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Author Topic: New Sony gross calculation Melanie Loggins Expert Film Handler Posts: 154 From: Wayne, NE, USA Registered: Aug 2011 posted 04-26-2012 11:04 AM                        So, I'm getting pretty good at legalese, and it looks to me like Sony is saying that they will figure the average of your ticket prices, multiply that by the number of tickets you sold, and call that your gross. Which means that if 100 people come to your $6 matinee and 30 people come to your $9 evening show, rather than $870, which is what you took in pre-tax, they're going to charge you $975. Am I reading this right? I don't have changing ticket prices, so this actually doesn't affect me. It just sounds really freaking unfair.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 04-26-2012 11:37 AM                        I am NOT good at legalese, Melanie, or should I say, only good at it but needing to ponder it for LONG periods of time first. After an hour of reading that Sony announcement that sounds like it was written by someone a meth rant, I came up with the same conclusion as you -- they want to average out your ticket pricing vs tickets sold. Unfair? When has UNFAIR ever stopped the studios from doing anything? Fair isn't on their top ten list of corporate virtues.  |  IP: Logged Louis Bornwasser Film God Posts: 4441 From: prospect ky usa Registered: Mar 2005 posted 04-26-2012 01:26 PM                        UNFAIR is a goal.  |  IP: Logged Martin McCaffery Film God Posts: 2481 From: Montgomery, AL Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-26-2012 01:42 PM                        I guess it is a violation of the NDA of the MLA to quote the new policies, but I love that they say they will apply it at their discretion based on genre, and that this new way may be used as an alternative. So if you have a "family" film where you will be selling more low price weekend kid tix, they will take a percentage of the average ticket price so they can get a bigger percentage from you, whereas if you have an action film which will be all full price adult tix, they will take a percentage of the adult tix. In short Sony (and the others soon to follow, I'm sure) plans to calculate what you owe based on whatever formula THEY choose to apply, and you will have no way of knowing until after you've shown the movie. I'm sure there are other business that operate this way, but I can't think of any. And this after forcing you to spend all of your money to convert to digital. NATO, care to respond? State legislatures, time to get back to regulating the selling practices of the studios?  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 05-01-2012 12:19 AM                     quote: Louis Bornwasser UNFAIR is a goal. Seen tonnage of SBO's are doing their best to reach this plateau. What I'm seeing here is the results of the unpopularity of 3D sales. The studios are expecting massive returns on the product, but it's just not there due to the final decision of the attendance. Thus, someone is gonna pay...  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 05-01-2012 12:43 AM                        And guess who THAT might be! Sure as hello it isn't gonna be them.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-01-2012 01:36 AM                        Sounds like their way of doing away with matinee prices and also causing kids ticket prices to rise. It won't affect us that much since we don't normally do matinees, but if we get a kid-heavy movie it would definitely have an impact. (Sigh) Funny how the film companies all gush over how much they love us exhibitors at CinemaCon, meanwhile back at the home office the lawyers and bean counters are busily figuring out new ways to screw us.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 05-01-2012 02:04 AM                     Another way to buy your loyalty is to keep you in the festive mood as everything else is like that being down in Vegas.  |  IP: Logged Dominic Espinosa Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1172 From: California, U.S.A. Registered: Jan 2004 posted 05-02-2012 10:43 AM                     Mike, you're totally right... Sony just got us for VOW for more than 60%...The reasons why are partially our fault but still. I don't know if any one else attended the panel discussion Wednesday morning out there at the 'Con but I found it real funny to hear the president of distribution for Sony talking about how hard the green-light process is during these tight times because they want to make the best movies. It was suggesting of the obvious; better films and better presentation mean easy times for all. And to be said with a straight face was painful and amusing at the same time when you have films like Super Babies: Baby Geniuses 2 in their past. No one in their right mind could have possibly said "This one right here is going to be a hit!" Stop making turds, Hollywood! Then you wouldn't have to choke every penny out of your "partners in exhibition"...  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 05-03-2012 12:56 AM                        Never assume that when things go well for Hollywood that they will stop trying to choke every penny out of the beloved "partners in exhibition." With partners like them, who needs muggers?! Example, let's say that ALL PIRACY STOPS and they no longer loose their oft quoted "SIX BILLIONDOLLARS a year to the bootleggers. Do you think for one second they would drop the rental percentages and share their good fortune with their "partners"? Bet you'd be able to hear them laughing all the way over there in Boulder Creek!  |  IP: Logged Dominic Espinosa Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1172 From: California, U.S.A. Registered: Jan 2004 posted 05-03-2012 05:54 AM                     Yeah, I realize how ideal the world would have to be for that to be true. Or at the minimum for them to have some sort of business ethic where they wouldn't just keep raising it all the time. My problem is I have this pseudo-nostalgic/dellusional idea that American business should be a benchmark of integrity, reliability, and other crazy values like that. In my mind American capitalism should mean capitalizing on innovation and necessity. Not on people and their weaknesses. "See a need, fill a need" as they say. Not "how do we make people think they need this piece of junk we had produced for pennies in China". Or as we are discussing here "how much can we legally extort from the exhibitors". The whole we NEED them, they don't need us.  |  IP: Logged

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