Next Week's Film Sep 2 - 8

There wasn't much to chose from this week. Final Destination 5 is available but we don't play horror films. The only other new film available was Captain America which I booked in. Disney said we could have Fright Night as of the 16th but I don't think I'll play it. It wasn't a bad movie and shouldn't have bombed the way it did but I don't think anyone will come see it at Western Film.

I was hoping Horrible Bosses would come off as it would make a good Frosh Week movie but it didn't, maybe the following week.

For a late show I decided to bring back Bridesmaids. It did quite well even the second week we played it before and it's a good Frosh Week comedy.

Frosh week is quite crazy with regular customers plus the Frosh, if the weather is bad or they don't want to go to whatever event is planned for the night we can get as many as 200 Frosh show up.

Next Week Movies Aug 26 - Sep 1

This is a bit of an experimental week. The Tree Of Life was already booked in which I'm nervous about. It doesn't have the highest profile and the Hyland played it for weeks which will have cut down on the number of people who can come see it here. At least if it bombs I'll have something to point to next time someone says we should play more art product. It's a long movie as well so the late show would have had to be at 9:45. There wasn't anything available I thought would work that late at night.

I'm trying something I haven't done in years, bringing in a movie for matinees only. Cars 2 will play Sat and Sun afternoon only.

The new movies available were Captain America and Cowboys and Aliens. I'm not sure about playing Cowboys. Captain may play the following week depending on what is available. That week is Frosh Week which is one of our busiest weeks of the year. I try to have suitable movies available. I'm hoping Horrible Bosses comes available.

Midnight in Paris is tentatively scheduled for Sept 16th. The two weeks before that cover Frosh Week which would be a bad time to play it. The students who are here won't be interested in seeing it and off-campus people avoid the campus because of the chaos that week.

Next Week's movie Aug 19 -25.

I booked in Transformers which was available last week. It's so long it needs to play by itself which worked out because the only other film available this week was Cowboys and Aliens which I haven't decided whether to play or not.

The Hyland is dropping Tree Of Life finally but the print is going to another city so we couldn't have it for next week. It is booked in to start Aug 26th though.

I was told I could have Cars 2 as of Aug 26th. Disney puts two weeks between when it finishes at other theatres and when we can have it. I've been unsure what to do about this one. I wanted to play it but not once school starts up again. Disney wants a higher percentage again but unlike Pirates 4 I expect it will do at least good business and it isn't three hours long. I decided to try something I haven't done in years. I'm going to play Cars 2 for just weekend matinees with no evening shows. I don't normally do it because the minimum fee now has to paid for by just 4 matinees instead of a whole week of evening shows. If it tanks it'll suck but based on how Kung Fu Panda 2 did for matinees it should work.

I'm going to wait and see if anything is available the following week to play with Tree Of Life. Tree of Life is fairly long so the late show would be at 9:45. Only something like Horrible Bosses would work that late during the summer.

Next Week's Movie Aug 5 - 11

We finally got Bridesmaids. It came out in May and did steady business at the first run theatres so we had to wait until now. As a contrast, I've already played some films that came out in July. I don't think I've had to wait this long for a Hollywood film in ages. I sometimes have to wait a while for small Art films but that's usually more because of a lack of prints.

The local Art theatre The Hyland is holding on Tree Of Life and Midnight in Paris so I can't play those yet.

The only other films close to coming off were Transformers and Zookeeper. I plan to play Transformers but do not plan to play Zookeeper.

Next Weeks movie Mar 4 - 10

Next week worked out pretty well. I was afraid we wouldn't get Black Swan until into the exam period but the other theatres finished with it earlier than I expected. It was actually available to us last Friday but I didn't take it which turned out to be a bonus. To play it last week Fox wanted what are called Per Caps which basically means we pay percentage based on fictional ticket prices they set rather than our actual ticket price. It usually means paying about 15% more. I didn't take it last week because I had already planned to play Fighter and True Grit and started the advertising on the Holiday Monday. Once we did the booking on Tuesday I could have chosen to play Black Swan but then I would have had to redo and resend all the advertising. I figured one week wouldn't make that big a difference. As it turned out Fox dropped the Per Caps so we will pay the usual amount. They did say I couldn't split it so it's playing two shows a night. In this case I don't object because I think it will do well enough. Natalie Portman just winning Best Actress likely won't hurt either?!

Some of the films available that will play in the next couple weeks, Tron Legacy, Tangled, Green Hornet. I don't think I'm going to play The Dilemma. I had been planning to play 127 Hours but it came out surprisingly fast on DVD, it was still playing at Westmount so I hadn't had a chance to play it yet. Knowing Fox they will still expect me to play it both shows. If they let me split it I might try it.

I'm planning to play Blue Valentine but there are only a few prints so it may be a while before I can get ahold of one.

Next Week's Film Feb 18 - 24

Next week is Slack Week AKA spring break so it's usually a dead week since the majority of the students are gone. I usually try to play a film that primarily appeals to adults if possible, or, I try to play a film I don't expect to do great but feel I should play. In this case it's Little Fockers, it didn't get great reviews or word of mouth but it was one of the Big Christmas releases so I feel I should play it. I think the students aren't all that interested in it but the adults who saw the first two movies when they were new might be interested.

I decided to play only the one show, there wasn't anything suitable for a late show available. Monday is a holiday so it's a good week to only have one show in terms of saving some labour costs.

We won't be having a showing of Fockers on Wednesday as we will be having an advance screening of Nicolas Cage's new film Drive Angry at 7pm. It will be free, check the website at westernfilm.ca for details.

There were two other films available:

The Dilemma- I'm not sure I'm going to play this one, it didn't get a lot of press, got bad reviews and generally bombed.

Barney's Version- I'm also not sure about this one, it has low awareness but is apparently a good film.

The Fighter was already available but I didn't want to play it during Slack Week. I'm currently planning to play it starting on the 25th. The weekend is part of Slack Week but the students will be back for the weekdays.

True Grit has done well enough to keep for another week but again I didn't want to play it next week. I'm planning to bring it back starting Feb 25th as a late show unless something more interesting is available. It will be back at some point. True Grit has done pretty well this week and the numbers are low because the students start leaving for Slack Week early or have assignments right before Slack Week.

I was quite surprised True Grit came available when it did so that leaves me some hope Black Swan and King's Speech may come available during March.

Next Week's Films. Jan 28 - Feb 4

There were two movies available but there was a bit of a conundrum. To do well both would need to be the 7:00 show so I decided to experiment.

The Tourist I booked in for 7pm. This movie got some bad buzz but people have been asking for it so I think it should do okay. Even if it's a bad movie it's still got Depp and Jolie.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 1- This has to play at 7pm for at least the first week so I booked it to start Feb 4th.

So for a late show for next week I had to get creative. There wasn't anything left that we had chosen not to play in the past. I briefly toyed with playing Jackass 3. I decided to try bringing in Inside Job a documentary about the global financial crisis narrated by Matt Damon. I'm not sure if enough people have heard of it to do well but we'll see. There are two other factors at work. The Oscar noms are being announced tomorrow and Inside Job has been mentioned as a likely nominee for Best Documentary. There is a local teacher that bring a couple classes of high school students to educational type films sometimes. I had asked him a few weeks ago if he would bring them to Inside Job and he said he probably would. Hopefully the timing is good and he can bring the students. That would cover about half of what the film needs to break even.

So Harry Potter is the following week. Not sure what or if there will be a late show since Harry is fairly long. Maybe I'll bring in Jackass, it's short and might be popular. We didn't do great with the second one though.

Next Week's movie Oct 15 - 21

I had already booked in Inception to start on the 15th. It was available last week but I had already booked Eat Pray Love. I think Inception will do well, we've been waiting for it for a while.

My only decision was whether to play a late show next week. Inception is so long a late show would have been at 10pm, really late for us. Only certain movies will work that late, generally movies aimed only at younger people. Scott Pilgrim might have worked but I had already played it for two weeks. I considered bringing back Toy Story 3 since it was popular and is short so it wouldn't end too late at night. I decided not to. I also briefly considered playing Inception for two shows a night. I think it's popular enough to do so but the late show wouldn't finish until 12:45 which is after the last buses. It would also mess up the Friday Midnight movie.

Let Me In turned out to be available for next week. I wasn't expecting it to come off so fast. I considered playing it after Inception but decided I should wait for a week when I can play it earlier. I don't get a lot of movies that are good late shows so I wanted to make the best of it. Let Me In is basically a horror film but has enough other elements that it might play well at Western Film. It got good word of mouth as well. It may tank but it seems worth the risk.

So in the end Inception is playing by itself at 7pm.

Let Me In will be the late show the following week. I'm not sure what to expect for the early show.

Next couple weeks films. Sep 3- 16

Since we were closed for three weeks we built up a backlog of available movies. This resulted in us not playing a couple films we would have otherwise, but also allowed me to book the Frosh Week movies early. We try to get the new students into the theatre during Frosh Week so I booked the films ahead so the orientation staff and sophs can tell them what we are playing.

Here's some of the films that came available.



A-Team- from Fox so couldn't split, this movie wasn't worth playing by itself.

Knight and Day- also Fox and even less worth playing by itself.



If we had been open the three weeks I would have asked Fox if we could play both movies the same week, they will usually split with their own movies. Now better movies are available so I won't be playing either one.



Predators- Fox, no splits but probably wouldn't have played it anyway.



The Last Airbender - no words are needed.



Sorcerer's Apprentice. If we had been open I might have played it just to fill space but now I don't need to. It was a fun movie, I don't think it deserved the horrible death it got.

For re-opening I ended up booking The Girl Who Played With Fire. I'd rather have reopened with a big movie like Inception but it wasn't available. Also I wanted to play Girl before school started as a lot of the non-students stop coming during the first couple weeks of school. The other movie I reopened with was Grown Ups.

For Frosh Week I booked Twilight Eclipse and Dinner For Schmucks. Twilight isn't the best Frosh Week movie as mostly only the girls will go. Dinner For Schmucks is good for anyone.

For the last part of Frosh Week I booked Toy Story 3 and Salt, both good films. I wanted to play matinees of Toy Story but the theatre was already booked by someone else. Not an issue I would have had to worry about if we had got it before school started.

Next Week's films Jul 30 - Aug 5

I've gotten behind on these again. The only new movie available to play for next week was The Last Airbender which I don't plan to play. The Karate Kid and Prince of Persia had both come available in the last couple weeks so I choose those. I'm not sure how Prince of Persia will do as it wasn't exactly a huge hit but I think it will do well enough to play it.

The A-Team is available but I can't split it so it probably won't be played. We are going to be closed for three playweeks for renovations as of Aug 6th. The timing is actually kinda good. I'm running out of movies to play. This has been a weird summer with a lot of disappointing movies, most of which we have either already played or won't be playing. Most of the movies currently playing now are hits that will keep playing first run for a while like Toy Story 3 and Inception. All the big summer movies have opened so there isn't a lot of new product coming out to bump older films off the screens. Whereas something like Iron Man 2 takes up several screens in a multiplex opening weekend the films left this summer are the kind that only take one.

About the only film that might have been available for the following week is The Girl Who Played With Fire and I think there's still no extra prints so even if The Hyland drops it the print will go off to another first run theatre.

I expect to reopen on Aug 27th with Toy Story 3 and Girl Who Played With Fire but we'll see what happens.

Next Week's Films Jul 9 - 15

I'd already scheduled in Robin Hood so I only needed to decide on what late show to play. Shrek 4 was available but obviously isn't well suited to a late show. It will play starting Jul 23 at 7pm and matinees. The only other movie that the booker was checking on was Get Him To The Greek which ended up holding so it wasn't available to us. I would have put it in a the late show if it had come available. I was considering keeping Iron Man 2 as a late show but wasn't sure. Robin Hood is quite long which would make the Iron Man 2 show at 9:45 and Iron Man isn't exactly a short film. The evening shows of Iron Man have done quite well. The matinees were a bust but I think a lot of that was due to the holiday weekend and people being out of town. Bringing back Date Night as a late show has worked reasonably well. So I decided to keep Iron Man 2 for a late show. I'm also doing a bit of experimenting with matinees. I'd going to run matinees of Robin Hood to try to gauge how non kid's movies will do. I'm also going to run matinees of Iron Man 2 partly to see if the first weekend was a fluke and to give people who didn't come last week a chance to see it.

Considering how the matinees for How To Train Your Dragon did I was truly shocked we didn't get more people for the Iron Man matinees. It was very out of character as Sundays are almost always busier than Saturday but we ended up having no one show up for the 1:45 show on Sunday?!

So the Robin Hood matinees are at 1:30 and the Iron Man 2 matinees are at 4:15. This is the first time I've run two different movies as matinees, I hope it's not too confusing.

Sex and the City 2 is already booked for the following week and will probably be followed by a late show of Get Him To The Greek. I doubt Robin Hood will do well enough to keep for another week.

Next Week's Movies Jul 2- 8

This is one of those weeks that's a bit annoying. There were 4 movies available, 3 of which I plan to play. The 4th one was Jonah Hex which I'm not going to play as it bombed very, very, badly and wasn't a very good movie.

Of the three I do plan to play I picked one for next week and I've slotted the other two in for later weeks. I decided to play Iron Man 2 first. This is basically a long weekend and the kids are just out of school so I figured it was a good week for something somewhat kid friendly and light. It's playing at the 7pm show and I'm going to run matinees on Sat and Sun.

Neither of the other films available I wanted to play as a late show so I decided to bring back Date Night. It did better than I expected when I played it for both shows and most nights the late show was actually busier than the early show. It's also quite short.

Robin Hood is scheduled to start Jul 9 and Sex and the City 2 for Jul 16th. I don't see anything else coming off that I would rather play then these so I thought I would just go ahead and book them in so I can advertise them. They will play the 7pm show. I think I'm going to try another experiment and run matinees of both. I've noticed a fair number of people show up to matinees that I never see at evening shows. I don't see either matinees being really busy so I'm going to try running with only two staff instead of the usual three to save money in case the matinees don't do well. Two staff is only a problem for the couple minutes when the projectionist is in starting the film. For that period we will sell tickets at the snack bar.

Late shows for those weeks will depend on what's available and how other films do. I might keep Iron Man for example if it does well. However both Robin Hood and SATC2 are fairly long so would make the late show start time fairly late.

Next Week's movies Jun 25 - Jul 1 - a little late.

Got busy last week and didn't make this posting when I usually do.

The only new movie available was Killers which I wasn't sure about playing. Letters To Juliet had been available for a couple weeks but other films kept coming off so it hadn't been played yet. I decided to go with Letters To Juliet at 7pm, it's one of those films that has to be the 7pm show.

I thought a bit about whether to play Killers. I had previously decided not to play it but it came available quite quickly. Since we got it that fast I figured we might as well try it. It didn't get the best word of mouth but the stars are fairly popular. It's also a bit of an experiment to see if negative buzz is having the effect I think it is. If Killers doesn't do well I think that's pretty much it for negative buzz films. I tried playing MacGruber which turned out to be better than most thought it would be but it still had a negative buzz to it. It bombed at Western Film and didn't even break even. I saw Killers and found it entertaining enough but it wasn't the best movie I've ever seen.

Next Week's Film Jun 18 - 24

There was only one new film available which made a couple decisions easier. Date Night was available but since it's from Fox I would only be able to play it by itself, not split it with another movie for the week. I had been trying to decide whether to play it as I wasn't sure it warranted a week all to itself. Since it was the only film I didn't have to decide.

I had been trying to decide whether to keep the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for another week. It had done well on the weekend but not spectacular and it's really long. Since I couldn't split it with Date Night that made up my mind for me.

The other decision I had to make was whether to play just one show of Date Night at 7pm or play two shows a night. Date Night is quite short so the late show could run at 9pm so I decided to run the late show. It won't cost too much extra staffing so it's worth the risk of experimenting. If the movie had been a full two hours long I would have just done one show. My staff like it when I run two shows so they get in a full shift. If there's only one show they only get two hours work.

Date Night is a funny movie so I suggest seeing it, and stay for the scenes in the credits.

The only movie I've got in the backlog right now is Letters To Juliet which I could have played a couple weeks ago but other films I wanted to play more kept coming available. It looks like we won't have space to play The Last Song which I was kinda iffy about anyway.

Robin Hood should be available soon and maybe Iron Man 2. I think I'll try running matinees for Iron Man, we did some for How To Train Your Dragon and they did okay.

Next Week's Movies Sep 4 - 10

Next Week is one of the most important of the year. We try to get as many of the new students as possible to know Western Film is here and hopefully go to a film as part of thier orientation. This year I got two movies I consider to be perfect Frosh Week movies. Both have general appeal and are comedies good for going to in groups. THE PROPOSAL is at 7pm and THE HANGOVER plays at 9:20.

My current plan is the switch THE HANGOVER to 7pm starting Sept 11. I think I can get a third week out of it and there's probably a lot of people who want to see it but don't want to go to the late show for whatever reason. I'll decide on Tuesday what to play as a late show that week.

The Ugly Truth should be available, MOON is still on my list to play. Harry Potter may come off soon. I may try Star Trek for another week once the students come back. That's one of those films that can be watched more than once. I've seen the whole movie 4 times, the beginning 5 times and the ending about 8 while working.

The last couple weeks.

I've been bad about posting again. I'll go through what I've played the last few weeks in case anyone cares.

UP- I decided to try to do both evenings shows plus matinees for this one. The late show was surprisingly busy. The matinees did okay but we got mostly adults, not a lot of kids. I may bring it back.

STAR TREK- Did well enough it's second week that I may bring it back during the school year.

PUBLIC ENEMIES- did okay

TRANSFORMERS- was surprisingly quiet, not dead but not what I would have expected.

FUNNY PEOPLE - didn't do very well, I understood why after I watched it. How can so many funny people make a movie that's not very funny and way too long.

AWAY WE GO. - this was a bit of an experiment. I had an opening after Funny People and no other new movies were available. I wasn't sure how to full it as the show would be rather late starting because of the length of Funny People. My first choice was MOON but there weren't any prints available. If AWAY WE GO had not been available I would have put in UP for another week. In retrospect I should have switched the order and played AWAY WE GO at 7pm and FUNNY PEOPLE for the late show. AWAY WE GO probably would have out grossed Funny People then.

THE HURT LOCKER - another bit of an experiment, got a lot of great reviews but awareness was low. It actually did better than I expected and it's a good sign that people will take a chance on good movies.

BRUNO did okay but I expected more. The people that did come tended to laugh a lot.

THE HANGOVER- did quite well for a 10pm show. I'm bringing it back from Frosh week as the late show and plan to play it again the following week at 7pm to give people a chance to see it who don't want to see the late show.

These movies I rejected.

ALIENS IN THE ATTIC- Fox was unusually nice and was going to let us split it but it wouldn't have done any business.

I LOVE YOU BETH COPPER- Fox plus wouldn't have done any business.

A PERFECT GETAWAY- a okay little action film but wouldn't have done any business.

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.

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.

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.

Next Week's Film Jun 26 - Jul 2.

The booker told me last week ANGELS AND DEMONS might come off so I held off on booking in Wolverine which I knew was available. Angels was available so I booked it in. I thought for a bit about whether or not to play a late show but decided not to. It's a long film and caters more to adults who tend not to come to the late show.

These films were also available.

LAND OF THE LOST: I can't believe this came available after only two weeks?!, talk about a huge bomb. If I get a dead week I might throw it in but I don't plan to play it.

IMAGINE THAT: another huge bomb and too aimed at children for us to play it anyway.

WOLVERINE: I'm so pissed at Fox and their rules. This film has been off screen for two weeks and the only reason I couldn't play it already is because they make us wait two weeks. I ended up playing TWO LOVERS this week just to fill the space and it has rewarded me by being one of the worst attended movies ever at Western Film. It's a good film but the studio didn't do a good job promoting it and people haven't heard of it.

There is a possibility STAR TREK may come off for the following week so I didn't book Wolverine in. As I mentioned in a previous post I don't really think we will be losing much if we don't play Wolverine at all.