then theaters could charge for bathroom usage and make more money that way
For me – an intermission is not about short attention spans. I could watch all three LOTR movies back to back – the extended versions – and not lose interest. But I’m damn sure going to have to get up and go to the bathroom at some point!
Intermission = Oh my god I’ve got to pee! (IMHO) 
THAT would be truly evil. 
Y’know…sometimes having a doctor around isn’t as good as other times.
Am I right or what?
Personally, I never get a drink…if I had one of those giant movie-theater sodas, I’d be lucky to make it two hours. And of course, that means I don’t get popcorn either. If there was an intermission, the theater might well make another five bucks or so off of me.
That’s what I told every one of my friends who was going to see the movie: “If you need to pee, just wait till Arwen comes on the screen. Then head to the restrooms. You won’t miss anything.”
I’m not sure how concerned theater owners are about taking screens away from other movies to increse LotR showtimes, considering the grosses of these films. There are very few movies coming out at the same time as the LotR movies that could make more money with that extra screen than LotR could.
– Dragonblink, who didn’t drink anything the last two hours she was in line for TTT opening night, and hit the ladies’ room before the movie started. Because she learned her lesson with Gladiator.
Allow me to introduce you to the Stadium Pal.
- Theatre owners, who make their money largely off concessions, prefer SHORTER movies, ninety-minute fluff fests with Adam Sandler or whatever. That way, you can shoehorn in another matinee showing, and people buy all their popcorn right BEFORE the movie.
If they did an intermission in LOTR, would I buy another load of popcorn and soda? Hell, no. I’d beat feet to the restroom and drain off what was left of the previous load, then run like hell right back so as not to lose my seat.
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To my knowledge, Adam Sandler has never had a blockbuster. I was being facetious. It’s my opinion that most moviegoers these days will pay good money to see any damn thing, and I think the fact that Adam Sandler is rich right now proves my point. The only thing I’d pay to see him do is soak his ass in steak sauce, and then juggle live wolverines…
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I think I understand why Peter Jackson cut the films down, and is releasing them as “extended edition DVDs”. He has to satisfy two different audiences.
You have, first, people like my family. Me, my kid, and my wife. We all loved LOTR, and we are enjoying the movies. We’d happily have sat through a five hour Fellowship film. We bought the extended DVD, and are still enjoying it.
…and then you have people like my sister, who thinks Adam Sandler is an actor. Or, for that matter, a comedian. She went to go see FOTR because it was big and famous and everyone else was going to see it. She enjoyed it, but was confused about the ambiguous ending. She was amazed at the idea that it’s just Part One Of Three, and compared it to “a TV miniseries, but in the movies.”
A five hour movie about ANYTHING would be slow torture to my sister.
So PJ shot his movies, and is releasing “theatrical versions” which will play in Peoria, and “extended versions” that freaks and geeks like me can buy and watch and enjoy. It ain’t perfect – I’d still like to see the extended versions on the big screen – but, hey, you can’t make EVERYONE happy.
- Pay toilets are evil and wicked, and damn near a blasphemy against God.
My local theatre refuses to hire anyone over eighteen, and insists that it needs no more than four or five teenagers to run a business that has twelve theatres in it. The day they try to charge for bathroom use is the day they find the doors ripped off the stalls, puddles of excrement in the corners of darkened theatres, and at least one minor riot, most likely.
Unless they want to hire armed guards to stand there and watch me pee.
Just 5 bucks? Which were you going to get, the popcorn or the drink?
Oh, you wanted both? 
What is ROTK? I can tell it’s going to finish the trilogy, but what does it stand for?
Return of the King. I was curious whether there was anyone who didn’t know it.
Keep in mind PJ also had to satisfy the producers who financed the films. There was a lot of doubt before Fellowship was released on if this was going to be successful or a huge embarassing flop (i.e. Dune), and, according to what I have heard, the producers wanted “three films, under three hours apiece” as part of the deal (actually, according to what I’ve heard, they originally wanted two films, three hours apeice - it took a little work to get three films). Because Wang-Ka’s sister wasn’t about to go see a four hour film - especially one that meant that to see the whole thing, she’d need to see two more four hour long films - unless Tom Cruise was Aragorn (which would have made the movies cost nearly twice as much).
Of course, now that they know the third film is going to do well, PJ has some leverage.
Think about it from a producers point of view. Some guy (who has a limited, but interesting, track record) wants $300 million to make three movies based on material long considered to be unfilmable, where the people who are really interested (who are rumored to number in the tens of thousands - lots of fans, but enough to pay for the movies?) might boycott en masse if you get the eyes of the elves the wrong color, with no movie stars, ahd the films are going to be three plus hours a piece?
Why not try charging an extra buck for one evening showing with an intermission? Seriously, I would love a 10 minute break to hit the head, and would shell out a dollar in an instant. You could even have concession guys come into the theatre during that time and hawk popcorn and cokes. It would take coordination, but could bump revenues.
It was originally gonna be two films. When Miramax tried to cut it down to one film, PJ balked and was given permission to shop it around. When New Line decided to pick it up, it was someone there that suggested to be three movies.
Oh, I don’t know, The Wedding Singer grossed nearly 22 million dollars on its opening weekend. (Although that probably had more to do with Drew Barrymore than with Sandler.)
Except for, say, Titanic, which was twice as long as Men In Black but made more than twice as much (domestic gross during first 28 weeks in release). MIB was even released on more screens, so it definitely played at least twice as often as Titanic during its run.