Till (2022)

[Frank Cox]

I now have a new record holder for the least people ever to come to a movie here.

I played Till for the past seven nights, of which I actually had a show for just three nights. Twice for two people and once for just one person. So I had a total of five customers for the entire week.

I admit I didn't expect a lot out of it, but five seems a bit extreme.

As far as the actual movie goes, it's not bad. It's a re-enactment of a historical event and it's not exactly action packed but it's an interesting look at society in the 1950's southern states.

I read some news articles the other day stating that there were some street protests in that area demanding that the woman involved in this should be prosecuted for what she did since nothing was done about it at the time and she's still living around there in an old folks home. I wonder if this movie was the catalyst for that since it seems awfully coincidental that nothing happens for 60-odd years and then there's a demand for justice right around now.

[Jim Cassedy]

As usual, I have my own anecdotal comment/story on a topic:
Back in early October, a week or so before this movie was released, I agreed to work an extra job at a theater
'in another city', which had a large African American population where a per-release preview was being held.
It was a big, almost 'black tie' event, the place was sold out, and I think it even got local TV news coverage.
- - Fast forward to opening week of Black Panda Wakanda, and I was again asked to work a few shifts at
that same theater, and EVERY SHOW in all 5 of their (fairly large) auditoriums was totally sold out (or close
to it) for the 3 days I was subbed there- -except that they still had one showing of TILL every day. On the
1st day, when I went upstairs to start that show, there was NOBODY in the 450 seat auditorium.- The 2nd day
there was less than 2 dozen people. (probably a LOT less) - - and the 3rd day the same. When I inquired why
they were still playing the movie - - several weeks after release- to an almost empty house, when all the other
auditoriums were sold out for almost every show, I was told that they had some sort contractual obligation to
the studio to play the movie for a certain number of weeks, even if no one showed up.

I never had time to watch the movie, except for a few bits & pieces, so I can't comment if the movie was any
good or not although I've heard it was well done. I wish I'd had the time to watch it, since it's a compelling
story of an unfortunate event during a period in American history, which, like The Holocaust should not be
forgotten, in hopes that it will never be repeated.

[Leo Enticknap]

I saw a solitary poster for it in one of the theaters I service a few weeks ago, but that's it. Like Jim, I haven't seen the pic, but I wonder if poor (or just not enough) marketing is a part of the movie's poor box office performance.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

But, but, Whoopi Goldberg is in it. Shouldn't people be flocking to see it? The reason they need the run at the end of the year is for Oscar possibilities. I believe a given movie has to have a 2-week play out the year before the Oscar nominations are announced.

[Bobby Henderson]

At the Rotten Tomatoes web site Till has a 98% score with 139 established movie critics. It also has a 97% audience score from people who actually bothered to watch it. So the excuse for low turnout can't really be that it's a "bad movie."

A couple factors are working against Till. One factor is the problem pretty much killing all grown-up movies: the blatantly stupid, shrinking theatrical release window.

The movie studio bosses have gone from taking stupid pills to just main-lining the stupid liquid right into their veins via an IV. Do these fucking morons not realize just what the hell they're doing? They're chasing after extra money they think they're going to make but ending up losing even more. They cut the fucking legs out of the theatrical release model with windows of a month or less. And for what? Have they bothered to check what's going on with the "home video" release platform lately? The retail model of selling physical discs is dying fast. The alternative is streaming. How exactly is that a money-making bonanza? Americans are going thru subscription fatigue big time. For all the slick shit the bean counters are selling there is no getting around the fact the theatrical release is where the real money is to be made. Not in fucking home video. So the movie studios need to cut it out with the day-and-date releases or releases where the movie arrives on a streaming service a month after its debut.

The other big problem killing Till at cinemas: white people don't like feeling bad about evil shit other white people have done in the past, even if it is an event of no-escape, historical fact. That situation is getting worse since certain jerks have tried to use "white guilt" as a way to launch a new, bigoted ideology.

[Mike Blakesley]

We saw the movie while in Layton, Utah for a convention about a month ago, and I thought the film was outstanding. The movie was in one of those dreaded AMC theaters, so I was expecting some horrific experience, but I'm happy to say the presentation was tremendous -- not a problem in sight, and the audience was quiet and not one phone screen popped up during the whole movie. Picture and sound were spot-on, and the screen even had movable masking. There were probably 30 or 40 people in the show we were at.

I don't really know why it didn't do better, but I have a few ideas that I'm not going to go into. But these days people want FEEL-GOOD movies, and this movie isn't going to make anybody feel good. It'll make white people feel lousy for ever having been born, and I suppose if anything, it might just make black people angry.

As for the video window, all Hollywood has to do is take a look at Top Gun Maverick. Say what you want about it being an outlier of a film, but Paramount is doing RECORD video streaming and sales business right now, seven months after the theatrical debut, because of pent-up demand. The EXACT SAME THING that drove a billion people to see it at the theaters is now driving people to seek out the video.

So there you go, Hollywood: The two-pronged formula for $uccess:

- Make feel-good movies (and they need to be GOOD feel-good movies), not movies that make people feel bad

- Put the video window back the way it belongs and bring back the two-step marketing plan, rather than cheaping out on the video marketing

[Jon Dent]

Netflix ate Hollywood's streaming lunch for YEARS before they finally got a clue. Expect it to take several more years for them to realize that they've shot themselves in the foot with the 45 day window.