Now Fox is playing hardball on terms with AMC. Fox has demanded 100 percent of the surcharge for online/phone orders. As a result AMC has not sold online/phone tickets to Unfaithful or Minority Report -- and made its reasons known to the public on the AMC website.

AMC has gone one step further: It no longer promotes Fox pictures in the e-mail newsletter for the Moviewatcher club. No mention of Minority Report last week, no mention of Like Mike this week or next.

The battle actually predated my stint with the company. AMC definitely did not blink and, eventually, Paramount mellowed out. That's a lot of screens they'd have to kiss goodbye.

I know a lot of folks on this site don't have many kind words for AMC but I think we should support them in this endeavor in whatever way(s) we can. Their motives don't include us, but we will all be affected directly or indirectly by the outcome of this "fight."

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I.E.

Cobb Theatres with New Line's "THE MASK"
Regal Cinemas with New Line's "Rush Hour 2"

Interestingly enough Regal did not open "RUSH HOUR 2" nationwide and it still was one of the top grossing movies of all times......

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The Loews Lincoln Square in NYC got to open One Hour Photo. The AMC Hamilton picks up The Good Girl on its national break -- and you can get your tickets online.

From the very beginning, distribution has tried very hard to go up that road of wanting a percentage of concessions. I believe they even took NATO to court over it and lost (I think it was Disney -- surprise, surprise -- who brought the challenge). But this is only hearsay. The argument being, no one is coming to your theatre to buy popcorn -- they come because of our picture and so we are entitled to a portion of those sales. Sure is a good thing the ruling went in NATOs favor or the whole economic picture would be very different today.

As for Fox getting into it with AMC, Fox had better watch its butt because if AMC hunkers down and refuses to play Fox product, Fox is going to be in big trouble in NYC. Having no play on either side of the street in both the Loews E-Walk or the AMC Empire in Times Square has got to be a major blow to Fox, both in revenue and prestige.

There was a time, many many years ago when almost all theatres made a profit (or at least existed)without concession sales. It wasn't until during the depression that many theatres started selling refreshments as they were looking for any way to bring in extra revenue. Most of the major deluxe houses didn't get concession stands until the early 40s, as they looked down upon the thought of selling such as beneath them. The average film rental during that period for a first run house was budgeted at 25 to 35%. Most film was sold flat, but it still had to fall into that budget parameter. From almost the very beginning distribution felt itself entitled to a share of those sales, but exhibition always balked. Distribution simply raised the film rentals. Those rentals continued to rise throughout the decades until we arrived to where we are and have been for quite some time... paying 60 to 70% for opening weeks.

I just don't quite understand how exhibition got into this mess in the first place. After all, without theatres the distribs wouldn't have any place to show their pictures. Suppose just one large chain decided they wouldn't play any picture at any percentage higher than 60/40 or any picture with a minimum of say more than three weeks. If that chain represented 30% of the screens across the country, seems to me that would be one huge loss for any distrib's opening weekend. And as we all know, they seem to almost irrationally and compulsively focused on those first weekend numbers. If they loose one chain, that would devastate their positioning in those stupid weekend tallies -- who's number one in BO sales. If a second chain were to do the same, wouldn't that would be a tremendous amount of power shifted to exhibition? And what if NATO got all its members to adopt the same guidelines, just like the MPAA member studios seem to have all gotten together and now make deals all with the same terms. I could never understand why it is that distribution gets to dictate the terms when exhibition certainly wheels enough power to at least be able to negotiate terms and not just accept whatever is handed to them.

In the old days, distribs saw theatres as their life blood. Use to be, the neighborhood theatres would be able to negotiate terms based on the business they did. The distrib's booker had all the BO statements on file and could see what kind of business the theatre was doing and would determine terms many times dropping percentages based on that business. Although I came into the business after this had stopped, there were the stories you heard about some companies selling product to older theatres flat and with low guarantees just to keep the theatre afloat -- they knew that it was important to have theatres to play product in even a theatre was going through a slump. Distribution and exhibition were partners. Them days are over.

Ah, buying pictures FLAT....what a concept! When I started, you could occasionally get a picture flat if you were playing a double bill from the same distrib. But that was long ago in a galaxy far far away.

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