September Slump

[James Wyrembelski]

I cannot wait for this month to be over.

Should have went with what I originally planned and closed for 2 weeks.

Don't Worry Darling has had to be our worst attended film to date if the trend continues. Not a single show has reached over 8 people. I may indeed worry for the next 2 weeks.


Praying to the film gods to deliver in October....

But they're probably going to be watching Hocus Pocus 2 on Disney+

[Mike Blakesley]

HP2 has got to be the most requested movie that isn’t a real movie we’ve ever had. Disney will get subscribers out of it, but they could have made a ton of theatre money with that thing.

[Mark Strube]

In the year of our Lord 2022, why is this still even a thing at this point???

Remember back when digital was shiny and new, and one of the big selling points was "get just about any movie you want!" because we wouldn't be limited to physical prints? Yeah. Sure.

I have a sneaking suspicion that part of the reason why this is still a thing are people at the studios trying to justify their jobs. "What?? We can't let just ANY theater screen The Woman King."

[Mike Blakesley]

Remember back when digital was shiny and new, and one of the big selling points was "get just about any movie you want!" because we wouldn't be limited to physical prints? Yeah. Sure.

That wasn't the studios telling us that -- it was the equipment dealers. The studios may have THOUGHT that would be the case, but then the bean counters got involved and that's why things have stayed pretty much the same as they were before. Read on to understand further.

It's not JUST about the total gross of a movie. It is about the "per-screen average." I would say the per-screen average is more important to the studios than the total gross, especially when it comes to mid-level (non blockbuster) movies. The only time the total is more important is if it's a huge number.

They decide how many screens they want based on how they think a movie will do. In the case of "The Woman King," they figured it was less likely to be a mainstream movie. They started that movie on 3765 screens (probably having a maximum of 4000). Since the movie is not mainstream, they were probably hoping for a per-screen average of around $3500 to $4000. But then the movie came out and proved more popular than expected; it did $19 million dollars in the first weekend. So the studio can go to the media and proclaim that it outperformed expectations. This leads to the news media and the industry at large thinking the movie is a big hit! When in reality it's still a non-mainstream movie with a relatively low gross.

But BECAUSE the movie proved to be more popular than they expected it to be (and partly because there is a dearth of movies to show), they probably could have put it on 6000 screens with no problem. But, most of those extra screens are probably relatively low grossers. So maybe the total would have only gone up to $22 million. Now the per-screen gross average is only $3667 per screen, and the media would think the movie is a flop because it performed worse than the studio expected!

So why couldn't they forget about the per-screen average and just promote the $22 million total? This is because $22 million is not an exciting number. Whereas if the movie had done $150 million, that's a nice BIG number and is more fun to trumpet out. Not many movies do that, but lots of movies do $22 million; it's boring.

[James Wyrembelski]

I wonder what the metrics would look like if they did per screen or even per show average rather than per theatre.

I remember seeing a youtube video from a small independent that actually did the math on how his typical gross would have affected a particular film.

I think it dropped the average by about 2-3 dollars if I recall. His point being that it in no way would have grossly impacted the large per screen average on the particular film he was denied. I'll have to see if I can find that particular video and revisit it.

[James Wyrembelski]

I don't know about anyone else but I may just need to change the title to "September/October" slump.

Lyle just about as bad as everything else.

Let's hope the Halloween fans change that.....

[Mike Blakesley]

Lyle did pretty well first 3 days, then Monday and Tuesday were zero! I don’t think we’ve ever had that happen before. Could be a long 2 weeks.

[Bobby Henderson]

There's literally nothing playing at our local movie theaters that I want to see. Our AMC 13-plex is still playing a couple movies that came out this summer, such as Bullet Train.

This movie-going situation is just awful. It feels like the post Holiday Season dregs of early January. But January would usually promise some Oscar-contending movies fixing to expand into wider release. We don't have that with this situation. The biggest new release is another Halloween sequel (40% critics score, 57% audience score at Rotten Tomatoes).

Traditionally, the crappy slow periods (like the first 2-3 weeks of January, mid to late April and the last 2-3 weeks of August) have been brief. This current downturn has been going on for months.

Obviously the movie studios are 100% to blame for this shit. Their media company parents are all in a contest with each other to beef up the content in the walled gardens of their streaming services. A bunch of grown-up movies (or shows turned into multi-part series) are bypassing the cinema platform entirely. I'll probably never watch a lot of those shows because I refuse to subscribe to every streaming platform. And I don't want to spend that much time sitting in front of a fucking living room TV screen.

Within the trickle of content the major movie studios are providing to cinemas all of it comes with either a very short exclusive theatrical window or the show is available to stream at home in some manner the same day it opens in theaters. That puts cinemas at an even worse disadvantage.

Clearly I think there is some monopolist activity with how the movie studios are literally starving cinemas of content. But it would be very difficult for theater chains to prove studios are colluding with each other in an anti-trust style court case. If this was 30 or more years ago the cinemas would have had more sources for content. There were both more major studios and smaller "independent" studios back then. A hell of a lot of consolidation has happened since then, with Disney absorbing 20th Century Fox being the latest example. Every major studio has a giant media company parent. All except for Columbia/Sony have a corresponding streaming service.

Commercial cinemas aren't the only party being hurt by this. If I stay home rather than visit a cinema on a weekend night that probably means I'm not going to eat at a restaurant or any of that other stuff either. Movie theaters are an anchor business in many shopping-dining-entertainment districts. If foot traffic is down at theaters it might reduce foot traffic in neighboring businesses. If a lot of movie theaters start closing for good it's going to be bad for the entire out-of-home service industry. Restaurants, retail stores and other kinds of entertainment outlets could be hurt. In this bigger picture view I think it's fair for Hollywood studios to answer for some of this crap in court or even Congress.

Even if there is no legal reckoning for what the movie studios are doing to cinemas, the studios are playing Russian Roulette with a loaded handgun. They're taking a big chance on commercial cinemas disappearing across pretty much all of the country. I don't see how the cinema platform could continue to exist in only a few big city markets. How do the companies making cinema-specific products stay in business and continue to supply a scant few theaters. If enough theaters fail the whole platform will disappear. I'm surprised a lot of theaters aren't closing already. It appears the movie studio brass (and higher ups) believe they can do business as usual without any theaters. The problem: if their content doesn't play in theaters then all they're selling is just TV shows. The media companies are playing race to the bottom economics and they're devaluing studio content in the process.

[James Wyrembelski]

I glanced at the release calendar for next year and January to mid April, to me, looks bleak as well. At least until Super Mario in April. Perhaps I need to revisit it but the beginning of 2023 doesn't look that great. We'll have to see what fuel prices, heating costs, and food inflation does during this time.

It's weird to think that I had more variety of films during the late August to mid October this year than I did during 2021 and 2019 yet sales were down compared to both years. And, in general, family films feel softer in attendance than they did prior to 2020. I have noticed a trend that concession sales are typically down in comparison to ticket sales. In most cases, especially for family films, they are generally equal to ticket sales if not higher. I've asked a few others if they have noticed the same and they have. Nothing overly drastic, but people have definitely cut back in that area just a tad.

At least Lyle in week two has outperformed week one here, which was a nice surprise but still doing poor relative to other family films we've played. Looking at comscore, it appears im the exception to the rule in this case. What a weird time we're in.

[Harold Hallikainen]

Are theaters reliant on major studios? We've seen some interesting movies at the Loft Film Festival in Tucson. How are independent and foreign movies doing? Can theaters make money showing something other than comic book movies?

[Bobby Henderson]

I can recall so many years in the past where the Fall season was pretty loaded with both crowd-pleasing hit movies and prestige films looking to rake in awards (as well as some money). There's not much of that now. Cinemas are going to get Black Adam and Jack Shit after that.

October has had hits like Gravity (2013), Meet the Parents (2000), A Star is Born (2018) and Joker (2019). There are far more examples going back many years with classics like Pulp Fiction (1993) or Under Siege the year prior. The Ten Commandments and My Fair Lady were October releases. As good as October has been for theaters in the past the same thing can be said for the latter parts of September.

In the years since the global pandemic began the major movie studios have effectively overturned the whole damned apple cart when it comes to the theatrical release model. I can't tell there is any strategy in place, other than trying to attract subscribers to specific streaming services.

I have noticed a trend that concession sales are typically down in comparison to ticket sales. In most cases, especially for family films, they are generally equal to ticket sales if not higher. I've asked a few others if they have noticed the same and they have. Nothing overly drastic, but people have definitely cut back in that area just a tad.

I wouldn't be surprised if movie-going customers were cutting back on snack counter purchases. They're cutting back on home entertainment spending too. Netflix lost 1.2 million subscribers in the first 2 quarters of the year. DirecTV has lost over 1 million subscribers this year and about 10 million over the past six years. The long term future for satellite TV looks very grim. Cord cutting overall is very popular. At the same time there is growing fatigue with all the damned streaming services.

Are theaters reliant on major studios?

Pretty much. They can try playing what little independent content is available, but often end up playing it to empty houses. Indie/art-house far usually needs a specific location in order to thrive, be it within a giant city metro market or a location with an upper class, highly educated populace. Unfortunately so many indie/art-house movies end up on streaming services just as fast (if not faster) than the major studio releases.

[Frank Cox]

The industry pretty much runs on hype. Movies need the saturation advertising, stars appearing on talk shows and so on in order to build awareness and demand.

I can be playing the best movie in the world here but if nobody knows anything about it they aren't coming.

Theatres can't do that kind of advertising; that's part of what the studios are supposed to be doing when they release a new movie.

Smaller "arthouse" studios don't have the budget and resources to do that kind of advertising for their movies, so they never get the same kind of crowds as the mainstream movies can (assuming they are properly advertised and not put onto a streaming service prematurely, neither of which is a certainty any more).

[Bobby Henderson]

Very often independent or art-house movies are targeted more to specific demographic groups, such as college students or college educated adults with a greater appreciation of the arts. A cinema that caters to such customers often must be built in a major city and/or location with a large arts community in order to draw enough of that kind of audience. Specialty chains like Alamo Drafthouse aren't going to build locations just anywhere. For instance there's a decent number of well educated, arts-loving people here in Lawton, but probably not nearly enough to keep a theater specializing in indie/art-house movies in business.

It's ironic, but a fair number of higher brow movie-goers do prefer watching movies at home, either to save a buck or just avoid the crowds at the multiplex. That hurts the chances further of a smaller city like Lawton being able to have a cinema that offers at least some indie/art-house shows.

I think middle aged and older people are a largely untapped market. Not many movies are made to appeal to them. In the past I've been surprised at how many older people show up for a movie at a theater. Chicago is one example. I imagine the appeal of Ticket to Paradise (opening this Friday) would skew more to an older crowd. How many theaters will be showing it? Continued fears of COVID-19 might convince some potential customers to stay home.

It's too bad theater chains don't have pockets deep enough to do much mass media TV advertising on their own. Lately I haven't seen a great deal of movies from major studios being advertised. There's lots of ads for Black Adam. And there was a lot of advertising leading up to the latest Halloween sequel release. Outside of that most "movie" ads I'm seeing are shows on streaming services, not content made exclusively for theaters.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

That wasn't the studios telling us that -- it was the equipment dealers. The studios may have THOUGHT that would be the case, but then the bean counters got involved and that's why things have stayed pretty much the same as they were before.

You CAN actually get any movie that distributers will license for showing. I know of three customers that during slow times license Blue Rays and show older movies, one customer even shuts his single screen down and just runs his three screen site. Many older movies can bring in enough revenue to keep those theaters alive during slow times in which they would have other wise have folded.

[Mark Strube]

You CAN actually get any movie that distributers will license for showing. I know of three customers that during slow times license Blue Rays and show older movies, one customer even shuts his single screen down and just runs his three screen site. Many older movies can bring in enough revenue to keep those theaters alive during slow times in which they would have other wise have folded.

One of the locations I handle programming for is exclusively repertory content. I was more referring to first-run limited release titles.