Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: "Seabiscuit", number of screens at opening

This is topic "Seabiscuit", number of screens at opening in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 07-25-2003, 03:37 PM:

I was kind of surprised to see a high-profile prestige film like "Seabiscuit" opening today on only 1 screen in this area (Cinemark; Regal didn't get it at all, even though they've been running the trailer). Is this typical in other markets this size? Eugene/Springfield is ~200,000 in population. Just curious.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 07-25-2003, 03:57 PM:

Might be the kind of picture they really expect good "word of mouth" on, with building business. Opening small and adding theatres in subsequent weeks works well in these situations, like "MBFGW".

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-25-2003, 04:37 PM:

It's only on something like 1800 screens, I heard.

Great, a quality movie that people will want to see, and none of the smaller towns (like us) will get it until September. [Frown]

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 07-25-2003, 09:43 PM:

According to Eric Carter's film release page, it opened on 1987 screens this week. Hopefully it is good. We need more films that have "legs" and don't necessarily need to saturate the market on opening weekend in order to do good business.

Is anyone playing Phar Lap (an Australian film with a similar story) instead of or along with Seabiscuit? Does 20th Century Fox even have prints available of that one?

Posted by Travis Hubrig (Member # 1745) on 07-25-2003, 09:46 PM:

We got Seabiscuit on one screen here... pop. 40,000

It seems to be doing well, I've got Tomb Raider 2 on 2 screens and still more customers for Seabiscuit.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 07-26-2003, 01:58 AM:

I have not had a chance to see it yet but it is doing good business here. Of course two big reasons for that. Some of it was filmed here and this is race horse country.

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 07-26-2003, 04:55 AM:

My booker told me that Universal pulled something like 500 dates from the Western region. She, and I guess a lot of other companies had to scramble to fill the holes. Partly because of this, Paramount overshot their target on Tomb Raider by Friday & wasn't taking any dates on Monday.

Too bad... we had a lot of people ask about it.

Posted by John T. Hendrickson, Jr (Member # 849) on 07-26-2003, 02:31 PM:

We wanted two prints, but were told we would only get one. All the local competition got one, except for the Lowes theaters north and south of us, who received two prints each. [Mad]

And you don't think the chains have clout?? However, I'm willing to bet that we will hold our own with the one print, even though we will not be able to offer extra show times.

Of course they want you to take as many prints as you can handle of the garbage out there.

Great if the picture has legs, but we will still have only one print. [Frown]