Are the streamers runnign out of st(r)eam?

[Geoff Jones]

I agree things need to change in the commercial movie theater industry.

So what's your solution?


PS: In Casper (50k), tonight's showing of Pride and Prejudice is up to 7 tickets sold. The ~7pm showings of the eight new releases have surpassed it, with a grand total of 8 tickets altogether.

[Bobby Henderson]

Those ticket sales numbers don't mean much. They're posted around 5 hours before show time, for a Wednesday evening slate of shows. Also, April has usually been a pretty slow time for new first run releases -back when market conditions were more normal. Regardless of what movie is selling tickets or not any theater needs to sell more than 7 tickets of Pride and Prejudice to cover operation costs.

So what's your solution?

It's certainly not movie distributors doing day and date releases. That's like solving a movie theater's problems by burning down the building.

Obviously the best thing for cinemas is a much longer theatrical window, as well as longer windows for other release platforms, like retail physical media sales or direct digital download sales. If it takes only a month or two for a movie to go from theaters to showing up on Disney+ or HBO Max then both the theatrical run and retail run get cannibalized in favor of boosting subscriber numbers. Worse yet, these movies get forgotten quickly in the badly designed user interfaces of streaming apps. It's stupid as hell. But the big media company bean counters love it for some reason.

I'm afraid a kind of Pandora's Box has been opened. The movie industry isn't going to go back to using movie release patterns from 20 years ago or releasing the kinds of movies they did 20 years ago unless the current movie industry we know it goes through a really painful crash.

There are warning signs of such a crash happening. People are getting tired of all the super hero movies, the re-makes, sequels of re-makes and all the other safe, derivative shit that's global-market safe. Even if a lot of it is well-produced there is still a fast food style stink wafting off of it. I think there are some parallels to today's global spectacles and road show flops of the late 1960's. Those over-long bible epics gave way to a lot more edgy theatrical content in the early 1970's. Today's spectacles haven't hit their crash point yet. But the trend has over-stayed its welcome. Hair band metal was great in the early 1980's but then it got stupid and lame as hell by the late 1980's. We're getting in the same bad hair metal phase with today's mainstream Hollywood movies.

Maybe with a severe market correction the media companies, movie studios and cinema chains might be forced to re-think what they're selling to the public.

[Geoff Jones]

Those ticket sales numbers don't mean much.

Yes, I acknowledged that with my comment: Granted, those numbers will likely change...

I checked again at 6:15 but was unable to check any later than that. P&P had sold 12 tickets. The other eight movies had sold 22, an average of 3 tickets per title (rounding up).

Regardless of what movie is selling tickets or not any theater needs to sell more than 7 tickets of Pride and Prejudice to cover operation costs.

Obviously.

The point isn't that Pride & Prejudice sold 7 (or 12) tickets. The point is that a film that anyone can watch at home sold more tickets than eight other films that are still within the release window, in a small city in Wyoming. (So maybe the focus should be on the moviegoing experience, not the release window.)

Obviously the best thing for cinemas is a much longer theatrical window...

Yup, this is definitely a good way for cinemas to sell more tickets to people who aren't willing to wait and don't care about presentation.

When I asked, "So what's your solution," I phrased the question poorly. Sorry about that. What I meant to ask was:

What ideas do you have that could lead to cinemas improving their presentation standards to something that's at least acceptable?

[Bobby Henderson]

What ideas do you have that could lead to cinemas improving their presentation standards to something that's at least acceptable?

The first thing that must happen is commercial movie theaters need to be in a position where they have better profit margins, thus an ability to attract employees who are more detail oriented and care more about what they're doing. Anyone making near minimum wage can't really be expected to give a damn, much less stick around in that job for any steady amount of time. Good presentation standards rely largely on humans sweating the small stuff. The theater needs at least one person in the building who is concerned with show quality.

Too many theaters have their equipment running in set it and forget it mode. Managers are buried in paperwork, running around trying to account for how many drink cups were sold versus how many were used that day. From my layperson vantage point it looks like 95% of a theater manager's job is running the concessions side of the business. Then there's all sorts of other operations related to the building (custodial service, security, city/utility issues, etc). What's happening in the auditoriums is way down the list of priorities even though that is supposed to be the main freaking product being sold. The skeleton crew of minimal paid employees, kids mostly, are busy cleaning up after the mess the previous crowd of selfish pigs left in the auditoriums, bathrooms and lobby. Neither the employees or managers are inclined to check the condition of actual show quality on any kind of frequent basis. They're not going to know a stage channel speaker is blown or something else is wrong until a customer finally bothers to tell them about it. That is the main thing that needs to change. It should not be left up to customers to enforce quality control.

I don't expect the average cinema's sound system B-chain to be re-tuned for each movie engagement like they did long ago at the GCC Northpark 1-2 in Dallas. But the A-chain and B-chain needs to at least be inspected on a somewhat frequent basis to make sure everything is properly operational. How frequent? I don't know. Once every 3 months or 6 months? To me it appears most theaters are going years between any service checks. Sheesh, what I'm seeing now at our local AMC 13-plex is visible damage to seats and other fixtures going un-repaired. Never mind someone managing to notice a blown surround speaker.

How do cinemas get into a position where they can afford better staff and afford more attention to details? The movie studios must help by increasing the theatrical release window. There has to be some kind of time penalty to suffer when choosing to skip the cinema and watch a movie on TV at home. That penalty was painful in the 1980's and going well into the 1990's, a wait time which often measured more than a year. And when one was finally able to rent the video it was a VHS tape with shitty image and sound quality. Nearly half the image could be chopped off via pan and scan. Today the wait penalty is minimal and the image on the TV is very similar to that shown in theaters, right down to the letter-boxed image, both in theaters and at home.

Major studios aren't going to increase the theatrical release window or change the kinds of movies they're making until they're hit with a crisis.

The movie studios could help by having some consistent damn standards on things like audio levels for movie trailers versus the feature. Maybe that way the theaters won't see speakers blown so easy. But some of that also comes down to the theater operators for cutting corners by installing under-powered sound systems and cutting corners on projection and sound maintenance. We don't really have anything like THX anymore to establish some kind of performance bar to hit. It's all mystery meat digital.

A good argument could be made for building multiplex sites with fewer auditoriums. Concentrate the finite amount of resources onto fewer screens to make them better.

I think small auditoriums with fewer than 100 seats are a waste of money. There is no marquee value anymore with a multiplex having a ridiculous number of screens (18, 24 or even 30 screens). It ends up being a kind of false advertising if a bunch of those screens are small rooms with small screens and few seats. I can watch a movie on only one screen at a time. So, given the choice between a 12-plex with a bunch of mediocre rooms versus a 4-plex with better rooms I'll choose the 4-plex site. It's common for theaters with 10 or more screens to have one or more movies playing on multiple screens. The only thing playing a movie on 2 or more screens does is encourage procrastinators. There is a serious cost outlay involved for each auditorium, even the tiny ones with less than 100 seats. More screens was supposed to mean more variety. Instead of one movie playing in 2 or 3 modest sizes rooms why not just have one show of it playing in a much bigger room with a more impressive screen?

[Mark Lane]

Yup, this is definitely a good way for cinemas to sell more tickets to people who aren't willing to wait and don't care about presentation.

When I asked, "So what's your solution," I phrased the question poorly. Sorry about that. What I meant to ask was:

What ideas do you have that could lead to cinemas improving their presentation standards to something that's at least acceptable?

Pride and Prejudice would be a major failure for us. We have tried the older and classic movies. Very few people come to them and those that do are generally older. It draws a crowd that does not spend much money on concessions. A theater needs to think about the demographics of who will come to see a movie and how much they will spend on concessions. A kid's or family movie will bring out bigger spenders where another movie brings out senior citizens. We only have one screen so we try and book movies that will have the biggest impact on the community and our bottom line.

What ideas do we have?? We have focused on the experience. We don't think of ourselves as selling popcorn or a movie.. we sell an experience. The popcorn and the movie are only a part of the experience. We are replacing the sign that works as a marquee and adding a custom made marquee that will give the theater a more grand look and set the tone when people come in. We found a local artist who was able to make us a custom "Welcome" intro that has an older feel to it. Later this week or next week, he should have custom Concession video and Now of Featured presentation message. We are looking into public domain shorts and cartoons to add to the screen before the movie. (our cost is about $100 each but adds to the feel to the theater)
We have taken out three rolls of seats and added more leg rooms. We could not afford new seats but for a few hundred dollars we could provide a better view of the screen and make setting in a theater chair for two hours more comfortable.
We keep our prices low. Tonight's showing of Bad Guys is $3.00 ($5.00 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights). Large popcorn is $3.00 and a large drink is $2.75.
We are an older theater (1947) and we try and honor the way it was done in the 1950s. No point of purchase system.. we yell out the order and the teens have learned to remember them and fill them. We average about 20 seconds per person so we can move people pretty fast. The old ticket machine, the rotary dial phone.. all is part of the show.

The local artist will do images to put on the screen.. our cost is $20.00 to $25.00. I can have him do some ads which I hate but if they can fit the overall feel, it is not so bad. It helps support local businesses. We can also put congratulation messages, Happy Birthday, etc. I probably, in time learn how to do it myself but for that price, I just pass the cost to the customer so I don't have to deal with it. The messages of local businesses, local seniors, and local school sports teams, and local trivia is something we hope will help build a local connection and support.

We focus on to-go orders. During slower days, the concession stand can do more in to-go orders than the sales from those watching the movie. If we can not beat the streaming services, we hope to use them to help make sales. There is nothing like theater popcorn while watching a movie.. even if that movie is shown in a living room.

We are always looking or ways to improve the overall experience and look forward to reading what others are doing.

[Geoff Jones]

@BobbyHenderson:
I guess you are just more confident in the altruism of people who own the chains than I am.

My guess is that if the profit margins of theaters increased as a result of a wider release window without any improvements in presentation, theaters would not see any need to improve their presentations. The profits would go to the owners, managers, and stockholders, not to the rank and file employees, and not to the equipment.


@MarkLane
I wasn't suggesting that a single screen theater in a town of 721 people should show Pride & Prejudice. I am sorry if it seemed that I was.


My argument is simply that if the release window went away, cinemas would be forced to focus on the experience in order to attract customers. (It sounds as if you are already doing exactly that, so bravo.)

[Bobby Henderson]

I guess you are just more confident in the altruism of people who own the chains than I am.

I'm sorry I gave you that impression. Upper management of theater chains is a big part of the problem. There were hints about that in my previous comments about theater managers being buried in paperwork and having to waste lots of time chasing down stupid shit, such as a full accounting for all drink cups sold versus cups that were in the inventory. If the number of cups doesn't balance out there is hell to pay.

My late friend who managed the Carmike 8 in Lawton could be stuck in his office well into the AM hours if one of the cash registers in the box office or concessions counter didn't balance out to the penny. The folks at the home office were absolute bastards about that. The upper management guys were always up this GM's ass about payroll and keeping as few people as possible on the clock. That often meant the GM and any Assistant Managers on salary doing as much "grunt" work as possible in addition to their paperwork duties. Such staffing policies make the chances even lower that problems with presentation quality will be noticed at all, much less addressed.

Even if a manager notifies the higher ups that there is hardware in the booth on the fritz, speakers damaged or he needs a tech to come out and do other kinds of service work chances are high the upper management people will refuse the requests to save a buck. They'll defer the maintenance until lots of customers start complaining -like no picture on the screen at all or no audio or dialog coming out of the center channel. The current business model with theater chains appears to be letting the cinema just deteriorate all to hell before slapping some duct tape on it.

Of course the upper management in theater chains have the perfect scapegoat: the movie distributors. They'll say they have to keep theaters staffed with as few low-paid people as possible because the movie distributors keep their profit margins low. I don't really know how true that is. But the end result is presentation quality suffering, not to mention the condition of theater seats, other fixtures, auditorium cleanliness, etc. As the theater customer I don't feel like I'm missing out on much by waiting only around a month to see a certain movie on my big-ass TV screen at home.

I swear, some of the shit I see going on in certain theaters (such as our AMC here in Lawton lately) remind me of how Sears was run into the ground. Holy shit, the Sears store we had in Lawton looked absolutely sad in its last couple years of operation. Nothing was being maintained. Big parts of the store were empty, devoid of product to sell. I've seen thrift stores that looked a lot better. The movie-going experience isn't going to appear all that "special" to customers if it feels like the theater is being run on a shoe-string budget.

My argument is simply that if the release window went away, cinemas would be forced to focus on the experience in order to attract customers.

The problem is cinemas need money to be able to improve the experience. A really good projected image and really good sound costs money to deliver and costs continual money to maintain at what would be a professional level of quality. Keeping good staff on board (and enough staff in the theater at any one time) costs money too. If the theatrical release window is eliminated entirely the movie theaters will have far fewer customers and far less money coming into the registers. Most cinemas will close. The ones that survive will struggle badly. If enough theaters shut down then entire supply chains of cinema-related products will vanish.

[Buck Wilson]

Here's a comparison from late last year of Carrie (1976) and Free guy in OKC, a city known for its artsy-fartsy population.

Here's another: Tonight, in the bustling metropolis of Casper, Wyoming (population 60k), at the Studio City @ Mesa + ARQ, the ~7pm showings of 8 different new releases (Bad Guys, Northman, Massive Talent, Fantastic Beasts, Father Stu, Ambulance, Morbius, & Lost City) have currently sold only 4 tickets, in total.

The ~7pm showing of Pride and Prejudice (2008) has also sold 4 tickets. Granted, those numbers will likely change as the 7pm hour draws closer, but there will likely be showtimes of new releases that sit completely empty.

Do keep in mind that those classic showings typically have one showing, or maybe two for the week. So for your first example, sure, the classic sold 26 and free guy sold 15.... but free guy had a full slate of shows across likely several auditoriums for the whole week. Try to slate a classic for a full week of shows and you're often gonna have a bad time.

I don't disagree that they can be a good income supplement, but there's a reason it isn't done more often.

[Geoff Jones]

Do keep in mind that those classic showings typically have one showing, or maybe two for the week..

The point I'm trying to make in this thread is that if a one-off showing of a movie from 1976 (that anyone can watch at home whenever they want) can outperform a movie within its release window, then just maybe cinemas should focus on the experience, not the exclusivity of their content.

but free guy had a full slate of shows across likely several auditoriums for the whole week.

Yeah, I was comparing the showing of Carrie with the simultaneous showing of Free Guy on their premium screen. The fact of the matter is that several showings of Free Guy probably sat virtually empty, if not literally empty during that week.

Try to slate a classic for a full week of shows and you're often gonna have a bad time.

I don't believe this, at least not in medium and large markets. I'm not proposing that cinemas should rely on classics alone (though I suspect I will get replies insisting that I am). But I am completely convinced that cinemas (in medium-sized markets and larger) are losing money by not booking more classics showings in better auditoriums.

When classics are shown once in a lousy little auditorium, how many customers don't go because they have a conflict with that one showtime? How many don't go because it's on a small screen barely bigger than their home theater? How many don't go because the smallish auditorium has filled up and there aren't any good seats left? How many don't go because they didn't even know about it?

It's mind-boggling to me that cinemas are not currently running Top Gun, Dr. Strange, and the first 5 Jurassic Park movies. So many fans are re-watching them at home in preparation for the new releases. In some cases, parents are showing them to their kids, who've never seen them before.

...there's a reason it isn't done more often.

I sometimes wonder if the reason is simply that this is how it's always been done.

[Mike Blakesley]

It's mind-boggling to me that cinemas are not currently running Top Gun, Dr. Strange, and the first 5 Jurassic Park movies

You have to keep in mind how the movie biz actually works. I haven't checked on most of those films, but I would lay you odds that the studio owners would NOT let you play them, unless you are an AMC or something like that and guaranteed them 3000 screens, and sometimes not even then.

We tried to book the original Top Gun when it was a month out from its original release date (before it was pulled) and Paramount would not let us book it because they had given some TV network exclusive rights leading up to the new movie's release.

Disney won't allow any repertory bookings at all, so you could forget about the first Dr. Strange. Ditto for any Disney-owned classic you might desire to run, which means forget about Star Wars, Indy Jones, Pixar, and anything Fox too.

You might have OK luck with Universal and the Jurassic movies, unless they have streamer or TV deals with exclusivity clauses in the works (very likely, or they're saving them for Peacock).

We have played occasional classics over the years -- promoted the hell out of them each time. And everyone in this area knows that we have a nice theater with comfortable seats, a masked screen, and good sound, but none of them have done anywhere near the business that a new popular title does.

[Geoff Jones]

You have to keep in mind how the movie biz actually works.

I'm aware, at least somewhat, how the movie biz actually works. And it's mind-boggling to me that cinemas are not currently running Top Gun, Dr. Strange, and the first 5 Jurassic Park movies. Both the exhibitors and the studios are missing out on easy money.

...unless you are an AMC or something like that

Those are the theaters I'm talking about.

Disney won't allow any repertory bookings at all, so you could forget about the first Dr. Strange. Ditto for any Disney-owned classic you might desire to run, which means forget about Star Wars, Indy Jones, Pixar, and anything Fox too.

Raiders of the Lost Ark in Northern Virginia May 22nd on two giant screens.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom showed this past January at Harkins theaters in four states (Last Crusade played a week later)
Star Wars trilogy next Wednesday in PA
Harkins has been running a bunch of MCU titles through their rooftop Midnight Cinema program in Arizona. Deadpool (Fox) played tonight.

We have played occasional classics over the years -- promoted the hell out of them each time. And everyone in this area knows that we have a nice theater with comfortable seats, a masked screen, and good sound, but none of them have done anywhere near the business that a new popular title does.

I am talking about medium-sized markets and larger. I fully recognize that circumstances are different at a single-screen theater in a rural town of 1,647 people. I'm really sad that my communication skills are so lousy that this isn't clear.

[Mike Blakesley]

I get what you mean and I never said there aren't exceptions. But in general the STUDIOS DON'T WANT to clutter up the marketplace with their old movies. That's basically what Disney said when they stopped selling their classics as matinees. They didn't want to dilute the desire to see their new movies. (They were, and still are, idiots with this policy, but that's the way they are. I have a feeling they don't want to bother with doing the paperwork and billing and keeping track of classic bookings.) They probably did those deals you mentioned to entice the chain to commit more screens to some other movie, or as a special promotion cooked up between their marketing department and the chain's... things like that. But they are "special events" and if you do them all the time, they're not special anymore.

There is a town of 130,000 people 90 minutes from us. Several years ago a guy bought a shuttered Carmike venue, fixed it up and reopened it playing a few mainstream, but mostly classic movies for $5 or something like that. He made huge deal out of how he wasn't going to gouge people like the chains do, keeping concession prices low and hoping to attract a lot of families. He was out of business within a few months.

Sad as it is, seeing a classic movie on the big screen is a novelty for people these days. By and large, they want new stuff. Our pandemic-era classics were going gangbusters when we first started running them, but after about 3 or 4 weeks the novelty wore off and the crowds dwindled. Same thing happened with curbside popcorn -- for the first couple of weeks, we were thinking "why are we bothering with movies? Let's just sell popcorn!" But then the newness went away and so did the majority of the sales. We still get the occasional walk-in, but 95% of our popcorn sales are to people who are watching the movie too.

I'm not saying you don't have a great idea. I just think it wouldn't work, or somebody would be doing it.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I'm pretty sure that in a metro area, there will always be a market for classic movies to be shown, at least sufficient to sustain a screen or maybe even two. In smaller markets, I've also seen a problem to market classic movies, but what you may see over time is that you'll start to build something like a core following. It's true that it takes time to BUILD an audience.

I'm not so sure that the reason Disney doesn't want to rent out their classics for theatrical viewings is based on their adversity of paperwork. If that's the problem, they could easily find a third party that would willingly be the intermediate for those bookings. For all the requests for classic movies, I guess that about 60 to 70% is part of the "Disney catalogue" and that was even before they acquired 20th Century Fox.

Disney practices the "art" of artificial scarcity. You always desire most, the stuff you just can't get. But once in a while, Disney will stage a big re-release of one of their classics, often tied to a bunch of other merchandise too, the opening of a new ride in one of their theme parks, etc.

[James Wyrembelski]

Unless you have direct access to grosses through ComScore, it's kind of difficult to compare ticket sales when you can only look at the seating charts for pre sales. It's also a little unfair to compare one set of shows when the non classics run all day. That will always create some amount of spread.

There's a plex just to my south that is doing some classics through the month of May to celebrate their 30th anniversary. It will be interesting to see how they do (and what titles they can show).

[Mike Blakesley]

Heck Disney could easily create a website to take the bookings and generate the billing. Or, they could require a credit card number and not even have to bother with bills. Deluxe sends out the dcps anyway (or the theater could use a Blu-ray).