Next Week's Movie.

I was afraid this would happen. Iron Man didn't come off. The only new movie that might have been available was The Strangers. I told the booker we didn't want it anyway (horror film) before she knew whether it was available or not.

I checked into the art/independent stuff. The only one I thought we would do okay with was My Blueberry Nights but no prints were available.

So I had to go back through films we had chosen not to play for various reasons. I narrowed my choice down to 2 films, Speed Racer or Street Kings. I had initially decided to go with Speed Racer because of it's higher profile but the booker convinced me to go with Street Kings. She said Speed Racer had been doing horrible at second run theatres. The negative buzz was just too strong even though the film wasn't that bad.

The main reason I didn't play Street Kings before was because it was from Fox so I couldn't split it. That isn't a problem this week because there's nothing to split it with anyway. I am however only playing one show a night. It wouldn't do enough business to justify two shows a night by itself.

If Iron Man doesn't come off next week I'll have a conniption fit (whatever that is).

I was informed we could have What Happens In Vegas as of Jun 27 but it's Fox so I can't split it. It may wait a week or two until I get a week when there isn't anything else available.

The eternal question, what time should we start a single show?

One thing that gets brought up quite a bit is whether we should start the movie at 8pm instead of 7pm during weeks we only have one showing. I've tried a bit of both and I tend to leave it at 7pm.

Pros of an 8 pm movie.
-patrons might come who couldn't make it to a 7pm.
-it's an unusual time so it might make us stand out more and be remembered for future moviegoing.

Cons of an 8pm movie.
-patrons might not notice we changed the time for that week and show up at 7pm or vice-versa and assume all summer or single shows will be at 8pm.

- not all of the single summer shows would be at 8pm, long movies (Spider-Man 3) would still have to start at 7 as well as anything that children might come to (Shrek).

-When I have run 8pm shows in the past I noticed concession sales were lower presumably because people have had more time to go out for dinner beforehand. Since we pay a large portion of our expenses from the food sales this isn't a good thing.

-even short movies starting at 8pm might run too late for some people.

When I have tried it in the past I have found the cons outweighed the pro. Please feel free to leave a comment if you disagree.

Single / early shows only?

During the summer there are a lot of weeks we only have one show at 7pm with no late show. There's a few reasons for this.

-With fewer students around there are fewer movies that are worth playing, for example I might play something like 28 Weeks Later during the school year but probably won't during the summer.

-The crowd is different, we tend to get a lot more faculty, off-campus, and families during the summer. As another example I probably wouldn't have played Wild Hogs during the school year. This crowd tends not to go to the late shows.

- last year it seemed like almost every week there was only one movie I wanted to play anyway. During the summer you tend to get big movies and lots of small movies that don't do well. This summer may be different, it looks like there's going to be lots of good movies.

- long movies- Spiderman, Harry Potter and Pirates 3 are all almost three hours long with trailers. That makes a late show at 10pm which doesn't always work for the reasons listed above. Even during the school year that's getting late for us.
A couple of my staff and I were talking about whether to play a late show of Spiderman when we get it. I honestly couldn't decide whether I should or not. I figure I'll wait and see how long it takes to get it. I may also use it as an experiment. Play a late show and see how it does to gauge whether I should show late shows of the other big movies.