"Throw away theatre etiquette"

[Frank Cox]

I was just doing a bit of Saturday afternoon snooping around on some other theatre websites and came across this:

Hey all you Swiftie fans we have an assignment for you.......Throw away theatre etiquette and have some fun...we want to see everyone one on their feet and dancing to the beat!!
Let's light up the theatre with your cell phones and make it a concert event to remember!!

So you're telling everyone to party it up and then next week you'll be telling them to sit down and shut up?

"The movie is on and people want to be able to hear it. Please be quiet."
"But you told us it was ok last week!"

Gives me another reason to be happy I decided against playing this one....

[Martin McCaffery]

It's Rocky Horror for the Swifties!

[Peter Foyster]

"everyone one"?

[Mike Blakesley]

I'm having a dodged-a-bullet feeling about this one. Considering it's not a "four quadrant" movie and all. I mean, she's a big deal, but she's no Star Wars or Harry Potter. We could have done the four-week thing but we would have been looking at crowds of half-a-dozen or fewer "Swifties" in the last two weekends. Not every music fan likes Taylor Swift and a lot of moviegoers don't dig 'today's music.'

I remain furious that there was not a two-week option for single screens though. I would have done that. But now, when they come looking for two-week dates in the next couple of weeks. I will likely be saying no, you had your shot at us. The wad has been blown and we're moving on. As Archie Bunker once said, "That bus has sailed."

[Marcel Birgelen]

"everyone one"?

You can't go two... just one!

Or maybe the DJ forgot to turn off the echo effect?

"The movie is on and people want to be able to hear it. Please be quiet."
"But you told us it was ok last week!"

Gives me another reason to be happy I decided against playing this one....

I'm not really sure about this... I think that movie theaters trying to be a bit creative and trying to go beyond just showing movies may not necessarily be a bad thing. Especially since movie theaters are facing hard times, you may be looking at new formats that bring in paying customers...

As in throwing away theater etiquette, for me, the etiquette is more connected to the type of show rather than the venue, as there are plenty of theaters that are used more than for just showing movies. I'm pretty sure you also had a few events at your cinema that didn't follow "cinematic etiquette". Could it set a bad precedent? I guess this mostly applies for those that simply cannot behave anyway... but maybe I'm putting too much faith in humanity.

[Armand Daiguillon]

I don't think of screening that concert as my patrons attending a movie. I screen it with the intent of it being as close to a concert experience as they would have if they were there.
so I have no problem with them standng up and singing and dancing. Its what that experience is about.

I was not sure about the 4 week commitment, so we did not book it at first, we finally did once all the other options on the releae schedule got pushed out ....huge mistake since its seems most of the tickets sold were all in that presale.
My attendance has been low .... largest "crowd" I had was 20 people, but the AMC down the road had sold most showings when tickets went on sale. Bad timing for me ...
There is no way i'll keep it for 4 weeks ....
And the Beyonce concert having same requirements is a total no go.

[Mark Ogden]

I wouldn't worry about it. A few weeks back I saw people my age dancing in the aisles at the reissue of Stop Making Sense. I would have myself but my knees are killing me. How long have people been throwing crap around at Rocky Horror? These are one-off things where it's almost expected.

[Randy Stankey]

Years ago, we showed "Sing Along Sound of Music" at Mercyhurst. It was the same as the original SoM with subtitles during the musical numbers. People were supposed to sing along with the movie and participate Rocky Horror style. There were handout kits with cue cards and little props like a (fake) eidelweiss flower that people were supposed to wave during Christopher Plummer's number.

The show went well if you consider the clientele...Academics and older people who would have grown up watching movies like that.

We did have some concern whether the show would go over, all right. What if some people wanted to sit quietly and watch while others were singing and dancing? None of those problems materialized. I think it all comes down to the expectations of the clientele and how the movie is promoted.

I think that the same thing will happen with this Taylor Swift gig. If you promote the show as an "audience participation" event, the expected clientele (a devoted fan base) will understand how to behave.

I also think that, Swifties or not, people will understand that the phrase "Throw away your theater etiquette" applies to this particular event and not any others.

I think it would be a good idea to promote this show as a "special event," just to be safe, however.

[Frank Cox]

The "next theatre down the road" from me posted some photos and videos of the crowd at their Taylor Swift shows and it doesn't look all that busy. I thought it might be packed but from what I can see in the photos there's lots of empty seats.

Of course I don't know what time those pictures were taken but if people are up jumping around the show must be on.

My wife just said if that's all there is then if they offer that movie to us for a week it might not be worth bothering with anyway.

It's apparently the number 6 opening weekend for this year which is pretty good but not head-and-shoulders above everything else. They're just counting dollars paid for tickets and the tickets are twice the price of a regular movie so I guess it's ultimately just half of the crowd that came for Barbie or Super Mario.

[Mike Blakesley]

It's the highest grossing concert movie of all time already, but also the highest priced one by far. As usual, they don't publicize the number that would REALLY count -- the number of tickets sold.

I figure it's probably about 2/3 of people paying the higher price, and the rest paying the under-12 price. If you take 2 adults and one child/senior, the average is 17.64. If you divide the first weekend gross of $97 million by $17.64, you get about 5.5 million people seeing the movie. That's not chump change, but it's no blockbuster either. I mean, there have been several $200 million opening weekends.

[Frank Cox]

It's the highest grossing concert movie of all time already

It depends on how you count it.

From: https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainmen...fice-1.6996944

not accounting for inflation, has made more than the $73 million Justin Bieber: Never Say Never earned in 2011. In today's dollars, that would be around $102 million.

So Justin Bieber beat it in terms of inflation-adjusted dollars and the number of number of tickets sold would be higher by a large margin.

As you say, it's a big movie but it's not a blockbuster.

[Ed Gordon]

Box Office: Taylor Swift’s ‘Eras Tour’ Concert Film Dazzles With Estimated $95 Million to $97 Million Opening Weekend

Long live the new box office queen.

After selling out stadiums across the country, Taylor Swift is filling movie theaters with “The Eras Tour” concert film, which ignited to estimates of $95 million to $97 million over the weekend. Studios typically report a firmer number at this point, but “without clear comparisons, Sunday box office projections remain a range,” the film’s official distributor AMC Theatres said in a note to press. Rivals have suggested the final tally could be closer to $94 million.

It’s still a remarkable start for a concert film that was announced just six weeks ago and landed on the big screen with minimal promotion outside of Swift posting on social media to her 350 million followers.
At the international box office, “Eras Tour” collected $31 million to $33 million, putting its initial global tally between $126 million to $130 million.

During its first weekend in theaters, “The Eras Tour” became the highest-grossing concert film in domestic box office history, surpassing the entire $73 million run of “Justin Bieber: Never Say Never” in 2011. Depending on the final weekend tally, “The Eras Tour” has the potential to set an October box office benchmark, which is currently held by 2019’s “Joker” with $96 million.

“It’s such a unique achievement because we’re talking about a tentpole-level opening that didn’t exist on the planning calendar a few months ago,” says Shawn Robbins, the chief analyst at Box Office Pro.

Full article at: https://variety.com/2023/film/box-of...nd-1235756670/

[Carsten Kurz]

We played it from last friday on - and it was a total failure for us. Every show single digits. Very disappointing. We are now trying to get out of the last two weekends. At least we were allowed to play other movies monday to wednesday. That was the only reason we as a single commited.

[Ryan K Georgieff]

I like Taylor Swift but because of her the studio pushed back the Monty Python Holy Grail quote along this is the 3rd time it as been pushed back!!

[Frank Cox]

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