Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: How do you deal with the resentment over what you don't play?

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Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 02-17-2009, 03:17 PM:

This is primarily a questions for those who run theatres with less than 7-8 screens.

The last 2 months I've been getting yelled at a couple times a week over what we're not playing.

Sometimes it's the art house crowd that is mad because we aren't playing the Oscar contenders. These people are often mad because we're playing "crap" or too many kids movies instead of the high quality movies.

Sometimes it's the people who are mad because we're not playing the crap movies like The Uninvited or Underworld.

This year has been especially brutal. Right now I think there are something like 15 movies we haven't played.

What's made things worse is the strength of Paul Blart, Hotel for Dogs, Taken, and Gran Torino. Each of these went at least 1-2 weeks longer than I expected and caused us to miss other movies I was expecting - and promoting.

What really bothers me is we rarely get a thank you for what we are playing. When we do, it's normally followed by "when are you going to get x, y, and z". Unfortunately my best answer to "when will you play ____" is "I don't know when or if".

I have major sympathy for those who are running singles or twins.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-17-2009, 03:37 PM:

It really is a huge guessing game. We listen a lot to what people ask about, but sometimes that backfires too. Last fall we had skipped over Beverly Hills Chihuahua because the schedule was just too full, but people kept asking about it so we finally brought it in when we had an opening....and then it flopped.

On the other hand, I was ready and willing to skip over Paul Blart based on the trailer. I thought it would be one of those quickie hits that would die off rapidly and make a fast trip to video, but now we are playing it and holding a second week....it'll probably be in our top five for the year!

But to answer the question -- we get a lot of "when are you going to get _____" questions, but not a lot of complaints over what we do play. (At least, not to our face!) I think people realize we do our best to play a good mix of various kinds of films.

We've played a lot of movies over the years where people were amazed that we played them, like some foreign-language films for example -- not exactly highly demanded fare in eastern Montana!

When we do bring in some highly-acclaimed, limited-appeal Oscar-nominated film, the people in the crowd see that there are only a few people in attendance and that makes them realize why we don't play more of those kinds of films.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 02-17-2009, 04:16 PM:

As a single screen art house, lots of complaints about what's not playing. The biggest thing people don't understand is that movies are not like books. Just because you heard a review on NPR this morning doesn't mean the film is available in Montgomery now.
It's taken literally since November to get Milk booked (for March 6). The distrib kept wanting to put it into the multiplex, and finally gave up last week (unless it shows up this week). We're a calendar house, so I had to hold my calendar for March in the hopes of getting it. Meanwhile, people have been calling me at work and at home wondering why we aren't playing Milk. And the DVD comes out a few days after we open. [Mad]

Fortuneately, there's very little resentment (though I did get a crayon-scrawled hate letter calling me a homophobe because we didn't show Brokeback Mountain [which did play the multiplex]). At least among the people who talk to me, there is occasional disappointment, but not resentment. Most are grateful to have a chance to see what we do show.
In short, can't please everyone

Posted by James Westbrook (Member # 3690) on 02-17-2009, 04:38 PM:

In a multiplex in the lower section of Middle America, there is no point in attempting to bring titles like Milk, The Reader, Slumdog Millionaire, Revolutionary Road and the like UNTIL the films get nominated for Academy Awards, because if these are booked sooner than that, they simply don't do well.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-17-2009, 05:31 PM:

I should have added - one thing that helps me decide is, we just put up the one-sheet. If people start talking to each other and/or asking us about it, that's a movie we want to book, but if nobody says a word, it's a pass. I put the Slumdog one-sheet up a few weeks ago and we've had all kinds of questions about it.

Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 02-17-2009, 06:00 PM:

We just tell them like it is....that this is a very expensive facility to operate and that what we play is almost exclusively based on what will bring in the maximum number of dollars and to do otherwise would undoubtedly eliminate the ability of this theatre to exist. Plain and simple that is fact.

[ 02-17-2009, 09:59 PM: Message edited by: Bill Enos ]

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 02-18-2009, 12:59 AM:

Sometimes you're just simply damned for not having enough screens since, once in a while, "Hollyrock" gets a wild hair crawling around inside their operations to release a good slug of movies all at once, then suddenly, you're real glad that you didn't have all of them screens, for you'll lose your shirt with all of them empty houses with the sudden crap "Hollyrock" releases to the plexes.

"Catch-22" - plain and simple....can't please everyone.

-Monte

EDIT: added more comments to the original text and checked spelling.

[ 02-18-2009, 03:56 AM: Message edited by: Monte L Fullmer ]

Posted by Tony L. Hernandez (Member # 3524) on 02-18-2009, 02:58 AM:

I loved Monte's final line about the "catch 22"...that pretty much sums it up. Only one of my theaters is a regular first run theater and it is a historic single screen that runs May-September. The film companies throw us one or two blockbusters a year but we don't always have first pick do to the fact that we are seasonal and there is a competing three-plex in town some 73-years our junior (and actually the owner is a really nice guy)that always seems to get first pick, even though our beautifully renovated single screen holds more than two of his screens combined.
If we constantly get requests for a picture that is in its 2nd run, we usually try to bring it in for a matinee show, as was the case with Kung-Fu Panda which actually did quite well for us. I also like to go stand in the theater while my trailers are running to hear audience reactions.
However you just can't please 'em all and the sooner you learn that, the less your feelings will get hurt (and trust me, that is easier said than done). I've found that you can run every picture Hollywood can pump out, on the break, and still someone will be pissed that you are not running "that Russian arthouse film that just came out". Or you can run a feature at the top and bottom of every hour and still someone will be agitated that you don't have a showing at 2:17pm.
I also remember a couple of summers ago that we had played mostly films containing voilence and/or raunchy humor. This sparked a group of the town's Holyer-Than-Thou residents to bombard us with complaints via phone calls and personal visits to the theater. Well, they are are a part of our customer base so we figured we would try to make them happy. We ended up booking (I can't remember the title) a lovely, squeaky clean family picture with nice characters and a good-moral ending. Guess what? Not one of the complaining people came too see it and it was our worst grossing picture of the season!
I had one guy get really nasty with me this summer over the fact that we were not running "Journey to the Center of the Earth" in 3D. I politely told him that if he wanted to buy me a $120k D-Cinema system, I would gladly show as many films as I could in 3-D. That shut him up pretty quick! ;-D

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 02-18-2009, 03:50 AM:

quote: Tony L. Hernandez
..we were not running "Journey to the Center of the Earth" in 3D...

.. And this could be a subheader in this thread topic: "...deal with the resentment over that you're not playing movies in Digital and/or 3D?"

With the massive growth in Digital and now with the 'fad' explosion of 3D, a lot of 2D plexes really gets the 'crap-on' by the customers, especially when they see your 9 plus buck per tix at the boxoffice and that feature in not shown in either or both, Digital and 3D ..and you're in an area that does have both formats, thus these patrons gets all miffed out, leaves your plex and drive across town or across the valley to spend the extra $2.50 just so they can see the 3D movie.

Sadly, with this new competition, you're attendance starts to take a toll there due to the fact that the patrons are after value entertainment (since the world "value" is now important with our economic situations that is among us..), and if you aint got the right "bells and whistles", by dang, they'll go find it - just to get their money's worth.

..It's all about value these days...

-Monte

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 02-18-2009, 09:21 AM:

This job would be great if it weren't for the public [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 02-18-2009, 11:11 AM:

quote: Martin McCaffery
though I did get a crayon-scrawled hate letter calling me a homophobe because we didn't show Brokeback Mountain

I got that beat. I once went into a bar, ordered a Black Russian and the following conversation ensued:
Guy next to me: You're a racist.
Me: What the hell are you talking about?
Guy: You're a racist based on what you drink.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 02-18-2009, 11:12 AM:

Easiest is to just blame the film companies. . . ."They won't let us have it yet." It may not be true, but covers a lot of ground and it MIGHT be true. Louis

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-18-2009, 03:28 PM:

Oh, I have a whole list of those I use from time to time!

"They took all the prints out of our depot"
"They moved up the video release since it's not a big hit"
"The big cities are locking up all the prints"
"It did too well last weekend...everybody's holding it"
"It's a much bigger hit than they expected, so they can't meet demand"
"It's not really aimed at our audience"

The most common reason we don't play a movie is "We don't gross enough to get it quite yet" but of course I'll never use that one!

Posted by Rick Boyte (Member # 5078) on 02-18-2009, 05:17 PM:

With only 3 Screens presently and adding 2 more hopefully by summer, we tell people it's hard to get all the new movies when there are multiple releases certain weeks and we have to hold movies 2 weeks min. Moving a movie down to one of the smaller theaters, then deciding which of the two new movies we put in the biggest theater becomes a problem. Most of the times we guess right, but there has been times where Saturday morning we are switching movies to a different auditorium.

Posted by Ky Boyd (Member # 23) on 02-18-2009, 06:46 PM:

I always like "The stars need to align in such a way so that the distributor has a print available the week that we have a screen available."

Posted by Dominic Espinosa (Member # 2122) on 02-19-2009, 02:39 PM:

We play what puts people in the theaters. Period.
But yes. We play what the distribs want us play, for the most part.
Most of us aren't big enough to argue...

Posted by Tony Ratcliff (Member # 1196) on 02-19-2009, 08:20 PM:

I have only 2 screens. And we get the questions constantly as to when/if we are getting such-n-such a movie.
But most of the time our regulars phrase it more like "you ARE getting that aren't you?"

But the ones I love the best are "when are you going to be playing..." People just can't understand that you can't play sixteen movies all at once in a 2 screen theatre! And that you can't plan exactly how long you will keep each film.

And then there are the people you book birthday parties 3-4 months in advance and ask "What movie will be playing then?"
Duh! Here's Your Sign!!

Posted by Tyler Potts (Member # 4952) on 02-20-2009, 06:25 AM:

I deal with it as at least I don't have to build it! That's the only plus. I was looking forward to having The Dark Knight again, but after its scarce oscar noms Regal only put it in a few of their imax theatres.

Then the only other way to deal with it is to make really awesome trailer packs, then when customers ask when they'll see those 5 awesome movies let the GM answer their questions. He hates when I build artsy trailer packs.