Idiotic windows

[Frank Cox]

An Ex is a has-been and a spurt is just a drip under pressure.

[Marcel Birgelen]

How is it that all of us "regular guy" type Film-Techers know more about how the industry works than all these highly paid "experts?"

What I've learned over the years that the best sign of intelligence is when someone knows their own limitations. When people come to the correct analysis that they don't know and might need some external help with the decisions at hand. Unfortunately, we tend to promote those kind of people, that are good at pretending, not so much the people that are actually good at what they're doing.

There are the usual exceptions, but do you really think that your average moronic C-suite executive really takes decisions based on thorough analysis? They will take those decisions that they think will earn them the most money short term and gets them in the least amount of trouble...

[Frank Angel]

Mike, it's the old axiom that they promote and promote until they are promoted to a position beyond their talent and skills and there they stay, effin everything up for everyone below them. Or simply put, pond scum always rises to the top of the pond. Or even simpler.;..shit floats.

I've bitched about it here many times. I just don't know what kind of drugs the media company executives are doing that makes them think shaving the theatrical release window down to nothing makes any kind of business sense. It's not 1999 anymore. The movie studios have DE-VALUED the home video market

And the irony of that is, for the longest time, the studios were rabid about allowing home video their movies. They saw that as the death knell for industry. I remember Universal and Spielberg kept E.T. off home VHS video for SIX years and that was even after the studios had already begin changing their revulsion for home video access and had started shorting the release window. And this from Wikepedia:

"The film premiered at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival's closing gala on May 26, 1982,and was released in the United States on June 11, 1982. It opened at number one at the US box office with a gross of $11 million, and stayed at the top of the box office for six weeks; it then fluctuated between the first and second positions until October, before returning to the top spot for the final time in December during a brief holiday season re-release. In its second weekend, it recorded the highest-grossing second weekend of all time, surpassing the record of $10,765,687 set by Superman II in 1981. In its fourth weekend, it recorded the highest-grossing weekend of all time, surpassing the record of $16,706,592 set earlier that year by Rocky III. It had a record eight weekends with a gross of over $10 million, a feat not matched until Home Alone (1990), and set a modern era record for being at number one for 16 weeks in total."

ow that is what I call a film with LEGS and everyone is happy -- the studio, the distributor and the theatres. And of course it was re-released quite a number of times over the years. It even played in IMAX at some point. Even after it had long gone thru the home video tech gamut of VHS, Laserdisc, DVD and BluRay (although I saw it YEARS before it was released on VHS. A friend who worked at the fledgling Home Box Office as it was called back then (HBO for you young'ins), brought over a Umatic video copy of E.T. with a stereo track to boot, but that's another story.

[James Wyrembelski]

Not only are the windows in an odd state right now but so is film promotion.

For example, we screened the small title "The Miracle Club" a couple weeks ago. With a cast of well known actresses such as Kathy Bates, Laura Linney, and Maggie Smith I would have expected much more of a spotlight but it had barely registered anywhere despite receiving strong reviews and some film festival awards. Should it have been blockbuster status? No. But this is just an example of my concern about the non existent promotion of mid level films. We did relatively decent with Miracle Club despite it having almost no recognition.The overwhelming majority of our customers that came to see it hadn't even heard of it until we put up the weekly post for the next film. This title may not be the best example, but it's our most recent that I thought deserved a better run.

It just concerns me that these smaller titles essentially have no theatrical run not only from lack of promotion but also how fast they are leaving theaters with a barely there window. I can't rely on the one or two hits a year such as Mario or Barbie to keep going forever. Plenty of decent mid level titles (that are not in the superhero, animation, or sequel categories that so many gripe about) that provide variety yet they're essentially DOA due to almost no window and zero promotion.

The current window state also is aggravating because I think smaller places such as my single have an argument to be made that there is no reason to no longer be rigid in booking practices. Hard 3 and 4 week commitments make no sense anymore with such short windows. Exclusivity down to one film at a time also makes no more sense when the distributor can pull it last minute and slap it on alternate distribution channels like streaming. If we have to deal with shortened windows and streaming services there's no reason we can't have flexibility....

Want to promote a film??? Allow us to get it on the screen and in a timely fashion!!!!

[Marcel Birgelen]

Maybe the exhibition industry has been playing with the rules of the studios far too long. It's dangerous to make a point if you're making it yourself and risk your own livelihood in the process, but if those smaller, independents would combine their forces and just start to ignore those hard commitments together as a group, there would be little Hollywood could do, other than scream around. Which wouldn't even be all that bad, because it would make the issue known to a broader public and Hollywood hasn't really gotten universal backing of "the public" as of late. They may threaten with all kinds of disciplinary actions, but would they really cancel all the contracts of those exhibitors making a point? In the end, they need the cold hard cash that's earned here more than ever, it's probably the most direct income stream they have and probably underwrites many of their credits... It's time for them to realize that this isn't just a one-way street and that if they can't commit to sensible exclusivity windows, neither the exhibitor should be held to any excessive exclusivity windows either.

[James Wyrembelski]

I have long wondered how strong and how much the independent arm of the theatrical industry contributes. Which is why I made the post about national Comscore numbers and how I can only see my district.

As delivery systems of entertainment morphs so should the way booking practices work. I can understand the case that we do profit off of studio product through concession sales that are not shared and that keeping things in a more exclusive state ensures that their product gets the most it can out of it's run. However, it is running a *very* fine line of actually working on the exhibition end as time goes forward. I also find it humorous that the distributors own booking practices can actually keep their further product locked out!

I need to be able to increase my clientele base every week, not dispersed throughout the year. Theatre going is a habit. I need to keep multiple interests going continually. It's been brought up here before that a compromise of increasing rental rates would be an idea. I would have no issue paying more for the right to increase my variety in films every week. I would be open more as well.

We also have plenty of folks here that tell me all the time that they wait to see if we'll get a particular film. If we do not, they skip the theatrical run all together and wait for it on streaming. Plenty of people are not willing to drive and pay more. They want convenience. How much would attendance increase if smaller locations were given flexibility? I can't answer it but why don't we find out.

Although, some of this would be remedied if the window wasn't fading away.......

[Randy Stankey]

Why don’t they allow theaters to choose movies in Chinese menu style?
If you pick one from Column A you can pick two from Column B.

That way, theaters can get more of the movies they want and distributors can still sell the movies they think are more important.

[Martin McCaffery]

Why don’t they allow theaters to choose movies in Chinese menu style?
If you pick one from Column A you can pick two from Column B.

Because that's the way it was done in the old days and it really screwed the exhibitors. Block booking, blind bidding. The distributors saying if you want to play A you have to [have to, not get to] play B & C is a great way to unload junk. And illegal in most cases now.
And given the number of films a studio releases these days, as compared to the 30s-40s, you are pretty much booking everything that studio puts out in a year.
Admittedly, with a multiplex this may not be a problem as they need to vacuum up all of the junk they can get, but we single screens would be even more hosed than we are now.

[Randy Stankey]

I understand what your saying but that's not what I envision. It sounds, to me, like people just use concepts like this as tools of manipulation rather than a means of doing good business.

The idea I'm getting at is to let studios say, "Here's our new movie. We need to sell this in order to stay in business." At the same time, theaters can say, "We can't play that movie, right now." By having a "Chinese Menu" system (or something like that) we allow studios to promote the movies that they need to sell in order to stay in business while, at the same time, letting theaters earn credit that they can use to play the movies that they want to play.

Sure, movie companies want to sell their product. That's why we call it "Show BUSINESS." Right? No qualms there but theaters are in business, too.

People need to understand that both sides need to stay in business. If one side of the equation fails to profit, the other side will, too. It goes both ways.

My idea was meant to be a way for each side to meet the other half way.

It would be a system that lets both sides win.

[Bobby Henderson]

Not only are the windows in an odd state right now but so is film promotion.

In some respects I feel sorry for the marketing departments of movie studios. The situation is a big mess because so many of the advertising platforms movies used in the past have lost much of their value.

Advertising a movie on TV is really difficult due to how badly fractured the viewing audience has become. The ad buys don't have the value they did decades ago. 30 years ago a major broadcast network needed to average around a 20 percent share of viewing households to win the week. Today a network can win with low single percentage points. In the past new series TV drama and comedy episodes only aired on broadcast networks. Then premium cable networks (like HBO) and basic cable networks started doing the same thing, taking away a lot of viewers in the process. A good chunk of the viewing audience became addicted to anger pornography (cable news networks). Streaming services have led to a good amount of cord cutting. Others are blowing potential TV viewing time playing video games, browsing social media or watching videos on web platforms like YouTube. One good thing is TV ads can be targeted to far more specific audience types. The bad thing is the ad buyers have to buy and track a lot more ads to get the same impact of an ad on a major broadcast network 20 years ago.

Newspapers are a wreck. Many local papers no longer have any ads for specific movies or ads for cinema locations. Circulation numbers fell yet ad costs still rose. A lot of movie-oriented magazines went out of business. Most brick and mortar stores selling books, movies and music have closed.

Outdoor advertising can help promote movies in large markets like NYC and LA. The value of such advertising was better when the theatrical windows were longer. It's difficult to justify a printed billboard ad for a movie that will be gone in a month. Many "static" billboards were replaced by digital billboards. One LED-based billboard next to a highway will usually cycle through a list of a dozen ads, each playing for only around 8 seconds. Subway station ads and bus bench ads have only a limited reach. It's not easy creating the ads since there isn't much standardization on the ad sizes. It takes a certain turn-around time to get such ads printed and installed. That's not a big deal if the movie is opening several months in the future. I remember seeing printed teaser ads for Batman, Total Recall and other big shows in NYC's subway system. Today, such ads might play on a LED jumbotron sign or a HDTV display pretending to be a poster case. The digital ads can get into a play list faster. But they can be cycled out and forgotten that much faster too.

[Mike Blakesley]

The best way to advertise movies is probably still trailers, considering they play in front of people who already go to movies.

The second best way is probably one-sheets, which are (supposedly) going away in favor of digital posters on sideways TV sets. That's fine, except it's expensive and not always practical -- such as, I've got 15 places we hang posters, and only a couple of them are near electrical outlets, and three of them not only don't have power, but they are in front-facing windows that get full-on sun all day. And of those three, one of them is in the front doors of the building - not exactly a place where you can hang or plug-in a large TV screen.

I just got home from our annual regional theatre convention (Rocky Mountain NATO) and there was a decided lack of one-sheets on display from the studios. Disney, Warners and Lionsgate did not show up at all, but they did send gift baskets for our scholarship raffle. Universal, Paramount, Sony and Angel all brought product reels and Sony and Angel contributed screenings, so kudos to them. Sony's "Dumb Money" was really intriguing. Confusing, but intriguing.

There was a lot of talk about the windows and how ridiculous it is that a studio will force us to play a movie for three weeks, yet 10 days into the run they'll start plugging the upcoming video release on Amazon and what not.

[Bobby Henderson]

I don't really like the use of HDTV monitors as a substitute for printed one sheets in back-lit cases. The biggest problem is resolution. A 1920 X 1080 pixel monitor does not have adequate resolution to show all the details in a movie poster. The imagery of the Photoshopped actors will look okay. But the graphics and especially all the credits at the bottom tends to get clumpy and sometimes completely illegible. Those thin, ultra-condensed movie credits fonts are really bad on those monitors. If the monitors had UHD resolution (3840 X 2160) the text and graphics on the posters would look more legible. That's more money though. UHD monitors still wouldn't match the sharpness of text and graphics on the printed posters (those elements in the poster layouts are vector-based graphics).

I've seen some theaters, such as the Harkins location in Oklahoma City's Bricktown district, use huge over-sized posters in cases on the building exterior. I don't know if those are standard items or if they have to be specially made.

[Mike Blakesley]

We were at the Megaplex theater at "The Gateway" in Salt Lake City for convention screenings. In the hallways they had an eclectic mix of display mechanisms, everything from standard paper one sheets, to TV monitors mounted horizontally playing trailers, to vertical monitors with onesheet images, and a few "just pictures" in various sized frames. It was a nice change from the standard thing where everything's the same everywhere you look. The only thing I didn't like about the place was, too much gray everywhere. Not enough color in the decor. But the movie presentations were terrific.

[Martin Brooks]

Mike, I think to sum it up is...they are too greedy and dont want to share the profits witn ANYONE!

Except that no streaming service is profitable and the physical media market is a tiny fraction of what it once was, so I really don't understand the strategy. Makes no sense to me even from the strictest "profit is everything" strategic standpoint.