All year I have been hoping to have the opportunity to see Run Ronnie Run! It appeared at Sundance last winter and IIRC, the movie caught a bit of buzz for being very funny. So, WTF? Are distributors actually convinced that a project with a cast like this can’t be marketed while Pluto Nash and Master of Disguise end up getting released?
Yeah. They’re pretty bad.
You know what would be an awesome law? No movie could be shown on more then 1,000 screens at the same time. That would free up more then 13,000 screens for smaller movies. … Maybe 1,500 would be better. Either way the theater owners ought to stand up for themselves and pinch the middle man some.
Master of Disquise actually did OK at the box office. Run Ronnie Run, to me, does not look like huge break out hit.
That’s only half the distributor’s fault, FWIW. You can blame movie theaters who will only book movies with a massive publicity campaign behind them to draw people into the theaters for the other half.
And Osiris, your law would put those already struggling movie theaters out of business in a matter of months. Perhaps you’ve noticed that with certain movies that they book into four or five theaters in the cineplex they still fill them up. People aren’t going to show up for Spider-Man or The Two Towers and go “Oh nuts, we should have booked two weeks in advance to get into the one of two showings they have each night! Oh well, let’s see that film that we’ve never heard of since I’m sure it will be good.” The theater owner might not take much of that openning weekend box but those big movies are what draw people in and they need to put those movies into enough theaters that they don’t have to turn people away.
I’m really glad I got to see Bowling for Columbine here at the indie/arthouse place near school, because it’s nowhere within 2 hours of where I live at home. I find it really hard to believe that this film would not have an audience at major theaters across the country. It’s not going to be on two screens 12 times a day, but in this era of 20-screen multiplexes that are open from late-morning to well past midnight, I think there has to be a place for this somewhere.
To begin you might want to ignore the 1,000 or 1,500 screen limit as right now I’ll say that I had screens and theaters mixed up. But I do think there would be a sensible number somewhere.
Well I’m largely not concerned with the theater owners or distributers. Industries come, industries change and sometimes they go, that’s life. And I think that changing the parameters here to shake things up would be a good thing. Sure a few might go bankrupt but those smart enough to survive will do fine. And a few entrepreneuring types would even prosper. But that’s all beside the point, the main reason I suggested it is because I feel it would benifit the public by forcing the business to provide more variety.
Now I do not for a moment think this would ever fly in the USA. Perhaps in some democracies where they have already bandied about, some having already done it, the idea of passing restrictive laws for local media industry’s sake. It’s very socialistic. But I’ve always leaned that way.
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How about what ever the market will bear. Let’s let the movie going pubic decide if they want 5 screens of Die Another Day and 5 screens of Potter and 3 screens of Santa Clause 2 instead of dropping 2 Die Another Days for a Run Ronnie Run and a Bowling for Columbine and squeeze in a some screens of a Korean film for diversity?
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The movie producing, distributing and exhibiting industries have been around for quite some time and is a signifcant industry. I think something like 9 billion in ticket sales have been recorded so far this year. It does not really seem broke.
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Some exhibitors recently went bankrupt. Mostly from overzealous building campains but the investment in new theatres was really needed. You want state sponsored variety get cable.
Do you have any examples of these other democracies that are dictating what theatres have to book into their screens to provide the proper variety to the public?
tee hee