Why do Megaplex's only run first run films? We all know that most movies don't make much money after a few weeks (right now most movies don't make much money in their 1st week ) Bring back older blockbusters!!

Take one or two of your larger (not biggest) houses and run older films. They aren't hard to book, and you get a higher percentage of the box office. Most studios want around 35%, considerably lower than any first run movie.

Now some theatre chains may not let their managers make this type of choice, so go to your bosses and ask them to give it a try, or to let you try it. Your local rep theatres are gonna hate you for it (people here that work at rep theatres are gonna hate me ). The key is to advertise where ever you can, make it known that you are gonna start showing their favorite films on the big screen again. But you have to commit to atleast 6 months of a trial run. You don't have to keep any given film for more than a week (ie. you could get a different film in each week, or maybe run a film for two weeks, whatever you want). If you are in a large market you could get togeather with other theatres in the area (same company) and all do this and basically rotate a prints untill you have all shown them and then get in a new group, rotate around, new group, rotate around, and so on and so fourth.

Your first couple of shows won't do a ton of business, which is why you have to commit up front to atleast 6 months. By that time word of mouth will spread and people will start checking to see what you are playing and your attendance will go up. POW, you are making a good profit. Your boss will think you are a genius.

Do the industry a favor though. Make sure your projection staff is suffecently trained to handle these prints. Many of them will be acetate and take a different level of care when handeled. Make sure your analog sound system is operating optimally, as most of the prints won't be digital. OK got that, good.

I would be willing to bet that if enough theatres started doing this that the studios would be more inclined to strike new prints of their older films that are in bad shape. They might even take the time to encode a digital soundtrack from the 6 channel master (if there is one). Everyone noticed how many older films are released on DVD with full 5.1 digital tracks? They have to come from somewhere.

Could this be a revolution to our industry, I think it could. Make older films part of normal operation. With the looming writers guild strike and SAG strike, this might just be the perfect time to find out. I have heard more people say that something needs to change, will this is my 2 cents. I believe any theatre could make this very profitable if they would just try and put forth the effort.

So if you made it through this post, what's your opinion? I am a strong believer in this idea, but am open to criticism.

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Generally, we have been pretty happy with the quality of prints we've received, but we always ask questions first. One film, It happened one Night came in in very bad shape, with lots of splices but a call to Technicolor yielded a replacement print that was in gorgeous shape. Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Princess Bride were both really dirty when they arrived but cleaned up nicely with FilmGuard. However, the Princess Bride was very splicy and below our usual standards.

Bottom line, there is money to be made playing classics. Timing and marketing are everything. You have to work to get the word out and build an audience. It's a long term commitment. Also you have to let people know up front its a fixed length run and stick by your guns on those policies. Look for holes both in your own theatre's scheduled bookings and in the overall release schedule. Part of why we did so well with Bride on the River Kwai was that Alec Guiness had just passed away, it was a slow week for releases so the local paper ran Eberts lenghty rave about Kwai as the featured review that week.

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Next, off of that, we kept Patriot and Perfect Storm well into September, just as second-run theaters got prints of them. But what we found was that people will see movies early if you've got a big multiplex theater. So when the movies run take really long runs, it doesn't change much. There's not a big demand, and it doesn't make a lot of profit, especially on weekdays.

A few prime examples are Gone in 60 seconds, Dinosaur, and the 6th Sense. When we released these again after their initial runs had ended, they lasted about a week (with the exception of the 6th Sense, but it still failed proportionally to the others).

In other words, what multiplexes need is more good movies (and for some like mine, more digital houses that don't make for a terrible movie sound experience!).

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70's and 80's revivals and late shows are somewhat common. I have done 80's late shows.

Sure, things will slow down somewhat in the fall, but the squeeze will be on again in November and through the end of the year. I don't see this as a vaible business venture for an independent plex like ours, but I could be wrong.

As has been said, mind your screen performance. Don't crop a 1.33 with a 1.66 or 1.85 ap and lens. Many of the blockbusters after '53 were in CinemaScope (or similar 2.35 process) with mag sound. Unfortunately many 'plex auditoriums have cropped their 'scope pictures to no more than 2.0.

The Regal Commerce Center in North Brunswick NJ usually has at least one screen set aside for Bollywood product. That's partly due to the large South Asian community in the region. However, most Bollywood pictures last only 1 week in US theaters due to video piracy. Setting aside a screen exclusively for Bollywood also tends to freeze out arthouse product (North Brunswick is near Rutgers University).

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The film voted best picture ever made ("Citizen Kane") was produced in 1940 (in B&W yet). You really won't have to pry people away from their VCRs. They have really grown tired of sitting at home and want to "get out" and enjoy the "seeing a movie in a theatre" experience. If a theatre is run correctly you cannot duplicate that experience in the home (I don't care what they say about so-called "home theatres").

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I hate to disagree, but people won't necessarily come out to see a classic. An AMC theater near me did show "Citizen Kane" for at least a week in one of their smaller stadium auditoriums a few years ago. The evening I went, there may have been 20 people there. This print was in good shape, but most product that you would get from a studio would not be. When I went to see another classic, I heard someone say as we left, "I think it would have been better if we had watched it at home on DVD".

Classics like GWTW, Wizard of Oz, Vertigo, and Rear Window seem to do better when associated with a restoration effort or special re-release tour. There has to be an event and associated marketing to pry people away from their "home theaters" for classics, I believe.

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