Overbuilding of too many screens seems to be the most plausible villian in these theatre chain bankruptcies, but inept management at the top is the primary problem. Now I would cheerfully concede to being a hopelessly obsolete person, but I still think that in a movie theatre the picture on the screen is THE ONLY THING YOU HAVE TO SELL. This picture and the sound has to be first-rate in all respects. It cannot be done with teenage popcorn shovelers hurriedly converted into “projectionists” on the fly and strictly as an afterthought. By now the evidence of what has gone wrong by purging professional projectionists out of the industry everywhere is overwhelming.

In many cities, brand new prints are received and within a week are all scratched up and sometimes badly damaged. Back in my projectionist days, I recall a print which stayed in the same house and was run 1300+ times, on 6000’ reels. Of course the projectors were scrupulously clean and had metal pad rollers maintained in perfect adjustment. At the end of the engagement, one leader had worn out and had to be replaced along the way, but otherwise the print was still in perfect condition with hardly a scratch anywhere, and onscreen, it still looked like a new print right out of the lab. Can similar results be achieved on a platter system? I’m very, very skeptical, but would appreciate feedback from the forum on this point, as I cannot claim any depth of expertise on platter operations.

Would also like to have some feedback of opinion here about UA outlets around the nation. Are they Good, bad, horrible, or is there wide variation between cities, as there seems to be with carmike?

Based on conditions in my city, I’d say there is little doubt that carmike is the toilet bowl of the industry. The top management of this machiavellian outfit should be fired and the assets liquidated. I simply don’t understand how you can rescue a malfunctioning chain without getting rid of its management as this is what got it into trouble in the first place. Over the next few weeks I’ll be researching the possibility of filing an amicus curiae brief with the Delaware court handling carmike’s bankruptcy: advocating the firing of the top management and certain other things.

Now, on to the technical details.

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UNITED ARTISTS: Case Summary and 20 Largest Unsecured Creditors --
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Debtor:
United Artists Theatre Company
9110 E. Nichols Ave.
Englewood, CO 80112

Affiliates:
United Artists Theatre Circuit, Inc.
United Artists Realty Company United Artists Properties I Corp.
United Artists Properties II Corp.
UAB, Inc.
UAB II, Inc.
Mamaroneck Playhouse Holding Corporation Tallthe Inc.
UA Theatre Amusements, Inc.
UA International Property Holding, Inc.
UA Property Holding II, Inc.
United Artists International Management Company
Beth Page Theatre Co., Inc.
United Film Distribution Company of South America U.A.P.R., Inc.
R and S Theatres, Inc.
King Reavis Amusement Company

Type of Business:
United Artists Theatre Company is a leading motion picture exhibitor in North America. United Artists Theatre Company licenses films from all major and independent film distributors and derives revenues primarily from theatre admissions and concession sales.

Chapter 11 Petition Date: September 5, 2000

Court: District of Delaware

Bankruptcy Case No: 00-03514

Judge: Sue L. Robinson

Debtor’s Counsel:
James H. M. Sprayregen, Esq.
Kirkland & Ellis
200 East Randolph Drive,
Chicago, IL 60601 (312) 861-2000

Laura Davis Jones, Esq.
Pachulski, Stang, Ziehl, Young & Jones PC
919 North Market Street 16th Floor
P.O. Box 8705
Wilmington, DE 19899-8705
(Courier 19801) (302) 652-4100

Total Assets: $ 16,830,328 Total Debts : $ 752,315,194

20 Largest Unsecured Creditors

Citibank, N.A. 3800 Citicorp Center Tampa, Florida 33610-9122 Bond Holder $ 83,743,721

Morgan Stanley & Co., Inc. One PierrePont Plaza 7th Floor Bond Holder $ 56,501,392

The Bank of New York 925 Patterson Plank Rd. Secaucus, NJ 07094 Bond Holder $ 31,435,012

US Bank National Association MPFP 1603 Proxy Unit 601 Second Ave. South Minneapolis, MN 55402 Bond Holder $ 29,113,313

Chase Manhattan Bank, Trust 5 New York Plaza, 14th Floor New York, NY 10004 Bond Holder $ 18,080,429

Bear, Stearns Securities Corp. One Metrotech Center North 4th Floor Brooklyn, NY 11201 Bond Holder $ 17,982,462

Bankers Trust Company c/o BT Services Tennessee Inc. 648 Grassmere Park Drive Nashville, TN 37211 Bond Holder $ 13,375,950

Salomon Smith Barney Inc. 333 W. 34th Street, 3rd Floor New York, NY 10001 Bond Holder $ 9,046,560

American Express Trust Co. 392 AXP Financial Center Minneapolis, MN 55474 Bond Holder $ 7,756,317

The Coca-Cola Company P.O. Box 951073 Dallas, TX 75395 Trade Debt $ 7,324,045

Bankers Trust Company/Banc One Capital Markets, Inc. 16 Wall Street, 5th Floor New York, NY 10005 Bond Holder $ 6,415,711

Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. 4 Corporate Place Corporate Park 287 Piscataway, NJ 08856 Bond Holder $ 6,345,624

State Street Bank and Trust Co. Global Corporate Action Unit JAB 5NW 1776 Heritage Drive Quincy, MA 02171 Bond Holder $ 5,741,792

Hartford Specialty Company Hartford Plaza Dept. #5454 P.O. Box 30000 Hartford, CT 06150-5454 Trade Debt $ 3,877,000

First Options of Chicago, Inc. 440 S. LaSalle St. 3rd Floor Chicago, IL 60605 Bond Holder $ 3,224,030

Boston Safe Deposit and Trust Company c/o Mellon Bank Three Mellon Bank Center Room 153-3015 Pittsburgh, PA 15259 Bond Holder $ 2,171,528

Sony Electronics Inc. 10950 West Washington Blvd. Culver City, California 90232 Trade Debt $ 2,138,403

Spear, Leeds & Kellogg 120 Broadway New York, New York 10271 Trade Debt $ 1,380,187

Tele-Communication, Inc. 1617 S. Acoma Denver, CO 80223 Bond Holder $ 1,180,864

Chase Bank of Texas, N.A. P.O. Box 2558 Three Mellon Center Room 153-3015 Houston, Texas 77252-8009 Bond Holder $ 1,078,271

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UNITED ARTISTS: Delaware Court Approves “First Day” Motions
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United Artists Theatre Company announced that in conjunction with its “prearranged” Plan of Reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code filed on Tuesday, all of the relief sought by the Company on the “first day” of its Chapter 11 proceedings has been approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.

These approvals will allow the Company to continue operating in the ordinary course of business during the Chapter 11 proceedings. The motions that were approved by the Delaware Court on Tuesday include the following:

-- The payment of pre- and post-petition payroll and other employee benefits in the ordinary course of business.

-- The payment of pre- and post-petition amounts owed to film distributors according to the terms of existing film licensing agreements which have been assumed and other pre- and post-petition amounts due in the ordinary course of business.

-- The payment of pre- and post-petition amounts owed to critical and essential trade creditors in the ordinary course of business.

-- Approval of a $25 million Debtor in Possession (“DIP”) revolving credit facility to fund on-going working capital needs during the proceedings. $15 million will be available immediately, with the remaining $10 million available upon final Court approval that is expected within the next three weeks.

-- A procedure for the rejection (termination) of 70 leases associated with closed theatres and 59 leases relating to theatres that were assigned or subleased to other operators.

-- A procedure for the assumption of various retention agreements with its lawyers (Kirkland & Ellis), financial advisors (Houlihan Lokey Howard and Zukin) and certain other professionals.

-- Certain other standard motions relating to movie ticket and gift certificate programs, utilities and cash management.

In addition to the approval of these “first day” motions, the Court also established a process schedule which provides for a hearing on Confirmation of the Company’s Plan of Reorganization on January 22, 2001.

Commenting on the Court approvals, the Company’s President and CEO, Kurt Hall, said: “With the approval of all of the motions presented on our ‘first day’ of the proceedings, we can continue to operate the Company in the ordinary course of business. These approvals were the result of our many months of preparation and the hard work of our employees, legal and financial advisors, and the support of our lenders, including The Anschutz Corporation, the studios and other key business partners. Now that the Confirmation process timetable and hearing dates have been set, we can now focus on executing our business plan and begin the process of returning the Company to profitability.”

It is "perfect" and only exhibited "hardly a scratch"? Perfect to me is perfect. Maybe I take it too literally, but if there is absolutely any sort of mark whatsoever, a print should not be called perfect. But to get to the point, yes platters can run film for that length of time and still not have a mark. In fact, they do a far BETTER job, despite what our friend Steve says. Reel to reel systems are in the simplest terms a brute force pull system. If ran properly by a projectionist who knows what he/she is doing, I will agree that the print can run for months and still look excellent. However, put an equally competent projectionist with a platter and the final result months down the road will be better. The typical comparison between platters vs. changeovers (see my arguments with Steve Guttag in the archives) generally relies on the theory that a changeover equipped theater will have a real projectionist, whereas a platter theater will have a popcorn jockey running the show. This is a joke. If someone is going to compare the two, the operator's expertise MUST be equal on both playing fields. There is no brute pull on a platter, there is no rewinding to deal with and if the "airborne film" is such a big issue, you probably shouldn't be breathing in such a dusty booth. My general opinion on the matter is that if a film is only going to be shown a few times that changeovers are preferable, due to the loading/unloading of the platter. If the film is going to be ran more than a week, it should absolutely be ran from a platter.

One nice thing about chapter 11 was its ability to make everyone happy right away. We all got paychecks with "estimated" hours, which were all very high. It wasnt so fun though next pay period when very few people got paychecks in order to make up for the high estimates.

I've only ever been to one UA, and its in old town Pasadena. There's an underground AMC literally across the street. I never noticed any issues with it, except the small bags of popcorn.

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The UA United Artists theater off North Central Expressway in Dallas has disappointed me the last few times I visited it (weak sound, dim projection, etc.). Those problems get really magnified when you have nearby competition in an absolutely stellar theater, such as the GCC Northpark 1-2 theater just across the freeway. But that theater is no more (sob, sniff).

Another thing I have noticed is that quality can vary widely even at the same theater location. Personnel changes, equipment problems, acts of God, etc., can make a big difference betweeen a theater putting on a great show or a bad show. It seems that only very few theaters are --consistently-- good. That comes from having good theater management, good employees and a good line of communication between the manager and his higher ups in the movie circuit food chain. If anything is amiss, the inconsistencies start popping up.

A major source of problems is some of the older theaters run by many of these circuits. I certainly think this is why chains like Carmike have the very spotty reputations they have earned. I recall when Carmike was on their theater buying binge in the quest of being the first circuit to have 5000 screens. I don't know about anyone else, but why would screen count be so impressive? I can only watch one movie on one movie screen at a time. Shouldn't having the best movie screens (instead of the most) be the real pride point for a movie chain?

Some of these old locations are just terrible. You can hear the movie playing in the next auditorium, and it is only analog stereo that is leaking through the paper thin walls into your show. Some of the blame for that goes into the 1970's style structural design. One thing I cannot excuse for an older theater is bad projection. Certain theaters have pictures so dim only Louis Braille could read them (by carefully running his fingers across the gummy bear and coke stain residue thrown onto the screen by slobs, disorderly teens and rug rats). Clean the screen and change the bulb already!

I'm lucky for the Carmike location here in Lawton. It may not have stadium seating, but 7 of 8 screens are DTS-equipped, 2 are THX (well, Carmike is paying only to continue having one actually certified), the sound systems are well tuned and the manager (a good friend of mine) is on the ball about his projection and overall presentation quality. He even continues to play all the DTS and THX snipes even though most other theaters have dropped them altogether. Hopefully he'll get that 8th DTS player added to compete better in the ads with the new Dickinson Central Mall 12 "all-digital/all stadium seating" theater fixing to open across town.

United Artists used to run the Cache 8 theater here in Lawton. This was a complex they took over from another chain (either Litchfield or Wallace --I can't remember). UA got out of Oklahoma a couple years back and let this one go to Hollywood Theaters. The location is a dive in many respects. Some of it was not UA's fault, because of the build quality of the location. Not much you can do to improve that. But having friends that worked there, I know UA was really bad about not providing replacement parts (and even projector lamps). The place was run very much on the cheap.

This seems more true with UA theaters then with any other chain. They n-e-v-e-r fix anything! They certainly never fixed the one I worked at. A UA theater starts out great and bright and sounds awesome but then 10 years go by and its the same speakers, same equipment, and it's never been serviced, cleaned, etc. UA Plaza's downhill presentation (and the downhill slide I'm sure Galaxy will witness in due time) just saddens me. Doesn't UA know that it's NOT the high concession prices or 8 minutes of TV commercials before the trailers that makes people come back? It's the movie and how it looks and sounds.

JK

The two UA's I worked at here in CT were poorly made and maintained, even though the "Light and Sound" dept (that's what they call their maintenance group) was fairly close. One was so bad (a 5-plex in Stratford) that, even while the big building boom was going on, it closed.

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Good! I didn't know you graced their booth! Fight the good fight! Galaxy is the best we've got in Dallas now. UA would be best served by keeping their brightest jewel polished.

Which makes me wonder why the MacArthur Marketplace wasn't fitted with THX. Maybe I put too much stock in THX these days based on what it use to be....but I don't think so. Once I saw that MacArthur didnt have THX, I haven't been back since opening weekend.

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I have no idea on the condition of that screen though. There are bigger issues to overcome first.