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Author
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Topic: NATO commissions report - long movies hitting profits
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 12-30-2012 10:08 AM
Edited quote, pruning the BS:
quote: Daily Mail
U.S. cinema owners have commissioned a report into losses suffered when screening a longer film four times a day rather than on six occasions, which is standard for a normal 90-minute film.
The National Association of Theatre Owners is concerned that audiences are growing tired of the ‘film bloat’ of Hollywood directors, who could comfortably reduce the length of their longest films.
One executive at the AMC (American Multi-Cinema) chain told the Sunday Times that he blamed Titanic and Avatar director James Cameron for ‘creating long “event” movies you had to see’.
Some of the longest films in decades gone by on the big screen would come with an interval - and cinemas would often take that as a chance to sell food and drink to viewers, experts said.
Famous long films from the past include 1963 classic Cleopatra, which ran for 242 minutes, the 229-minute Once Upon a Time in America from 1984 and 1962's 222-minute Lawrence of Arabia.
Also among the longest films are Dr. Zhivago from 1965, which ran for 203 minutes, 1974's The Godfather Part II, which lasted 200 minutes, and the 195-minute Schindler's List from 1993.
Interesting. Factors that aren't mentioned in the article include the increasing proportion of movie viewings on home media (where the length doesn't matter, especially as those with a short attention span can see it over two nights), growing exports from Bollywood, where three-hour plus films are the norm, and the rising real-terms cost of theatre tickets since around the turn of the century, which I had assumed was in part to offset the losses caused by an upward trend in film lengths.
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Chase Pickett
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 142
From: Irving, Texas, USA
Registered: Nov 2010
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posted 12-30-2012 07:25 PM
We show Indian films all day every day here. We always have a minimum of three screens playing them (one of which is our largest auditorium) and sometimes half of our screens are playing the various Hindi, Telugu, and Tamil films. To be completely honest, we would be really slow without them. They have intermissions 9 times out of 10 and we do not do very much in concession sales during those intermissions. An Ameican film with half the attendence will gross more than an Indian film in the concessions stand, despite our offerings of some indian snacks. That being said, the minimum ticket price is $12 for adults and $8 for kids, and sometimes reaching as high as $25 for adults, and we sell out on a very frequent basis. As I understand it, we are one of the highest grossing theaters for Bollywood in the nation, let alone in Texas.
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Edward Havens
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 614
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: Mar 2008
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posted 12-31-2012 12:28 PM
The two most successful titles during my brief final run at the Beverly Center (September 2009-June 2010) were Three Idiots and My Name is Khan, both three hour Bollywood movies were we had the area exclusive. But then, we also played Bollywood movies like Kites (and Brett Ratner's Americanized Kites: The Remix) which didn't do squat.
I think for Bollywood movies to be relatively successful outside of Bollywood circles, they need to be better advertised for more than a week. I know there's a tradition to just throw them out there as soon as they are completed, both in India and America, and that the target audience knows about them because they follow their favorite stars, but I do think there would be greater success for these movies outside of Hindi culture if Bollywood distributors partnered with American exhibitors to have longer pre-release promotion windows. How well would the latest Aamir Khan movie Talaash done if there were trailers in front of every AMC or Regal screen for two months leading up to its release last month? I wasn't aware of Khan's new movie until just now, writing this response, and I will see just about anything he (and Amitabh Bachchan) makes.
Length matters not to audiences, as long as the end result is worth the effort. Avatar and Titanic would have still been good if they were a half hour shorter each, but That's My Boy still would have been crappy if it were a half hour longer.
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