What Movies Have You Seen Lately?

Quote: zippyboy

Paco...explain!

Movie Studios have been wrestling with pricing a movie based on content for decades. They finally decided it would open them up to a lot of lawsuits by actors and other stakeholders in a film.

There is a subtle pricing based on show times and extra charges for 3D or IMAX and whether they accept discount tickets. But basically they built more theaters than they could possibly hope to fill, and popular movies are simply shown in more theaters.

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They should raffle off 100,000 pay per view screenings per week of a choice the latest hit movies, where the top 100,000 bids win. The circuits can't really complain about the loss of 100,000 potential tickets as ticket sales average 25.3 million per week.

But frankly, some people will easily pay a few hundred dollars to guarantee that they win a screening of a hit film to see at home.

For instance Beauty and the Beast made $174,750,616 in the first three days domestically for and estimated 19,768,200 tickets sold at an average price of $8.84 apiece in 4,210 theaters. Disney gets to keep half that box office revenue which puts a significant dent in paying back the Production Budget of $160 million.

If Disney auctioned off 100,000 live streams the first weekend the movie studios can't complain too much about loss of revenue compared to their 20 million tickets sold. If they average $100 per stream, then that would be an extra $10 million.

Quote: zippyboy

On a side note, I've always wondered why movies cost the same no matter what we see. Costs $10 to see a 3-hour Oscar winner like Titanic as well as $10 to see a crappy 85-minutes Texas High School Girls in Trouble. Not fair and not logical at all. Doesn't work that way in any other industry. Can you imagine paying $40,000 for a either Ferrari or a Ford? $40,000 for a CAR, regardless of brand. or $20 for a piece of food regardless whether it's lobster or a Hershey bar.

But it does happen. Remember dollar theaters? Your movie ends up quicker there, or today it might be straight to cable or Netflix.

Anyone who wants to see something right as it hits the theaters the first time pays the price.

Quote:

Texas High School Girls in Trouble.

Sounds like the kind of movie I went with friends to in high school at the Drive-in Movie Theater.

Quote: rxwine

But it does happen. Remember dollar theaters? Your movie ends up quicker there, or today it might be straight to cable or Netflix.

Anyone who wants to see something right as it hits the theaters the first time pays the price.

A very specialized movie like "The Divergent Series: Allegiant" (Release Date: March 18, 2016) the third movie in a trilogy designed to appeal primarily to teens was only in the theaters for 11 weeks, but it made 88% of it's revenue in the first three weeks. The movie showed in the number of theaters according to the following timeline.

week (number of theaters)
#1 3,740
#2 3,740
#3 3,018
#4 2,503
#5 1,484
...
#6 852
#7 410
#8 210
#9 160
#10 194
#11 153

The DVDs went on sale 40 days after the movie closed out in the theaters.

The movie made only 2.7% of it's total revenue in weeks #6 - #11. The theater circuit and the studio made less than $900K apiece during the weeks #6-#11.

There are many people who think that schedule should be tinkered with to try and maximize profits. The obvious idea is simply to release it in theaters for just five weeks, then try and take advantage of the money spent on advertising to release it for streaming pay per view on the sixth week. By waiting until week #17 while the movie shows in a handful of theaters is just a waste of advertising revenue.

But movie circuits are very likely to boycott any film that seems to threaten their potential profit margin. But the above movie (an obvious flop) is still a good example for a business model. At some point there should have been some kind of a contractual clause where the studio could pay off the theaters for the remainder of the time on their contract, so they can start the movie into streaming services.

Quote: rxwine

Sounds like the kind of movie I went with friends to in high school at the Drive-in Movie Theater.

I did actually! That was a sub-skit commercial during Kentucky Fried Movie directed by John Landis.

And thanks for explanation Paco. I can always count on you. You are Wikipedia personified. A real 2017 Renaissance man.

Quote: Pacomartin

Movie Studios have been wrestling with pricing a movie based on content for decades. They finally decided it would open them up to a lot of lawsuits by actors and other stakeholders in a film.

I thought that in Hollywood, litigation was a type of foreplay.

Quote: Fleastiff

I thought that in Hollywood, litigation was a type of foreplay.

Possibly. But consider the 2011 movie "We bought a Zoo" . Rotten tomatoes counted 102 positive reviews and 53 rotten reviews. One magazine released a POSITIVE review a few days earlier than they were supposed to.

The studio went nuts and they said that the early review would cost them millions of dollars in box office revenue. Keep in mind this was a positive review of a movie that received a lot of negative reviews.

While I appreciate the studio's right to coordinate a release date of reviews, I still can't believe it had such an effect on the bottom line.

Can you imagine the bickering and second guessing that would go on if movies were variably priced?

Quote: Pacomartin

Can you imagine the bickering and second guessing that would go on if movies were variably priced?

Probably just as much as goes on in Hollywood all the time. Courts try to refrain from awarding 'speculative' damages, so I fail to see how an early release of a movie review would actually affect anythign. Some will sell short, others will buy. The reviews were approximately 50:50. I'd be more interested in learning why the studio was so interested in embargoing the reviews.

Quote: Fleastiff

Probably just as much as goes on in Hollywood all the time. Courts try to refrain from awarding 'speculative' damages, so I fail to see how an early release of a movie review would actually affect anythign. Some will sell short, others will buy. The reviews were approximately 50:50. I'd be more interested in learning why the studio was so interested in embargoing the reviews.

I got the movie wrong. The film was "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo " . David Denby (film critic for The New Yorker magazine) at one point told the producer that he was writing a magazine for adults, and he said "It was not my intention to break the embargo, and I never would have done it with a negative review. But since I liked the movie, we came reluctantly to the decision to go with early publication".

The producer's response was leaked.

Quote: From: Scott Rudin, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo producer

Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2011 13:04:32 -0500
To: David Denby
I appreciate all of this, David, but you simply have to be good for your word. Your seeing the movie was conditional on your honoring the embargo, which you agreed to do. The needs of the magazine cannot trump your word. The fact that the review is good is immaterial, as I suspect you know. You’ve very badly damaged the movie by doing this, and I could not in good conscience invite you to see another movie of mine again, Daldry or otherwise. I can’t ignore this, and I expect that you wouldn’t either if the situation were reversed. I’m really not interested in why you did this except that you did — and you must at least own that, purely and simply, you broke your word to us and that that is a deeply lousy and immoral thing to have done. If you weren’t prepared to honor the embargo, you should have done the honorable thing and said so before you accepted the invitation. The glut of Christmas movies is not news to you, and to pretend otherwise is simply disingenuous. You will now cause ALL of the other reviews to run a month before the release of the movie, and that is a deeply destructive thing to have done simply because you’re disdainful of We Bought a Zoo. Why am I meant to care about that??? Come on…that’s nonsense, and you know it.

Quote: zippyboy

On a side note, I've always wondered why movies cost the same no matter what we see. Costs $10 to see a 3-hour Oscar winner like Titanic as well as $10 to see a crappy 85-minutes Texas High School Girls in Trouble. Not fair and not logical at all. Doesn't work that way in any other industry. Can you imagine paying $40,000 for a either Ferrari or a Ford? $40,000 for a CAR, regardless of brand. or $20 for a piece of food regardless whether it's lobster or a Hershey bar

https://www.marketplace.org/2016/02/11/world/why-movie-tickets-arent-priced-airline-tickets

I believe last fall AMC theaters said they were looking at charging more for big tentpole releases.