BoxOffice® Pro - April 2011

C I N E M A C O N C E L E B R A T I N G T H E M O V I E G O I N G E X P E R I E N C E
BUD MAYO’S BRAINSTORM
50 of the top 100 markets in the United
States—hopefully more, but at least half.
Certainly in all of the key markets like New
York, Chicago, LA, Boston, Philadelphia,
Atlanta—those key “NFL cities.”
Los Angeles wishes we had an NFL
team!
Yeah, you might have a team one day—one
that resembles one, anyway! This isn’t rocket
science. It’s really the application of what
has been available primarily through Cinedigm,
as a result of all the great work we did
at Cinedigm providing the tools. But as I’ve
said many times, it isn’t about the technology,
it’s about what you do with it. It’s really
up to me as the theater owner. We have ambitious
plans to build the circuit; we’ve certainly
done that before. It’s a lot easier now
because we know a lot more people, and
we certainly know a lot more about digital
cinema and its applications and we certainly
know our way around the media exhibition
business. We have lots of friends on both
sides of the table—the studio side and the
exhibition side—and basically our game
plan is to negotiate purchases of existing
good theaters from people who in most cases
are ready to exit the business, ready to retire.
They have owned their theaters for maybe a
couple of generations; they have built a very
good business, but it’s time to move on. In
particular, dealing with the digital era is for
some people not only scary but expensive.
It’s a great opportunity for us and for them.
We can create an exit for them at a fair price,
and we can create a very meaningful circuit.
Everything I’m talking about doing, my own
feeling is that this is where the whole industry
has to go in certainly three to five years.
In order to really prosper, all movie theaters
are going to be doing the kinds of things
we’re talking about doing. The opportunities
are unique—it’s really only a matter of
whether a theater owner or theater operator
wants to put in that extra effort and learn
what they have to know in order to make
that successful. Honestly, in three years,
when everything is converted to digital, the
theaters that aren’t ready and aren’t regularly
playing digital cinema products in all of the
forms available—3D is certainly part of that
story, but not the only part—I think they’re
going to have challenges if they don’t meet
the audience and get them out of their living
rooms and into their theaters by providing
the product that they want. It’s basic. Maybe
DIGIPLEX THEATERS
Bloomfield 8
Bloomfield , CT
Cranford Theater
Cranford , NJ
Rialto Theatre of Westfield
Westfield , NJ
more obvious to me because I’ve lived it in
two different iterations: once as an exhibitor
limited by film and then as a pioneer in the
digital cinema space. We have seen theaters
with five and ten times the business that
they would otherwise be doing on some of
those weekday nights. Their success compared
to everything else they could have
played has been enormous and the concessions
around these concerts and sporting
events have been multiples of what they
would normally see.
This must be a great year to break back
into exhibition because you can invest
straight into digital, plus the market is a
little looser and it’s easier to get the cash
to purchase the equipment.
Absolutely, and we’ll be working with Cinedigm
as our integrator of choice. My CTO
here at Digiplex was my CTO at Cinedigm.
We have a great team with experienced
people on day-to-day relations. We’re using
Clearview as our booking agent so their film
department will be handling all of our bookings.
We’re using Cinedigm software as our
back office software. We’re using lots of tools
and creating some new ones as we go along
that are uniquely ours. Obviously, we’re going
to be converting to digital as soon as possible
and adding as many 3D screens as we
think is necessary—basically, more than half
of the theaters in every building need to be
3D today to be able to play all the major Hollywood
movies and still have room for some
alternative content.
How did you come up with the name
Digiplex?
You know, the same way I came up with the
name Cinedigm. You wake up in the morning
and it seems like a good idea and you test
it to see if anybody else has it. You make sure
you can get the URL you need and Digiplexdest
is Digiplex Destinations. So our trade
name is Digiplex and that’s our logo but the
name of our company is Digital Cinema
Destinations Corp. That’s actually the legal
name, but we registered a trademark called
Digiplex and that’s the name I think the public
will get to know just as they know Regal
and Rave. We want them to know when they
hear Digiplex, it means great movies, great
location and lots of alternative programming.
On a personal level, how does it feel being
back in the exhibition business?
Oh, I love it. This business gets in your blood
and I’ve never stopped loving it. After I sold
Clearview, I wanted to solve the problems
for exhibition that I saw. That’s really what
Cinedigm became. First the technology, first
the financial model, the virtual print fee—
which we created and is now the ubiquitous
world model for financing a conversion—
and then getting into the content side with
a great group in Woodland Hills called Cinedigm
Entertainment. They were first place
I turned to today when we wanted to launch
our alternative program series—and we
want to be able to play a lot of the content
that comes out of Fathom, as well. These are
the choices that we as exhibitors have and
the beneficiaries are the consumers. They get
all these choices they never had before. If we
make that happen as an industry everybody
wins.
What’s that like, being Bud Mayo calling
up Fathom and saying, “Let be friends
and work together.”
I’ve never not been their friend and they
know that. They are a great organization,
and so is Cinedigm. Just the same way that
Warner Brothers and Fox and Disney all
compete for audience, there’s plenty of
room for everybody—plenty of room for
Fathom’s product as well as Cinedigm’s, and
Screenvision’s if they get into the alternative
programming business. Certainly all of the
studios’ content we’re interested in, and we’ll
know whether it’s a good idea to play it in a
particular theater. There are certain kinds of
movies that you’re wasting your time playing
in certain venues. Saw III is not going to
work in an arthouse, and conversely King’s
Speech would draw a blank if you played it in
certain theaters in various parts of the country.
It’s just not going to work. It’s the same
mindset—know your audience, put the right
content in front of them and you’ll do fine.
32 BOXOFFICE PRO APRIL 2011