Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Boneheaded Distributor Decisions

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Topic: Boneheaded Distributor Decisions

John T. Hendrickson, Jr
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 889
From: Freehold, NJ, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 08-13-2002 07:26 PM

You can't imagine how thrilled I was last week to learn that in addition to making up three prints of XXX and a print of Bloodwork, Minority Report was returning to our complex.

Seems that one of the suits at Fox decided he needed more playdates for Minority Report and begged our principle owner for a screen. When told that we were already booked and the showtimes had gone out to the papers, he settled for a midnight show on Friday and Saturday!

Result? You guessed it. Without benefit of advertising, and playing a picture that has already gone second run, we raked in a total of four patrons on Friday and NONE on Saturday night. This is business genius at it's best. Fox paid to book it and we paid to have it shipped. Forget the time spent on make-up and breakdown and the hours on the bulb. Now didn't everyone benefit from this boneheadded decision? But... the suit could brag that he had the picture on X number of screens. And you wonder why nobody makes any money in this business?

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Jonathan M. Crist
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 531
From: Hershey, PA, USA
Registered: Apr 2000

posted 08-14-2002 09:32 AM

The fault lies not with the distributors but with the whimpy theatre owners (and their bookers) who are so afraid to say "NO" to a distributor when they make such a request. Everyone is so fearful they won't get the next favor or big picture or whatever that go along ..... no matter what the cost (whether it be in terms of dollars lost or simply employee inconvenience). Trailer placements are just another good example.

In those situations where it becomes absolutely necessary to go along with the distributor there is another alternative......Simply fake a gross and don't even show the picture. While I would not try this with a first run show, in second run situations it is done occasionally.

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 08-15-2002 02:17 AM

In a potential 'no-show' situation I would tend to have the commercials and trailers on a separate 2,000 foot spool and run them on time. If at the end of it no-one had turned up and bought a ticket, we would abort the show at that point before the platter had even been laced. In situations where it was necessary to have the commercials, trailers and features all on one roll we would knock the lamp off about 10 minutes into the feature if no-one appeared.

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