Are the streamers runnign out of st(r)eam?

[Bobby Henderson]

I guess you are just more confident in the altruism of people who own the chains than I am.

I'm sorry I gave you that impression. Upper management of theater chains is a big part of the problem. There were hints about that in my previous comments about theater managers being buried in paperwork and having to waste lots of time chasing down stupid shit, such as a full accounting for all drink cups sold versus cups that were in the inventory. If the number of cups doesn't balance out there is hell to pay.

My late friend who managed the Carmike 8 in Lawton could be stuck in his office well into the AM hours if one of the cash registers in the box office or concessions counter didn't balance out to the penny. The folks at the home office were absolute bastards about that. The upper management guys were always up this GM's ass about payroll and keeping as few people as possible on the clock. That often meant the GM and any Assistant Managers on salary doing as much "grunt" work as possible in addition to their paperwork duties. Such staffing policies make the chances even lower that problems with presentation quality will be noticed at all, much less addressed.

Even if a manager notifies the higher ups that there is hardware in the booth on the fritz, speakers damaged or he needs a tech to come out and do other kinds of service work chances are high the upper management people will refuse the requests to save a buck. They'll defer the maintenance until lots of customers start complaining -like no picture on the screen at all or no audio or dialog coming out of the center channel. The current business model with theater chains appears to be letting the cinema just deteriorate all to hell before slapping some duct tape on it.

Of course the upper management in theater chains have the perfect scapegoat: the movie distributors. They'll say they have to keep theaters staffed with as few low-paid people as possible because the movie distributors keep their profit margins low. I don't really know how true that is. But the end result is presentation quality suffering, not to mention the condition of theater seats, other fixtures, auditorium cleanliness, etc. As the theater customer I don't feel like I'm missing out on much by waiting only around a month to see a certain movie on my big-ass TV screen at home.

I swear, some of the shit I see going on in certain theaters (such as our AMC here in Lawton lately) remind me of how Sears was run into the ground. Holy shit, the Sears store we had in Lawton looked absolutely sad in its last couple years of operation. Nothing was being maintained. Big parts of the store were empty, devoid of product to sell. I've seen thrift stores that looked a lot better. The movie-going experience isn't going to appear all that "special" to customers if it feels like the theater is being run on a shoe-string budget.

My argument is simply that if the release window went away, cinemas would be forced to focus on the experience in order to attract customers.

The problem is cinemas need money to be able to improve the experience. A really good projected image and really good sound costs money to deliver and costs continual money to maintain at what would be a professional level of quality. Keeping good staff on board (and enough staff in the theater at any one time) costs money too. If the theatrical release window is eliminated entirely the movie theaters will have far fewer customers and far less money coming into the registers. Most cinemas will close. The ones that survive will struggle badly. If enough theaters shut down then entire supply chains of cinema-related products will vanish.

[Geoff Jones]

@BobbyHenderson:
I guess you are just more confident in the altruism of people who own the chains than I am.

My guess is that if the profit margins of theaters increased as a result of a wider release window without any improvements in presentation, theaters would not see any need to improve their presentations. The profits would go to the owners, managers, and stockholders, not to the rank and file employees, and not to the equipment.


@MarkLane
I wasn't suggesting that a single screen theater in a town of 721 people should show Pride & Prejudice. I am sorry if it seemed that I was.


My argument is simply that if the release window went away, cinemas would be forced to focus on the experience in order to attract customers. (It sounds as if you are already doing exactly that, so bravo.)

[Mark Lane]

Yup, this is definitely a good way for cinemas to sell more tickets to people who aren't willing to wait and don't care about presentation.

When I asked, "So what's your solution," I phrased the question poorly. Sorry about that. What I meant to ask was:

What ideas do you have that could lead to cinemas improving their presentation standards to something that's at least acceptable?

Pride and Prejudice would be a major failure for us. We have tried the older and classic movies. Very few people come to them and those that do are generally older. It draws a crowd that does not spend much money on concessions. A theater needs to think about the demographics of who will come to see a movie and how much they will spend on concessions. A kid's or family movie will bring out bigger spenders where another movie brings out senior citizens. We only have one screen so we try and book movies that will have the biggest impact on the community and our bottom line.

What ideas do we have?? We have focused on the experience. We don't think of ourselves as selling popcorn or a movie.. we sell an experience. The popcorn and the movie are only a part of the experience. We are replacing the sign that works as a marquee and adding a custom made marquee that will give the theater a more grand look and set the tone when people come in. We found a local artist who was able to make us a custom "Welcome" intro that has an older feel to it. Later this week or next week, he should have custom Concession video and Now of Featured presentation message. We are looking into public domain shorts and cartoons to add to the screen before the movie. (our cost is about $100 each but adds to the feel to the theater)
We have taken out three rolls of seats and added more leg rooms. We could not afford new seats but for a few hundred dollars we could provide a better view of the screen and make setting in a theater chair for two hours more comfortable.
We keep our prices low. Tonight's showing of Bad Guys is $3.00 ($5.00 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights). Large popcorn is $3.00 and a large drink is $2.75.
We are an older theater (1947) and we try and honor the way it was done in the 1950s. No point of purchase system.. we yell out the order and the teens have learned to remember them and fill them. We average about 20 seconds per person so we can move people pretty fast. The old ticket machine, the rotary dial phone.. all is part of the show.

The local artist will do images to put on the screen.. our cost is $20.00 to $25.00. I can have him do some ads which I hate but if they can fit the overall feel, it is not so bad. It helps support local businesses. We can also put congratulation messages, Happy Birthday, etc. I probably, in time learn how to do it myself but for that price, I just pass the cost to the customer so I don't have to deal with it. The messages of local businesses, local seniors, and local school sports teams, and local trivia is something we hope will help build a local connection and support.

We focus on to-go orders. During slower days, the concession stand can do more in to-go orders than the sales from those watching the movie. If we can not beat the streaming services, we hope to use them to help make sales. There is nothing like theater popcorn while watching a movie.. even if that movie is shown in a living room.

We are always looking or ways to improve the overall experience and look forward to reading what others are doing.

[Bobby Henderson]

What ideas do you have that could lead to cinemas improving their presentation standards to something that's at least acceptable?

The first thing that must happen is commercial movie theaters need to be in a position where they have better profit margins, thus an ability to attract employees who are more detail oriented and care more about what they're doing. Anyone making near minimum wage can't really be expected to give a damn, much less stick around in that job for any steady amount of time. Good presentation standards rely largely on humans sweating the small stuff. The theater needs at least one person in the building who is concerned with show quality.

Too many theaters have their equipment running in set it and forget it mode. Managers are buried in paperwork, running around trying to account for how many drink cups were sold versus how many were used that day. From my layperson vantage point it looks like 95% of a theater manager's job is running the concessions side of the business. Then there's all sorts of other operations related to the building (custodial service, security, city/utility issues, etc). What's happening in the auditoriums is way down the list of priorities even though that is supposed to be the main freaking product being sold. The skeleton crew of minimal paid employees, kids mostly, are busy cleaning up after the mess the previous crowd of selfish pigs left in the auditoriums, bathrooms and lobby. Neither the employees or managers are inclined to check the condition of actual show quality on any kind of frequent basis. They're not going to know a stage channel speaker is blown or something else is wrong until a customer finally bothers to tell them about it. That is the main thing that needs to change. It should not be left up to customers to enforce quality control.

I don't expect the average cinema's sound system B-chain to be re-tuned for each movie engagement like they did long ago at the GCC Northpark 1-2 in Dallas. But the A-chain and B-chain needs to at least be inspected on a somewhat frequent basis to make sure everything is properly operational. How frequent? I don't know. Once every 3 months or 6 months? To me it appears most theaters are going years between any service checks. Sheesh, what I'm seeing now at our local AMC 13-plex is visible damage to seats and other fixtures going un-repaired. Never mind someone managing to notice a blown surround speaker.

How do cinemas get into a position where they can afford better staff and afford more attention to details? The movie studios must help by increasing the theatrical release window. There has to be some kind of time penalty to suffer when choosing to skip the cinema and watch a movie on TV at home. That penalty was painful in the 1980's and going well into the 1990's, a wait time which often measured more than a year. And when one was finally able to rent the video it was a VHS tape with shitty image and sound quality. Nearly half the image could be chopped off via pan and scan. Today the wait penalty is minimal and the image on the TV is very similar to that shown in theaters, right down to the letter-boxed image, both in theaters and at home.

Major studios aren't going to increase the theatrical release window or change the kinds of movies they're making until they're hit with a crisis.

The movie studios could help by having some consistent damn standards on things like audio levels for movie trailers versus the feature. Maybe that way the theaters won't see speakers blown so easy. But some of that also comes down to the theater operators for cutting corners by installing under-powered sound systems and cutting corners on projection and sound maintenance. We don't really have anything like THX anymore to establish some kind of performance bar to hit. It's all mystery meat digital.

A good argument could be made for building multiplex sites with fewer auditoriums. Concentrate the finite amount of resources onto fewer screens to make them better.

I think small auditoriums with fewer than 100 seats are a waste of money. There is no marquee value anymore with a multiplex having a ridiculous number of screens (18, 24 or even 30 screens). It ends up being a kind of false advertising if a bunch of those screens are small rooms with small screens and few seats. I can watch a movie on only one screen at a time. So, given the choice between a 12-plex with a bunch of mediocre rooms versus a 4-plex with better rooms I'll choose the 4-plex site. It's common for theaters with 10 or more screens to have one or more movies playing on multiple screens. The only thing playing a movie on 2 or more screens does is encourage procrastinators. There is a serious cost outlay involved for each auditorium, even the tiny ones with less than 100 seats. More screens was supposed to mean more variety. Instead of one movie playing in 2 or 3 modest sizes rooms why not just have one show of it playing in a much bigger room with a more impressive screen?

[Geoff Jones]

Those ticket sales numbers don't mean much.

Yes, I acknowledged that with my comment: Granted, those numbers will likely change...

I checked again at 6:15 but was unable to check any later than that. P&P had sold 12 tickets. The other eight movies had sold 22, an average of 3 tickets per title (rounding up).

Regardless of what movie is selling tickets or not any theater needs to sell more than 7 tickets of Pride and Prejudice to cover operation costs.

Obviously.

The point isn't that Pride & Prejudice sold 7 (or 12) tickets. The point is that a film that anyone can watch at home sold more tickets than eight other films that are still within the release window, in a small city in Wyoming. (So maybe the focus should be on the moviegoing experience, not the release window.)

Obviously the best thing for cinemas is a much longer theatrical window...

Yup, this is definitely a good way for cinemas to sell more tickets to people who aren't willing to wait and don't care about presentation.

When I asked, "So what's your solution," I phrased the question poorly. Sorry about that. What I meant to ask was:

What ideas do you have that could lead to cinemas improving their presentation standards to something that's at least acceptable?

[Bobby Henderson]

Those ticket sales numbers don't mean much. They're posted around 5 hours before show time, for a Wednesday evening slate of shows. Also, April has usually been a pretty slow time for new first run releases -back when market conditions were more normal. Regardless of what movie is selling tickets or not any theater needs to sell more than 7 tickets of Pride and Prejudice to cover operation costs.

So what's your solution?

It's certainly not movie distributors doing day and date releases. That's like solving a movie theater's problems by burning down the building.

Obviously the best thing for cinemas is a much longer theatrical window, as well as longer windows for other release platforms, like retail physical media sales or direct digital download sales. If it takes only a month or two for a movie to go from theaters to showing up on Disney+ or HBO Max then both the theatrical run and retail run get cannibalized in favor of boosting subscriber numbers. Worse yet, these movies get forgotten quickly in the badly designed user interfaces of streaming apps. It's stupid as hell. But the big media company bean counters love it for some reason.

I'm afraid a kind of Pandora's Box has been opened. The movie industry isn't going to go back to using movie release patterns from 20 years ago or releasing the kinds of movies they did 20 years ago unless the current movie industry we know it goes through a really painful crash.

There are warning signs of such a crash happening. People are getting tired of all the super hero movies, the re-makes, sequels of re-makes and all the other safe, derivative shit that's global-market safe. Even if a lot of it is well-produced there is still a fast food style stink wafting off of it. I think there are some parallels to today's global spectacles and road show flops of the late 1960's. Those over-long bible epics gave way to a lot more edgy theatrical content in the early 1970's. Today's spectacles haven't hit their crash point yet. But the trend has over-stayed its welcome. Hair band metal was great in the early 1980's but then it got stupid and lame as hell by the late 1980's. We're getting in the same bad hair metal phase with today's mainstream Hollywood movies.

Maybe with a severe market correction the media companies, movie studios and cinema chains might be forced to re-think what they're selling to the public.

[Geoff Jones]

I agree things need to change in the commercial movie theater industry.

So what's your solution?


PS: In Casper (50k), tonight's showing of Pride and Prejudice is up to 7 tickets sold. The ~7pm showings of the eight new releases have surpassed it, with a grand total of 8 tickets altogether.

[Bobby Henderson]

Here's a comparison from late last year of Carrie (1976) and Free guy in OKC, a city known for its artsy-fartsy population.

Oklahoma City has a metro population over 1 million people. Norman, home to Oklahoma University, is in the metro. Stillwater, home to OSU, is outside the metro area, but considerably closer than Lawton. There is enough people in that immediate area for repertory shows to draw decent crowds from time to time. Also, the Bricktown 16 theater in that comparison is showing mostly first run content. It's not like they had Carrie playing on the big Cine Capri screen. Another factor: market conditions in cinemas last year were very far from normal. Most theaters were being starved of new content. Things are still not exactly normal; most theaters are still operating with limited hours/shows. Very few cinemas, such as the New Beverly in Los Angeles, can get away with showing repertory content exclusively.

You are currently driving 100 miles to see movies because the theaters nearby don't provide a quality presentation. How long will that last? Why should that 100-mile-away theater bother to maintain its presentation if it has a (short-term) monopoly on its content?

I don't drive out of town, such as up to Oklahoma City, every time I see a movie in a theater. Most of the time I settle for watching shows at our local AMC theater, which isn't all that often. It has been at least a year plus a few months since I've watched a movie in Oklahoma City.

Meanwhile, over at the AVS forum, there are threads about 4k projectors with thousands of posts and millions of views because an awful lot of people do care about presentation. They just aren't the ones going to the cinemas any more, by and large.

Forums like AVS, Home Theater Forum or even this forum cater to a niche audience. But even some technically astute home theater fans are deliberately not supporting commercial cinemas at all; they think their home setups are better.

Non-expert movie goers don't think it is anything special to watch a movie in a commercial cinema; if there is a cheaper option available they'll choose that. Even the movie distributors have admitted to this via their own actions. If they really thought day and date releasing was going to make them so much more money why didn't they use the excuse of this pandemic to lean into it all the way? Warner Bros did day and date releasing for a while (via HBO Max), but then backed off of it.

I agree things need to change in the commercial movie theater industry. But day and date release patterns on a permanent basis will only make matters much worse for cinemas. Most theaters would close. That would radically shrink the market for all cinema-related products. Items that don't disappear will spike in price due to the items needing to be produced in much lower quantities. That would put even more downward pressure on show quality (not to mention wage scales for theater personnel).

The entire paradigm of the theatrical release platform really hinges on there being at least so many cinema screens in service. No one is going to see new lines of d-cinema projectors or even replacement lamps for them being made if the US goes from 40,000+ screens down to only a few hundred. Even with tens of thousands of screens it's difficult for computer chip makers to be profitable making specialty components for use only in commercial cinemas.

As others have mentioned previously, studios MAY reserve the theatrical window for their "blockbuster" movies and go direct to streaming (or a combination of streaming and theatrical) for their less salable movies.

This is already happening, but in a different way. Far more "grown up" movies and comedies are being produced solely for streaming services, bypassing theaters entirely. Cinema screens are being dominated more by super hero movies and other kinds of spectacles that can be marketed globally.

[Harold Hallikainen]

Also, putting content on streaming early apparently makes it easier for pirate copies to be made and distributed early.

I really wonder how the economics work out. Does an exclusive theatrical window increase or decrease the value of the content when it streams. What is the total revenue to the studio from theaters and independent streamers (not owned by studios) under various release window conditions? As others have mentioned previously, studios MAY reserve the theatrical window for their "blockbuster" movies and go direct to streaming (or a combination of streaming and theatrical) for their less salable movies. Movies with no theatrical window is today's "direct to DVD" movie.

[Geoff Jones]

Specifics please.

Here's a comparison from late last year of Carrie (1976) and Free guy in OKC, a city known for its artsy-fartsy population.

Here's another: Tonight, in the bustling metropolis of Casper, Wyoming (population 60k), at the Studio City @ Mesa + ARQ, the ~7pm showings of 8 different new releases (Bad Guys, Northman, Massive Talent, Fantastic Beasts, Father Stu, Ambulance, Morbius, & Lost City) have currently sold only 4 tickets, in total.

The ~7pm showing of Pride and Prejudice (2008) has also sold 4 tickets. Granted, those numbers will likely change as the 7pm hour draws closer, but there will likely be showtimes of new releases that sit completely empty.

Both of those examples are obviously a little thin. When classics with broader appeal than Carrie or P&P are shown, they do much better. But even those two titles show(ed) better performance than new releases, despite the fact that anyone can watch them at home whenever they want.


You are currently driving 100 miles to see movies because the theaters nearby don't provide a quality presentation. How long will that last? Why should that 100-mile-away theater bother to maintain its presentation if it has a (short-term) monopoly on its content?

Meanwhile, over at the AVS forum, there are threads about 4k projectors with thousands of posts and millions of views because an awful lot of people do care about presentation. They just aren't the ones going to the cinemas any more, by and large.

Something has to change.



Edit to add: Oh - I missed this:

Theaters in smaller cities or towns will go broke trying to show such content exclusively.

I'm not suggesting that theaters should show classics exclusively. They should show both.

I'm suggesting that theaters can and should draw customers by providing outstanding experiences, rather than rely on a short term content monopoly.

[Bobby Henderson]

Geoff, it would not be a good thing for 90% or more of commercial cinemas to go out of business. If that happens the very business model for much of the industry-specific products made for movie theaters will be dissolved. There has to be a market base of at least so many theater screens to make everything from d-cinema projection systems and cinema screens down to a bunch of the stuff installed in theater lobbies. The prices of some products will spike and other products will just disappear. We've already seen this play out with the production of film projectors. If there isn't a large enough customer/install base any product will be End-Of-Life'd.

As I said earlier, the movie studios need at least so many commercial cinemas in service to make any efforts worth it to distribute movies on a theatrical basis. They're sure as hell not going to do any national ad-buys on movies that play on only a dozen or so screens around the country.

And yet, screenings of classics, which can be watched at home any time, continue to draw large crowds and outperform new releases across the country, and not just in "giant-sized cities."

Specifics please.

We have two theaters in the Lawton area (population around 120,000): an AMC 13-plex with an IMAX-branded screen and the old Vaska theater. The Vaska doesn't run full time; it mostly shows first run movies but occasionally shows older movies, like The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The theater can't survive without the first run content. And even still it's operating on a wing and prayer. I know the guy who owns the building and he's being pretty much charitable with the lease arrangements just to keep the theater alive.

Appreciation of classic movies on the big screen is very much a big city phenomenon. A cinema needs enough of an artsy-fartsy customer base to draw upon for those kinds of shows to work. The situation might be do-able in Denver or even Oklahoma City. Theaters in smaller cities or towns will go broke trying to show such content exclusively.

[Geoff Jones]

More than 90% would disappear in a short amount of time.

The ONLY reason why most of these people end up in commercial cinemas is because that is the only way they can see the movie at that time.

And yet, screenings of classics, which can be watched at home any time, continue to draw large crowds and outperform new releases across the country, and not just in "giant-sized cities."

[Bobby Henderson]

I really hope they end up shutting many of the streamers down, because then the studios will have to rely on theater revenues again.

The problem is big media company bean counters have taken control of the steering wheel. Those guys don't care very much about the revenue one single movie can make by itself. They care much more about a larger library of content and how that library can tie into other media properties, like TV networks. One Marvel movie doesn't get them excited, but a concept like the "Marvel Universe" generates more interest.

The streaming services are all sold on this content portfolio idea. Bean counters like the idea of many millions of customers being on the hook for a monthly subscription. It generates far more steady cash-flow that the radical up-down cycles seen in commercial cinemas -cycles that are very title-dependent.

I would like to see the release window disappear completely. Every title should be available both at home and in theaters, day and date.

100% day and date release will kill the vast majority of cinemas. More than 90% would disappear in a short amount of time. The only ones that would survive an environment like that would be theaters in giant sized cities. And if there are too few of those cinemas left the movie studios will pull the plug on the entire release platform. There won't be enough theaters around to make the effort of doing any theatrical release worth their while. They sure won't spend much money at all promoting such limited theatrical releases.

Far too much of the general public doesn't really give a damn about the difference between seeing a movie in a commercial cinema versus watching it on a TV screen at home, or even watching it on a portable device. They don't care. The ONLY reason why most of these people end up in commercial cinemas is because that is the only way they can see the movie at that time.

If a cheaper, at-home viewing option is available that's what most people are going to choose. People like me who would drive 100 miles to watch a movie in a big theater with Dolby Atmos sound are in a very small minority. Other people are happy to get a "fire stick" thing and watch a boot-legged camcorder version of the show on their phone. Big picture? Surround sound? Atmos? Who cares? That's the attitude of too much of the general public.

Choosing the cheaper option is also partly why physical media sales of movies has largely tanked. The shitty efforts of movie studios in recent years could also be a factor; most retail movie discs are bare bones affairs that offer little advantage over simply streaming the movie. Plus, the vast majority of these movies are worth watching only one single time. My movie disc buying habits died off years ago because of that. I'd rather save the shelf space than keep adding discs that will only gather dust.

[Geoff Jones]

I really hope they end up shutting many of the streamers down, because then the studios will have to rely on theater revenues again.

I would like to see the release window disappear completely. Every title should be available both at home and in theaters, day and date.

I think it's the only thing that would improve the moviegoing experience. Without their vaunted window of exclusivity, cinema chains would have to find other way to draw customers.

This would result in a smaller number of screens, at least in the near term, but they would be much better than they are today and they would be filled with audiences who actually care about presentation.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I really hope they end up shutting many of the streamers down, because then the studios will have to rely on theater revenues again . I also don't think that people always want to sit at home and watch a movie when they can go see it on the big screen. It's hard to beat seeing a movie in a real theater. Well, unless it's an AMC. Then watch the movie at home!!!!