Welcome to BigScreenBiz.com

Howdy all, this will not be an epic ala Large! After sucking it up with pain pills I fled Maine at 3:00am Tuesday for Orlando. Thanks to AA I took 18 hours to arrive in one piece. The show is in one locale, movies at another, and events all over. They have buses up the wahoo! so things move fairly well. I saw FINDING FORESTER last night/ rough print about a hiding genius who befriends a local black genius kid in the Bronx... kind of all over the place but needs edit treatment... look for a big release before Xmas. I just saw Vertical Limit ..this is the mountain climbing flick that almost opened last summer.... it was strictly intense edge of the seat adrenilin gut crusher. It will be a huge picture. It's not like you'll love it but you'll go and see it. The trade show opens in a few minute. I'm meating up with a lot of you...Greg Borr of RTS and his crwew just had lunch. Blackwell Theatre of Marietta bought me a drink last night. Met with Exhibitor Relations, Paul Degarabedian to provide free Monday morn e-mail of grosses partnering arrangement. We're working here!

Large travels with a lap top but I don't have one. I have to pay 6$ to use this thing! Forgetttabout it!

More about Orlando and Show East later.

Ciao! See you on the radio!

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Mike Hurley
www.bigscreenbiz.com

Phase two: I'm grueling here! This show eats a guy alive! I mean it's long with no hours to yourself and all work/play all the time. Dinner/brekfast/movie/trade show/go-go-go.

Saw more movies: Though I passed on The Family Man the buzz was ecstatic and highly positive. Universal was pissed I did not go but meetings called! Men of Honor was very good but lagged at the end. 13 Days was perfect and will go very well. Vertical Limit still has me ga-ga. You could never enjoy this movie but you'll have to see it. Expect huge box-office. Miss Congeniality was cute--in one eye and out the other... no big deal and def not big stuff. I'm off to see Legend of Bagger Vance.... I'll need to sleep a month!

The big news is I made a deal with Exhibitor Relations to e-mail their box office figures every Monday morning to any biggiescreenites.... that will be a free subscribe for you and a normal 40.00 per week cost... we keep adding bells and whistles.

Which reminds me: what do you want on this site? What service could we best provide you?

I'm outta here! best/ Mike

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Mike Hurley
www.bigscreenbiz.com

Our biggest problem as an independent is getting promotional materials in a timely manner.

We didn't get Best in Show posters and trailers until we booked the film the Tuesday before opening.

We need Quills posters and trailers.
We need Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon posters and trailers.
We need the distributors to take a chance on us and send us the promotional material when we ask and not give us the runaround.

Mike,
Hope the rest of the show went well for you. It was nice meeting you and putting a face with the name.

The Trade Show went very well for RTS, although some other vendors were a little disappointed with the attendance. Overall it was much easier setting up and tearing down than years past in Atlantic City.

Greg Borr
Ready Theatre Systems

Looking forward to those Exhibitor Relations figures. How do we sign up?

We did sign a deal with ERC and all that's need now is to have the web guys build it. We will probably auto subscribe everyone who is registered. I'm going to try and paste this in. Probaby not successfully! Look for a coherent version shortly!

MONDAY FINAL GROSSES
Rank RLW TITLE RATING %TOP 12 DISTRIBUTOR AS SITES WK F-S-S AVG %CHG TOTAL LAST WKND SITES LAST CUME
1 1 MEET THE PARENTS PG-13 28.6% UNIVERSAL 1 2615 2 $21,168,385 $8,095 -26% $58,824,635 $28,623,300 2614 $28,623,300 28.6%
2 2 REMEMBER THE TITANS PG 17.6% BUENA VISTA 25 2726 3 $13,057,421 $4,790 -32% $64,206,353 $19,209,998 2701 $45,864,713 17.6%
3 - LOST SOULS - NEW R 10.7% NEW LINE - 1970 1 $7,954,766 $4,038 - $7,954,766 10.7%
4 - THE LADIES' MAN - NEW R 7.3% PARAMOUNT - 2022 1 $5,426,390 $2,684 - $5,426,390 7.3%
5 - THE CONTENDER - NEW R 7.2% DREAMWORKS - 1516 1 $5,363,900 $3,538 - $5,363,900 7.2%
6 4 THE EXORCIST R 7.1% WARNERS 505 1655 4 $5,235,581 $3,163 18% $30,534,411 $4,441,612 1150 $23,935,355 7.1%
7 - DR. T AND THE WOMEN - NEW R 6.8% ARTISAN - 1489 1 $5,012,867 $3,367 - $5,012,867 6.8%
8 3 GET CARTER R 3.9% WARNERS 0 2315 2 $2,916,232 $1,260 -56% $11,740,680 $6,637,830 2315 $6,637,830 3.9%
9 6 ALMOST FAMOUS R 3.0% DREAMWORKS 177 2262 5 $2,192,827 $969 -41% $26,676,713 $3,718,598 2085 $23,262,437 3.0%
10 13 BEST IN SHOW PG-13 2.9% WARNERS 238 291 3 $2,137,861 $7,347 186% $3,889,111 $746,871 53 $1,404,066 2.9%
11 5 DIGIMON: THE MOVIE PG 2.6% FOX 2 1825 2 $1,936,896 $1,061 -54% $7,330,357 $4,233,304 1823 $4,233,304 2.6%
12 8 BRING IT ON PG-13 2.2% UNIVERSAL -195 2187 8 $1,640,250 $750 -28% $64,749,850 $2,262,925 2382 $62,502,195 2.2%
ALSO OPENING
- BILLY ELLIOT - NEW R UNIVERSAL - 10 1 $215,681 $21,568 - $215,681
- RATCATCHER - NEW FIRST LOOK - 2 1 $10,762 $5,381 - $10,762
- DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID - NEW RIALTO - 1 1 $4,432 $4,432 - $4,432
WEEKEND #42 - WEEKEND BEGINNING 10/13/2000
THIS WEEKEND THE TOP 12 FILMS GROSSED: $74,043,376
THE TOP 12 FILMS FROM THE SAME WEEKEND LAST YEAR GROSSED: $71,086,552
TOP 12 THIS WEEKEND VS. SAME WEEKEND LAST YEAR: 4.16%
THE TOP 12 FILMS (F-S-S) LAST WEEKEND GROSSED: $76,014,054
TOP 12 THIS WEEKEND VS. LAST WEEKEND: -2.59%
OPENING WIDE NEXT WEEKEND (10/20/2000) - THE LEGEND OF DRUNKEN MASTER (MIRAMAX) 1500 SITES, PAY IT FORWARD (WARNERS) 1500 + SITES, BEDAZZALED (FOX) 2400 + SITES
TOP 5 FILMS SAME WEEKEND #42 LAST YEAR - 10/15/99 - CUME GROSSES THROUGH SUNDAY 10/17/99 WEEKEND WEEKEND
Rank WK# TITLE & DISTRIBUTOR OPENED SITES DAYS GROSS AVG. RATING CUME
1 1 FIGHT CLUB (FOX) Fri, 10/15/1999 1963 F-S-S $11,035,485 $5,622 R $11,035,485
2 4 DOUBLE JEOPARDY (PARAMOUNT) Fri, 9/24/1999 2936 F-S-S $10,231,222 $3,485 R $80,430,361
3 1 THE STORY OF US (UNIVERSAL) Fri, 10/15/1999 2164 F-S-S $9,673,080 $4,470 R $9,673,080
4 3 THREE KINGS (WARNERS) Fri, 10/1/1999 2942 F-S-S $7,276,940 $2,473 R $43,681,624
5 5 AMERICAN BEAUTY (DREAMWORKS) Wed, 9/15/1999 1350 F-S-S $6,608,144 $4,895 R $41,159,439
SELECTED FILMS - JEFF BRIDGES - COMPARISONS - "THE CONTENDER" (DREAMWORKS) *OPENING WEEKEND WEEKEND FINAL
TITLE & DISTRIBUTOR OPENED SITES RANK* DAYS GROSS AVG. RATING CUME
THE MUSE (USA FILMS) Fri, 8/27/1999 1263 10 F-S-S $3,926,825 $3,109 PG-13 $11,614,236
ARLINGTON ROAD (SONY) Fri, 7/9/1999 1631 6 F-S-S $7,151,145 $4,385 R $24,756,177
THE BIG LEBOWSKI (GRAMERCY) Fri, 3/6/1998 1207 6 F-S-S $5,533,844 $4,585 R $17,439,163
THE MIRROR HAS TWO FACES (SONY) Fri, 11/15/1996 2489 3 F-S-S $12,210,868 $4,906 PG-13 $41,083,864
BLOWN AWAY (MGM) Fri, 7/1/1994 1862 1 F-S-S $8,731,608 $4,689 R $30,156,002

Mike: How was Bagger Vance?