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Author Topic: economics of 70mm releases (historical question) Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-14-2015 11:45 AM                        For those who owned theatres and/or booked films in the 70mm blowup heyday (say, 1979-1993), what was the economic justification for film distributors to make the expensive prints? Did theatres pay higher film rental for 70mm on the basis that it would attract customers to their theatres and away from the competition? Or were 70mm prints provided to any venue that wanted to play them (and had the ability to do so) on the basis that a 70mm release attracts attention and establishes a film as a "major" release that was worthy of the format (and therefore would result in increased ticket sales at all venues)? Or was there some other reason for making the blowup prints? If your theatre had the capability to show the format and a film was available for booking in 70mm, would there have been any reason _not_ to take the 70mm print (other than shipping costs, perhaps)? Did the existence of 70mm projection capability provide any booking advantages in competitive markets?  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 12-14-2015 08:43 PM                     Those are interesting questions. The answer to one of them, were 70mm prints offered to any theaters that were equipped to show 70mm, would have to obviously be "no." At the late 1980's peak of the 70mm blow-up era there may have been over 1000 screens equipped with 70mm projection capability. At least some of those setups likely never showed anything in 70mm. Some movie releases had lots of 70mm prints in their inventories, such as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Dick Tracy and Hoffa. But they didn't have enough 70mm prints to cover all the theater locations with 70mm. For instance, Dick Tracy had only one 70mm print in the Oklahoma City area, placed at the AMC Memorial Square 8. They placed a 35mm print of Dick Tracy at the GCC Penn Square Mall theater despite it having a THX screen with 70mm capability. Other releases had very few, maybe only enough for premiere engagements in Los Angeles and New York. Sometimes even New York City would be left out of certain releases with 70mm prints despite all the theaters in the NYC area that had 70mm capability.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 12-15-2015 06:27 AM                     I think the real answer is you have competing forces at play. Earlier in the era, there would have been fewer screens capable and most would have been LARGE houses. As always, there is a ranking system to the various markets. That is NY and LA are at the top of the ranking and will always have more opportunity on such things than other markets...the next tier was Chicago and Washington, DC. As such, the market it "grew up in" often had 70mm showing somewhere in the Summer/Winter months, but particularly the summer months. 70mm brought three things to the table for the studio and exhibitor...legitimacy to the title and with that exclusivity (typically, the 70mm houses had a 2-4 week exclusive engagement as well as a larger radius of non-competition) and finally, 70mm offered the best way to get the mix the dub stage heard to the theatre. Before SVA became commonplace, 90% of what theatres showed was MONO. So on an effects laden movie like Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark, 70mm is going to get you the discrete tracks with the widest frequency response into the biggest, most prestigious houses. Yes, there was 4-track magnetic that could deliver much of that but lacking the bass enhancement and with comparatively thinner tracks running 25% slower in an overall less stable system than 70mm. Mind you, prestige was not the primary driving force...movies like Reds or Sophie's Choice didn't play in 70mm though they were the serious films of their winter season (if there were 70mm prints made, I'm sure the likes of Michael Coate will speak up...they didn't play in 70mm in Washington DC). As you move later into the era (mid/late '70s) you have the plexes (beyond things like really large twins) getting into the act so 70mm got cheapened...it could show up on screens less than 30-feet wide and you also have Dolby SVA becoming very common in the industry (both as a source medium as well as those theatres that could use it on playback). However, in a multiplex, there are forces like the elimination of projectionists and the desire to not have to deal with moving the oddball movie in 70mm about that would lessen its desire. Finally, with the introduction of digital sound, the last of the primary reasons for 70mm being used was marginalized since by the 90s most of the BIG theatres had succumbed to the multiplexes and high property values (or even changes in markets).  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 12-15-2015 08:35 AM                     I see a definite typo there. it should have been moving into the mid/late '80s for the multis getting 70mm.  |  IP: Logged Jay Glaus Expert Film Handler Posts: 123 From: Pittsburgh, PA USA Registered: Dec 2010 posted 12-15-2015 03:53 PM                        I am writing this for my dad. His father and some partners opened a drive in in 1959 in the Pittsburgh Suburbs with 70mm. He believes they were German machines. They also had a 70mm roadhouse in downtown Pittsburgh,which among other things played Sound of Music for 2 years he believes in 70mm. He remembers his dad trying 70mm at the drive in but they gave it up he thinks after possibly How the West Was Won. It was a 1100 car drive in and at that time admission was bout .75 cents per person and kids under 12 free. From a financial stand point it was a BUST  |  IP: Logged Jeffry L. Johnson Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 809 From: Cleveland, Ohio, USA Registered: Apr 2000 posted 12-15-2015 06:19 PM                        That pair of Bauer U2 projectors from the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania drive-in became spares for the Case Western Reserve University Film Society in Cleveland, Ohio. They never ran film, but supplied parts for the working Bauer U2's that came from the Shaker Theater in Shaker Heights, Ohio.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 12-15-2015 08:55 PM                     Were I'm from the Eastern part of the State of Idaho, closest venues to have 70mm were in Salt Lake City - a good 3.7hr drive due south from where I lived. When films were presented in 70mm in this city, it was more like an roadshow engagement, simply due to being the largest city in the Intermountain Region of E.Idaho, Utah, Wyo., Mont., and NE. Nevada. It truly was an event to go to a new, 70mm roadshow presentation and the guests were all decked out in evening clothes fit for the occasion. During that time, there were quite a spattering of single screen houses and large palaces. Those who carried 70mm by the mid 70's: Villa - Century JJ Centre - Bauer U2 Fox Cottonwood - Norelco AA2 Park-Vu Dr. In - Norelco AA2 Regency - Norelco AA2 - which was a newer constructed venue, built in the early 70's. The smaller venues did carry the standard 35mm versions, but in seeing both in a much larger format along with strong dynamic sound of multichannel sound, these 70mm venues were in class by itself since they were indeed separated from the other venues. One has to also realize at this time, 35mm was mono outside of a rare spattering of 4track magnetic, which rarely had a 'stereo slug in the newspaper ad. Some where still doing carbon arc, and projectionists were high school kids. Screens were small, locations weren't kept up, pictures were not in total focus, and the similar. A 70mm house had top notch projectionists who took their trade very seriously. These venues held their own special crowds, yet was still dominated by the more accessible 35mm venues where one just wanted to watch a movie. -Monte  |  IP: Logged Stephan Shelley Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 854 From: castro valley, CA, usa Registered: Nov 2014 posted 12-17-2015 11:22 AM                     The main reason for the blow-up prints and the high number of 70mm installs was audio quality. Remember this is before SRD, DTS and such. Most of it is before SR. Once SRD and DTS came out 70mm releases just about vanished. Some drive-ins had 70mm for the extra light one gets with the larger aperture.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 01-01-2016 06:03 PM                     True, when I saw 2001 back in 1968 in 70mm, it was like being in a concert with all of the classical music that was in the film score. Then, when it hit the mono houses, it was totally blah to watch.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 01-01-2016 07:38 PM                     quote: Stephan Shelley The main reason for the blow-up prints and the high number of 70mm installs was audio quality. Remember this is before SRD, DTS and such. Most of it is before SR. Once SRD and DTS came out 70mm releases just about vanished. Dolby Digital on 35mm was initially marketed as a replacement for 70mm film prints, even from the system pricing and sales angle that it was just for 70mm equipped theaters and everyone else could just live with SR optical. Then DTS arrived on the scene and changed that whole ploy. 70mm blow-up prints did disappear rather quickly. There were a few releases in 1992 and 1993, but fewer than that in 1994. In 1995 the stadium seated theater building craze began. Part of that craze involved building one or more auditoriums in a new megaplex with really big screens. This was a forerunner of IMAX moving into the multiplex space. Nearly all these big screen stadium seated theaters were only equipped with 35mm. 70mm would have been far better. A 70mm projector throws a much brighter and much more steady image on a large screen than 35mm can manage. In going 35mm-only with all these big screen houses the multiplex operators gave IMAX the opening it needed to move out of museums and into the multiplex space. If the movie theater chains had installed 35/70 projection systems with DTS in their biggest houses IMAX may have never got its opening to dictate trends in premium theaters.  |  IP: Logged Lyle Romer Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1400 From: Davie, FL, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 01-01-2016 08:44 PM                     quote: Bobby Henderson Dolby Digital on 35mm was initially marketed as a replacement for 70mm film prints, even from the system pricing and sales angle that it was just for 70mm equipped theaters and everyone else could just live with SR optical. Then DTS arrived on the scene and changed that whole ploy. I think part of the "Premium Screen" marketing of Dolby Stereo Digital was marketing spin. They had to sell it that way because it was expensive. They didn't make it expensive so they could limit the market. DTS created the situation where they had to reduce the cost or SR-D would have been dead. Wasn't DTS like $6k when a DA-10 was around $20k? I assume that Dolby was working on the DA-20 before DTS took the market by storm. Had DTS not existed, I'm sure Dolby's marketing would have changed to "every screen should have Dolby Digital" once the DA-20 came out at half the price. To your point on 70mm, it is ironic but you are right. If screens over 40 feet would have run 70mm for image quality in the post 35mm digital sound era, IMAX would likely have stayed a special venue system. The IMAX MPX system certainly wouldn't have been necessary. When digital projection started to take over, those large screens could have continued to run 70mm prints. They probably could have done an upcharge but not had to split it with IMAX. The film rental on the upcharge would have paid the studios for the prints and some extra revenue. I guess the only issue would have been 3D. You'd need good projectionists to run synchronized dual projector 70mm 3D since any film break would cause major issues.  |  IP: Logged Louis Bornwasser Film God Posts: 4441 From: prospect ky usa Registered: Mar 2005 posted 01-02-2016 06:35 AM                        Steve's recall is exactly right. As regards cost of DD: IF you had good speakers, amps, and processor, DD could be had for about $7k. To be sure, dts was less. IF you could reliably get discs. Costing of 70mm prints: Most cost had to do with extra processing of the mag stripes and real time sounding of same. Low number of prints hurt too. A non sounded 70mm print would not have been much more than 35mm if you had enough copies made. Chicken & Egg.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 01-02-2016 01:20 PM                     Monte, The Villa NEVER had JJ's in the booth. It was originally Simpex E-7's. Then temporary Cinemiracle via three Century Cinemiracle heads, then Cinerama via three Century Cinerama heads for about five or six years. Then Norelco DP-70's were installed for Todd-AO and those where still there when the theater closed. If there were ever any JJ's in that booth is was only very briefly. Fox Intermountain used all DP-70's.... Mark  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 01-02-2016 02:58 PM                     I was in that booth on many visits when I was working for Mann Theatres during the 70's and 80's when MANN had the location. Had Ashcrafts behind those JJ's. Ashcrafts came out in 1984 for Xetron 4k lamphouses, but remained a changeover booth. The picture quality took a decent dump when the Ashcrafts were removed for the xenon. When the booth was converted to single machine and platter in 1990, is when the JJ's came out for the AA-2, AW3 Platter and the SLH lamphouse. Granted, the old Fox Cottonwood did have DP70's when it was a single house, but when the big split and addition happen when, the the one unit when to platter, and the other one disappeared. The other three houses ran Cine V5 with 4x4 Towers. The Regency up on Foothill BLVD also had DP70's.  |  IP: Logged Lyle Romer Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1400 From: Davie, FL, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 01-06-2016 01:25 PM                     quote: Louis Bornwasser As regards cost of DD: IF you had good speakers, amps, and processor, DD could be had for about $7k. Not for the DA-10. If I remember correctly the list price was around $20k. The DA-20 brought the list price way down and the actual price into the range you quoted. It got even more economical when they threw the DA-20 inside of the CP-500.  |  IP: Logged

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