I just did a search on “Movie Distribution” and did not find an answer to my question.
So here it is. Let’s say for example in a small town (like, say, Greenville, TX) has 2 theaters. I’ve noticed this here and other towns that they never run the same movies … that makes sense.
But since there must be some desire for each owner to want to run the big-draw movies.
Who decides who gets the movie? Is there a contract with movie distributers? That is, if one theater is town has with distributer A, does distributer A refuse a contract with theater 2?
In other words, for example, if “Harry Potter” is so big, what prevents both theaters from running it?
You are close to getting it right.
Movie theaters sign long term distribution contracts that are pre-determined by location to nearby theaters, size of the community and clout.
Let’s say you build your own little multi-plex and now you want to have a couple of films to show.
First surprise will be that most current releases have been booked months, if not years, in advance.
Secondly, the big chains (Regal Cinemas, United Artists Showcases, etc.) have locked up a lot of the big blockbusters…large studios prefer to deal with the big guys for lots of obvious reasons.
Thirdly, the territories depend on how soon you will get the film (bigger the audience, faster you get them.)
Printing copies of films is very expensive - as much as $15,000 per print, so they are picky about where they go. Some recent films like Harry Potter have a huge print of 8-9,000 copies. That is why you will see a copy of that film in almost any city with a movie theater. Films like Moulin Rouge with far fewer prints will take ages to reach smaller markets, if they reach them at all.
Also, as far as making money from a movie theater? Forget it. Most profit comes from popcorn and sodas (really!). An average film deal today goes like this:
1st week 90% ticket price to film studio, 10% movie theater
2nd week 80% to 20%
3rd week 60% to 40%
and then it depends on the the size and clout of theater chain.
So you can see, every theater wants a few Harry Potters to stick around for several weeks and rake in the bucks, so their percentage goes up. No theater wants a bomb that plays big for 6 days and bellies up the next week. Give the theaters a few Star Wars and Titanics every year, and everybody is happy.
Give theaters “Glitter” and life is not good…as anyone who saw the film will also atest.
Certainly. You know when you watch the opening credits of a movie and it shows the name of the production studio(s)? Well, right after that, the distribution company is shown. For instance, let’s use the movie Clerks. It is produced by View Askew, and distributed by Miramax.
So, in a multi-plex enviornment, it is certainly possible to have multiple movies playing with varying distributors, unless the contract states otherwise. Like, maybe the movie can’t be shown in a theater that shows other distributor’s films. 'Course, that would just be stupid on the distributor’s part.
I remember when The Phantom Menace came out, and LucasFilm required that all theaters who wanted to show the film had to outfit any theater that would be showing it with a sound system that was up to par with Lucas’ standards. Because of this, some theaters were left out in the cold.