September Slump

[James Wyrembelski]

Sept probably wont be as bad here as locations that need to fill a lot of screens but I am a touch worried and very worried about larger theaters. It's worked out that we'll be bringing in Thor for the first time and bringing back Top Gun for the first couple weekends. I could get away with bringing back Elvis another week since we did extremely well with it and only ran it for a week. But that leaves other films out that I'd like to bring in just because they normally wouldn't play at all here.

On one hand it's nice to do that. We're doing Mrs. Harris and Three Thousand Years of Longing and then closing for a much needed break a week before Lyle comes out. I hope our grosses for those aren't nearly as dire as what I'm seeing reported. Bullet Train was one of those for us. Which saddens me in all of it. None of these films have terrible reviews and seem to have generally pretty positive reviews. The small films just can't get much of an audience. I wish more people would give these a chance!

Not that we haven't had decent variety this year but I wish it was a struggle on which film to choose every week. People cry about lack of any variety of films but the more original content just cant get any traction. They're not bad films! (Well, at least most of them).

[Mike Blakesley]

We played Bullet Train for a week and it was about six days too long as far as I am concerned. We had at least a dozen walkouts on it, and that's pretty bad considering the low number of people who came to see it. We had an inordinate amount of senior citizens to it -- I guess because it was Brad Pitt? Some people (even some of the seniors) loved it, but the ones who hated it, REALLY hated it. I watched the first 20 minutes and had not a freaking clue what was happening so I gave up. My wife stuck it out, she said it was OK but would never want to watch it again.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Did you hear back about E.T. from your booker? I've seen some theaters around here having it scheduled this coming week, some of them IMAX theaters, but definitly also non-IMAX venues. There also hasn't been any large scale advertising campaign I'm aware of, but it seems like it's being pushed by the studios, probably because of their self-created slump in fresh theatrical offerings right now...

[Mike Blakesley]

I haven't heard anything yet but I just sent him an email to see if he's heard anything. He may know something and just forgot to tell me since we have the next couple of weeks covered and haven't had to talk about it.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Well, those things definitly are out there...

I just watched the re-release of "Jaws" in a non-IMAX theater. I don't know how much restauration work they did and what the source of the DCP was, but it was a pretty good transfer. The audio was also expanded from its original mono sound towards 5.1, although the surround and LFE effects are pretty muted. John William's signature soundtrack expanded to stereo sounded pretty convincing.

Since Jaws was filmed in an AR of 2.35, I'm not sure why an IMAX release would make much sense. I've watched a few scope movies on a giant native 1.43 IMAX screen and it just looked stupid... it even triggered a somewhat of a claustrophobic feeling, seeing this HUGE screen with just a slit of active image in the middle.

[Martin Brooks]

and even going to show a Bela Lugosi movie and War with the Army with Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. These movies will be priced at .35¢ since they are public domain movies and don't cost us anything...

Those would only be public domain if the copyrights weren't properly renewed, which has happened In a number of cases. I think "It's A Wonderful Life" is PD, for example. Movies follow the same copyright rules as Print:
Before 1927: PD
1927-1977: Published without a copyright notice: PD
1927-1963: Published with a copyright notice, but copyright not renewed: PD
1927-1963: Copyright renewed: 95 years
1964-1977: Published w/ notice: 95 years
1978-3/1/89: Published without notice, and without subsequent registration within 5 years: PD
1978-3/1/89: Published without notice, but with subsequent registration within 5 years -or -Created after 1977 and published with notice: 70 years after the death of author. If a work of corporate authorship, 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever expires first
1978-3/1/89: Created before 1978 and first published with notice in the specified period: The greater of the term specified in the previous entry or 31 December 2047
3/1/89-2002: Created after 1977: 70 years after the death of author. If a work of corporate authorship, 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever expires first
3/1/89-2002: Created before 1978 and first published in this period: The greater of the term specified in the previous entry or 31 December 2047
2003-: 70 years after the death of author. If a work of corporate authorship, 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever expires first
Anytime: Works prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person's official duties: PD

[James Wyrembelski]

So where does a film "tracking number" come from? My booker convinced me to pick up Dont Worry Darling for various reasons but he also said it's showing a tracking number of 17 which is very high. Where does this number come from?

Also, besides one week if DWD does indeed do well, perhaps Sept won't be so bad after all.

[William Kucharski]

We played Bullet Train for a week and it was about six days too long as far as I am concerned. We had at least a dozen walkouts on it, and that's pretty bad considering the low number of people who came to see it. We had an inordinate amount of senior citizens to it -- I guess because it was Brad Pitt? Some people (even some of the seniors) loved it, but the ones who hated it, REALLY hated it. I watched the first 20 minutes and had not a freaking clue what was happening so I gave up. My wife stuck it out, she said it was OK but would never want to watch it again.

I'm surprised by that - I loved it.

[William Kucharski]

Since Jaws was filmed in an AR of 2.35, I'm not sure why an IMAX release would make much sense. I've watched a few scope movies on a giant native 1.43 IMAX screen and it just looked stupid... it even triggered a somewhat of a claustrophobic feeling, seeing this HUGE screen with just a slit of active image in the middle.

Jaws looked excellent in IMAX.

Most IMAX screens are not the original IMAX screens but rather the more recent "LieMAX" screens at AMCs and the like; that's where I saw Jaws.

[William Kucharski]

I think "It's A Wonderful Life" is PD, for example.

Nope.

Everything changed in 1993. In response to a Supreme Court ruling in Stewart v. Abend, the current copyright owners of It’s a Wonderful Life were able to enforce a copyright claim to the movie. The Court in Steward v. Abend held that a current copyright owner has the exclusive right to exploit derivative works, even in light of potentially conflicting agreements by prior copyright holders. Coincidentally, the Steward v. Abend case involved another James Stewart movie, Rear Window.

Because the current copyright owners of It’s a Wonderful Life still owned the movie rights of the original story on which the movie is based, the current copyright owners argued that their rights to the story told in It’s a Wonderful Life still existed and were enforceable to prevent unauthorized showing of the movie in its current form.

https://www.mintz.com/insights-cente...-classic-its-0

So through various legal gymnastics, IaWL is once again fully protected by copyright.

[Martin Brooks]

So through various legal gymnastics, IaWL is once again fully protected by copyright.

That's interesting because I do sort of remember seeing VHS copies of the film from various no-name distributors back in the VHS rental days. But I can't remember if that was before or after 1993.

Starting in 2025, films of 1930 will fall into PD. That will get interesting in the subsequent years when films like the Universal horror films like "Dracula", "The Mummy" and "Frankenstein" become P.D. because those are still relatively popular. IaWL has until 2041.

[William Kucharski]

It was pre-1993 - see the referenced link.

The fact that it was accidentally PD for many years is what made it popular - TV stations ran it incessantly because it was free.

Two films that inadvertanty ended up being PD because the copyright message was accidentally omitted from the film were Night of the Living Dead and Charade.

[Mike Blakesley]

Did you hear back about E.T. from your booker?

He said E.T. can be booked by anyone now. There was just that couple of weeks when they were promoting it in the Imax's that they werent taking any "standard" bookings that week, but any theater could have booked it. He said it didn't do much business. I can sort of see why -- that's one movie that, while I loved it when it first came out, I have almost no nagging desire to watch it again. I don't think I've seen it since we played it.

[Marcel Birgelen]

E.T. surely was a big hit back in the 1980s, but I think it lost a lot of magic over the years. Maybe it's the 80s setting in which it is gridlocked and the fact that it's primarily feels like a movie targeted at children.

According to this article, the re-release of Jaws managed to draw quite a crowd...

Jaws is a box office hit again, 47 years after it first hit theaters

All it took was $3 movie tickets and 3D

This Saturday was dubbed “National Cinema Day,” in which theaters around the US cut their ticket prices to $3 in an effort to keep bringing people back to the movie theater. And it worked! More than 8.1 million people went to the movies on Saturday, Variety found, compared to 1 million the day before and 1.7 million the day after. National Cinema Day brought the biggest crowds to theaters of any day in 2022, which leads to one inevitable conclusion: people will go to movies when movies only cost three bucks. Who knew!

Read the rest here...

I didn't even know it was re-released in 3D too, but I somehow doubt that was the biggest draw.

[Steve Guttag]

Any theatre that does a cheap ticket day (e.g. Tightwad Tuesday) knows that sort of thing will condense one's ticket sales of the slower times into that single day...so, seeing National Cinema Day significantly out-drawing its neighboring days is not a statistic miracle. In fact, one would presume it, if they have any sort of thinking power. And yes, a $3 ticket price will entice people to put going to the movies higher on people's "What shall we do" list. Again, no genius move there. The question of such pricing is could the industry sustain itself at significantly lower prices? Would the public, if the prices were to suddenly drop to say half of what their regular prices are come in such numbers, consistently, to keep the revenue up so high that the industry could sustain itself from content creation though operation?

I don't know many exhibitors that want high ticket prices. That just puts more revenue into the distributor's pocket and leaves less money left over for the concession stand.

No matter how many people think they've got the answer about cinemas and their "high ticket prices" when one compares the cinema ticket price to the minimum wage (the typical income of the floor staff at a cinema and the typical income of the prime movie going audience...at least at their start)...the number of hours worked to have enough money to see a movie just hasn't changed all that much in the numerous decades. A minimum wage employee needs to work less than 2-hours to afford the ticket. The perception of high ticket prices is and has always been one of comparing current prices to some point in yesteryear and never accounts for people's income of yesteryear compared to current. It never accounts for what it takes to make a movie and huge number of people that are on the payroll to get it done (just check out the credits...all of those people). Like any product...not all are hits. Movies are made on the faith that when it is green lighted, it will eventually make its money back with profit. That isn't guaranteed at all and, for a studio, like a manufacturer, the success of some products helps cover the losses of others.

I have no problem with lowering ticket prices but you'd need the Studios to get behind that and they'd need to study at what point is the increase in ticket sales versus cheaper tickets equal to a larger take. However, these people can seem to figure out basic stuff like shorter theatrical windows cut into profits despite that data staring them in the face. People want to see GOOD movies. There needs to be a large enough variety of good movies to cover a wide range of tastes. There needs to be an exclusivity to create value in going out. Top Gun:Maverick demonstrated that if you give people a good time, they'll come out. It wasn't a life changing movie with a message...it was just a good time like riding a roller coaster. Another thing that one cannot do...tell the public that going to the cinema is a risky proposition. We STILL have a section of the public that is scared to go out and especially to cinemas.