Thursday, July 30, 2009

Next Week's Movies Jul 31 - Aug 6



I already knew My Sister's Keeper was available and had been planning to play it as the 7pm show. It didn't do great first run but we have had a lot of people asking about it so I expect it will do well. For the late show I decided to bring back Star Trek, it did really well its' first week. The late shows did okay that week with it playing for both shows.






The only New film that would have been available for next week is Public Enemies. I decided to hold off on it for a couple reasons. We had already been telling people Sister's Keeper would be playing and I couldn't play both the same week as both need to be the 7pm show. Public Enemies is also fairly long so I'm not sure if I will play anything after it.

It could get interesting as Up is also available the following week. Disney sets the dates we are able to get movies in advance. They usually leave a week between when the films leave first run and can start at Western Film.

I was trying to decide whether to play Public Enemies or Up the following week. Both have to be the 7pm show so they need to be separate weeks. It doesn't really matter which week they play though. I would have liked to have UP this upcoming weekend since there is a holiday Monday and we could have had extra matinees but it's not available until the following Friday. I checked to see if anyone else had booked the theatre during the weekend afternoons as that would affect my decision. No one had so that's not a problem. I figure the only thing I should do is try to play Up the week with the lowest kid's film competition. Opening it against Harry Potter would have been a bad idea for example.

According to the booker, The Proposal is getting close to coming off and The Hangover may come off soon to my mild surprise.

Interesting article about how 1989 Batman changed the movie business.


The title pretty much says it all. I remember the hype around Batman was something that seemed new. Everyone wanted to see it. This article from Salon.com has some interesting things to say about it.


The main change it created was the emphasis on the opening weekend and movies making a lot of money in as short a time as possible. Previous to this films tended to play a lot longer in theatres. Even as late as Titanic which played in theatres for about a year. Of course the availability of home video started affecting the theatre business about the same time.


Next Week's Movies Jul 24 - 30

As mentioned in the last Next Week post I already knew Year One and Taking of Pelham 123 were available so I booked those two in. The only new film available was My Sister's Keeper which I'm going to play next week.

I think I may start getting backed up with new films available. I wish more movies worked as late shows. There's some interesting small films I'd like to play like Away We Go but the 7pm show usually needs to be a Hollywood film.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Feedback requested on something I hate doing.


One thing I hate doing is changing the phone message on the Movieline. It usually takes several tries and hence a lot of time. A while ago someone suggested putting a synopsis of each film on it but the message is already several minutes long.


It's also where I get into some interesting situations, for example next weekend we have a Bollywood film called Kambakkht Ishq, I have no idea how to pronounce that.


I once asked the IT department if there was any thing similar to a hit counter for the phone message to give me an idea how much it's used but I guess there isn't.


If anyone is curious I'd like any comments on whether the message sounds okay. There's a couple things I tend to do that I think may be annoying but maybe no one notices. I won't say what they are so I don't influence your opinion.


The phone number is 519-661-3616 then hit 1 for the movie listings.

Response to comment.

This comment was left on one of the Next Week posts:

Star Trek, then Night at the Museum.... I feel like I just watched their trailers on cable tv. What allows movies like these to come to campus so quickly?(I'm thinking the answer is likely either my lack of a sense of time or something to do with the industry. Perhaps they were set up from the start to quickly be put up for sale on DVD?)

During the summer the high number of new blockbusters released tend to push films off faster than at other times of year. When Harry Potter opens on 4 of the 12 screens in a multiplex they have to drop something to make room. It also depends on the film. Something like Transformers 2 is heavily front loaded, it will have made about half it's total gross on opening weekend. It won't play more than few weeks first run. It's also a long film so that encourages theatres to drop it as long movies make less money since fewer showings can be done in a day.
On the other hand there are films like Up and The Hangover. Hit kid's films like UP tend to drop down to matinees only and play for a couple months. The theatres like the 3-D ones as they can charge extra. A movie like the Hangover is one of those occasional word of mouth hits that just keep chugging along. Recent examples were Juno and Wedding Crashers. Hangover has had some of the lowest week to week drops in grosses of recent memory. A big action film will typically drop 50-60% in it's second week. The Hangover has been dropping only about 20% a week. I'm planning to play it during Frosh Week but there is a possibility I might not be able to get it by then.

The DVD window is now about 4 months so that doesn't come into play except for the occasional film that's still playing in theatres when it comes out of DVD. Regular readers of this blog will probably be able to guess which studio tends to do this the most...Fox.

Next Week plus the last couple.

I've missed a couple of the Next Week posts which normally I'm pretty consistent on so I'll put up a kind of summary of what the last couple would have said.

The week after Angels and Demons played I booked in Terminator Salvation. It was the only major film available that week. I decided to try playing a late show and see how it would do. The movie overall did okay but the late show didn't do very well.

The Week that just ended I played Star Trek. I did a late show and this time it worked. Star Trek was the busiest movie we've had in a few months. I'll probably bring it back if there is an opening in the next couple weeks. Angels and Demons might also return. A mildly weird thing happened. I was told Pelham 123 was available but didn't book it because I wanted Star Trek. It ended up still playing at Westmount. I don't know if Sony has decided we are in different zones and will let us play the same films at the same time. They may also have made a mistake or Cineplex may have changed their minds and decided to keep it. That last one could have gotten interesting if I had booked it in.

The week of Jul 17 - 23 I booked in a couple different films for the first time in a few weeks. Night At The Museum 2 was available. Since it's from Fox I asked if they would let me split it with Wolverine which is also their title. They said I could but had to pay a higher percentage. I could have waited longer and they probably would have dropped down to the usual percentage. I didn't wait for a couple reasons, I wanted to get Wolverine played before it gets too much older and we have a Bollywood film scheduled for next weekend afternoons so I wouldn't be able to play matinees of Museum if I played it that week. As Museum is basically a kid's film I figure playing matinees are important. I have this nasty feeling both films are going to bomb but I sincerely hope I'm wrong.

The only other film available for next week was Year One which I think will do as a late show. So currently the following week will probably be Pelham 123 at 7pm followed by Year One as the late show and the Bollywood show on the weekend afternoons.

The only other movie that looks like it will come off soon that I want to play is My Sister's Keeper. I figure Up will be at least a month and Hangover we may not get until late August.

One film that came available during the last couple weeks was My Life in Ruins which I had never planned to play. It's from Fox so I couldn't split it anyway. They really have got to be kidding sometimes.

Drag Me to Hell probably was available but the booker didn't even mention it to me as she knows we never play horror films.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Not really movie related but really funny.

I found this on another blog and I haven't laughed so much in a while. My excuse for putting it up here is that the song and video have been in so many movies and parodied so much. I still like the song though...


I doubt this will play in theatres but I would see it if it did.

Found this wacky trailer for a Japanese film that probably defies description. Apparently it doesn't come out in North America until 2010. Probably will go straight to DVD but I think it would be fun to see in a theatre with an audience.


Quick Post.

Someone mentioned tonight that I should update the blog more often. I know I've been bad lately. It was largely due to a relative (two actually) being in the hospital for about a month. I had to take my Grandmother up quite often to visit which usually meant going to bed 'early' for me. Late nights is usually when I did blog posts. There wasn't any one to be his executor so I said I would do it so my Grandmother wouldn't worry about it. It's amazing how much time it takes to be an executor, and he didn't even have a lot of assets.

I'll try to be better.