Too good to be true?

[GT98]

I find it weird that you say cinemas are packed while apparently attendance is low. I agree on the week-ends, but for the rest I find them far from crowded (mileage blah blah).

Well they are "crowded" due to a captive audiance...the teenybooper set doesnt have any place else to go and hang out, besides the typical areas like malls and what not (often next to movie theaters) so thats why they are crowded..Overall sales are down for the past 16 weeks compaired to last summer.

I'd much rather watch a movie at home on my 50 inch DLP with my surround system, though I need to add sub one day

[xortam]

... The third part of the equation is NOT piracy, it is home theaters. ...

Agree with you there. I only go out to a theatre maybe once or twice a year since I bought a high quality surround sound system and large RPTV around '88. We have some very nice sounding and comfortable "Century" theatres in the bay area but I prefer the sound at home and I don't have to worry about my foot getting stuck to some gooey mess on the floor. The main thing I like about movies at home is I can hit pause and take a quick break when needed. I hate having to pick a break in the action at the theatres so I can make a dash to relieve myself. I long ago had to quit having a beer before the theatre.

[spadnos]

People can't be too tired of crowded theatres, else they wouldn't be, you know... crowded

[snip]

Heh - that reminds me of a funny situation that happened when I worked at a movie theater.
It was a busy night, and a lady came up to the ticket counter. She asked for two tickets to some show, and I said that the show was sold out - there were only singles left. She asked for tickets to another show, and it was the same deal. Same for all 6 screens, 1000+ seats.

So she says "How are you going to stay in business if people can't get tickets to the shows?"

- Steve

[Claymonkey]

So she says "How are you going to stay in business if people can't get tickets to the shows?"

BWAHAHAHAHA

[KvHagedorn]

I used to supervise at a movie theatre so I'll try clear a few points up on the economics of the situation.

The movie theatres make close to NO money off the ticket sales. It works on a sliding scale:

Week 1: movie company gets 90% of the sales, movie theatre 10%
Week 2: 80/20
Week 3: 70/30
Week 4: 60/40
.....
Week 9: 10/90 and there it holds

Now with a movie like Titanic that was in the theatres for ever and still sold out the theatres made money hand over fist. Unfortunetly the movie industry has gotten really good at churning out big budget movies that they market well that make $100million the first week and then fall off the map because everyone warns their friends not to see that garbage. So the movie theatres are only making money off the concessions and if anything the movie industry has been shooting themselves in the foot in the long term for short term games (after all people can only be tricked so many times... just more than we'd like to think).

So... high ticket prices, that's the movie industries idea far more than the theatres.

Sounds like a spot-on assessment to me.

[Gurm]

I used to supervise at a movie theatre so I'll try clear a few points up on the economics of the situation.

The movie theatres make close to NO money off the ticket sales. It works on a sliding scale:

Week 1: movie company gets 90% of the sales, movie theatre 10%
Week 2: 80/20
Week 3: 70/30
Week 4: 60/40
.....
Week 9: 10/90 and there it holds

Now with a movie like Titanic that was in the theatres for ever and still sold out the theatres made money hand over fist. Unfortunetly the movie industry has gotten really good at churning out big budget movies that they market well that make $100million the first week and then fall off the map because everyone warns their friends not to see that garbage. So the movie theatres are only making money off the concessions and if anything the movie industry has been shooting themselves in the foot in the long term for short term games (after all people can only be tricked so many times... just more than we'd like to think).

So... high ticket prices, that's the movie industries idea far more than the theatres.

Good assessment, but essentially what it boils down to is that ticket prices are up at least in part so that the theater can recoup its losses. If they only get 10% of the opening-weekend ticket sales, and they sell 5000 tickets at $5 each, that's $2500 for them and $22,500 for the studio. But if they charge $10 per ticket, they get $5000. Granted the movie studio gets $45,000 - but at least they've covered operating costs.

[Claymonkey]

Good assessment, but essentially what it boils down to is that ticket prices are up at least in part so that the theater can recoup its losses. If they only get 10% of the opening-weekend ticket sales, and they sell 5000 tickets at $5 each, that's $2500 for them and $22,500 for the studio. But if they charge $10 per ticket, they get $5000. Granted the movie studio gets $45,000 - but at least they've covered operating costs.

Actually I might have remembered it wrong. I was reading a similar thread on techreport and someone else was stating that the studios get 100% of opening week revenue from the tickets and the only money the theatres get is from concessions. Still, ticket prices do tend to be more expensive the father into a big city you get. I know in Boston that tickets are far more expensive at the theatre in the Commons in downtown Boston than out the outskirts near the Alewife train station. So higher operating costs, higher ticket prices, not rocket science of course so you're right on that front.

Still, I see the logic of the studios in trying to get all the revenue they can that first weekend and then have the movie die so they can push another blockbuster into its slot. The problem is it's a broken logic with no long term thinking. It reminds me how a lot of colleges and universities don't give out many tenures anymore and just cycle through teachers that just finished grad school or use their grad students to teach classes. Every 2-3 years they get a fresh batch and continue to pay minimum wages. It's great for the bottom line but it ends up slowly lowering the prestige and ranking of your school as the quality goes down.

[spadnos]

As I recall, there were two ways the theaters paid the studios (this was around 1990, so things may have changed).

First, there was a "rental fee" - the theater would pay a weekly rental for the actual print(s) they used. In our theater, we had 3 screens, and a total of 750 or so seats, and this fee was around $8000/week for new movies, and as little as $1000 or so for second or third run movies. (It's a different theater than in my previous post - I've worked at two )

Second, there was the "royalty" fee - this was around 80-90% of ticket sales. I don't think it went on a scheduled sliding scale though. If the movie was a second (or later) run, then the royalty was probably lower.

Of course, the theater keeps all the concession money. Incidentally, that's why there are no "small" sizes any more. The concession stand is measured on the PPA - Per Person Average (total concession sales / total attendees). If there's an 8-oz or 12-oz "small" soda that's only a buck, and a popcorn that's $1.25, then a person can get out with spending only $2.25. If you make the small soda a 24-oz at $2.50, and a small popcorn a "48-oz" bucket (equivalent water size - 46 oz of popcorn is enough to feed a small town) for $3.00, then the minimum buy-in for refreshments is $5.50 - even if a couple shares it, it's a better PPA than $2.25 each.

(When that theater closed, we had just changed the drink sizes so the large was 46 oz, the same size as a small popcorn bucket - disgusting)

- Steve