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Projectionist loses job after panning movie

By Borys Kit
Thu Jun 14, 1:26 AM ET

A projectionist at a Memphis theater chain has lost his job after writing an unauthorized early review of "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" for the Web site Ain't It Cool News.

Jesse Morrison, the projectionist, claims that the film's distributor, 20th Century Fox, was behind the decision by Malco Theatres Inc. to suspend him for an undetermined period. The studio denied the charge.

While studios and filmmakers have endured early reviews of their movies, both negative and positive, on Web sites since the early days of the Internet, the incident might mark the first time someone working in the entertainment industry has lost a job for voicing an early opinion online.

On Saturday, http://www.AintItCool.com posted a negative review by Morrison (writing under his online moniker Memflix) under the headline "Memflix crushes all hope for 'Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer."'

A 29-year-old film, video and journalism major at the University of Memphis, Morrison worked for $7 an hour at the Ridgeway Four, next door to Malco's home office. He picked up further compensation by readying movie prints for exhibitor and press screenings, which allowed him during the past year to write reviews of such movies as "Disturbia," "Vacancy" and "Spider-Man 3" for Ain't It Cool. He also wrote reviews for Malco's movie blog and a circular distributed at the theater.

On Monday, two days after his "Silver Surfer" pan appeared, Morrison was called into a meeting with Malco senior vp Jimmy Tashie and, according to Morrison, was "suspended until further notice," with the suggestion that he would not be asked to return.

Morrison said Tashie pointed out that "20th Century Fox called them that morning and threatened to take away the press and trade screenings because of this whole thing. They were upset."

Asked if Fox had any role in the suspension, Tashie said: "Absolutely none." The executive said his company received a call from Fox that said "there's somebody there working for (Malco) who is writing reviews in advance. That's all they said. No one asked us to do anything. We have been in business 95 years, and this is the first time anything like this happened. And this boy knew what he was doing was the wrong thing. . . . He was in a position of trust and he violated that trust."

Drew McWeeney, known as "Moriarty" on the Ain't It Cool site, picked up Morrison's cause. Amid two positive reviews for the new movie, he championed Morrison's right to free speech and wrote: "He's written many reviews for us before, but when he wrote one for 'Fantastic Four,' Fox went into hypersensitive overdrive. They tracked him down and had him fired, threatening to pull their business from the entire chain over that review."

Sources inside Fox denied the studio's involvement, saying that the disciplinary action was beyond their reach and was the theater chain's decision.

Some entertainment companies, including film productions, do ask workers to sign confidentiality agreements, agreeing not to disclose information. Morrison said he had never been asked to sign such an agreement, though he would have if asked.

"If they had sat me down and told me that this has caused such a stink and that we would like you to sign some waiver, I probably would have signed it," Morrison said. "In my opinion, they used strong-arm tactics. I don't regret going on my Web site or Ain't It Cool at all. I just wish it hadn't come to this, but I don't really believe I did anything wrong."

Tashie said: "In the future, anybody in that position will sign something."

A number of Ain't It Cool readers have rallied to Morrison's cause, some even offering him jobs like a cameraman gig in Mexico.

Morrison said he is weighing his options. "I'm hoping to get a job as a professional movie reviewer, but I don't know what's going to happen with that. I guess you could say I'm at some kind of crossroads right now."

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

Copyright © 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.

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Should we have anything to worry about?
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 06-14-2007, 01:07 PM:
 
He should just go over to the nearest Cinemark and continue working.

Mark
 

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Posted by Jonathan M. Crist (Member # 413) on 06-14-2007, 01:20 PM:
 
In last couple of months Fox has been pulling most Fleabay auctions for 35mm trailers of both the original 2005 version of Fantastic Four as well as for the new Silver Surfer. Fox has also been pulling most Fleabay auctions of the Fantastic Four Silver Surfer posters.
 

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Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 06-14-2007, 02:02 PM:
 
I was in an almost exact situation back in 1995. When I worked in Cincy, Ohio - Universal had an office in town and our theatre would have prints months ahead of time. I usually screened them and gave my opinions to various people in the press.

I was brought into my DM's office and told that I may have damaged {INSERT CHAIN NAME HERE}'s relationship with Universal. I had to write a letter of apology to the local Universal Rep. I did keep my job with that company. I also ended up forging a great relationship with the local Universal People.

Of course - this was before the Internet.
 

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Posted by Mike Williams (Member # 1140) on 06-14-2007, 05:03 PM:
 
Unless the chain has a specific policy forbidding employees from doing this - or he signed a non-disclosure agreement, I do not see where they have the right to fire him.
Unfortunately, it is not worth that much fight for a $7 an hour job. Hopefully, this incident will give this guy enough press that he can land a better job - maybe one reviewing movies.
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 06-14-2007, 05:44 PM:
 
If he's an "at-will" employee, he can be fired for any reason or for no reason. Unless he is in a "protected" category and can prove discrimination (highly unlikely), then there is little that he can do.

That said, it's a pretty stupid reason to fire someone and the film companies need to concentrate more on making better movies than on shutting up people who voice dissatisfaction with the current product.
 

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Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 06-14-2007, 06:35 PM:
 
Penny-anti small circuit internal politics.......go work for real people. Louis
 

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Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 06-14-2007, 09:48 PM:
 

quote: Louis Bornwasser

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Penny-anti small circuit

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quote: Carl Martin

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sure, his boss is free to fire him, but his boss is also a jerk.

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I disagree.

This person was an employee and a company representative. He had a specific job function, which had nothing to do with publishing his personal opinion in advance of everyone else. He took advantage of his early access. The studios are pretty clear about not allowing members of the press and critics into trade screenings. I might not have fired him outright, unless this wasn't the only problem I'd had with him (we haven't heard whether that's the case or not). However, that's the company's call. He embarassed them and put himself in the line of fire.

This one was the employer's call to make. Looks like they did that. Take the lesson and move on.
 

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Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 06-15-2007, 09:22 AM:
 
I stand by the penny-anti circuit comment. A real leader would have brought in the employee and inquired if and why he "did it." Unless he had other problems, I would have given him a warning on the first offence.

I would then have established an iron-clad policy that this is not to be tolerated in the future and that doing so would be a firing offence; all employees would then sign off on the new policy and it would be kept in all the job files. Louis
 

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Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 06-15-2007, 09:31 AM:
 
The general rule of thumb on Press Screenings is you don't release your reviews till the release date of the picture. But because he was the projectionist it puts him in a kind of "In the know spot". That's what the studios would say. As if he was working on the production and made comments about the production's problems and other things related to it. The studios these days get funky on many different things. There are many rules to deal with as to reviews / to who can attend / security of prints / people bring in bags and phones. So the studios do look into pre-release reviews and pre-screenings (Beware of Lurkers here on your comments of how your chain theatre runs). I can not make comments about films till release dates other than Tech. info on the print.
 

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Posted by Jason Burroughs (Member # 68) on 06-15-2007, 09:53 AM:
 
His firing ammounts to corporate censorship, if he was infact let go soley because of his review instead of other performance issues.

It becomes a slippery slope when a vendor can dictate your hiring/firing practices. While Fox may not have come out and directly requested the employee's dismissal, you know it was implicated.

If you hold true that he was justly fired because Fox leaned on the company, then we would all rightly be fired because of opinions based on this site if any said vendor chose to lean on our respective companies.
 

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Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 06-15-2007, 12:53 PM:
 
The only good news here is that at $7; it was a nothing job, easily replaced with any other nothing job.

The tragedy is that a person who has enough interest to "post a review" probably is a person who likes film and is interested and connected to his job. This is never a bad thing; in fact we need more of them. Perhaps there is another exhibition job in Memphis where he might be better appreciated.

Bill; I do understand that the "rules" are well known in NYC. Out in the boonies, it is not always true that anyone has ever articulated any guidelines. That is why a warning is more appropriate the first time. Louis
 

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Posted by Jim Bedford (Member # 4) on 06-15-2007, 01:40 PM:
 
You know, it's just not morally right to use your position with a company to benefit yourself (or even your blog) without permission. If you do this with special knowledge you gain while working for a company and use it in the stock market it's called insider trading and can be subject to criminal action. Isn't this just insider trading of privileged knowledge?

Obviously this is a special case. My lord, if many employers got wind of the fact that nine out of ten projectionists who review films on this site hate nine out of every ten films they review everyone would lose their jobs!
 

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Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 06-15-2007, 02:13 PM:
 
A little discretion sometimes goes a long way. If Mr. Morrison had used a little he would still have his job. Frequently critics see movies well ahead of the opening and are told that they can't release their reviews until a certain date under penalty of never seeing a prerelease screening again. Morrison would be in that same category. It is not corporate censorship, they own the product and have a right to control all aspects of it until it is public. He made improper use of his position.
 

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Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 06-15-2007, 02:43 PM:
 
The theater's owners/operators probably had to sign some sort of a non-disclosure in order to have the rights to show the film early. By them signing it, he is bound by it. But being a projectionist, and being pretty far away from the folks who work those deals, he may not have realized that. Unless he knew he was violating a non-disclosure agreement or some other rule, then the theater owners fired him for bad reasons since they were just as much at fault as he was. Unless he KNEW he was making a mistake, it wasn't fair to fire him. If they didn't make him aware of the policy, then they just got rid of him to cover themselves in the face of the studio. That being said, they are perfectly able to fire anyone they want for any reason what so ever if he signed that "at will" employment contract that most of us sign. But that doesn't make it a good business decision.

Either way, I don't think we have enough information here to really pass judgment on anybody at this point.
 

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Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 06-15-2007, 03:56 PM:
 
If he didn't know panning an unreleased film owned by a major distributor on a high-profile website wouldn't get him into hot water, he must be mighty dumb (or maybe just mighty naive). In any case...he's learned the lesson now. Don't fuck with Rupert Murdoch.
 

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Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 06-15-2007, 04:16 PM:
 

quote: Mark J. Marshall

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That being said, they are perfectly able to fire anyone they want for any reason what so ever if he signed that "at will" employment contract that most of us sign.

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quote: John Wilson

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If he didn't know panning an unreleased film owned by a major distributor on a high-profile website wouldn't get him into hot water, he must be mighty dumb (or maybe just mighty naive).

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how would he know that without trying it first or being told so? sure, he couldn't expect they'd be happy about it, but neither hollywood nor anyone else gets to be happy about everything.
 

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Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 06-15-2007, 04:35 PM:
 
Simple...ask if it would be OK. Like I said... dumb or naive. Either way, he has lost.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-15-2007, 07:50 PM:
 
It's all about the opening weekend grosses. It doesn't matter how awful the movie is. The studios are banking on the fact that their advertising campaigns will bring in the suckers opening weekend before anyone finds out what a turd they just created to make their money.

I'm not sure what I find more pathetic. The fact that so many studios churn out shit week after week and knowingly screw the general public with the style of advertising that they do, or the way this guy was fired. In my personal opinion, the professional way to handle this would have been to bring him into the office and let him know that it was not appropriate to release information on a movie until the opening day (or whatever) and that if it happened again he would lose his job. This business of a theater chain just bending over to a studio (particularly over such an awful movie) and FIRING a good employee out of thin air without any form of warning is bullshit.

Besides, had the movie actually been good, the review would have been positive and the studio wouldn't have had any problem with it.
 

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 06-16-2007, 06:34 AM:
 
Agreed completely with Brad. They shot themselves in the foot publicity-wise by sacking him (i.e. sent the message that they've got something to hide, that something being a shite film), but at the same time there are legitimate reasons for not wanting workers in the industry to publish their opinions about films before the release date. Ever since I got my first cinema job as a teenager and got to go to unofficial staff screenings of blockbuster new releases when the print arrived before the opening date, it was made very clear that I was to say nothing about the film before the Friday of the opening. This was especially sensitive if the place you worked was showing the blockbuster, but the rival cinema wasn't - if you put the word around that your film was crap, you'd effectively be handing customers to the opposition, especially in smaller towns where word gets around.

My first experience of this was with Jurassic Park in 1992: it had been massively hyped, our print arrived on the Monday and the opening day was the Friday after next (i.e. we had it almost a fortnight early). Of course, all the staff were dying to see it, and so the chief caved in and allowed a staff preview after the last public show the following Saturday. Before I started the film, the manager went on stage and made a short speech to the effect that no-one was to breathe a word about what they'd seen to anyone outside this auditorium - family included - until 4pm the following Friday, when the first public show would be over. If word got back that anyone had, they'd be getting a P45 (the British tax certificate you get at the end of your employment with a company) right away. After that time, you can say what you like about it, even 'This is crap and don't bother coming to the cinema which pays my wages' if you like, he continued. But say nothing until 4pm on Friday. He then explained why, and everyone respected that.

Staff previews are a valuable and important thing to do. They're a morale boosting perk for staff who are on pretty low wages, and they cost the cinema virtually nothing. If staff have seen the film, they can talk knowledgeably about it, especially when you get a couple or a group of friends coming to the box office and asking 'We're thinking about seeing a film tonight - what have you got on?'. If the person they talk to has seen the films on offer, the chances are that (s)he'll stand a better chance of making a sale. And of course from our point of view, a full-scale print rehearsal means that any technical bugs are ironed out before the public arrives, and the presentation quality is kept high. But criticising (i.e. writing reviews that make judgments about) films should be left to the professionals before that release date, or else you risk seriously undermining the legitimate sales and advertising effort of the industry.
 

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Posted by Anslem Rayburn (Member # 1267) on 06-16-2007, 08:33 AM:
 
If he didn't have a NDA, then he did nothing wrong. If the only reviews allowed were the ones asked for by the distributor

quote: John Wilson

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Fox never sent him there to review it...he was there to run it and that's it.

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quote: Anslem Rayburn

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Corporate censorship is still censorship.

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No it's not! To equate the legal practice of corporate censorship with the immoral practice of general censorship is absurd.

Fox has every right to engage in corporate censorship regarding its products until they become public. There is nothing wrong about that. Nearly every company we all work for has some from of corporate censorship.

This is not to say that corporate censorship is censorship at all. When you work for Coke, you are not allowed to give out the formula. It is what makes it Coke, and to give it away because you didn't know any better means you are stupid. This kid to not know that he wasn't supposed to write public reviews of movies from a trade screening means he is stupid, lacking any and all form of ability to survive outside of a projection booth.

Censorship is something used by governments to prevent its citizens from knowing anything, or speaking anything, and therefore maintaining a power vacuum over them. Corporate censorship is necessary in order to maintain intellectual property rights and to protect large financial investments.

I completely disagree with Brad that Fox needs to worry more about their shitty product then some dipshit who can't keep his mouth shut. They absolutely need to make sure that they have a tight lid on every single dipshit in their chain of command in order to maintain their shitty product, or they might just have to make better product.

I am quite sure that FOX did nothing to incite the firing. We have absolutely no data proving that this $7 and hour moron was any good to begin with. The mere fact that he was paying more attention to his aspiring movie critic career than with his booth duties is enough for me to sack the jerk. If I were to go to press with every little change in our company policy before it became public by our own press people puts our entire marketing plan in jeopardy. It isn't my place to be stupid on my own, I need orders to be stupid, and this kid really should have been smart enough to understand that.

He deserved to be fired, and I think he should take that mexican camera job, because projectors and cameras are the same thing, everyone knows that.

My point is that there needs to be some common sense here. If you think it should be ok, then ask if it is ok, because it probably isn't. When you think it should be ok, that's just your stupid button getting pressed. Don't press it, just ask first if it's ok to be stupid before you do it.

Ciao
 

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Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 06-16-2007, 11:38 AM:
 
Seems I'm on the edge with just a couple others here, but I agree with Dave on this.

This whole thing boils down to a matter of simple common sense. The employee was hired to run projectors. He added another element to the job description by taking content from his workplace and sharing his opinion of it in advance of anyone else. Simple logic would hold that you're doing something your neighbor can't, and it's entirely due to a side benefit of your job. Asking your supervisor if it's OK would seem obvious.

On the other hand, even I don't expect my entry level people to walk in here, having made all those connections. At my place, people who have, almost always have previous job experience, and I usually recognize that, and pay more for them. They're better employees out of the box, because I can dispense with teaching them the basics of how to function as an employee, and concentrate on spinning them up on what I really need around here.

It does look like the employer sacrificed this guy. On the other hand, I still maintain we've spent a lot of time on this without knowing whether they were already looking for a reason, and this just fell into their laps. There might be blame to lay on both sides here, but you just don't know. We've only heard from one side, and I suspect that for us, that's as good as it's going to get.
 

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Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 06-16-2007, 03:50 PM:
 
As usual I 100% agree with Jack. Anyone who's not an idiot should have known better and his firing could have been one of those " it, I've had enough" moments that I have every once in a while myself with employees.
 

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Posted by Mike Heenan (Member # 392) on 06-16-2007, 04:13 PM:
 
It's no surprise that now Harry Knowles has given it a positive review.
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-16-2007, 04:41 PM:
 
What I'm wondering about is how they tracked it down to him. Didn't he write under a pseudonym? What gave him away? You can't punish someone you can't find.

Also, I wonder what would need to be concealed under an NDA in regards to movies that are opening soon. Whether someone thinks a movie sucks or not probably won't deter the white trash who wants to see it anyway. And there certainly isn't anything secretive about movies anymore. And rarely are movies actually good. Maybe that guy can just e-mail me his reviews and I will post them under my name. Nobody can fire me for that!
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-16-2007, 06:22 PM:
 
My own opinion, I think it's bullshit for the guy to be fired outright for posting his review. The projectionist, Jesse Morrison, might have deserved to be written up, but I think that's about it.

If I was the manager, the only way I would have fired him is if he was already on thin ice for lots of other issues. If he was a good employee I would have tried hard to save his job.

The fact he posted the movie prior to its release shows that he viewed the movie in the capacity of a theater employee or member of the press. Fox does have a legitimate gripe about that.

In the projectionist's defense, he probably didn't think he was doing anything wrong. Lots of people see pre-release screenings of movies and post online reviews well before they're supposed to do so. It's a common practice. I even see that here on occasion in Film-Tech's own movie review forum. The first review for Fantastic 4: The Rise of the Silver was posted in the F-T movie reviews forum on Wednesday, two days before the actual release.

On a basic level Jesse Morrison is guilty of conflict of interest. Movie theaters are supposed to sell as many tickets as they can. Having an employee saying the product is shit will undermine that goal of selling tickets. It doesn't matter if the product really is shit. You have to sell that product anyway or find a job doing something else that you can actually take pride in doing.

I feel once the movie is released, a theater employee can post a review of a movie online -just as long as he is doing it on his own free time and not disclosing the details of his day job at a movie theater. If he says, "I'm a projectionist at Malco Theaters and I think this movie sucks," then he is demonstrating conflict of interest.

Overall, I'm surprised Fox even gives a shit. Millions of people spout all sorts of stuff on 'blogs and because of all the wild crap posted on many of them it undermines their credibility. This new Fantastic 4 sequel will be seen by lots of people who don't even give a damn about critics anyway.

This issue also exposes the really nasty attitude some executives have against anyone with the title of "employee." Some of those attitudes turn into policies that are stupidly self-destructive. For instance, there's at least a couple of major movie theater chains who will fire any employee on the spot if they fail to upsell other concessions items to an anonymous checker. There's no appeal. It doesn't matter if it's a great employee who has been with the theater for years and trying to get into management. He or she is automatically gone. Simple as that. And then the theater has to try to find a replacement worth a damn who's also willing to work for shit pay. That's pretty hard to do, at least around here.

quote: Dave Williams

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We have absolutely no data proving that this $7 and hour moron was any good to begin with. The mere fact that he was paying more attention to his aspiring movie critic career than with his booth duties is enough for me to sack the jerk.

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quote: Joe Redifer

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What I'm wondering about is how they tracked it down to him. Didn't he write under a pseudonym? What gave him away? You can't punish someone you can't find.

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quote: Joe Redifer

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What I'm wondering about is how they tracked it down to him. Didn't he write under a pseudonym? What gave him away? You can't punish someone you can't find.

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quote: Bobby Henderson

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Dave, you're making an angry sounding assumption that the projectionist wasn't doing his job in the booth. Calling that assumption "mere fact" needs to be backed up with some specific proof. The article only commented on his movie reviews, not the quality of his on the job performance.

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quote: Kurt Zupin

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For a movie company to have the power over a theater to have some one fired is ungodly wrong. And should not be tolerated.

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quote: Dave Williams

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What you are not seeing in the big picture is that the employer cannot discuss the performance of this employee, as they are held to strict confidentiality rules regarding current and past employees. The employee here has the advantage of being able to say anything he wants to say on the issue and all the company can do is grin and bare it.

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quote:

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It has been asked several times, whether I signed a confidentiality statement. I did not, nor was I told to stop writing reviews.

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I built the 5 reels onto a platter, threaded it, and screened it for a few of the executives, another employee, or two and a couple of their friends and colleagues.

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quote: Dave Williams

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What you are not seeing in the big picture is that the employer cannot discuss the performance of this employee, as they are held to strict confidentiality rules regarding current and past employees.

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quote: Dave Williams

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There is no angry assumptions here. I am merely pointing out that I think he is a moron, and also pointing out that we are not going to get to know the other side of the story.

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So you're going to literally make up the other side of the story?


I have a spotless criminal record, but I would be terrified if someone falsely accused me of a crime and I had to stand trial for it. That's because a lot of people just make flippant judgments against someone without really knowing all the facts and just feeding off emotion. They just figure, "he's gotta be guilty of something!" The fact that justice literally has to be bought in this nation anymore makes the prospects even more scary. In that Duke lacrosse team rape trial, if the defendants hadn't been a few rich white kids no one would have figured out the D.A. was trying to railroad them into jail. They would have just been convicted.

Prejudice sucks ass.

quote: Jack Ondracek

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I don't see why anyone here should fall on the side of the employee here. If I had such an investment in a product, why would I want to make it available to a company that allowed its resources to be used to disparage my product on a rather well-produced global forum?

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quote: Bobby Henderson

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I think if the guy is posting his reviews online after the movie is released to the public and not letting anyone know he is a movie theater projectionist then he's not doing anything wrong.

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quote: Joe Redifer

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The employee is an exhibitor. Duh.

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quote: Joel N. Weber II

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When I've worked for a for-profit software company, they've expected me to sign something regarding confidentiality, and that seems to be a completely standard practice in the software industry. So I think someone at the studio and/or this theater screwed up in not getting him to sign something, if they did feel a need to maintain this confidentiality.

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quote: Brad Miller

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The studios are banking on the fact that their advertising campaigns will bring in the suckers opening weekend before anyone finds out what a turd they just created to make their money.

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