Maxie Zeus
08-13-2001, 03:18 PM
I found this article in today's (Monday's) New York Times, which I thought others here might be interested in. Since the site requires registration to enter, I've pasted it up:
IN MULTIPLEX AGE, EVEN BLOCKBUSTERS FIND FAME FLEETING
By RICK LYMAN
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 12 — Much of the story is up there on the marquees: "Jurassic Park III" on two screens. "Planet of the Apes" on three screens. "Rush Hour 2" on four screens.
But the rest is inside the nation's proliferating multiplexes this summer: unlike in the past, nearly everyone can find a seat for even the hottest movie on the opening weekend. The resulting box-office statistics show an unprecedented parade of films opening to huge ticket sales ($68.5 million for the first three days of "Planet of the Apes," for instance) only to plummet in the second weekend (down 60 percent for "Apes"). Movie after movie has done that this summer, yet many of them will emerge as sizable hits. "Apes," despite the drop, is expected to make nearly $200 million in North American theaters alone.
Something profound is happening at the megaplexes, and it has little to do with what appears on the screen. Rather, it is about how those movies are being seen.
The summer hits of 2001 are making about as much money as hits from previous summers, but they are making it quicker, making more of it than ever on opening weekend.
Movies are opening on more screens, generating staggering grosses and then plummeting off the radar. Many executives in Hollywood see this trend, which they call "front loading," as a fundamental change in the way summer movies are being watched, not so much a mutation in audience behavior as the natural, evolutionary result of America's 25-year obsession with a movie's opening weekend.
Perhaps it was inevitable that a fast-food culture thriving on speed and disposability would eventually create fast movies.
"It's another example of the instant gratification society in which we live," said Tom Rothman, co- chairman of Fox Filmed Entertainment, which includes the 20th Century Fox film studio.
The repercussions will almost certainly include an increase in the kind of movies best suited for splashy summer openings (at the expense of more original fare), as well as battles between the studios that distribute the films and the theater chains that exhibit them over how to split the opening weekend revenue.
In the future, when digital distribution comes and movies are shipped electronically rather than on metal reels, these trends will only be magnified, as they will when studios become more adept at opening films not merely all over the country but all over the world on the same day.
"The rules are being rewritten as we speak," Mr. Rothman said.
The explosion of multiplexes, where it is easy to open a movie in more than one auditorium, has created a situation in which the shelf life of a film — even a hit — has been dramatically reduced. Four decades ago successful movies were in theaters for a year or more. Later, successes were measured in months and then, as the science of the wide release flowered, in weeks.
This summer it could almost be measured in days: a huge opening, a rapid plunge, and a few weeks later the hit movie is just a speck in the rear-view mirror. Hollywood has responded with movies created to be pop-culture events. The studios are releasing them with machine-gun regularity rather than bunching them around the holidays.
"Over the last five to seven years the landscape of American cinemas has changed," said Dan Fellman, president for distribution at Warner Brothers. "In the past, when a big movie would open, you might think: `I won't even bother. It'll be sold out. I'd have to get there an hour early.' Now the movie's showing on five screens, so you go. You know you're going to get in. Nobody gets turned away. The result? Movies burn out quicker."
Partly this has to do with the quality and nature of this year's summer movies. But many in Hollywood believe that it also reveals something larger at work.
For more than 25 years one of the main stories of American moviegoing, especially during the lucrative summer season, has been the steadily increasing importance of the opening weekend. The inevitable result has been a film culture dominated by movies intended to have thermonuclear openings — sequels, remakes, special-effects blockbusters, stories featuring established characters from comic books, television series and video games — and the creation of megaplexes where such films can be shown on several screens. The trend seems to have reached a new peak.
"This is the first time that people are really seeing the power of the megaplexes," said Jeff Blake, president for worldwide distribution and marketing of Columbia Pictures.
Once upon a time, and not so long ago, a summer blockbuster might open in 2,000 theaters and experience a drop in ticket sales between the first and second weekends of 30 percent or less. The good ones, the hits, had what distributors delighted in calling legs. They would play for weeks, sometimes months. If a big movie dipped more than 40 percent in its second weekend, it was considered a debacle. Heads would roll.
But no more.
This summer, even would-be blockbusters have routinely opened in more than 3,000 theaters. Since more and more megaplexes are putting movies on multiple screens, that usually translates into 4,000, 5,000 or sometimes more prints blasting at screens on opening weekend. (If a movie is showing on three screens at the same megaplex, it still counts as only one theater in the weekend box-office statistics.)
And it has also become not just possible, but common for such films to drop off 50 percent or more in their second weekends and still be major hits, earning $150 million and up.
"These are very significant trends," said John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners. "Not too long ago a thousand prints was an awful lot of prints to have out there. In the old days if you went to see a movie on opening weekend, and it was sold out, you had to wait two and a half hours for the next one. Now the next show's coming up in a half-hour."
In the 1960's and earlier, most movies were released in a handful of theaters in the biggest cities. Weeks later they made their way to second- tier cities and to suburbs and finally into the rural heartland. In 1975, however, "Jaws," which opened in only 409 theaters, became an overnight phenomenon. Hollywood realized that it was possible to create films that were not merely successful, but cash-generating, pop-culture events, movies that almost everyone wanted to see quickly.
Yet even in the early 1980's, when studios were beginning to exploit this technique, the number of screens remained low. "Return of the Jedi" opened in only 1,002 theaters in 1983, a wide release in its day. But the numbers inched up.
As Hollywood began to pay more attention to opening weekend grosses, so did the news media. In the early 80's weekend box-office statistics, once limited to the trade papers, began to appear in general newspapers and broadcast reports, and studios began to use the results ("The No. 1 Movie in America!") to promote films. Given this self-inflicted pressure, for more than a decade Hollywood movies have approached opening days with a built-in set of box-office expectations; their success or failure has been marked by how well they performed against those expectations.
Not until 1996 and "Mission: Impossible" did the first film open in more than 3,000 theaters. Four years later "Mission: Impossible 2" became the first film to open in more than 3,500 theaters.
Now such openings are common. "The Mummy Returns" kicked off the summer season in May by opening in 3,401 theaters. "Shrek" followed in 3,587 theaters, "Pearl Harbor" in 3,214. And on and on: "Dr. Dolittle 2" in 3,049, "A.I." in 3,242, "Scary Movie 2" in 3,220, "Jurassic Park III" in 3,434, "Rush Hour 2" in 3,118 and, this weekend, "American Pie 2" in 3,063. ("Pie" earned an estimated $45.1 million in its first three days, the largest opening ever for an R-rated comedy.)
The second weekend drop-offs were as dramatic as the openings. "The Mummy Returns" fell 50 percent, as did "Pearl Harbor." "A.I." fell 52 percent, "Rush Hour 2" 53 percent. "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within," which had opened on 2,649 screens, fell a staggering 68 percent.
"We've seen these kind of drop- offs in the past, but they were in the wake of a big holiday weekend opening, like a Memorial Day or a Fourth of July," said Paul Dergarabedian, chairman of Exhibitor Relations, a company that monitors box-office results. "This year we're getting these holidaylike opening weekends almost every weekend. Legs are becoming a thing of the past."
The only old-style hit this summer, the kind of movie with legs, has been DreamWorks' computer-animated "Shrek," which actually had its box- office figures go up slightly in its second weekend and has held on to become the season's undisputed champ, passing $260 million in sales.
Not everyone agrees that the drop- offs have been caused by the number of screens. Many think part of the reason is what's on the screen. "Shrek" built its success on a strong opening followed by word of mouth. People loved it, went to see it again and told friends to go see it, too.
"I think it's really the movies," said Brett Ratner, who directed "Rush Hour 2." "What happened was that because people had been worried there would be strikes this summer by actors and writers, a lot of movies were really rushed, and it made for some lesser quality work."
However valid those sentiments, they still don't account for the huge surge in opening weekend grosses, which many in the industry say points to something less ephemeral than the ebb and flow of movie quality. And in that, they say, are serious economic repercussions.
In most contracts movie studios get a higher percentage of the ticket sales they split with theater chains in the opening weekend than they do in subsequent weekends. The most dramatic of these is the so-called 90-10 split, in which 90 percent of box- office revenue goes to the studio on the opening weekend. Under that arrangement it is clearly in the studios' interest to earn as much of the gross in the opening weekend as possible.
"They're delighted at the studios," said Mr. Fithian of the theater owners' group. "We're not necessarily delighted in exhibition."
This comes as the exhibitors are trying to recover from a building binge in the late 90's that increased the number of screens in the United States to more than 38,000 from 27,000 in 1995. Some of the chains have been seeking relief by trying to strike agreements in which they split the same percentage of the weekly gross, whether it's opening weekend or not. If this summer's trend continues, they may push even harder.
The studios take a different view. Having a new blockbuster arriving every weekend — something Mr. Fithian says the theater owners are happy with — means there are fewer summer scheduling lulls, the studios argue. The cinemas may not be sold out as often, they say, but neither are they sitting empty as often. And since theater owners make most of their profits at the concession stands, this is to their benefit.
"The one place you still have to stand in line is at the concession stand," said Mr. Rothman of Fox Entertainment.
Still unclear is what impact the coming world of digital distribution will have. Almost certainly, most agree, it will further magnify the importance of the opening weekend.
Instead of being limited by the number of film prints they have been shipped, cinema operators will, with digital distribution, be able to shift the number of screens on which a film is playing by flicking a switch.
How much flexibility will there be over the course of the opening weekend to shift movies to more or fewer and larger or smaller theaters to accommodate actual turnout?
"We think the best situation would be when we can make that decision on the fly," Mr. Fithian said, speaking for the theater operators.
Studios, fearful that a movie that does not roar out of the gate will quickly be shunted into megaplex oblivion, are skeptical about giving up that much control.
"If the technology gets to the point where supply and demand can be manipulated in real time, on the fly and on the first weekend, it would be very amazing to see what would happen," Mr. Dergarabedian said.
IN MULTIPLEX AGE, EVEN BLOCKBUSTERS FIND FAME FLEETING
By RICK LYMAN
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 12 — Much of the story is up there on the marquees: "Jurassic Park III" on two screens. "Planet of the Apes" on three screens. "Rush Hour 2" on four screens.
But the rest is inside the nation's proliferating multiplexes this summer: unlike in the past, nearly everyone can find a seat for even the hottest movie on the opening weekend. The resulting box-office statistics show an unprecedented parade of films opening to huge ticket sales ($68.5 million for the first three days of "Planet of the Apes," for instance) only to plummet in the second weekend (down 60 percent for "Apes"). Movie after movie has done that this summer, yet many of them will emerge as sizable hits. "Apes," despite the drop, is expected to make nearly $200 million in North American theaters alone.
Something profound is happening at the megaplexes, and it has little to do with what appears on the screen. Rather, it is about how those movies are being seen.
The summer hits of 2001 are making about as much money as hits from previous summers, but they are making it quicker, making more of it than ever on opening weekend.
Movies are opening on more screens, generating staggering grosses and then plummeting off the radar. Many executives in Hollywood see this trend, which they call "front loading," as a fundamental change in the way summer movies are being watched, not so much a mutation in audience behavior as the natural, evolutionary result of America's 25-year obsession with a movie's opening weekend.
Perhaps it was inevitable that a fast-food culture thriving on speed and disposability would eventually create fast movies.
"It's another example of the instant gratification society in which we live," said Tom Rothman, co- chairman of Fox Filmed Entertainment, which includes the 20th Century Fox film studio.
The repercussions will almost certainly include an increase in the kind of movies best suited for splashy summer openings (at the expense of more original fare), as well as battles between the studios that distribute the films and the theater chains that exhibit them over how to split the opening weekend revenue.
In the future, when digital distribution comes and movies are shipped electronically rather than on metal reels, these trends will only be magnified, as they will when studios become more adept at opening films not merely all over the country but all over the world on the same day.
"The rules are being rewritten as we speak," Mr. Rothman said.
The explosion of multiplexes, where it is easy to open a movie in more than one auditorium, has created a situation in which the shelf life of a film — even a hit — has been dramatically reduced. Four decades ago successful movies were in theaters for a year or more. Later, successes were measured in months and then, as the science of the wide release flowered, in weeks.
This summer it could almost be measured in days: a huge opening, a rapid plunge, and a few weeks later the hit movie is just a speck in the rear-view mirror. Hollywood has responded with movies created to be pop-culture events. The studios are releasing them with machine-gun regularity rather than bunching them around the holidays.
"Over the last five to seven years the landscape of American cinemas has changed," said Dan Fellman, president for distribution at Warner Brothers. "In the past, when a big movie would open, you might think: `I won't even bother. It'll be sold out. I'd have to get there an hour early.' Now the movie's showing on five screens, so you go. You know you're going to get in. Nobody gets turned away. The result? Movies burn out quicker."
Partly this has to do with the quality and nature of this year's summer movies. But many in Hollywood believe that it also reveals something larger at work.
For more than 25 years one of the main stories of American moviegoing, especially during the lucrative summer season, has been the steadily increasing importance of the opening weekend. The inevitable result has been a film culture dominated by movies intended to have thermonuclear openings — sequels, remakes, special-effects blockbusters, stories featuring established characters from comic books, television series and video games — and the creation of megaplexes where such films can be shown on several screens. The trend seems to have reached a new peak.
"This is the first time that people are really seeing the power of the megaplexes," said Jeff Blake, president for worldwide distribution and marketing of Columbia Pictures.
Once upon a time, and not so long ago, a summer blockbuster might open in 2,000 theaters and experience a drop in ticket sales between the first and second weekends of 30 percent or less. The good ones, the hits, had what distributors delighted in calling legs. They would play for weeks, sometimes months. If a big movie dipped more than 40 percent in its second weekend, it was considered a debacle. Heads would roll.
But no more.
This summer, even would-be blockbusters have routinely opened in more than 3,000 theaters. Since more and more megaplexes are putting movies on multiple screens, that usually translates into 4,000, 5,000 or sometimes more prints blasting at screens on opening weekend. (If a movie is showing on three screens at the same megaplex, it still counts as only one theater in the weekend box-office statistics.)
And it has also become not just possible, but common for such films to drop off 50 percent or more in their second weekends and still be major hits, earning $150 million and up.
"These are very significant trends," said John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners. "Not too long ago a thousand prints was an awful lot of prints to have out there. In the old days if you went to see a movie on opening weekend, and it was sold out, you had to wait two and a half hours for the next one. Now the next show's coming up in a half-hour."
In the 1960's and earlier, most movies were released in a handful of theaters in the biggest cities. Weeks later they made their way to second- tier cities and to suburbs and finally into the rural heartland. In 1975, however, "Jaws," which opened in only 409 theaters, became an overnight phenomenon. Hollywood realized that it was possible to create films that were not merely successful, but cash-generating, pop-culture events, movies that almost everyone wanted to see quickly.
Yet even in the early 1980's, when studios were beginning to exploit this technique, the number of screens remained low. "Return of the Jedi" opened in only 1,002 theaters in 1983, a wide release in its day. But the numbers inched up.
As Hollywood began to pay more attention to opening weekend grosses, so did the news media. In the early 80's weekend box-office statistics, once limited to the trade papers, began to appear in general newspapers and broadcast reports, and studios began to use the results ("The No. 1 Movie in America!") to promote films. Given this self-inflicted pressure, for more than a decade Hollywood movies have approached opening days with a built-in set of box-office expectations; their success or failure has been marked by how well they performed against those expectations.
Not until 1996 and "Mission: Impossible" did the first film open in more than 3,000 theaters. Four years later "Mission: Impossible 2" became the first film to open in more than 3,500 theaters.
Now such openings are common. "The Mummy Returns" kicked off the summer season in May by opening in 3,401 theaters. "Shrek" followed in 3,587 theaters, "Pearl Harbor" in 3,214. And on and on: "Dr. Dolittle 2" in 3,049, "A.I." in 3,242, "Scary Movie 2" in 3,220, "Jurassic Park III" in 3,434, "Rush Hour 2" in 3,118 and, this weekend, "American Pie 2" in 3,063. ("Pie" earned an estimated $45.1 million in its first three days, the largest opening ever for an R-rated comedy.)
The second weekend drop-offs were as dramatic as the openings. "The Mummy Returns" fell 50 percent, as did "Pearl Harbor." "A.I." fell 52 percent, "Rush Hour 2" 53 percent. "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within," which had opened on 2,649 screens, fell a staggering 68 percent.
"We've seen these kind of drop- offs in the past, but they were in the wake of a big holiday weekend opening, like a Memorial Day or a Fourth of July," said Paul Dergarabedian, chairman of Exhibitor Relations, a company that monitors box-office results. "This year we're getting these holidaylike opening weekends almost every weekend. Legs are becoming a thing of the past."
The only old-style hit this summer, the kind of movie with legs, has been DreamWorks' computer-animated "Shrek," which actually had its box- office figures go up slightly in its second weekend and has held on to become the season's undisputed champ, passing $260 million in sales.
Not everyone agrees that the drop- offs have been caused by the number of screens. Many think part of the reason is what's on the screen. "Shrek" built its success on a strong opening followed by word of mouth. People loved it, went to see it again and told friends to go see it, too.
"I think it's really the movies," said Brett Ratner, who directed "Rush Hour 2." "What happened was that because people had been worried there would be strikes this summer by actors and writers, a lot of movies were really rushed, and it made for some lesser quality work."
However valid those sentiments, they still don't account for the huge surge in opening weekend grosses, which many in the industry say points to something less ephemeral than the ebb and flow of movie quality. And in that, they say, are serious economic repercussions.
In most contracts movie studios get a higher percentage of the ticket sales they split with theater chains in the opening weekend than they do in subsequent weekends. The most dramatic of these is the so-called 90-10 split, in which 90 percent of box- office revenue goes to the studio on the opening weekend. Under that arrangement it is clearly in the studios' interest to earn as much of the gross in the opening weekend as possible.
"They're delighted at the studios," said Mr. Fithian of the theater owners' group. "We're not necessarily delighted in exhibition."
This comes as the exhibitors are trying to recover from a building binge in the late 90's that increased the number of screens in the United States to more than 38,000 from 27,000 in 1995. Some of the chains have been seeking relief by trying to strike agreements in which they split the same percentage of the weekly gross, whether it's opening weekend or not. If this summer's trend continues, they may push even harder.
The studios take a different view. Having a new blockbuster arriving every weekend — something Mr. Fithian says the theater owners are happy with — means there are fewer summer scheduling lulls, the studios argue. The cinemas may not be sold out as often, they say, but neither are they sitting empty as often. And since theater owners make most of their profits at the concession stands, this is to their benefit.
"The one place you still have to stand in line is at the concession stand," said Mr. Rothman of Fox Entertainment.
Still unclear is what impact the coming world of digital distribution will have. Almost certainly, most agree, it will further magnify the importance of the opening weekend.
Instead of being limited by the number of film prints they have been shipped, cinema operators will, with digital distribution, be able to shift the number of screens on which a film is playing by flicking a switch.
How much flexibility will there be over the course of the opening weekend to shift movies to more or fewer and larger or smaller theaters to accommodate actual turnout?
"We think the best situation would be when we can make that decision on the fly," Mr. Fithian said, speaking for the theater operators.
Studios, fearful that a movie that does not roar out of the gate will quickly be shunted into megaplex oblivion, are skeptical about giving up that much control.
"If the technology gets to the point where supply and demand can be manipulated in real time, on the fly and on the first weekend, it would be very amazing to see what would happen," Mr. Dergarabedian said.