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WE have been saving our movie trailers and posters for many years. Now we need room and are wondering what to do with them. What do other theatres do with their trailers and posters we ask. Anyone out there who has any ideas? What do you do with your trailers and posters.

A poster sale is a good way for the theatre to raise some money for cinemas upgrades. It's legal and the local community likes it. $15 is a good price for a poster. $5 is a good discount price and for a few of your special titles you could charge $25. These prices are for your posters to move. They charge more on the internet but they can sit on them for a while until they sell.

As for you trailers, E-Bay will not carry them anymore. Your best bet is to find a collector who will give you a good price for them all. You can list them on this forum and Film-Tech.

As an idependant, we always send our trailers back so that the film companies will feel good about sending trailers to us.

As for posters our priorities are, do we want to keep it for our classic posters in our hallway? If not the staff can request a poster and if they have been good we give it to them. If we have extra posters we give them away to the public. We are saving up the rest of them for a poster sale.

Colour me stupid, but isn't a poster considered the property of the movie company as long long as the film is in theatrical release? I may be wrong, but I always thought selling them is a no-no until the film hit video. I would appreciate it if someone in the know would feel free to pontificate ont his . . . . Thanks.

Posters and Trailers:

I have letters from both Fox and Disney saying that under no circumstances are we to sell, give away, donate or even keep any of the posters. They also say NOT to return them. The only thing that we are to do with them is....DESTROY THEM!

Disney (of course) also threatens that if we are caught doing any of the before mentioned acts, that we, our heirs, their heirs as well as any other exhibitor that dares to even talk to us, look at us or even suggest that they would think of doing business with us (or even play golf with us), will never ever be sold motion picture product again for as long as the sun will shine and the earth continues to orbit around it. (OK, maybe I did go a little overboard), but it DOES say that they will not serve product to theatres that are caught doing any of those things with THEIR material!

One can still follow the rules as set out by Avalon and still have a poster sale. As far as Disney is concerned, if they charge me for the poster, I own it.

Most posters that are left over at the theatres are now on video and so I guess the poster is fair game.

Large:

If you read your contract you will see that they don't sell you the material..they lease you the material. Therefore it is still theirs...and it's copyrighted. Even though you paid, it's not yours and they have complete control over it.

Thanks for all the help that was offered on the posters and trailers issue. I kind of like the idea of the poster hall of fame. As for the trailers, I think it would be ashame to just destroy them.There should be something that we could do with them. Just trashing them is like throwing away food. If someone wants them it seems they would serve a better fate then the trash.

I am certain that as good Americans every one of us is dutifully destroying their trailers, one sheets, and any other of the piles of goodies poured (rather dribbled) onto our heads by the distribs. I know that here at Gigantaurplex we have a special BURN bin for anything that might be remotely valuable or interesting. I..... personally, love the smell of burning one sheets in the morning.

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Mike Hurley
www.bigscreenbiz.com