Posted by Scott Lee AKA Rnswithscissors at 12-223-211-192.client.insightbb.com on June 01, 2003 at 17:47:47:
In Reply to: KEVIN - Being in the movie biz... posted by turningintoJerry on June 01, 2003 at 17:12:49:
There is actually a lot of debate over that subject. Europe has been showing ads for years whereas here in the states, it's fairly new. Years ago, I owned a company and our main client was United Artist Theatres. I learned more about some of the inner workings of films and their creation. For instance, one of their theaters in a midscale mall paid $50,000 a month in rent plus a small percentage of revenues. Now, put that along with my fees, employee wages, film purchase or royalties, utilities, insurance etc..
On average, using this same theaters example, they had seven screens. Monthly, employee wages totalled over $19,000.
On a monthly rolling average, that theatre sold about $65,000 worth of tickets.
that doesn't even cover rent and employee wages. SOOOOO, the rest of the money is made up by chargind $82 for a small popcorn. :)
Aside from concessions, theaters are trying to increase profits by resorting to advertisements. Again, some people feel this is wrong because they're paying $8 for a ticket to see the movie. There are actually ongoing lawsuits regarding this practice. However, without the ads, you would more than likely, in the future, pay about $11 or $12 per ticket to help the economical situation. The best thing would be to appreciate what you are being shown. If you were seriously going to buy a car, and you saw an ad that said, "mention this ad and receive $2500 off your purchase", you would be very appreciative because otherwise you may not have known you could save money.
That's why advertising works! :)
Also, advertisers, for the most part are individual to a theatre or it's chain, not the movie. Your beef would be with the theatres.
: ...perhaps you could shed some light on something for me. Why in God’s name do I have to sit through three BODMAN Fragrance Spray commercials just to get to the damn movie? First they drop the good music for an R-Kelly accompanied pre-preview slideshows, and then they started pimping Crest, Coke, NASSCAR, Body Fantasies, and the fucking Marines. Who pays eight bucks for a movie ticket to see advertising? The only commercials I want to see at the movie theater are for OTHER MOVIES - and even those get old after 15 minutes. I saw the Italian Job yesterday and I had to sit through a good 20 minutes of ass pounding propaganda. Why is that and who do I kill to stop it?