I haven't worked a lot in other industries but the film business seems to run weirder than other businesses. Part of it comes from the nature of the product. Technically there's competition between the studios but there really isn't. The studios may sell the same type of product but if Fox has Star Wars you have to deal with Fox. If Paramount has Mission Impossible 3 you have to get it through them. It's not like Coke and Pepsi where the products are fairly interchangeable. I doubt many people would leave a restaurant that only has Pepsi when they want Coke.
I've mentioned Fox won't let us split movies most of the time. The funny thing is they don't mind if you only play one show each evening instead of 2. We sometimes do this for long movies or during the summer if it's quiet.
The really funny thing is Fox won't let us split with their own product?! Last year we wanted to play Mr and Mrs Smith and StarWars the same week and they wouldn't let us.
Other odd things happen. I have a poster on my wall from the 1997 rerelease of the first 3 Star Wars movies. The poster says, and I quote ' Three reasons why they build Movie Theatres'. The odd thing is that Lucas has pulled the movies out of service, meaning movie theatres can't play them? The Star Wars movies are the second most requested movies for our midnight series and we can't play them.
Sometimes the studios just seem to throw good movies out with no advertising or promotional support. 16 Blocks is a good example. It was a good film but got practically no press and didn't do as well as it could have. I haven't seen it yet but Lucky Number Slevin looks like another one. It starts today but practially no one seems to have heard of it. The trailers make it look good. Wouldn't one think a movie starring Josh Hartnett, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley and Lucy Lui would have gotten a trifle more press?
The general public has some part in this as well. It seems they won't see a movie if they haven't heard of it
whether it's good or bad. People often assume a movie they haven't heard of is bad.
One incident particularly struck me once. Before I worked at Western Film I was working at the old Westmount 2-plex. There was a line of coming soon movie posters along the wall. One woman looked at a poster and said she'd never heard of it in a dismissive tone. There has to be a first time she 'hears of' a movie and the coming soon posters are supposed to do just that.
more in a later post.
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