascreen room. Looks like some of the other Marcus locations might be doing this also.

The Crosswoods also shows GRINDHOUSE running as a single feature in one theatre.
 

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Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 04-13-2007, 07:37 AM:
 
Well, now we know why the reels for both films were identified as one-through-six.
 

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Posted by Pravin Ratnam (Member # 1417) on 04-13-2007, 09:01 AM:
 
My advice to patrons:
1) Don't go early to the theater. If the movie starts at 8, go into the theater at 8. You will have to spend a long time in there anyway. And there are plenty of seats. Enjoy Rose McGowan's leg kicks in the hilarious opening credits.
2) DO NOT TAKE A BREAK DURING THE FAKE TRAILERS in the middle.THis is the best part of the movie.
3) Take a bathroom BREAK at the 5 minute mark of Deathproof, just enough where you get sick of the four twits in the car and you got a sense of how Tarantino recreated the rambling pointless scenes from some bad 70s B movies. WHen you get back, they will still be yapping away.
4) When they get to the bar, take another break right away to get popcorn. Come back in time to hear some glam rock by Sweet and see Jungle Julia move her head and hair in circles to give a pretty nice visual.
5) Learn how to smoke. Take a smoke break during the scene when they introduce Zoe Bell and Co.

My advice to theater owners:
1) Beg the Weinsteins for the lapdance scene in Deathproof and replace 80% of the twits blabbering in the car with the MISSING REAL insert . Repeat during the second set of twits blabbering.
 

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Posted by Mark Strube (Member # 4190) on 04-13-2007, 11:48 PM:
 
That's only good advice for people who don't love Tarantinoian dialogue... I was eating the whole thing up. I loved every frame.

If you're like me, just relieve yourself right before, and stay away from the large sodas. (Or, enjoy that large dew... and relieve yourself in the theater. If you don't get kicked out, that auditorium is now a grindhouse.)
 

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Posted by Sam King (Member # 4029) on 04-14-2007, 05:09 AM:
 

quote: Mark Lensenmayer

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separate showtimes in its Ultrascreen room

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