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Our local Lions club books a "Christmas Movie" they pay for, and gives out free passes for one showing. We are looking for a older movie, something special we can get for a flat fee...

Looking thru the paramount list there was little to look at?

Any ideas?

Thanks much!

Tony.

How about:

Elf
Polar Express
Grinch Who Stole Xmas
Christmas Story (not sure about prints)
Any of the Disney Santa Clause movies
(although Disney doesn't usually
rent its pictures flat for this sort
of engagement)

Home Alone
White Christmas
Holiday Inn
Home Alone 2
Christmas Vacation

We do a free Christmas show on our own, and it is a pain to do anything Disney. Older Disney prints have to be gotten through Swank, and they have very strict advertising limitations. When we wanted to do one of the Santa Clause movies, we couldn't do any advertising with the name of the movie in it. We usually just pick something from another studio that books older movies themselves. Last year we did "Polar Express" from WB and it was a flat fee, but I don't remember how much.

I always tried doing the older Christmas themed movies for these type of shows--but in the last 3 years we have started booking a generic family movie that is not yet on dvd, but available flat rate. Our turn outs have doubled doing this rather than playing the already-on-video titles. This year is looking a bit tough though as not much from this year that won't be on dvd.

I did work with Swank one year for "Santa Claus" but, as mentioned, there are alot of stipulations to have the rights to show an older Disney movie. Swank was great to work with, but trying to explain to my non-profits that they can not use the title in any commercial media was a bit hard.

Seems dumb that you can't use the pictures name! but who are we to say, hollywood knows more than we do eh?

Reminds me of WB not allowing ANY advertising to be done without written concent from them AFTER reviewing your potential ad... um, How pray tell did they expect anyone to do this? by the time the film was booked, and you had a week or less to get ads in, you were saposed to send them copy, wait to hear back so you could run an ad like:

Starts Friday: Polar Express (or whatever) rated PG show times 7 & 9pm


...

Anyways I checked the NEW list paramount has online and was suprised to see they have NEW prints of White Christmas and miracle on 34th street...

Might try White Christmas if we can get one of the new prints.

will keep looking...

Maybe we will run it more than the one FREE showing also...

thanks!!!

We do a 4-5 weekend Free Family Holiday Matinee Series from Thanksgiving to Christmas and we do 2 shows on Sat and 2 on Sun. It is paid for through paid sponsorship. We get packed depending on the show. Classics do +/- 50-75% less than anything that is current. I always say: go recent with a freebie. Your theatre can do that.

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Michael Hurley
Impresario