Cineplex fires a great salvo; finally some innovation

Thanks, S., for this posting. One of my pet peeves is, even if there is a decent movie playing, I cannot enjoy it as much in a theater if the screen and image are not much bigger than a big tv. I may as well get a video or DVD and save the aggravation! I have many wonderful memories of my sister (now departed) taking me as a child to see Cinerama movies in New York and and “grandiose” movie-viewing in my own local area in the fifties and early sixties before everything was doubled, tripled, or demolished.

Movies are supposed to be enjoyed LARGER THAN LIFE so no home entertainment system is adequate.

Unfortunately, the average movie screen is not 50 feet wide. If you go see the blockbuster on its 1st weekend of release at the local megaplex, then it probably is on a screen that is 50 feet wide, or even bigger. But, too many movie screens in the smaller auditoriums are 20 feet or 25 feet wide (and sometimes smaller). Those screens may be larger than life, but not large enough to get some of us to part with our money and our time.

When they were in the United States, Cineplex Odeon was a great chain for providing decent sized screens in even their small auditoriums, so I am not faulting them. The smaller auditoriums in the Chelsea & Worldwide in New York, in DC’s Wisconsin Avenue, and in Universal City’s theater weren’t bad. But, some of the other chains & local exhibitors built too small auditoriums. Megaplexes are better, try to provide bigger screens, but still leave too many smaller auditoriums with screens that are less than awe inspiring.

Regardless, in general, they are right: see movies in theaters, on larger than life screens, not in your homes!

This is ironic, since Cineplex got its start by building tiny little shoebox theatres, like Beverly Center in Los Angeles.

I only see new movies in the theaters. I like the whole experience. It is a wonder we even have movie theaters around anymore with DVD’s and bootleg copies of new movies. I have often wondered why there isn’t a movie studio who just makes movies to be shown in theaters only (greed, I guess). I use to like being able to see my favorite movie 2 or 3 years later on the big screen again.

Oh, well. If we’re venturing down History Lane…

Famous Players Canadian Corporation was founded in 1920 when Paramount Pictures bought Nathan Nathanson’s Paramount Theatre chain that was established four years earlier. The Canadian Paramount Theatre chain was not affiliated with the American Paramount Theatres. The Famous Players Theatres chain was always strongly linked with Paramount Pictures and was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Paramount Communications by the time that firm was acquired by Viacom in 1994.
Canadian Odeon Theatres was started by former Famous Players executive Nathan Nathanson and his son Paul in 1941. It was not initially affiliated with the British Odeon Cinemas circuit but gained common ownership with that chain following a sale to the Rank Organisation in 1946.
On April 19, 1979, Garth Drabinsky opened the first Cineplex location, an 18-screen multiplex in the basement of the Toronto Eaton Centre. After successfully challenging the Famous Players / Canadian Odeon duopoly and their exclusive contracts with major studios, he proceeded to purchase Canadian Odeon, having brought on the Bronfman family as a major investor, forming Cineplex Odeon Corporation. There was once again a duopoly, albeit a much more competitive one.

In the 1980s, not content with having lept from one location to dozens across the country, Drabinsky began buying up regional circuits throughout the United States, which took the Cineplex Odeon Theatres name as well. Back in Canada, Drabinsky used his new position to aggressively challenge Famous Players Theatres , opening more, ultramodern multiplexes nationwide.

Most famously, Famous Players Theatres allowed the lease on a property containing the entrance of one of its flagship Toronto locations, the Imperial Six, to lapse in 1986. Cineplex immediately took over the lease, denying Famous Players Theatres access to the portion the latter chain already owned outright. Famous eventually sold its property to Cineplex Odeon Cinemas on the condition it never again be used to show filmed entertainment; it became the Pantages, now renamed the live-entertainment Canon Theatre.

Cineplex also established a distribution unit, Cineplex Odeon Films, during this period; its assets were largely sold to Alliance Atlantis in 1998.
Throughout the 1990s, Famous Players took the reins of expansion. Under chairman Tom McGrath, Famous Players re-built its entire infrastructure from 1997 to 2003 with new “megaplex” stadium-seated theaters and extensive innovative food court offerings. It was also believed to be the first exhibitor in the world to have automated box offices.
Also during this time, AMC Theatres entered the Canadian market, and most of the traditional ties between the existing chains and the major studios began to unwind, putting all three chains in full-on competition in several major markets.

By May 1998, Drabinsky had lost control of Cineplex to the Bronfmans' Seagram, which subsequently merged Cineplex Odeon Theatres with Sony’s Loews Cineplex Theatres. The resulting firm, Loews Cineplex Entertainment, subsequently suffered due to the economic recession of the early 2000s, leading to a buyout led by Onex.

Meanwhile, Galaxy Entertainment Inc. was created in 1999 by Ellis Jacob, a former COO of Cineplex, and Steven Brown, a former Cineplex CFO. With investments from Onex and Famous Players, the new company focused on smaller markets which were usually served by smaller theatres and old equipment, opening large, major chain-style locations under the Galaxy Cinemas banner.
In October 2003, Loews Cineplex Theatres merged its Canadian operations with Galaxy Cinemas , forming Cineplex Galaxy Cinemas. Mr. Jacob became the chief executive of Cineplex Galaxy Cinemas. Onex was the controllng shareholder of both Loews Cineplex Theatres and Galaxy Cinemas at the time of the merger, but sold its interest in Loews in June 2004. It maintained control of Cineplex Galaxy Cinemas.

In 2004, Famous Players Theatres locations in the Maritimes, none of which were branded-concept theatres, were sold to the region’s dominant exhibitor, Empire Theatres. Canadian Odeon locations in the region had been sold to Empire in the late 1970s or early 1980s, prior to the former’s acquisition by Cineplex Odeon Cinemas.

On June 13, 2005, Cineplex Galaxy Cinemas announced its acquisition of Famous Players Theatres from Viacom for $500 million or about US$397 million. This deal was completed July 22. To satisfy competition concerns, on August 22 the sale of 27 locations in Ontario and western Canada to Empire Theatres was announced.

On March 31, 2006, Cineplex Entertainment announced it sold 7 more theatres in Quebec to Chelsea based Fortune Cinemas Inc. The assets of Alliance Atlantis Cinemas are still on sale.

(Thanks to the happy drones at Wikipedia for this.)

And no, I don’t think this will have any impact at all on attendance. Sheeple think -Ha!– in terms of the movie, not the venue, so the downward spiral will continue, until, years down the road, there enter the scene renegade projectionists who show movies on the sides of buildings in the middle of the night, providing the sound by way of podcasts, only to be beaten down by the Home Theatre Alliance by way of their armed WIAH (“Watch It At Home') enforcers.

Hey; is there a screenplay in there…?

Cineplex is not the first to do this type of advertising. Famous Players (who Cineplex recently bought) did this same ad with the same tag line in the mid 90’s.

RE: The Ad

Can I get a, “Hell, yeah!!!” I expect one of the US theatre chains to do a similar ad campagign ASAP.

The theaters are in a financial bind. They are expected to spend small fortunes to go digital. At the same time many ex-movie-patrons simply wait 3 months or less for a film to come out on DVD.

The theater experience has become a task for many. You have to drive into the city or to the local multi-plex. Then you have to park your car and wait on the ticket line. Popcorn and beverages are over-priced. Now you are seated and discover that many people don’t know how to behave in a movie house. Cellphones ring, people talk among themselves, etc. Theater owners can’t do much about that without risking lawsuits from ejected patrons.

So more and more people are buying those ever-cheaper HDTVs and watching movies in their nice quiet home theaters. The $20 DVD is cheaper than taking the family to the movies, especially with gasoline at $3.15/gallon. Maybe digital projection will give movie houses a second life. But what about the theaters that can’t afford to go digital?

longislandmovies:

I don’t mean to be rude, but you’ve posted two comments in a row that suggest you don’t get it. WalMart is a fixed business where they’re in competition with the same essential model. Movie houses are in competition with something else entirely. It’s like comparing apples with apple juice. ((The exception here is online retailing, but we’re not talking an homogenous market. That is, not everyone has internet access, not everyone feels safe ordering online and many people prefer to see what they buy, have an innate urge to maintain their connection to ‘commerce’. This is why where online grocery shopping is available, people still want to ‘squeeze the vegetables’, ‘smell the fruit’. The other difference is that WalMart sells merchandise that generally fits more under the ‘Need’ category. A movie is a ‘Want’. It’s a luxury.)

WalMart is selling merchandise out of a location. Its variables are merchandise selection and variety, price, saleshelp, hours of operation, location, etc. They’re all -to varying extents- variable controllables, things that all other competitors are dealing with, too.

Movie theatres are ‘selling’ a cinematic experience. The seeing of a movie within a communal auditorium, with comfortable seats and concession stand items. But the prime reason that anyone goes to see a movie…the movie itself…is not a particularly controllable variable. There’s only so many choices from the distributors. And here’s the kicker: the movie theatres don’t even see ticket sales as their real source of profit: concession stand sales account for this. The price of which is right up there at the top of movie-goers' List of Complaints, people who have entered into their own personal deliberations about whether or not they want to keep spending money going to the movies at cinemas.

In ‘competition’ with the movie theatres is home viewing. Where there’s convenience. View when you like, pause the film, watch half tonight, half tomorrow in the afternoon, you can have dinner while you watch, you can chat with someone online while you watch, you can make babies while you watch…

North American society has become a cocooning one. People are making their homes their refuges, their sanctuaries. For many of these people, the experience of watching a movie in a cinema simply does not match the price or commitment of time. (Points well-made by DFC)

Take a look at any city’s cinema figures since WWII. The numbers of cinemas, of screens are dropping. Even with multiplexes being built, the number is dropping. This runs totally contrary to what you’re suggesting, that this is just part of a normal business trend, that things will change back given time, the sky isn’t falling…

Actually, the sky is falling.

Here’s the bottom-line: the studios, Hollywood, The Movie Biz people, they don’t care how they get their money. If the yearly income they bring in were to stay the same from 1990-2020, say at $30 billion, or even increase, but the sources of that income changed from 95% theatrical takings to 5% theatrical takings, do you think they’d care? If over the course of this 30 years the advent of home viewing (by way of the ‘cinematic tv’ and online access) replaced theatrical distribution, do you really think they’d care? Why should they, if they’re recouping their investment as planned, and people are just as eager to ‘go to the movies’…except their destination is not a cinema, with all of its inherent costs and commitments, but the ‘movie room’ in their home…as they ever were?

So this is what’s happening: more and more people are investing in home cinemas. As a result, having made this investment, they’re not frequenting movie houses as much. Therefore, there’s less movie house ticket revenue to go around. Therefore, cinemas are closing. (Witness the Festival chain in Toronto.) So we continually lose more cinemas, especially single-screeners. And because the costs of exhibiting a movie generally go up, people are less and less inclined to pay more to see movies at the remaining movie theatres, so more stay home and more cinemas close…until?

Until?

How do you turn the tide? Well, I’m a pronounced cinema fan and I’m not sure you can. I think you can stem it, but to do so, you have to go back to ground zero and take an objective look at the realities of how the average movie-goer feels about what’s being sold. What their complaints are. Whether they can be addressed. The truth is that it’s expensive to go the movies. The cost of getting there. The tickets. The food and drink. The babysitter. If the movie theatres are not providing an experience that makes this expenditure worthwhile, and people are content with an alternative (ie: home viewing), regardless that at the present time, you have to wait a few months before you can see a film, then more people will make the choice to have their movie experience at home. (Of course, if Hollywood continually erodes this ‘delay’, to the point where there’s mere weeks…or days…or there’s a simultaneous release, both theatrical and DVD, then you can bet your bottom dollar that less and less people will be going to the movies…and less and less movie houses will exist.)

This is why I’d like to see some healthy discussion as to what can be done to stem the tide, take a good look at what needs to be done across the board and in specific markets to get people more interested in seeing films the way they were meant to be seen. On the big screen.

This is a great discussion. The sky is not falling. The united states is over screened and has been since the 90s.When product is bad bsns is bad good product bsns is good.if you have geat product and people stop coming then the sky is falling,ticket prices are at an all time high and are in no danger in changing.This summer is turning in a hugh boxoffice numbers thus far, if the sky was falling this would not be happening.When i say i dont get it i mean what are you doing wrong at your theater.You will have times sometimes ,years,when the bsns model needs to be changed ..ie jc pennys , sears, and theaters . I have a home theater with the seats ,screen and curtain but what that takes away is time from watching tv not going to the movies.I saw this reaction when video started .Theaters will be around long after we are all gone.

btw, longislandmovies:

“I have a home theater with the seats ,screen and curtain but what that takes away is time from watching tv not going to the movies.”

You are the exception to the rule. You’re not a model for the movie-goer that this campaign -and this discussion- addresses. They’re -and I’m- focusing on those people who by-and-large have decided or are deciding to make home cinema their default. This is not about watching tv.

(If it’s any consolation, I’m not the model, either, because I don’t own a television, wouldn’t watch movies on one if you paid me, and I see about 200 films at the cinemas each year.)

Chris:

And that’s wonderful news for all cinema owners out there…

But really, the true test of this campaign -and any other that tries to woo people back into proper moviegoing- is how those other than the choir respond to being preached to.

I’d be curious to post this thread on a general discussion forum to see how broad the responses are.

“The digital movie era is only beginning. It is in some ways a replay of the first shake-out of movie theaters in the 1950s when TV and urban flight was the threat. But this shakeout will happen over a shorter period of time.”

I agree completely.

I also agree that what we will more than likely end up with is (until nostalgia rears its kind head and there’s some kind of ‘revival’ some tweny years after the full effects of this shakeup and we see ‘restoration’ efforts to bring back the old-style experience) a small assortment of multiplexes and the odd ‘cinema treasure’ palace in most cities throughout North America. I’m sorry if I’m a Negative Nancy here, but I fear that the landscape we’ve come to know (and love, on this site alone) is about to change in the next decade unlike any previously. And not because nobody’s interested in movies anymore, that there’s another alternative. People are just as interested in movies. Except they’re gonna want to see them in their homes. Not everyone, but it doesn’t take ‘everyone’ to change things. It all comes down to the mighty dollar.

So start buying your lottery tickets; there’s gonna be some bargains out there for those richies with the inclination to own a piece of the past.

longislandmovies:

So if you feel this way, if you think that the US is ‘over-screened’, and won’t (apparently) cry when more cinemas close…what are you doing on this site? Or are your that famous superhero ‘Ultrapragmatic Guy’?!?

I think I’m gonna have a t-shirt made up: a picture of an old palace being demolished with the caption ‘The fact that theaters are closing is a good thing…’

Wowza.

And ‘back to showmanship’; care to explain that? I can’t tell you how much my curiosity’s been piqued…

ps. lots of other points made in the post before but you chose only to pic out the closeings?

Famous Players just like Allen Brothers overexpanded and got sold. Innovative though and as a consumer, I could not care less if a big company goes out of business. I prefer renting dvds or go to the nabes. I rather let the Cineplexes, Empires and AMCs do the worrying.

No, actually, in this particular case, it’s not a question of ‘product’.

This is the whole basis of this article, of this thread, of this discussion.

Let’s put it this way: You’re a retailer. You sell XYZ. You have for years. All of a sudden, there’s this newfangled way for people to purchase XYZ, called The Internet. They can buy XYZ cheaper than you can sell it. It’s not that they’re interested in another product. They simply prefer to purchase it online. They don’t have to schedule their time, they don’t have to pay for gas, they don’t have to worry about anything other than placing the order online.

This is an analogy that’s a parallel for the movies. It’s not that people are clamouring for different product, product that can’t be provided by cinemas. It’s the same product…only they’re not enjoying it in the theatres…they’re enjoying it in their homes.

Can you not see this?

This isn’t a question of box office receipts because I think you should be careful when you bring up these numbers in isolation. Firstly, Box Office Dollars do not equate to Tickets Bought. Take a look at the figures over the past ten years taking into consderation an ever-enlarging population as well as ticket price increases and then we can talk. Secondly, you need to look at how much ‘alternate’ revenues are increasing. If your revenue pie is growing (and nobody’s arguing that it isn’t), but a greater percentage of growth is being found in something other than ‘theatrical distribution revenue’, then you need to admit that the market is changing. And not in the same way it did with the advent of tv and people began staying away from nabes, when we saw a very dramatic, very sad closing of cinemas in the 50s. And not in the same way we did when we saw the advent of VCRs and the multiplex. This is a sea change…and we’re only at the very leading edge of it.

People have more choices these days. More choices in how to get their entertainment, how to see the movies they want to see. And the trend for home-viewing is increasing. Which is why a major cinema chain has decided to try to stem the tide and get people to see what they believe is the truth: that movies were never intended to be seen on small boxes.

But here’s the thing: movie theatre owners are at fault to a much greater extent for their woes than they’ve been willing to admit. They don’t control the product. But they do control the experience. And what people are telling them -by way of not going to the movies as much (and keep in mind here that you have to take into account the expanding population base, that ticket sales should actually be higher than they are, if longtime goers were still buying tickets at the same rate) as well as investing in home cinemas- is that it’s too expensive to go see movies at the cinema. And there are too many boors in the audience who talk and have phones that go off who aren’t dealt with. So people -generally a materialistic group in the first place- are choosing to buy something for their home rather than continually shell out $$$ for a potentially disappointing experience at a cinema. One of the few drawbacks for them is having to wait for the release. However…at the risk of flogging a dead horse…as the studios see more and more of the revenue pie coming from DVD sales, the lag-time between theatrical release and DVD release will be reduced. Until there will come a day (how soon this will be determined by the marketplace) when cinemas will no longer be the primary means of release. Opening Day/Weekend BO numbers will include DVD sales. More and more people will be choosing to view a new release in their home rather than go to a cinema. The landscape is changing, regardless of traditionalists such as yourself might want to believe.

What this will mean is a reduction in screen numbers.
Less cinemas.
And certainly less ‘cinema treasures’.
Until there comes a time when people crave that ‘big screen experience’ again.
But once you’ve closed a door, it’s very hard to get people thinking another way. Look at drive-ins.

Hollywood doesn’t care where it gets its revenue from. It’s not married to cinemas. It’s part of the tradition of film, yes. But it’s not dependent on movies being shown in a theatrical venue. It’s only dependent on making money. On bsns.

As for my ‘credentials’… Don’t think for a second that because you’ve spent your time in the biz that automatically gifts you with insight and knowledge. I’m reminded of two expressions: ‘Sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees,’ and ‘There are none so blind as those who will not see.’

So; see you in fifteen years to sort out my proposed bet.

There is a great section in “CINEMA TREASURES "hard cover book on overscreening pages 182, 183,184….

How will Digital Cinema play into all this? Some here are upset at the demise of the film medium. But who said that film was to last forever. Movies shot digitally will be of a much higher resolution than those shot on photographic film.

Which brings up another point. Will these new digital movies look like “movies”? Or will the improved resolution, though a technological breakthrough, make movies look too much like HDTV? And is that good or bad? There is no way to really see at this point what the mass audience reaction to digital will be.

Product is another issue. So many movies are aimed at a teen audience, because they seem to be the only ones going to the movies in large numbers. Which is one reason why many adults do not go to the movies anymore. It’s a vicious cycle I guess.

I was just browsing through some of the old news items on the site and came across an interesting one regarding digital cinemas. (http://cinematreasures.org/news/13413_0_1_0_C3/) Poster ‘TheaterBuff1’ sees ‘gourmet’ movie houses as an option. He may have a point. Maybe movie houses have to go upscale with higher ticket prices.

In return for shelling out more $$$ you get wide comfortable stadium-style seats, a huge digital screen, a superb sound system in a clean well-maintained theater. Maybe the theater experience needs to be made so special that it will bring the adults back to the theaters. I think many movie patrons would be willing to pay $15+ for such an experience. But the key is the experience. A ‘gourmet’ theater would be taking the gamble that a pricier ticket would keep out the cellphone users, talkers and other inconsiderate patrons. (I guess I’m asking for a lot here!)

DFC:

Point taken.
Check out: /theaters/1600/
And note the prices. Very reasonable. (And a terrific experience!)

But I don’t think that the average movie-goer is interested in shelling out more money. I hate to sound like a nay-sayer, but I think the perceived value of the ‘big screen experience’ has been reduced. And when something has been reduced, it’s very hard to get back the value. Which is why this ad campaign is a shot in the dark. But still admirable, if only to show that someone’s aware of the bigger picture.

The Commodore Theatre concept seems to have worked for them. In some cases a smaller audience can work. You pay a bit more but are as assured as you can be of being surrounded by others who came to enjoy the movie.

Ron Newman brings up some very interesting – and dreadful – statistics. Probably his comment warrants an entire separate discussion thread. I would be kind of curious to see how this pattern manifests itself in other major cities.

From the moviegoer’s point of view, I don’t mind paying the premium and driving to Pacific’s Arclight/Dome or the Chinese, given that the picture gets my serious attention. I will get a far better presentation and service than at any of my local multiplexes. The Arclight has done, in my opinion, a fantastic job of integrating multiple screening rooms with their trademark Cinerama Dome. In addition, my experiences dealing with the Arclight’s employees have been very pleasant and have found them very courteous. There is also a very decent cafe, and their martinis are pretty good!

Good presentation, good screen, sound system, showmanship, service, facilities (i.e. café, bar, etc.) and yes, a curtain that works, need not be exclusive domain of a “luxury” or high-end theater/multiplex. These features come at a cost for sure, but they are necessary to make the theater-going experience worth the admission price for the audience, and eventually bring in business.

JSA

wow….thats a theater

So maybe it’s come full circle. People put in home theaters to re-create the feel of a movie theater. Now some movie theaters are going plush to re-create the feel of a living room.

So here’s an informal ‘assignment’, seeing as it’s such a pain to wait for someone else to do a poll: ask ten people why they’re regular movie-goers. Or, if they’re not, why not? Think about it: if we had a hundred people on this site take ten minutes to do this, we’d have 1000 respondents. Not scientifically certifiable, but at least an indicator of Why Things Are The Way They Are in the world of movie-going. Especially if we get answers from all over the continent.

BTW: does anyone know how the official society of cinema owners and film exhibitors feels about the state of affairs in moviedom?

So if the Hollywood product is crap, why not devote those screens to other stuff — independent films, foreign films, and revivals?

32 screens should show 32 different movies.

Ron:

The problem is that the ‘crap’ sells. So they book the screens for what sells.

In a great marketplace, serving a broad range of tastes, those 32 screens would show 32 different movies. But I don’t know of that marketplace.

Although… I’m looking at the movie guide for Toronto for next week…and there’s an absolute abbondanza of titles. Maybe I’m more fortunate than I realized.

Chris just because we might think its a piece of crap does not make it a movie the PUBLIC may not want to see..The scary movie films have made theaters a lot of money……like it or not…..

I’m going to throw this up for consideration because we seem to be focusing on the product as an answer to cinema-going woes. It’s something I’d posted elsewhere having to do with the question ‘Why are there so many remakes, rehashings and sequels?’

“Hollywood is a business. Show BUSINESS. It’s art, no doubt about it, but first and foremost, what you see on the screen is a commercial product. But more than that, a business like no other. The costs involved in bringing a film to the screen, from conception to development to distribution to marketing are mind-boggling. Astronomical. Depending on what source you cite, this number may be up to $100 million.

Think about it: you can put up several office buildings for this amount.
You could put your money into stocks, bonds, annuities for a more secure investment.
You could build and incorporate your own town!

Hollywood at any given time has the better part of ONE BILLION DOLLARS tied up in ‘development’. This means efforts to bring concepts, pitches and scripts to a point where they’re viable projects. The number of these projects that NEVER COME TO FRUITION would depress you. (I know it depresses me; I’m a screenwriter and so understand more intimately how the system works.)

So. Lots of money tied up, lots of money ‘wasted’, enormous risk, lots of failure…

Is it any wonder that Hollywood has a tendency to go with remakes, rehashes and ripoffs? Television tie-ins. Adaptations from the theatre? Video game, graphic novel connections?

It’s looking for ways to increase the odds of success.

(As a sidebar, the argument involving remakes of foreign films is a simple enough one to make: American audience by and large are not sufficiently interested in things-foreign. Now, before you get all red-faced and start screaming at me, a) I know there are exceptions. ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ is a recent example of how the US audience can embrace something from ‘out there’. And b) I know not everyone is myopic, that there are all kinds of people who support their local art house cinema, and that it is a generalization to say that the American audience is looking for…how shall I put it, less ‘refined faire’. But Hollywood runs its business on these generalizations. It’s how it projects its efforts. And can you blame them? When it costs as much as it does to take a stab at getting a film out there, of course they’re going to take the safe road. MOST of the time.)

Hence all the tv show remakes.
And the sequels.
And the adaptations from foreign originals.
Any chance of increasing the odds, of tapping into a built-in audience, Hollywood will go there. Trying new and dangerous and challenging things is not their forté.

And remember: where Hollywood is concerned, the only vote that matters is that of the dollar. If it sees more tickets being bought for a certain type of film, even a certain genre, then it’ll tend to put more money into making more of these films. So an effective way of ‘protesting the crap’ is going to see those movies you would prefer to be watching."

longislandmovies:

Excellent point. Cinema owners are in the business of putting bums in the seats. (And selling tons of popcorn.) The point is not that crap shouldn’t be made or shouldn’t be shown. It’s that crap shouldn’t be the only option. But if people don’t go to see the ‘other’ stuff, then crap’s what’ll be booked each and every time. Nobody has the luxury of being a snob. Not if you’re in the cinema business.

I think it’s actually quite comical: on the one hand you’ve got the studios, who win no matter what (unless they put out stinkers across the board, and invariably, that doesn’t happen), they either get the cinema ticket sales or the DVD sales. On the other hand, you’ve got those people who have simply become disenchanted by movie-going, whether because of the expense, the fact that multiplexes aren’t as regal as they remember from their youths (and don’t forget we’ve got an entire generation for whom DVDs and multiplexes are the norm; they’re not hearkening back to any ‘good old days’!) Throw into the mix the electronic manufacturers, who love the fact that people are migrating to home theatre set-ups… Let’s see, who’s not happy: the cinema owners…and those of us ‘snobs’ who miss the old palaces.

OK. Maybe it’s not so funny afterall.

So if people aren’t going to see those films (because the weather’s too good, or they’re busy or they’ve already given up on cinema-going), then really, all is lost.

Meanwhile, there’s still a bunch of popcorn-movies in that list; something for just about everyone.

Click Here: Check out “Daily Box Office for Friday, June 9, 2006”

Ah, but this returns us to the original conundrum: the revenue pie is growing. More and more of this total revenue is coming from DVD sales, less (as a percentage of this pie) from cinema ticket sales. This is why Cineplex is advertising as it is.

What else is to be done?

There aren’t too many screens. There are too many unimaginatively-programmed screens. (See my earlier post about Boston 1975 vs Boston 2006.)

No offence, lim, but I don’t think you get it.
You’re stuck.
The future is coming, things are about to go through a sea change and you’re standing there giggling about product being the prime factor.
People are changing their viewing habits.
When you take into account the total number of film viewings, less people are going to the cinema to get theirs…and this is only increasing.
Kids are growing up not going to the movies.
What do you think is going to happen whey they have kids?

I’ve enjoyed this thread, but really, dialogues with brick walls can be a bit frustrating.
Or, as an employee of mine once said, ‘You need to find something softer to bang your head against.’

See you at the movies…

i agree….. Dont think you have a clue…..but its been fun….

To answer THE question of product:

I have no earthly idea how to get Hollywood to make better movies. The fact that folks are (foolishly) propelling crap like “Scary Movie 4” to an $80 million box office gross makes my argument a moot point anyway. On the one hand – it IS crap (and, deep down, all of you know it!). On the other hand – folks still head to the theatres to see it. Who are the studios gonna listen to: my lone voice in the wilderness calling this crap “crap” – or the accountants who count that $80 million?

I guess I should just prepare for the days where I take my grandchildren to the movie theatre and they stare at the place in the same disdain as teenagers who stare at their parent’s 8-track tapes and vinyl 45’s.

Here’s some comments from a film industry insider:

“There are two ways that I look at cinema in the future.

One is to look at technology’s effect on people and the other is to look at peoples effect
on technology. I can’t say which effects the other more but i can say that they will have a
huge impact on the way cinema evolves. When I scan across a few generations or demographics
the trends that are evolving become really evident to me. My 13 year old niece seems to have
no issues with downloading a show (legally) onto her phone and watching it that way, and she
does the same with her music, whereas my father still can’t even understand his outdated VCR's
settings. I see a day when my niece and hoards of people like her will find it absurd to actually
have to “go” to a theatre and “wait” for someone else to hit play. It’s this highly wired attention
deficit/hyper active disorder plagued demographic that will really accelerate the changes. I fear
that they will see going to traditional movie theatres as some “slow food” kind of movement for those resistant to current social trends. My greater fear is the effect that this will have on actual content, and i’m already seeing evidence of the changes. The other day at the office I watched a DVD with a series of 6 highly polished beautiful looking movies produced by BMW. They were directed by Hollywood heavyweights and were totally padded with prominent actors. They were very well done and very slick, and very entertaining. The longest was about 13 minutes. They are for download only and will also be installed onto BMW’s new in-car navigational and entertainment system. Short slick and download friendly. Is this the future? Content is defined by society’s gadgets? Movies
and shows packaged in neat little down load friendly offerings perfect for a generation with no attention span and content to watch “Matrix prt20” in handy little bit streams they download wirelessly while blogging in the park.

You and I think it absurd, but tell that to my niece and it’s utopia. One possible benefit is that perhaps some producers will take an online direct marketing approach and sell their movies directly to the enduser and avoid the distribution monopolies altogether. Kind of like what some inde bands are doing now with their music. In this case perhaps one could then buy a licensing fee to show the movie in an independently owned and operated theatre for those who prefer the traditional style viewing. See where I’m going with this… Perhaps the traditional movie house may find a new and better life for itself.

So in a nutshell here is my 15 year prognosis. Megaplexes will continue to dwindle, perhaps to the level that IMAX exists currently. We’ll always have large format movie theatres, but it won’t be the norm. If downloading changes the distribution policies we now have, than there exists the opportunity for inde movie houses to re-emerge. Content will change and continue to evolve. Movies will still be shot, but released in multiple ways. A theatrical version will be created,
a chopped up version will be created for download, and a video game version will be created, all released simultaneously. Pick your poison. The DVD will die because eventually you won’t rent, you’ll plug in and download into your personal Crackberry phone/computer/viewer/GPS/music/media gadget. Potentially. some good things can happen, but I really see the large format theatres evaporating. People will still have a need to interact but the younger demographic will just partake in some kind of a well wired, multimedia type of globally connected rave where music and images and people are connected simultaneously. Of course none of this could happen and i could be completely full of crap, i often am, but I can’t ignore todays youth, they are so damn wired it’s tough to ignore the influence and changes they are going to make."

BSNS UP AGAIN 4th of July weekend up 7 % over last year!

still the cheapest form of ent. BOWLING NOW $8.00 A GAME /Prices are in line with inflation/Product is the key not price….