Welcome to BigScreenBiz.com

My first run AMC is already selling advance tickets to Star Wars Ep III - as are most of the big chains. But as I understand it Fox continues to refuse to talk to independents about any type of deal.

What is going on here?

I had this discussion with my booker this afternoon. Fox won't confirm bookings or give terms until after a film has its trade Screeing. According to him, Episode 3 Trade screens on May 4th nationwide. Then we can tighten our belts for what are sure to be tough terms.

My question still stands. How can they be selling tickets to something that technically isn't booked yet?

800-pound gorillas can do whatever they want!

At my theatre, the booking was confirmed last week and tickets for the 12:01am first show are now on sale. The terms have not been finalized to my knowledge.

It's going to play in every house that has 4 seats and a screen. Sell tiks if the description fits you.

---

Michael Hurley
Impresario

We're confirmed with the picture ... terms are not available yet.

I asked my booker about this. She says that any theatre that got the last ones would be allocated this one. If there's no clearance issue that would get in the way of a first-run house getting a show like this, it's a pretty slim risk.

Still, the theatres that are selling tickets aren't "confirmed" as far as Fox is concerned, nor have terms been set. Believe it or not, these places are selling tickets for a show, sight (and cost) unseen.

So..... ya gotta wonder about the situation with the Chinese Theatre... are they running it or aren't they... really???

I have confirmation for our Fox branch manager that we will be opening the picture. Number of prints, however, is not set. Guaranteed One.

I also had a good long talk with my booker and her office staff collecting the grosses from the last installment for this theater and calculating the buyout. They feel fairly confident that our terms will be the same as the last time: 12 week deal - 70 70 70 70 60 60 60 60 50 50 40 40. If booked in a digital theater it must stay in the digital theater throughout the duration of the run.

We have 2 digital screens which are the largest houses of course. Apparently the previous installment left here after 5 weeks + 1 day. So they paid for 7 weeks of the buyout. Using their grosses and some other theaters actual buyout payment I calculated that nearly any run of the mill film would out perform Star Wars assuming that we have to take the buyout. Since we've only held Pirates of the Caribbean that long and it wasn't a sequel, I very much doubt that we will be keeping Star Wars that long. Then I looked at all the film that we won't be able to book with one of our two biggest auditoriums tied up for the whole summer. I really don't think that Star Wars is a particularly good investment for us. We could gamble that it performs better than the previous installments but how often does that happen? Is anyone else considering skipping Episode III on a financial basis?

Running the last film doesn't matter, we ran it (1 screen digital + 2 screens film). This go 'round, we're not getting it, even though we are the only digital house in town...

I am not looking forward to running this film at all--but will probably take one print for one of my towns. Because of weather being summer like for last 3 weeks, which is very unusual for my part of the world, all my towns are down 60%--which does not leave me with much of a "slush fund" for the buy out, which I know will have to be done.

There is so little product that looks like something my customers will want to see next month that I will need to tie up at least 1 theatre.

Thank God this is last installment!! Bring on Harry Potter.

ahhhh, but they are ALL coming out on Digital 3D.

What has the deal been with small towns? Are they required to do the long run too?

I am in some of the smallest towns for this business in the country--and it still was a 6 week deal with high percentages (did buy out 1 week on episode 1 and 3 weeks on episode 2--episode 2 did about 50% of 1 in my towns. Unfortunately my customers are not excited at all about episode 3 (all age variations)