BoxOffice® Pro - August 2011

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AUGUST 2011
Andy
Serkis
dons the
mo-cap
suit for
Rise of the
Planet of the
Apes
INSIDE FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD: WHAT’S NEW IN CONCESSIONS
NATO’S TODD HALSTEAD OUTLINES WHAT’S AHEAD ON CAPITOL HILL
THE BOXOFFICE MARQUEE AWARD GOES TO ROYAL OAK, MI THEATER
The Official Magazine of NATO

AUGUST 2011 VOL. 147 NO. 8
RISE OF
THE PLANET
OF THE APES
BIG PICTURE
25 SAYONARA, HOMO SAPIENS
Director Rupert Wyatt on the decline
of Western Civilization
28 I AM THE APE MAN
Andy Serkis sides with Caesar
31 THE MAGIC MAKER
We ask Weta’s Senior Effects Supervisor
Joe Letteri: “Is anything possible?”
20 SPECIAL REPORT: FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD
Should your theater go gourmet: Advice—and warnings—
from four chains who made the leap / Half-baked? Hardly: Is
there a compromise for theaters who want hot snacks without
a full kitchen? / Popcorn, candy, cuttlefish?: Cinema snacks
from around the globe
DEPARTMENTS
4 Industry Briefs
The new and notable in the exhibition
industry
6 Executive Suite
Our friends and allies Meet the
partners who help make our work
possible
By John Fithian
8 Capitol Hill
NATO climbs the (Capitol) Hill
What we’ve won—and what lies ahead
By Todd Halstead
10 Show Business
Lessons of 2011 Flops teach us just as
much as successes
By Phil Contrino
48 Classifieds
AWARDS
12 Front Line
Amber Axelton
Charleston, SC
14 Front Office
Chris Myers & Nina Parikh
Jackson, MS
16 Marquee Award
Emagine / Royal Oak, MI
THE SLATE
34 On the Horizon
Real Steel / The Ides of March / In Time /
Anonymous
36 Coming Soon
Dirty Girl / Magic Trip / Final Destination
5 / The Help / Conan the Barbarian /
Fright Night / One Day / Spy Kids 4:
All the Time in the World / The Debt /
Colombiana
38 Book It!
Flash reviews and recommendations of
films that should be on your radar
44 Booking Guide
Nearly 150 films that you can book
right now, complete with contact info,
film formats, audio formats and more
BOXOFFICE MEDIA
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Kenneth James Bacon
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Todd Halstead
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Ray Greene
Cole Hornaday
John P. McCarthy
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Matthew Nestel
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Ed Scheid
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AUGUST 2011 BOXOFFICE PRO 3

INDUSTRY BRIEFS
The Supreme Court confirmed that
the First Amendment provides strong
protection to entertainment products
such as video games and movies. The
7-2 decision in Brown v. Entertainment
Merchants Association struck down a
California law that would fine retailers
for selling or renting M-rated video
games containing certain depictions
of violence to children under 18. The
Court held that science does not demonstrate
a causal link between violent
entertainment and violent behavior in
children. A correlation between the
two does not warrant governmental
restrictions. Though the facts of the
case involved video games, the ruling
also protects movies and movie
exhibition against governmental attempts
to regulate content because
of concerns over violence. Said NATO
president and CEO John Fithian, “The
Supreme Court today resoundingly
affirmed the First Amendment’s protections
for the creators, distributors
and sellers of creative content. We
commend the Court in noting the importance
of voluntary entertainment
rating systems and we encourage parents
to use the information provided
by them.”
Harkness Screens has appointed
Richard Mitchell to be the company’s
new Marketing Services Manager. Mr.
Mitchell joins Harkness Screens with
over a decade of commercial marketing
experience across various industry
sectors including recruitment, education
and construction. In his new position,
Mr. Mitchell will be responsible
for managing and developing the
Harkness brand, creating integrated
marketing programs, building and
initiating strategic customer and industry
partnerships and building new
markets. “Richard comes to Harkness
Screens with a wealth of knowledge,
expertise and experience in marketing
and is a welcomed addition to our
team” said Harkness Managing Director
Andrew Robinson.
MasterImage 3D, Inc. has announced
that TOHO Cinemas, with
58 theaters and 520 screens in Japan,
has selected them as a new partner in
the deployment of digital 3D cinema
systems. TOHO Cinemas has already
installed the MI-2100 digital 3D system
and MI-1000 dual projection 3D
glass filters in cinemas throughout
Japan and are planning more 3D system
installations throughout the year.
MasterImage 3D reseller, Xebex, is
responsible for the installation and
maintenance services. The addition
of TOHO Cinemas continues MasterImage’s
efforts in Asia which have
to date formed partnerships with CJ
CGV, BIG Cinemas, Golden Village
and 109 Cinemas. “It is a privilege to
work with TOHO Cinemas in Japan.
They are rejoiced as an innovator in
their country and the entire region,”
says Jonggeun Hwang, managing director
of MasterImage 3D ASIA.”
Screenvision has named industry veteran
Suzanne La Forgia to Senior Vice
President, National Sales. She reports
directly to Chief Revenue Officer Mark
Mitchell and will oversee all national
sales, managing teams in New York,
Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles.
“Suzanne brings a wealth of relevant
experience, industry relationships and
energy to the role of Senior Vice President,
National Sales. Her proven ability
to forge advertising partnerships in
the world of alternative video brings
the type of leadership that will foster
continued growth at Screenvision and
across all of Cinema,” said Mitchell.
Screenvision also announced that
Cheryl Magiros, a Screenvision veteran,
is returning to the company as
Senior Vice President, Direct Sales.
She will lead the company’s local ad
sales efforts, reporting directly to Mark
Mitchell, Chief Revenue Officer. Magiros
served as Senior Vice President of
local sales at Screenvision from 1997-
2006 and most recently served as Area
Sales Manager for the Regus Group,
a worldwide provider of Office Space
Solutions.
Marcus Theatres has signed a master
license agreement with CDF2 Holdings,
LLC, a subsidiary of Cinedigm,
to deploy digital cinema systems in
approximately 630 first-run screens
at 47 company-owned locations. The
agreement includes 64 previously
installed systems. When completed,
digital projection technology will be
offered at virtually all screens operated
by Marcus Theatres. Installation of
the first systems is currently expected
to begin later this summer, with the
balance scheduled to be completed
by the end of calendar 2011. “Marcus
Theatres is proud to continue its long
history of technological innovation and
quality by entering into this agreement
with Cinedigm to enable the conversion
of our circuit to digital cinema
and assure that our guests can experience
the pristine visual presentations
digital cinema offers,” said Bruce J.
Olson, president of Marcus Theatres.
Paramount Pictures is launching a
new, in-house animation division and
is looking to release its first title in
2014. The March release of Rango, the
animated Western directed by Gore
Verbinski, marked the studio’s first
full-owned CGI animated movie would
go on to gross more than $240 million
worldwide.
Paramount’s past animated releases
like Monsters vs. Aliens and Kung Fu
Panda have mostly sprung from Jeffrey
Katzenberg’s Dreamworks Animation,
a deal that expires at the end
of 2012. “The marketplace has never
offered as many opportunities to create
wonderfully imaginative pictures
at very appealing budget levels, so
we feel this is a perfect moment to
launch this effort,” said Paramount
President and Chairman Brad Grey.
“We are now eager to expand in animation
with appropriate and prudent
overhead and production budgets in
a way that will allow us to be nimble,
creative and innovative.”
Wehrenberg Theatres, has reached
an exclusive agreement with the nation’s
leading moviegoer destination,
Fandango. “Fandango has been a
great partner for us and instrumental
to our success,” says Ronald P.
Krueger, president and co-CEO of
Wehrenberg Theatres. Added Rick
Butler, executive vice president and
general manager of Fandango, “We
are thrilled to continue bringing our
expertise and strength to the oldest
4 BOXOFFICE PRO AUGUST 2011

family-owned and operated theater
circuit in the United States. We look
forward to many more years of working
together to make the moviegoing
experience convenient, memorable
and fun.”
Carmike Cinemas, Inc. has named Daniel
E. Ellis to the position of Senior Vice
President, General Counsel and Corporate
Secretary, effective August 1.
Mr. Ellis most recently served as Executive
Vice President, General Counsel
and Secretary at hotel franchise owner
and operator Lodgian, Inc. and LSREF
Peach Investments, LLC, a private equity
firm (affiliate of Lone Star Funds)
that acquired Lodgian in 2010. Mr.
Ellis was employed at Lodgian since
1999. Said Carmike Cinemas President
and CEO David Passman, “We are delighted
to add a seasoned veteran of
Dan Ellis’s caliber to our senior executive
team. My Carmike colleagues and
fellow board members believe his wide
range of expertise in various real estate
and corporate transactions will benefit
our entire organization.”
Digiplex Destinations is expanding
its national footprint beyond the
three theaters it owns at present. To
manage this anticipated growth, Bud
Mayo, chairman and CEO of Digital
Cinema Destinations Corp., has announced
that Brian D. Pflug, CPA, will
become Digiplex’s new Chief Financial
Officer.
Mayo and Pflug first worked together
when Pflug was controller at Clearview
Cinema. They continued working together
at Cinedigm where Pflug rose
to senior vice president of Accounting
and Finance. “Considering his 13
years in the movie exhibition business,
much of it working with me side-byside,
I know Brian is uniquely qualified
to help spearhead the expansion of
Digiplex Destinations into what we
expect will eventually become one of
the country’s largest movie theater
chains,” said Mayo.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences has extended invitations
to 178 artists and executives who
have contributed to theatrical motion
pictures. “These individuals are
among the best filmmakers working
in the industry today,” said Academy
President Tom Sherak. “Their talent
and creativity have entertained moviegoers
around the world, and I welcome
each of them to our ranks.”
The Academy’s membership policies
allow a maximum of 211 new members,
but as in other recent years,
several branch committees endorsed
fewer candidates than were proposed
to them. Voting membership in the organization
has now held steady at just
under 6,000 members since 2003.
In an unprecedented gesture, the list
of new members includes documentary
filmmaker Tim Hetherington, who
was killed in action in Libya in April.
Hetherington had been a 2010 nominee
for his film “Restrepo,” but died
prior to the Academy’s spring meetings
to select new members. Other
invitees include Russell Brand, Bradley
Cooper, David Duchovny, Jennifer
Garner, Beyonce Knowles and Ellen
Page.
AUGUST 2011 BOXOFFICE PRO 5

EXECUTIVE SUITE
JOHN
FITHIAN
NATO
President
and Chief
Executive
Officer
OUR FRIENDS AND ALLIES
Meet the partners who help make our work possible
NATO exists to represent its members on issues of
common concern. Whether in Washington, D.C.,
Hollywood, or some other corner of the world, NATO
strives to bring together otherwise fierce competitors
to work in partnership to achieve shared goals. Over
the years, I’ve utilized this space to discuss the common
concerns of exhibitors and to encourage the association’s
members to volunteer their time and energy to advance
the collective interests of the industry.
More often than not, however, the commonality of
purpose extends far beyond the association’s membership.
Given that fact, NATO works with many other organizations
when interests align on specific topics. Yet too
rarely does the association stop to recognize the myriad
efforts of allied organizations. This column briefly describes
some of NATO’s partners and the shared interests
involved. NATO and its members are grateful for the support
received from all of these wonderful groups.
THE CINEMA BUYING GROUP (CBG)
Originally, the CBG was created by independent theater
owners within NATO to obtain group discounts on theater
supplies. Later, the group evolved to facilitate the acquisition
of digital cinema equipment and services for independent
cinema companies in the U.S. and Canada. The CBG
is subject to NATO oversight but is financially self-supporting.
Its membership is not limited to NATO members.
THE CLASSIFICATION AND RATING
ADMINISTRATION (CARA)
Created and sponsored by NATO and the MPAA, the
movie rating system provides parents with advance information
on films, enabling them to make informed judgments
on what movies they want—or don’t want—their
children to see. CARA oversees day-to-day rating activities,
including the rating of hundreds of movies annually and
operation of the Rating Appeals Board. CARA is housed
in the offices of the MPAA, but maintains its independent
authority. The rules for CARA are established jointly by
the MPAA and NATO.
THE COALITION OF ENTERTAINMENT RETAIL
TRADE ASSOCIATIONS (CERTA)
Given similarities and common challenges to the ratings
and labeling systems for movies, music recordings, video
games and online entertainment products, NATO works
with other trade associations within CERTA to strengthen
education and enforcement efforts. The other CERTA
associations include the Entertainment Merchants Association
(EMA), the Digital Media Association (DiMA),
and the National Association of Recording Merchandisers
(NARM). CERTA annually conducts a ratings and labeling
awareness program called “ERLAM” (Entertainment
Ratings and Labeling Awareness Month), maintains an
educational web site and works to educate federal legislative
and regulatory officials.
DIGITAL CINEMA INITIATIVES (DCI)
The six major Hollywood studios formed DCI to create
technical specifications for digital cinema from the
perspective of the studios. Throughout the development
of their specifications, though, DCI sought and received
input and close consultation with NATO and its members.
First finalized in 2005, with numerous updates and modifications
since that time, the DCI specification reflects
and respects most of NATO’s key goals. The “DCI Spec”
and supplemental requirements from NATO’s technology
committees formed the framework for global technical
standards at SMPTE (see below).
THE DIRECTORS GUILD OF AMERICA (DGA)
The DGA is a labor union that represents the interests of
film and television directors. The DGA’s primary mission
is to negotiate agreements with production companies
and to conduct various education and training programs
for its members. The DGA also pursues an active government
relations program and it is here where the guild
and NATO’s interests intersect, particularly on efforts to
protect intellectual property and thwart movie theft.
THE INTERNATIONAL CINEMA TECHNOLOGY
ASSOCIATION (ICTA)
The ICTA is a trade association whose members include
companies or individuals engaged in the development,
manufacture, distribution, sale, servicing, installation,
purchasing or maintenance of equipment for the motion
picture theater industry. ICTA conducts educational
seminars, promotes information sharing within the theater
equipment industry and supports NATO’s efforts on
government relations issues. ICTA also serves as NATO’s
partner in the trade show at CinemaCon.
THE INTERSOCIETY FOR THE ENHANCEMENT
OF THEATRICAL PRESENTATION (THE
INTERSOCIETY)
Comprised of representatives from the exhibition, distribution
and equipment communities, the InterSociety
provides a neutral forum in which issues related to the
theatrical presentation of movies can be addressed. The
group has discussed and taken action to improve theatrical
presentation in a number of areas, including the 6000
foot reel, sound levels on trailers (See TASA below), the
cyan dye track conversion, digital cinema, environmental
concerns, and many more. Currently the InterSociety has
two active committees: the InterSociety Digital Forum
(ISDCF) and the InterSociety Environmental Committee.
The ISDCF today constitutes the leading forum in the
world for resolution of digital cinema implementation
6 BOXOFFICE PRO AUGUST 2011

issues. The Environment Committee has tackled such issues as trailer
recycling and 3D glasses re-use and recycling. The InterSociety has no
paid staff, but succeeds on the labors of committed volunteers from
various industry sectors.
MERCHANTS PAYMENT COALITION (MPC)
The MPC was constituted to fight for a more competitive and transparent
credit and debit card fee system to better serve merchants
and consumers. The Coalition’s membership includes many trade
associations that represent retailers, supermarkets, drug stores,
convenience stores, fuel stations, online merchants and theater
owners, among other groups. The coalition pushed successfully for
legislation that requires swipe fee reform for debit cards, potentially
lowering those fees by billions of dollars.
THE MOTION PICTURE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA (MPAA)
Outside of the exhibition-related groups (UNIC, MPTAC, NATO
Regionals), the MPAA constitutes the most significant organizational
partner of NATO. The MPAA represents the six major Hollywood
studios and works closely with NATO on many different issues. Most
significantly, the two organizations oversee the movie rating system
and work side-by-side to combat movie theft via government relations
as well as enforcement and education efforts.
THE MOTION PICTURE THEATRE ASSOCIATIONS OF
CANADA (MPTAC)
The MPTAC is a national non-profit association for theater owners in
Canada that undertakes similar activities to NATO, including government
relations, member education and information exchange. Each
Canadian province has its own association, and those provincial
associations make up the leadership of the MPTAC. The MPTAC and
NATO work very closely together with cross-participation in Board
activities and cooperative campaigns on issues like digital cinema,
movie theft and theatrical release windows.
THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CONCESSIONAIRES (NAC)
NAC is the trade association for the recreation and leisure-time
food and beverage concessions industry. Members are composed
of the owners and operators of facilities such as movie theaters
and stadiums, as well as companies that provide concessions
products and services to those facilities. NAC partners with NATO
in many ways, including government relations and industry
education. NAC also serves as NATO’s partner in the trade show at
CinemaCon.
NATO REGIONAL ASSOCIATIONS
Separately organized and funded—but related to the national unit—
are various NATO regional associations throughout the U.S. These
units are permitted to use the NATO name, to send representatives to
the national Advisory Board, and to receive the coordinating and supporting
functions of the national unit if they meet certain defined
criteria. The regional associations manage exhibition’s government
relations efforts on the state and local level, and hold a variety of
educational events for their members.
THE NATIONAL FILM PRESERVATION BOARD
Authorized by Congress, the National Film Preservation Board serves as
an advisory body to the Library of Congress on the annual selection of
films to the National Film Registry, which in turn enables the archiving,
preservation and public availability of selected movies. The Library
regularly invites NATO and other organizations to nominate members
for the board, on which NATO currently has several representatives.
THE SOCIETY OF MOTION PICTURE AND TELEVISION
ENGINEERS (SMPTE)
SMPTE is an open and official technical standards organization for
the motion picture and television industries. SMPTE offers professional
development seminars and webinars and publishes a technical
journal. Importantly for NATO, SMPTE sets general technical
standards for motion picture exhibition, and most recently, for
digital cinema specifically. NATO is a member of SMPTE.
THE THEATRE AUDIO STANDARDS ASSOCIATION (TASA)
In response to some patron concerns regarding the high sound
levels of trailers, NATO, the MPAA and trailer processing companies
came together to launch TASA. The organizations have agreed to a
maximum sound level for trailers of 85 decibels, and TASA reviews
all trailers for compliance.
THE UNION INTERNATIONALE DES CINEMAS (UNIC)
UNIC represents the interests of cinema exhibitors across 19 European
territories. With a new office in Brussels, UNIC is positioned to
lobby the European Parliament and European Commission on issues
that affect exhibitors. UNIC partners closely with NATO on global
issues of concern to the cinema industry including movie theft, theatrical
release windows and digital cinema. UNIC serves as a sponsor
of the CineEurope convention.
THE UNITED DRIVE-IN THEATRE OWNERS ASSOCIATION
(UDITOA)
Many drive-in theater operators are members of NATO as well as
UDITOA. NATO has championed the cause of its drive-in members
on such diverse issues as digital cinema and daylight savings time.
UDITOA and its members also strongly support NATO on such matters
as legislation and movie theft. UDITOA leaders participate in
various NATO committees and task forces, and NATO representatives
attend UDITOA conferences. NATO appreciates the strong alliance
with its “Ozoner” friends.
THE WILL ROGERS MOTION PICTURE PIONEERS
FOUNDATION (WRMPP)
The WRMPP resulted from the combination of two industry charities:
the Motion Picture Pioneers and the Will Rogers Institute. The
first group was formed as a self-perpetuating fund for assistance to
veterans of the industry who have fallen on hard times. The latter
organization was created as a pulmonary research and educational
program. The WRMPP is supported by exhibitors and studios, and
the annual fundraising dinner for the organization now occurs at
NATO’s convention, CinemaCon. NATO’s Board has selected the
WRMPP as the leading charity for NATO to support.
Space constraints limit my ability to properly recognize the dozens
of significant leaders and volunteers at these various organizations.
Hopefully it will suffice to say that NATO and our members benefit
tremendously from our alliance with these effective groups, and
their partnership is deeply appreciated.
AUGUST 2011 BOXOFFICE PRO 77

CAPITOL HILL
TODD
HALSTEAD
Deupty
Director
of
Government
Affairs
NATO CLIMBS THE (CAPITOL) HILL
This year continues to be a critical time on Capitol
Hill for the movie theater industry. As the summer
box office heats up, so does the slate of issues on which
NATO is advocating to help theater operators thrive and
grow. Some of the following topics will likely be on the
table when exhibitors fly to Washington, D.C. to meet
with their lawmakers ahead of the NATO General Membership
and Advisory Board meetings in October.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LEGISLATION
IN DEVELOPMENT
The American pastime of going to the movies is
threatened by the rampant illegal online distribution of
copyrighted content across unlimited geographic markets.
Exhibitors are acutely aware that film theft hits their
bottom lines by costing the domestic movie theater industry
hundreds of millions of dollars every year in lost ticket
and concessions sales, with billions more lost abroad.
NATO has long partnered with the MPAA to fight film
theft, working closely together to ensure that movies
shown in cinemas are protected from camcorders. An
important tool in this fight is the joint NATO-MPAA “Take
Action!” Reward Program. Since 2004, this program has
awarded north of 350 vigilant theater employees with
more than $145,000 for reporting illegal camcording to
law enforcement officers.
No effort to combat film theft could be successful,
however, without laws that disrupt the lines of distribution
for rogue websites. Most recently, NATO and the
MPAA have taken a prominent advocacy role in support
of a two-pronged attack to strengthen intellectual
property protections by cracking down on websites that
profit from the illegal sale and distribution of copyrighted
content. As part of a diverse coalition representing
a cross-section of the nation’s entertainment industry,
business groups and labor unions, NATO has been hitting
Capitol Hill in support of S. 968, the Preventing Real
Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual
Property Act (PROTECT IP Act), and S. 978, the Commercial
Felony Streaming Act.
These two bills would initiate the strongest assault
against film theft since NATO helped enact the Family
Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005. This law made
camcording in theaters a federal felony and established
stiff penalties for illegally obtaining, distributing or
selling copies of films that have not yet been released
outside of a cinema.
PROTECT IP Act. This past May, the Senate Judiciary
Committee unanimously approved the PROTECT
IP Act, which would give the Department of Justice
more effective tools to fight foreign rogue websites
that traffic in stolen content, including motion pictures.
To cut off the financial viability of this criminal
activity, the bill authorizes the Justice Department to
What we’ve won—and what lies ahead
seek a court-approved cease-and-desist order to require
Internet Service Providers and search engines not to link
or connect domestic users to foreign sites “dedicated
to infringing activities.” The order also would require
payment processors and online advertising networks to
cease doing business with infringing sites. Additionally,
the PROTECT IP Act gives copyright owners a private
right of action to seek equitable relief against rogue sites,
but limits the court’s order to payment processors and
online advertising networks.
While PROTECT IP Act has broad bipartisan support,
it could be some time before it reaches the Senate floor
for a vote. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) has placed a hold
on the bill, which makes it difficult for Senate leadership
to bring it to the floor—the equivalent of development
hell for legislation. In explaining his objection,
Wyden said, “I understand and agree with the goal of the
legislation, to protect intellectual property and combat
commerce in counterfeit goods, but I am not willing
to muzzle speech and stifle innovation and economic
growth to achieve this objective.”
With all due respect, I dare Senator Wyden to make
less sense. The PROTECT IP Act targets rogue foreign websites
that exist for the sole purpose of stealing and profiting
from copyrighted products by cutting off their ability
to access the domestic market, not by shutting them
down. Last time I checked, the First Amendment doesn’t
protect the right of bad actors—foreign or domestic—to
steal and profit from another person’s property.
Commercial Felony Streaming Act. In June, the Senate
Judiciary Committee approved S. 978, which addresses a
glaring disparity in the law where illegal P2P downloading
is a felony while the illegal streaming of content is
not. While streaming and downloading are different
technologies, criminals utilize both to profit from stolen
copyrighted material. Under this bill, the Justice Department
could initiate a felony prosecution against an operator
of a site who willfully and illegally transmits at least
10 streams of copyrighted works over a 180-day period.
The retail or economic value of the streams must exceed
$2,500—or the fair market value of licenses to offer the
streams must be worth more than $5,000.
NATO is working to attract as many cosponsors as
possible and ensure both bills get a fair up or down vote
in Congress. When that time comes, NATO will initiate
a call to arms to exhibitors to contact their lawmakers in
support of these much-needed bills.
THE FINAL CUT ON DEBIT CARD REFORM
Speaking of contacting your lawmakers—if you’ve
ever wondered about the effectiveness of grassroots campaigns,
look to the recent legislative victory on debit card
interchange reform. Our success in Congress proves legendary
Speaker Tip O’Neill’s famous phrase: “All politics
8 BOXOFFICE PRO AUGUST 2011

is local.” Unfortunately, the Federal Reserve’s politics is more local
for banks than for merchants.
Following an all-out grudge match that pit merchants against
the payment card and banking industries, the Senate voted in June
to reject an amendment that would have delayed debit card swipe
fee reforms proposed by the Fed. The amendment was defeated after
NATO joined other industry associations in a grassroots campaign to
fend off a multimillion-dollar lobbying effort by card companies and
banks. As our industry’s resident sage Will Rogers said sometime between
1879 and 1935, “Politics has become so expensive that it takes
a lot of money even to be defeated.” While the 112th Congress is unlikely
to take up the issue again, legislation
on Capitol Hill is like a villain in a Hammer
horror film: it is never truly dead.
Although merchants won the battle in
Congress, the Fed showed where its loyalties
lie when it issued a final rule establishing
standards for debit swipe fees that are more
generous to the banks than industry experts
had projected. While the reforms will prevent
debit swipe fees from continuing to be one of the fastest growing
uncontrollable costs for exhibitors, NATO will continue its work
to bring fairness and transparency to the swipe fee payments system.
“Legislation on Capitol
Hill is like a villain in a
Hammer horror film: it is
never truly dead”
MENU LABELING RULES REMAIN IN SOFT FOCUS
In the face of overwhelming opposition from lawmakers, health
advocates and the restaurant industry, NATO nevertheless successfully
lobbied to generally exclude movie theaters from the Food and
Drug Administration’s rule on nutrition disclosure requirements
mandated in last year’s health care overhaul. But don’t cheer too
loudly yet—the fight is far from over. In response to continued efforts
by lobbyists to include movie theaters in the final rule, NATO
will continue its uphill battle in support of FDA’s conclusion that
Congress did not intend its new regulation to include movie theaters.
We’ll let you know if commonsense prevailed when the FDA issues
its final rules before the end of the year.
DIRECTING FOOD MARKETING TO CHILDREN
When the federal government says something is voluntary, it’s
akin to a Corleone making an offer you can’t refuse. That’s why NATO
is joining its partners in the advertising, entertainment,
and food and beverage industries
to voice concerns with draft “voluntary” principles
proposed by the government in April
to guide companies on how to market food
products to children ages 2-17. In response to
rising obesity rates, the draft guidelines recommend
that by the year 2016, food products
marketed directly to children should meet
two basic nutrition principles: (A) make a meaningful contribution
to a healthful diet; and (B) contain limited amounts of nutrients that
have a negative impact on health or weight—including sodium. The
proposal’s definition of marketing to children is so broadly defined it
encompasses nearly all promotional activities directed at minors.
While this is only a snapshot of what NATO is doing in Washington,
D.C. to advance the interests of exhibitors, it gives you the big
picture of what issues could come to a theater near you… or a theater
that you work for… or a theater that you own.
AUGUST 2011 BOXOFFICE PRO 99

LESSONS OF 2011
Flops teach us just as much as successes
SHOW BUSINESS
PHIL
CONTRINO
Editor
Boxoffice.com
SUMMER CAN COME EARLY
The unofficial start of the summer movie season is the
first weekend of May. Over the past years, this release date
has served as a great launching point for both Iron Man
films, X-Men: Wolverine and Thor. But this year, Universal
made a bold bet: they started summer even earlier by
releasing Fast Five on April 29. The sequel earned a staggering
$86.2 million opening weekend, stayed in the Top
Ten for seven weeks against fierce competition, and has
to date rallied a worldwide total of $597 million. Those
certainly look like summer numbers to me. (Better than
summer numbers, sighs X-Men: First Class.) At this rate,
expect Fast Eight: Hybrid Mayhem to give the industry
a jumpstart in summer 2017. The exhibition industry
has begged Hollywood to space potential blockbusters
throughout the year rather than clump heavy hitters during
the summer and the holiday season. Maybe Vin Diesel
can make Tinseltown listen.
volumes: Cars 2’s most active Facebook page added more
than 47,000 new likes over its opening weekend for a
staggering total of 3,953,943. Also revealing is that the
sequel landed an A- from CinemaScore—not a catastrophic
drop from the first film’s A rank. Simply put,
the Cars fanbase expanded. As I write this one week after
the film’s release, Cars 2 has a worldwide total of $170.8
million. All of those doomsayers can help themselves to
a heaping plate of crow.
SUPERHEROES AREN’T A SAFE BET
I’d wager audiences are feeling weary of superhero origin
stories. This summer tried to sell them four: Thor,
X-Men: First Class, Green Lantern and Captain America:
The First Avenger. There’s no question that the fusion of
comic books and Hollywood is lucrative, but cramming
that many comic book flicks into two and a half
months hurts everyone. It’s important to remember
that audiences are being bombarded
to these trailers at around the same
time as the summer’s competitive
marketing blitzes ramp up. The
result is a feeling of déjà vu that
feeling too fatigued to bother buying
a ticket.
THE STAR SYSTEM IS SUFFERING
On paper, Mr. Popper’s Penguins
sounds like a hit: an animal comedy
for kids starring mega-budget
comedian Jim Carrey. But Jack Black’s
Gulliver’s Travels—a near-identical
pitch for a near-identical audience—
was a non-starter, and Penguins’ reception
was equally chilly. Audiences
have a surfeit of entertainment options
at their fingertips. To get their
dollars, they need to be lured and
charmed and wowed. And a known
talent isn’t enough.
AUGUST IS NO LONGER A
DUMPING GROUND
I’m writing this article on the first day of July, but I have
no problem saying that August 2011 will be a successful
month. The Change-Up, a body-switch comedy starring
Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman, has “$100 million
comedy” written all over it. Final Destination 5 is bound
to be a solid mid-level hit. Online, Conan the Barbarian is
showing a strong hold over hoards of fanboys, and Rise
of the Planet of the Apes has Fox already talking sequels.
These promising films would play well during any time
of the year. So please, let’s start giving the month of
August some credit.
8-YEAR-OLD BOYS STILL DON’T READ MOVIE REVIEWS
A ridiculous wave of panic—fanned by the mainstream
media, of course—swept over the industry when critics
bashed Cars 2. Pixar’s shiny armor had its first dent, and
many prognosticators reacted like Californians driving
in snow: they panicked. Yet those who bet the sequel
would bomb forgot one simple truth: Cars 2 wasn’t made
for critics, but for imaginative 8-year-old boys. Is the
huge disconnect between critics and fans over a summer
tentpole really that shocking? It should be surprising
when there isn’t a disconnect. One key online stat speaks
10 BOXOFFICE PRO AUGUST 2011

Empire Use Vista
www.vistaUSA.com
AUGUST 2011 BOXOFFICE PRO 1111

FRONT LINE AWARD
GET GOING
Chance relocation puts ambitious cineaste
on a new career path
The Charleston International Film Festival (CIFF) is a babe in
the woods compared to the big national fests in Los Angeles
and New York. But in four years, CIFF has tripled in venues and
attendance due in part to the energy and enthusiasm of its leadership
and volunteers. One of those energetic volunteers is Amber
Axelton, a movie junkie who’s always on the move with her GPS
chirping directions in the background as her continual soundtrack.
Axelton was born in Manhattan, Kansas with a flair for
organization and a dose
of wanderlust. She never
saw herself blazing a path
in film. After receiving
a double Bachelor’s in
Psychology and Anthropology
from Kansas State
University, Axelton knew
that it was time for her to
leave Kansas.
“I knew I needed to
get out of there and do
something else,” Axelton
laughs. “I didn’t know
what I wanted to do
with my life. But I knew
I wasn’t going to find it
there, so I just kind of
chose Charleston off a map and moved.”
Arriving in Charleston in 2008, Axelton took a job working at
the Medical University of South Carolina. It paid the bills and put
food on the table but the 9-5 grind left her restless for something
creative. And then Axelton noticed Charleston supported a thriving
film community.
Fed by talent honed at film programs like Charleston’s Trident
Technical College, the Art Institute, SCAD in nearby Savannah and
generous incentives supplied by the South Carolina Film Commission,
Charleston has become home to several production companies,
including Lifetime Network’s Army Wives series (which
Axelton would later help crew).
Axelton joined CIFF in its second year and saw the festival as
the perfect jumping on point for a new direction in life. “I decided
I wanted to get involved with the film industry. I contacted CIFF
and said, ‘Hey, are you still looking for any help? I’d love to be
involved!’ I think every year I’ve been there, I’ve been there every
day because there was so much going on.”
As an admitted Type A personality, Axelton says film has always
been one of her greatest loves, but never saw herself as a filmmaker
or exhibitor. “I love watching behind-the-scenes extras on
by Cole Hornaday
how a movie gets made, reading about it and learning as much as
I could,” says Axelton. “It was one of those things I never thought
I could do myself because I wasn’t a creative person—I wasn’t an
actor or a director. Then one day it sort of dawned on me; ‘Hey,
someone’s gotta do all the planning, right?’”
Intent on networking the Charleston film community, Axleton
connected better than she hoped. “CIFF was my first film event and
the people that I met there, some actors, directors and producers
gave way to my first independent
short film called
Private Lives.”
Amber Axelton
Assistant Event
Production Manager
Charleston International
Film Festival
Nominated by
Summer Peacher-
Spooner, Co-Director,
Charleston International
Film Festival
Private Lives screened
the following year at CIFF
and revealed a whole new
future for Axelton. “I loved
the whole process,” she
says. “Basically it just kind
of marries the two sides
of my personality: I like
the organization and want
to be creative.” Axleton
took to the multi-tasking
of PA work like a natural,
juggling different projects,
meeting new people and
traveling to different locations.
“There are always new challenges and new things to expect
and still get better at your job. It’s consistent enough that you are
still doing the same thing but it’s got a lot of variety to it as well.”
With a list of film and television production credits now under
her belt, life is seldom dull for Axelton as she races from local productions
jobs in the Carolinas to gigs deep into the Midwest.
Not surprisingly, Axelton now has her sights set on assistant
directing. “There’s a path through being a Production Assistant to
being an Assistant Director,” says Axelton. “You’re kind of like the
event planner of the film world. AD’s are the ones who, on the day
we get everything going, make sure that you read your schedule or
get your budgets managed. My goal is to be an AD in the DGA (the
Directors Guild of America) and continue to work on film.”
Though her film career keeps her in constant motion, Axelton
still takes time out each season to devote the whole of her energy
to CIFF, honoring co-directors Brian and Summer Peacher-Spooner
with her contribution and acknowledging the opportunities
the burgeoning festival has given her. “Our festival is getting bigger
and bigger each year and my career has just been a snowball
effect which started with CIFF. It will always hold a very dear
place in my heart.”
BOXOFFICE PRO is looking for winners—theater employees you consider to be genuine role models making a significant, positive impact on your theater operations. Monthly winners of
the BOXOFFICE PRO Front Line Award receive a $50 Gap Gift Card! To nominate a theater employee send a brief 100- to 200-word nominating essay to cole@boxoffice.com. Be sure to
put ‘Front Line Nomination’ in the subject line.
12 BOXOFFICE PRO AUGUST 2011

FRONT OFFICE AWARD
PASSING THE TORCH
Co-Directors keep the fire burning
he secrets to running this film festival are all locked up
“T inside Nina’s head,” says new Crossroads Film Festival codirector
Chris Myers, “I have to squeeze them out of her.”
Nina Parikh, co-founder and co-director of the 12-year-old
Jackson, Mississippi film festival admits to standing alone at
its helm for far too long. She sighs in relief over the discovery of
her new co-director, Myers. “She’s just been kind of the constant
for the whole 11-12 years,” says Myers, “and she’s acquired all of
this knowledge but there’s
no way she could write it all
down—she’d have to write a
book.”
A filmmaker herself,
Parikh was frustrated by
the dearth of independent
and foreign film in her
hometown. “We didn’t have
anywhere to show our work
in Mississippi,” Parikh says.
“Oftentimes I would drive
to New Orleans—which is
a three hour drive—just to
go see a foreign movie in the
theater.”
Troubled by the very
catch-as-catch-can nature of
filmmaking and screening
opportunities in her region,
Parikh realized she could help
be part of the solution. “Just
when I started producing, an
opportunity opened up at the
Mississippi Film Office,” says Parikh. “It was the deputy director
position. My thought then was, ‘I didn’t really get into this industry
to sit behind a desk.’”
Parikh took the deputy director job and made peace with her
new career when she and six local filmmakers established the
Crossroads Film Festival in 1998. “I told myself, ‘I’ll see what this
is like being in a different part of the industry.’ Now it’s 13 years
later and I’m still here.”
Calling the film festival her “full-time volunteer job,” Parikh
knew she couldn’t work two full time jobs forever. As a filmmaker,
organizer and teacher Parikh has been ever mindful of the film
festival’s future, not to mention the health of the Jackson film
community she’s helped build. “One thing I am trying to do is
encourage these new young students and filmmakers in the area
to become more involved with the festival. I tell them, ‘We old fogies
who’ve been doing it for 12 years won’t be around forever, so
let’s engage,” laughs Parikh. “You guys need to come and own this
and make it yours so that it continues.”
by Cole Hornaday
Chris Myers and Nina Parikh
Co-Directors
Crossroads Film Festival, Jackson, Mississippi
Nominated by Cameron MacCasland,
Independent Filmmaker
Five years ago, a young architect named Chris Myers entered
the Crossroads volunteer circle. He tore tickets, ushered patrons
and became a vital fixture in the festival’s makeup. Needless to
say, Myers fell under Parikh’s watchful gaze. “We were looking
at expanding the number of directors at the festival because as a
labor of love, it’s grueling for one person to handle,” says Parikh.
“It has to be a group effort to pull it off. So we were looking to
build leadership in the festival and along came Chris.”
Then, shockingly, Myers moved
away from Jackson. Parikh’s heart
sank. “He’d moved to Dallas,” says
Parikh, “but he still kept coming
back and volunteering at the
festival even though he was living
in Dallas.” Fortunately, Myer’s relocation
to the Lone Star State was
only temporary. “The first week he
was back I said, ‘We have to have
lunch,’ and I asked him if he would
be interested in being a co-director
of the festival.”
Unsurprisingly, Myers accepted
the offer.
Now fully entrenched as a
Crossroads Film Festival co-director,
there’s been no looking back
for Myers—nor has there been
time for contemplation. In the
last season alone, the festival has
continued to expand, relocating to
the Malco Grandview Cinemas and
giving the festival a more centralized
location with three screens devoted solely to the event.
“Chris is new to the leadership of the festival itself, but I think
in the long term he is going to be amazing,” beams Parikh. “He
has the energy to stick with it, and these younger people that are
coming in are supporting that.”
Myers is proud of his place as a leader of the Crossroads Film
Festival leadership and takes its future to heart. “Nina said she
started the festival because she couldn’t imagine the city without
it,” says Myers. “I like to organize things—it’s what I’m good at.
Nina was involved in film and that’s kind of her background.
She’s able to take over that part of the festival, and I’m able to
take on the logistic part, and we work together as a team.”
“I don’t want to live in a town where there is no outlet for
independent cinema,” says Parikh. “I’m willing to share whatever
knowledge I have from 12 years with whomever is willing to
take it on. That’s definitely one direction we’re going: expanding
to the younger generation and making sure that this event
survives.”
14 BOXOFFICE PRO AUGUST 2011

2011
08.12.11 New Line Final Destination 5
08.12.11 Fox Glee Live! 3D!
08.19.11 The Weinstein Company
Spy Kids 4:
All the Time in the World
08.19.11 DreamWorks Fright Night
08.19.11 Lionsgate Conan the Barbarian
09.02.11 Relativity Media Shark Night 3D
09.09.11 Warner Bros. Contagion
RELEASE CALENDAR
09.16.11 Disney The Lion King
09.23.11 Warner Bros. Dolphin Tale
10.21.11 Summit The Three Musketeers
11.04.11 DreamWorks Puss in Boots
11.04.11 New Line
A Very Harold & Kumar
Christmas
11.11.11 Universal Immortals
11.18.11 Warner Bros. Happy Feet Two
The Advenures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn
opens December 23, 2011
11.23.11 Sony Arthur Christmas
11.23.11 Sony Hugo Cabret
11.23.11 The Weinstein Company Piranha 3DD
12.16.11 20th Century Fox
12.23.11 Paramount
2012
Alvin and the Chipmunks:
Chip-Wrecked
The Adventures of Tintin:
The Secret of the Unicorn
01.20.12 Screen Gems Underworld: New Dawn
01.27.12 Warner Bros.
02.10.12 Fox
02.17.12 Sony
03.02.12 Paramount
Journey 2:
The Mysterious Island
Star Wars: Episode I - The
Phantom Menace
Ghost Rider: Spirit of
Vengeance
Hansel and Gretel:
Witch Hunters
03.02.12 Universal Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax
03.09.12 Walt Disney Pictures John Carter
03.30.12 Sony/Columbia The Pirates! Band of Misfits
03.30.12 Warner Bros. Wrath of the Titans
04.06.12 Paramount Titanic
05.25.12 Sony Men in Black 3
06.08.12 DreamWorks Madagascar 3
06.08.12 Fox Prometheus
06.15.12 Warner Bros. Jack the Giant Killer
06.22.12 Disney Brave
06.22.12 20th Century Fox
Abraham Lincoln:
Vampire Hunter
07.13.12 20th Century Fox Ice Age: Continental Drift
08.17.12 Focus Features ParaNorman
09.14.12 Sony / Screen Gems Resident Evil 5
09.21.12 Sony Hotel Transylvania
10.05.12 Disney Frankenweenie
10.05.12 Lionsgate
The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre 3D
10.26.12 The Weinstein Company Halloween 3D
11.02.12 Disney Wreck-It Ralph
11.21.12
Paramount/
DreamWorks
Rise of the Guardians
11.21.12 Universal 47 Ronin
12.14.12 Warner Bros.
The Hobbit:
An Unexpected Journey
12.21.12 20th Century Fox Life of Pi
2013
03.08.13 Disney Oz: The Great and Powerful
03.22.13
06.07.13
Paramount/
DreamWorks
Paramount/
DreamWorks
The Croods
Turbo
06.21.13 Disney Monsters University
07.12.13 Warner Bros. Pacific Rim
11.08.13
Paramount/
DreamWorks
Me and My Shadow
11.27.13 Disney Untitled Disney/Pixar Film
06.21.13 Disney
The Hobbit:
There and Back Again

MARQUEE AWARD
Four times the charm
Forging the fully realized patron
by Cole Hornaday
Emagine Royal Oak
and Star Lanes
Royal Oak,
Michigan
EXTERIOR SHOT
Emagine Royal Oak and Star Lanes has taken
the lead in offering patrons the finest in luxury
amenities.
sk Emagine Founder and President
Paul Glantz about his start in
exhibition and he’ll say it was a hobby
gone awry. In 1989, Glantz was the Vice
President of Finance and Administration
for the thriving Proctor Financial,
Incorporated. Perhaps it was his keen
business savvy—or perhaps a gift of
foresight—but Glantz was restless with
his success and began developing an
entrepreneurial back-up plan: Exhibition.
16 BOXOFFICE PRO AUGUST 2011

Glantz and his then-partner bought
a one-screen theater in rural Michigan
they called the Clarkston
Cinema. “Notwithstanding the fact that we
were the smallest of all small exhibitors, we
became students of the industry,” laughs
Glantz. He was a quick study.
Aware he had a family to support,
Glantz kept their needs at the forefront
of his mind as he refined his exhibitor’s
marketing plan. On May 23rd, 1997 Glantz
and company opened their first built-fromthe-ground-up
movie theater, the Cinema
Hollywood in Birch Run, Michigan, which
would become the first new facility in a
thriving line of Emagine Theatres.
For the next 14 years, Emagine maintained
a surefooted process of expansion.
It launched six facilities while investing
in industry innovations: it had the first
all-luxury seating section and was the first
movie chain to convert to 100 percent digital
projection. “We were Cinedigm’s first
theater customer,” says Glantz. “Bud Mayo
had cut the deal with the studios for the
VPF financing and they needed somebody
to kick it off. My perception was that the
industry was going this way and we might
as well get on the train early.”
Emagine’s most recent family addition,
Emagine Royal Oak and Star Lanes in Royal
Oak Michigan is a new level in the brand’s
evolution. Opening its doors in May of
2011, Emagine Royal Oak is a 10-screen
movie theater capped off with boutique
bowling, a restaurant and bar, a banquet
hall and conference rooms. “It’s like four
business in one,” says Emagine Vice President
of Marketing Ruth Daniels. “There’s
so much more going on here. We built the
IN THE FAST LANE
Emagine Royal Oak and Star Lanes feature a first in most regions, luxury bowling.
AUGUST 2011 BOXOFFICE PRO 17

GLORY IN THE HIGHEST
Emagine Entertainment operates six theaters and luxury event locations across the country with a combined 10,000+ seats and 56 screens.
Emagine brand steadily over the last 10
years and now it’s very strong and becoming
very well known.”
Luxury is the key word at the Emagine
Royal Oak. “You can take a cocktail into
any auditorium,” says Daniels. “We also
have luxury seating in many—if not all—
of the auditoriums. We really try to cater to
that crowd that wants something special,
that wants something different.”
That same attention to sophistication is
at the Emagine Royal Oak’s groundbreaking
boutique bowling facility. Upon arrival, patrons
are met by an attendee who measures
their fingers and pairs them with a ball of
optimum weight and heft. “Then they clean
the ball with antiseptic and bring it over to
you,” says Daniels. “If you are wearing flip
flops or sandals, we have socks that you get
to take home free of charge—we give them
to you with the shoe rental.”
But first, the Emagine Royal Oak and
Star Lanes has to make patrons aware of
how much they boast under one roof. “We’re
trying to educate people about all this facility
has to offer,” says Daniels. “People come
for the movies, but afterward when somebody
asks them, ‘Oh, did you check out the
restaurant?’ they say, ‘There’s a restaurant?’
It’s such a large venue that people don’t even
“We are leaders in luxury…
You do what you can to
carve out your niche.”
Ruth Daniels
realize all that’s going on here.”
Undaunted, Daniels has began a campaign
of special event calendars, menus
targeted to draw in the lunch crowd and a
trailer that invites, “Why don’t you come
over and have something to eat?”
“We are leaders in luxury—we have
this luxury element and we’re trying to
cater to everybody,” says Daniels. “Let’s face
it, today there are a lot of beautiful movie
theaters with a lot of stadium seating and
all the amenities. You do have to do what
you can to carve out your niche.”
Technological innovation included. In
May, Emagine deployed 4K Texas Instruments/Christie
digital projectors—two of
the first four ever sold—once again putting
the Emagine brand ahead of its competition.
Not too bad for a hobby gone awry.
“I’m quite bullish on our business,”
says Glantz. “The brand is well recognized
in our marketplace. What we’ve learned
with all of our buildings is it takes time
for them to ramp-up, to achieve what we
call ‘the fully realized patron.’ In the case
of Emagine Royal Oak, we’re finding that
ramp-up to be much more rapid than with
prior venues. I think that has to do with
our brand name now being known as a
quality movie-going experience.”
18 BOXOFFICE PRO AUGUST 2011

IF IT WAS
GOOD ENOUGH
FOR JACK …
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SPECIAL REPORT
labor. You can open up a 10 to 12 screen theater and if it’s not well
attended, you can operate it with two or three people. For us, it’s
not quite that easy because you have kitchen staff and bar staff and
folks to run the food and the waiters. We have a six screen theater at
South Lamar that has about 100 employees. It’s just a totally different
model. Operationally, we are far more like a very high volume
restaurant than we are a movie theater.”
And the sacrifices start as soon as construction begins. Usually,
at least one of the mid-sized auditoriums in each complex must
be axed to make room for a kitchen. Southern Theatres’ Kreuger
predicts, “You’re going to require a kitchen that can keep up with a
rush of 300 to 800 people depending on the size of the complex that
you’re building and the showtimes that you’ve set.”
It is precisely this kind of planning that has Muvico treating their
two in-theater restaurants in Thousand Oaks, California and Chicago,
Illinois as individual businesses. “What we look at is the supporting
demographics, if it can actually support that concept,” says
Muvico COO James E. Heard, Jr.. “Is it a community with enough
expendable income to advocate this type of location and that type of
price point? That’s why we don’t have it at every location.”
Sometimes the demographics are such that there is no way a theater
owner can offer such a full-service dining experience. Goodrich
Quality Theatres Concessions Manager Brian Nuffer believes that’s
the case with most of the markets within which Goodrich operates.
“We’re in the Midwest. For a lot of the bigger chains, it’s easier for
them to build in a Los Angeles where they can take the risk in a high
rent district where there are enough people who visit the theater,”
he explains. “For us trying to do something in one of our smaller
markets is a huge risk. You spend $10 million on a theater and nobody
comes through the door, that could sink a company.”
League believes exhibitors thinking of offering full-service dining
should not only be cautious about selecting a location, but also
be mindful of their menu. “Craft the menu such that it’s going to be
idiot-proof, so that it’s easy to push out a good product and it’s not
complicated,” he advises. “Just know what you’re in for. There’s lots
more regulation, there’s lots more health department pitfalls and
having someone who knows how food service works will definitely
be worthwhile.”
Kreuger feels that point can’t be overstated enough as he attributes
the success of The Theatres at Canal Place to having a good
restaurant partner. “Going around the industry and seeing how
other people were executing restaurants, some of the learning exby
J. Sperling Reich
SHOULD YOUR THEATER
GO GOURMET?
Advice—and warnings—from four chains who
made the leap
Lately there’s a lot of buzz about theaters who are worrying
as much about pâté as popcorn. Throughout North
America, some exhibitors have sidelined popcorn in lieu
of sweet corn tamales, blue-cheese fondue and shredded duck tacos.
Full-service restaurant food is the latest big idea. But is it right for
everyone?
One of the first exhibitors to experiment with restaurant concepts
in movie theaters was the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas.
Back in 1997, Drafthouse CEO and Founder Tim League opened
a single screen complex with his wife Karrie. In what he now describes
as a “mom-and-pop” operation, Tim and Karrie constructed
a menu and worked in the kitchen. Thirteen years later, the Drafthouse
chain has ten theaters and counting—an inarguable sign that
the business model can work. What did League do right? He asked
for help.
As the chain expanded, it hired Executive Chef John Bullington,
an Austin chef who arrived with a big reputation, to oversee menu
development and create seasonal specials to be rolled out every two
months. Bullington is also responsible for monthly high-end dining
events like the Lord of the Rings Trilogy Hobbit Feast, an elaborate
multi-course meal with wine pairings.
“John came from a fine dining background and a lot of what he
does is kind of casual dining at high volume,” says Tim League. “I
think he’s able to stay in touch with his chef roots by doing these
elaborate high-end meals. It adds some personal satisfaction to his
job.”
At Southern Theatres’ The Theaters at Canal Place in New Orleans,
they, too, realized that adding a full menu wasn’t something
they were prepared to do alone. “We partnered with a great local
restaurateur who knows how to run that side of the business and
worked out a space and a limited menu that would work,” says COO
Ron Kreuger II. “He brings to bear the restaurant side of the experience
and what it takes to manage and motivate a waitstaff. It’s a matter
of managing your overall labor costs on the restaurant side.
League concurs, “The big margin that can really hurt you is
20 BOXOFFICE PRO AUGUST 2011

periences they shared with us were the challenges of learning the
restaurant side of the business,” he says. “In our experience, our best
learning lesson is to partner with the right operator to help run and
understand the restaurant side of the business. They know what
type of equipment works best for them, what type of management
and staffing is required to take care of the restaurant side. Those of
us who have been in the movie theater business all our lives know
what it takes to hire and motivate 16 to 18-year-old kids that work
behind the concessions stand. After 50 years, we’ve got that much
figured out.”
HALF-BAKED? HARDLY
Is there a compromise for theaters who want
hot snacks without a full kitchen?
Without expanding to build a full-service restaurant,
theater owners are experimenting to see how much
they can add to the standard
fare of popcorn, soda and candy menu
without breaking their bank. Offerings
like pizza and milk shakes are often referred
to as enhanced menus or hot foods,
though they’re becoming so prevalent that
the industry should adopt its own term.
(I suggest “alternative concessions.”) Explains
Don Edwards, Marketing Manager
at Muvico Theaters, “Having a wider selection
of food items just helps to bring in a
larger group of patrons to the concession
stand.” But what do you add—and how
easy is it to make the expansion?
Florida-based Muvico Theaters, now
with nine theaters in three states, has
tested a hot menu since 1999 when they
started building megaplexes. Through the
years they’ve learned quite a bit—like the
fact that seasoned curly fries retain their
heat longer than traditional French fries.
Today, Muvico concession stands sell fries,
yes, and also personal pizzas, chicken tenders,
chicken wings, fries and mozzarella
sticks. At locations with a heavily Hispanic
population, they’ve even added taco
bites, churro fries and empanadas.
At Goodrich, Concessions Manager
Brian Nuffer has doubts about pizza. Hotdogs
and pretzels sell well, he’s observed,
but “pizza is a little tougher because it has
a little bit of a wait and it’s kind of hard,
in my opinion, to eat in a theater,” he says,
adding, “With a hot dog you can hold it in
your hand and eat it but a pizza is kind of
a table food.”
Theaters across the country are evaluating
what works for them. Southern
Theaters operates a handful of locations
with specialty cafes that serve up lots of
pizza, plus chicken fingers and other fried foods. According to Ron
Krueger II, the circuit’s Chief Operating Officer, the real test isn’t
what you serve, but how good it is. Says Krueger, “It’s really about
serving a quality product. There are definitely some knock offs
and cheaper things that are out there which don’t work well.”
Finding quality alternative concessions is becoming easier
and easier as name brands such as White Castle enter the cinema
concessions market, elbowing hotdogs and demanding they make
room. Even after the hit film Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle
caused sales to spike back in 2004, the nation’s first hamburger
chain—which celebrates its 90th anniversary this year—had no
intention of entering the cinema space until a buyer from Harkins
Theatres came knocking. Unlike McDonalds or Wendy’s,
White Castle has made inroads in mass-marketing their burgers
as frozen foods, a position that gave them a jump on entering the
market. “For the most part we had never even thought about the
theater business,” says White Castle Marketing Supervisor Kelly
Collins. “I had never gone into a theater that served anything other
AUGUST 2011 BOXOFFICE PRO 21

SPECIAL REPORT > FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD
than popcorn, pop and candy. But once Harkins brought it to our
attention, we looked into the industry and said, ‘Wow, here’s a
whole new area of growth for us.’”
All of White Castle’s products are cooked, flash frozen and
then reheated to-order at cinemas, which charge an average of
$4.00 for two sliders. That’s nearly a 300 percent markup from
the original cost $1.15. White Castle hamburgers, cheeseburgers,
jalapeño burgers, chicken breast filets and breakfast sandwiches
are being served in over 250 movie theaters, including complexes
owned by Harkins and Marcus Theatres. Since most operators
order the product directly from distributors, the company doesn’t
have an official count of their supporting theaters and often
learns about existing theater customers when they get calls requesting
marketing material.
Is there such a thing as selling a food that’s too successful?
When the Mann Chinese Theatre in Hollywood began selling
White Castle burgers to moviegoers they quickly found their
facility turning into a fast food restaurant. “They started to notice
that people were coming in and they weren’t buying tickets to the
movies,” recalls Collins. “They were coming in and going straight
to the concession stand and buying their cheeseburgers at the
concession stand and walking out the door. You can’t get White
Castle’s in California. So what they did was they opened up a second
concession stand out by the street to service the people that
just wanted cheeseburgers and don’t want to come in to watch a
movie.”
Of course, not all enhanced concessions are hot. The ice cream
market is expanding beyond Dibs. Convenience Store News voted
the f’real’s milkshakes and smoothies the best new frozen beverage
product of 2010. With the goal of becoming the “happiness
in a cup” company, f’real has already placed its unique self-serve
blender in over 9,000 locations throughout the United States and
Canada, including convenience stores, college campuses and
quick serve restaurants. So far, theater chains are proving that
the products can increase their incremental revenue with a good
return on investment.
Explains Stephanie Brendel, The f’real foods Vice President
of Marketing, theater operators “like that the products are selfcontained
and portable, which decreases the likelihood a mess
that could be left behind vs. other ice cream treats.” The largest
consumers of branded frozen beverages are between the ages of
13 and 25-years-old, which conforms perfectly to the age range
of most frequent moviegoers. “Our secret weapon is that we actually
offer freshly blended drinks rather than dispensing from a
reservoir that may have been sitting there,” explains Brendel. “The
blending process we use allows for the inclusion of real ingredients
(milk, fruit, coffee).”
As f’real has learned, entering the cinema concessions market
with alternative snack items is no picnic. “Our biggest disadvantage
is awareness,” Brendel says. “Consumers don’t expect to find
these types of products in the theater, so operators need to have
a communication plan for the program which we can help with.”
White Castle has also found awareness inside cinemas to be a
problem and, like f’real, offers point-of-sale marketing material
and digital signage. The company has even taken their marketing
efforts one step further by creating a specialized trailer for cinemas.
“We surveyed some of the theater operators when we were
at CinemaCon and asked them if we provided a commercial, a
30-second commercial, would they be willing to play it in the theater,”
says Collins. “They said, ‘Well, we sell that space, however
if it is focused entirely on sending them to the concession stand,
we would run that spot at no charge.’ So we specifically created a
White Castle commercial that sends them back to the concession
stand to buy the product. We actually shot it at a Marcus Theatres
right here in Columbus, Ohio with the girls that were working
behind the counter.”
Another challenge for both f’real and White Castle has been
the special equipment required to prepare their products. “The
theater channel does not typically purchase equipment—it’s
given to them due to the large numbers of moviegoers they bring
in,” says Brendel, comparing f’real’s blender to the soda fountains
often provided by the likes of Coca-Cola and Pepsi. “Most theater
programs will see full pay-back on the equipment in less than six
months.”
White Castle’s Collins agrees, “The biggest challenge we run
into is the equipment issue. The theater has already purchased
one of the TurboChef ovens and they use it for pizza, which is a
dry oven, it doesn’t have any moisture, and they don’t want to go
out and buy a new TurboChef.”
James E. Heard, Jr., Muvico’s Chief Operating Officer, credits
the TurboChef oven with revolutionizing the way quick service
food is prepared. The ventless oven uses impinged air, microwave
bursts, an impingement heater and catalytic converter to cook
food up to 15 times faster with surprising quality. “Prepackaged
foods have gotten so much better with cryovacs and vacuum seals
that they hold well, it’s already prepared so it really just requires
us to heat and provide the packaging,” says Heard. “Spoilage is not
an issue simply because with the TurboChef, we make most of our
items made-to-order.”
But no amount of marketing or cutting-edge technology has
managed to help theater owners sell one particular enhanced concession
offering: coffee. “People don’t buy coffee in movie theaters,
especially the fancy coffee, like Starbucks,” according to Nuffer.
“People drink coffee socially. They like to sit down and have their
cup of coffee and chat. People don’t go to a movie theater to buy a
cup of coffee, to sit down and talk for an hour or two. To me, popcorn
is the number one seller. Popcorn and coffee, it’s kind of like
beer and ice cream, it’s not the most appetizing thing.”
Heard confirms Nuffer’s conclusion. “It’s just about execution
and consistency and that’s why you have the big coffee purveyors
that do extremely well like Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts,” says
Heard. “Coffee drinkers are very astute at what type of coffee to
drink. Coffee doesn’t pair so well with popcorn per se.”
Both Heard and Nuffer’s comments underscore just how careful
theater operators must be to not cannibalize popcorn and soda
sales. And with good reason. “General theater operators get a little
bit nervous about pushing hot foods because they believe it will
impact their bread and butter which is popcorn and soda,” says
Heard. “But it hasn’t impacted our bread and butter. It provides an
alternative to the people who may not want popcorn and soda all
the time. A lot of people are in a rush and don’t have an opportunity
to eat and this is a great way to hold them over.”
Krueger confirms that, “When it comes to the regular movie
theater, the popcorn and soda and nachos and pretzels are still
really the key drivers of the business. The other hot foods, they’re
not driving the business, but they’re a nice little add on.”
22 BOXOFFICE PRO AUGUST 2011

POPCORN, CANDY,
CUTTLEFISH?
Cinema snacks from around the globe
Everyone knows the tie between movie theaters and popcorn
started during the Depression, but it was World
War II that solidified the bond. When the government
imposed a sugar ration, candy quickly disappeared and the sale
of popcorn naturally rose. By the time the war was over, popcorn
was inextricably linked to moviegoing. In every corner of the
globe, it’s what theaters are serving up.
But that popcorn isn’t identical in every country. Take the
United Kingdom and many Asian countries where sugar—not
salt—is often sprinkled on top. Even more rebellious is the
breadth of local delicacies giving popcorn a run for its money
around the world.
In India, samosas are the most popular cinema concession
item with over 30,000 of the potato-filled pastries gobbled up each
day at Mumbai’s 90 theaters alone. And should they run out of
samosas, crowds want vada, a fried lentil snack, or at least chaat,
made with fried dough and potato.
South Korea champions roasted chestnuts and dried cuttlefish.
The fish has a sweet flavor and its chewy texture compliments
the crunch of popcorn. Across the ocean in Japan, cineastes love
iwashi sembei, sardine rice cakes prepared in sugar and soy sauce
with a distinct umami flavor. (They’re usually sold in pre-packaged
containers, fish bones and all.)
Outside the States, the movie theater is a dangerous place to
be a fish. In Russia, some upscale theaters serve beluga caviar.
Barbados hawks salted fishcakes with a spicy hot sauce and plenty
of Banks, a local beer. Thailand and China serve crispy squid
and shrimp, with Thailand also specializing in shrimp chips or
popcorn sprinkled with tom yum-flavored seasoning—a pungent
brew of lemongrass, fish sauce and Kaffir lime.
You can learn a lot about a country’s cuisine from their multiplex
menu. Did you know the Dutch chew through four pounds
of licorice per capita every year? Or that in Kautokeino, Norway—
a snowmobile drive-in 280 miles north of the Arctic Circle where
even the screen is made of snow—dried reindeer meat is the go-to
movie treat? The Spanish are sneaking Kalimotxo, a mix of red
wine and cola, into cinemas, while the Lithuanians are smuggling
a dark brew named Kvaas made from pouring hot water over
cubes of stale black and rye bread, then fermented in wooden vats
and sometimes flavored with mint, raisins and berries.
James E. Heard, Jr., COO of Muvico Theatres, says the company
is looking abroad for new and exciting concession ideas that
could work at their multiplexes in California, Florida and Illinois.
“We’re looking at a world market approach in the future,” he
says. “Maybe we’ll add some Asian fusion in the concession stand
where we may sell a lo-mein and package it nicely in a Chinese togo
container with a chork, this neat little fork that I found which
is a chopstick and a fork combined. We would do that maybe on a
monthly or bi-monthly basis and it would be an offering for that
month. That’s the direction I think we’re going to try and push
the envelope on.”
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AUGUST 2011 BOXOFFICE PRO 23

RISE
OF THE
PLANET OF
THE APES
THE BIG PICTURE
GET YOUR PAWS OFF IT!
LOOK OUT HUMANS: HERE COMES CAESAR
Humans couldn’t rule the earth forever. Especially when we all know that 3000 years from
now, Charlton Heston will crash-land on a planet of apes parked just a horseback ride away
from the Statue of Liberty. The original series toyed with the story with increasingly odd sequels;
decades later, Tim Burton would monkey around with remaking the first film. But it’s
taken Hollywood 38 years to give the simian sic-fi classic the reboot it deserves. And they’re determined
to surprise audiences who expect a popcorn cult flick with an earnest, emotional thriller that boasts some
of the best digital effects New Zealand’s Weta Digital has ever made. Read on to hear more straight from
the ape-men’s mouths via interviews with director Rupert Wyatt, Weta’s Senior Effects Artist Joe Letteri and
the star—and heart—of the film performance capture legend Andy Serkis who plays Caesar, the intelligent
chimp destined to trigger Charlton Heston’s most famous movie meltdown.
by Amy Nicholson
24 BOXOFFICE PRO AUGUST 2011

SAYONARA, HOMO SAPIENS
Director Rupert Wyatt on the decline of Western Civilization
You’re making a movie where the audience knows the ending—and even what happens
3000 years later. How do you make this story feel immediate and suspenseful?
It’s like mythology: we know the story, but it’s the drama within the story that’s the most
intriguing part. For me when I watched the first films, I was always fascinated by how a
human-to-simian transition happened. We saw the transition in Conquest of and Battle for the
Planet of the Apes, but here we have a new spin on it that’s a little more contemporary in its
approach.
So you’re saying you see Apes almost like Greek tragedy. Everyone knew Medea—
what mattered was how Euripides told the story.
Absolutely.
Do you see this as a story about Caesar and the simians ascending, or about the humans
descending?
It’s very much the story of the apes. That’s always been our intention and it’s always been
our challenge, because obviously we’re making it for a human audience. Even though James
Franco plays the catalyst, the whole reason behind the impetus of the story, it’s still Caesar’s
journey. And so despite what Caesar and his kind do to the humans—actually, it’s not even
what they do to the humans, but what we do to ourselves—they will be our protagonists
in our mythology. It’s very important that we empathize with them. And that’s easily done,
anyway. The way we perceive apes as creatures that are very much our closest cousins, the
way we see them as being sensitive beings in many ways, that contrasts to how people treat
them and exploit them and subjugate them. I think people will empathize with them and
understand that’s why the revolution started up. If you look at Spartacus, we choose to side
with Kirk Douglas rather than the Romans because he was the underdog.
Were you thinking of Spartacus as you were shooting the film?
Not narratively, but thematically certainly. There are moments in our film that reflect the
bringing of the slaves and a leader who rises up from the masses, from within, to give people
their freedom. Certainly there’s echoes of that.
LAY OFF HIM
Tom Felton, best known as Harry Potter villain Draco
Malfoy, plays the handler who incites Caesar to revolt
When Spartacus and the original Planet of the Apes came out in the ‘60s, they were
made for audiences who were wrestling with the tensions of the Cold War and the
Civil Rights movement. What does this story mean to audiences today?
I think it’s very easy to lambast and betray science and the scientific evolution by saying, “We
shouldn’t dabble with things we’re not aware of,” or “We’ve opened a Pandora’s Box,” or “Be
careful what you wish for.” Especially in Hollywood, there’s that tendency to make a cautionary
tale or morality play. I’m not particularly a fan of those. The catalyst of this story is similar
to that, but I’ve attempted to take it away from that and make it a human story—ironically,
one that’s about apes, not humans. But rather than harp on the science—I mean, would
you rather we all stayed in the Stone Age?—science is the reason why we’ve progressed to
the state we’re in now in a positive way. It’s not us or Pandora or our own scientific evolution
that brought about our demise. It’s individuals within us. And that’s what the story is about:
the hubris of people. There are humans that do bad things, and it’s the same for the apes. Not
all of the apes are heroic and angelic and whiter than white. There are also villains in their
cast as well. I think it deals with contemporary themes, I think it deals—as much as possible
for a Hollywood film of this scale—with the zeitgeist and where we are now in our civilization.
And so much of getting that across rests on the performance of Andy Serkis. Was
there anyone else you could have cast in that role?
For Caesar, no. Andy came in pretty late in the day. That was actually really to do with our
decision to go with performance capture came quite late in the day. As soon as we started to
(continued on next page)
AUGUST 2011 BOXOFFICE PRO 25

BIG PICTURE > RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
see this as humans playing the apes, we set
out to get the very best of the people who
understand that technology and what it can
achieve—because I think it’s very easy for
people who are not the specific makers of
the film to come from a higher place and say,
“Well, the apes are played by stunt men or
little people.” I was very keen to make everybody
know that our apes were portrayed
by actors, to have people who could ground
it in physical movement and play the roles.
And Andy was an obvious choice and we
were very fortunate to get him.
So there would be a tonal difference if
the apes were played by little people in
monkey suits?
Yeah. I mean, we knew we could never go
with ape suits because we’re dealing with
contemporary apes as they are today. We
as humans do not have the body shape and
body mass; we don’t have the long limbs and
foreshortened legs.
Maybe it was the suits in the original, or
Charlton Heston’s performance, but the
first film is a camp and cult classic—not
a tone that would fit here. Talk about
making that tonal shift so audiences are
able to see Rise as its own film.
I think in many ways the ambition of the
original film was a mess, but the tonal nature
of it came about because of the nature
of how they were able to make it in that
time. From a technological point of
view—or even just because of the
cameras, nothing to do with the
ape suits—the opening ng scene
with Charlton Heston inside
the Icarus smoking a cigar is
the most stage-bound scene
you could possibly imagine.
There’s no movement,
there’s a backprojected
light display
going through
the windows. We’ve
come a long way
in cinema since then.
Therefore, it’s a very necessary
thing, as well as
an obvious thing, to approach
it from a contemsame
way that the new Batman
has taken a different tonal
approach as opposed to the
“Ka-pow!” and “Kaboom!” om!” naporary
angle. In the ture of how we originally perceived Batman
to be in our youth. It’s a reimagining of the
mythology and one that in that respect plays
very much into our time. But in the end of
the day, we’re dealing with apes who have
evolved to take over humanity. And that is a
heightened reality and something that could
be perceived to be high camp in many ways.
We’re sort of riding that thin line between
plausibility and science fiction.
Not counting Tim Burton’s, there are five
films that come after yours in the Apes
timeline. As you were diving back into
that mythology, was there anything you
wish you could change and set up differently?
Our origin story, in a way, successfully avoided
any of that because we’re starting really
at the beginning. What we’re creating, hopefully,
is a new platform from which future
films can come and become the chapters
that link ours to the 1968 original. In some
ways, it’s a reimagining of the franchise—it’s
a reboot, actually. The screenwriters when
they set out to develop the story with the
studio made the decision to
in some ways not relate
this film to the sequels
from a historical point
of view. We’re sort
of wiping the
WHO’S THE MONKEY NOW?
Frieda Pinto and James Franco play two of the humans in peril
slate clean and starting again. There’s many
elements of the sequels that if I was to be
involved, I would love to tie our story into
them, such as the Forbidden Zone in New
York and the nuclear disaster that befalls
humanity. We’ve taken a slightly different
approach here, but it could still include nuclear
destruction in terms of what we bring
upon ourselves. There’s many elements we
could play into, but I think as far as our characters
are concerned, as far as our original
narrative is concerned, we’re starting again.
In terms of the timeline, how far ahead
can this new potential crop of sequels
go? Will they just catch up to where the
Heston original started, or could they hit
that point and go beyond and redo the
rest of the series?
They certainly could. I suppose it depends
on how big an appetite there is for that. I
would say that there’s a great opportunity
with the next film after this to see the real
conflict between humans and apes on a
global level—on a continental level, even.
Our film involves conflict in microcosm, it
involves the initial stages of the revolution.
And again, if you take Spartacus as an ex-
ample, that plays out in microcosm if you
see it in terms of the end
of the Roman
Empire. That’s very much our story,
too. So what comes after that with
the various things that befall human-
ity—one could call it a leveling of the
playing field—that would allow over
a period of 10-15 years after the end
of our film, you could then really
start to see the beginnings of
the war between humans
and apes in a much
more
realistic
fashion. Because I
think you could
safely say that
if the world
population
of apes at
this point
in time
were to rise
up, I don’t
think they’d
stand much
of a chance
against our
numbers and
technology.
26 BOXOFFICE OFF
PRO AUGUST 2011

You were talking about the natural
empathy humans have for apes. Could
a revolution story like this be made starring
any other animal?
I think when you look into the eyes of an
ape, you really see a soul. You could look into
the eyes of your dog and see love and loyalty,
but I think there’s something exceptional
in the similarity of the facial features, of the
thought process. An adult chimpanzee has
the same understanding and feeling and capacity
for learning as a four-year-old human.
It’s extraordinary. And if you think about
that, and you think about what’s done to
them, it’s amazing that we’re allowed to do
that when we talk about human rights. No
other animal on earth has that capacity for
feeling and is that similar to us. Yes, there’s
numerous things they cannot do, and can
never hope to learn and achieve. And that is
why we are the alpha and they aren’t. But if
you take their DNA and fiddle with evolution—which
is basically what our story is
about—then the world is their oyster. I think
there’s a simple reason why apes are rarely
used in laboratory testing—and they’re used
less now because of the expense and because
finally the animal rights movement has been
able to shore up a sense of responsibility.
I remember watching an interview while
I was preparing for the film with a cancer
researcher who had worked on apes. He
was asked the question, “How do you feel
about your moral responsibility for testing
on apes?” and he said, “Well, I don’t sleep
at night. It’s a terrible thing, but it’s what I
have to do.” You can really understand the
moral twilight he’s in and what he’s juggling
because his vocation and his desire—which
is very, very admirable in so many ways—involves
the nature of vivisection on an animal
that’s very much like our own.
There’s a documentary out this summer
called Project Nim that follows a
chimp from the ‘70s who was raised with
people then as an adult was thrown in a
cage. To him, arguably a cage is torture
because he thought of himself as a human.
It sets up your film well.
I know the story—and I heard the documentary
is great. The director James Marsh
is a terrific filmmaker. That’s the juggling
act with a movie of this size. When you’re
making a documentary, you can absorb all
of these themes and have very delicate storytelling.
This is ultimately a summer blockbuster,
but it needs to be made on a mature
level, as well. We’ve attempted to find that
balance. Our yardstick was films like Close
Encounters of the Third Kind and the Spielberg
films of the late ‘70s which were great blockbusters
that also had great human stories.
If you’re going to set up a bar for yourself,
that’s about the highest you can
reach.
Yeah, and I think more and more summer
movies are all very much just about being
blockbusters. I understand why this is—it’s
not a criticism, more just the reality. Summer
blockbusters are looking to appeal to
those who want escapist fare. I do think you
can entertain an audience as much as challenge
them. Christopher Nolan with films
like Inception is a filmmaker who’s managed
to accomplish that.
Tell me the truth: between takes, was everyone
joking around and yelling, “You
damned dirty ape!”
We were always quoting Charlton Heston.
I’ll put it this way: “It was a madhouse!”
(More Apes on next page)
Seamless Performance. Brighter Choice.
www.Harkness-Screens.com
AUGUST 2011 BOXOFFICE PRO 27

BIG PICTURE > RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
I AM THE APE MAN
Andy Serkis sides with Caesar
How is playing Caesar different than playing King Kong?
People have asked me, “How come you’re playing another ape?
You’re going to be known for playing apes.” These guys are such
totally different characters that they’ve got barely any resemblance.
King Kong was a lonely, psychotic, older, beaten-up boxer of a gorilla,
whose goal is to just get through every day and survive. He has no
connection to any other thing, any other creature than the dinosaurs
and predators who are trying to attack him. Until when he meets
Naomi Watts and goes through a whole range of emotions, as a result,
which brings his downfall. This story, I get to play a chimpanzee
who is rescued from a laboratory where he’s inherited this this superintelligence
drug, this cure for Alzheimer’s, that’s affecting him. He’s
hand-reared by human beings and is brought up in a very nurturing,
loving environment—he actually behaves like a human being. The
relationship between him and the research scientist played by James
Franco is very much a father-son relationship. Only when he reaches
a point of self recognition and self awareness does he then question
what he is. And then he feels like a freak, like Frankenstein’s monster.
He doesn’t really know what he is anymore. He gets taken away from
his father figure and put into what is in fact a prison, a sanctuary
with a lot of other apes. Then he has to again reevaluate what he
is. I get to play a character who goes through a huge emotional and
psychological arc. I play him from a very young age, from an infant,
through to this leader of a revolution. It’s an entirely different part,
apart from the physical factors: Kong is a 25-foot gorilla and Caesar is
a normal-sized chimpanzee. Gorillas and chimpanzees, as you know,
are totally different.
Totally different. Talking about that strong arc you take Caesar
through, how does the way you move his body
change as his brain changes?
was a constant dance. At what stage do we reveal his personality, or
how clever he is, and so on? Second, we were influenced by a real life
chimpanzee called Oliver who became very well-known in the ‘70s
and was known as the “humanzee.” Everyone was fascinated by his
otherness. He walked bipedally. He looked like a chimpanzee but he
was totally like a human being. So he’d sit in a chair with his legs
crossed, he’d wear clothes, his caretakers would feed him at the table,
he’d eat with them, he’d watch television.
When you hear these stories—or even see the way people react
to your characters—what excites humans is when they see
humanity, see themselves, inside a creature. Are we humans
narcissists?
That’s a really, really good question. I think this film, other than being
a cautionary tale, does beg that question. We are narcissistic and
for whose benefit are we pushing the scientific envelope? It’s only
for our own species; the selfish gene is in place. If the balance were
to tip and there was a vacuum and apes did take over, what would an
ape choose to keep hold of and what would he reject from humanity?
Obviously, if apes were to take over, there would be similar failings if
their species rose to supremacy. Whichever species takes over, there
will be hierarchy, there will be failings and good things. Getting back
to your point, I do believe this film does take on an animal rights
feel. It does question that we judge animals according to the mirror
we put onto ourselves. You’re absolutely right. I’m running in circles
here, but what I’m saying is Caesar is an example of someone’s overreaching
ambition to try and cure a particular disease that is in our
own society. And Caesar becomes a victim of that. By the same token,
he then has to choose what he keeps and what he throws away of
humanity. Are you pretty serious into primates?
I used to TA a class in Evolutionary Biology with a bonobo expert.
Really!
One of the biggest challenges of
playing the role was how much
we anthropomorphize him. In
a way, performance capture is
the perfect medium to allow
an actor license to act in that
skin. You’re wrapped in that
body. You then choose how
you’re going to interpret his
level of intelligence, how much
his behavior has been affected
by being brought up by human
beings, and then, of course, the
fact that he has inherited this drug.
There are two strong influences.
First, I watched a lot of videos and
footage of highly gifted children who
could play concertos by the age of four
because we kept perceiving Caesar to
be an 11-year-old when he’s three. To what
level do you anthropomorphize him? That
THE ACTOR BENEATH
Andy Serkis as Caesar
Talking about how ape society would have
its own
problems, I was thinking that the apes
couldn’t
even agree among themselves. Bonobos and
chimps and gorillas have completely
different
power structures.
Exactly. And we touch on that in the movie. In
the original Planet of the Apes, they had their
own hierarchy. The orangutans were the
sagacious, wise lawmakers and the
gorillas were the thugs and the
police force and the army, and
the chimpanzees were the
intellectuals.
But with orangutans
being the intellectuals,
I always
thought the writ-
ers didn’t know
what they were
28 BOXOFFICE OFF
FI
PRO
AUGUST 2011

doing. I figured the orangutans were the
stars just because they liked the color of
their fur.
True, that was interesting. The kind of
separate differentiation as a metaphor was
definitely there, the way that they chose to
represent them. The orangutans were the
lords, the judges. It is an incredible metaphor,
really. Did you like the original Planet
of the Apes?
I did, but I’m of the generation where I
knew the ending before I saw it—I don’t
think I got the full impact. You’re a vegetarian
and against animal testing. Does
that mean if war was to happen today,
you’d be on Caesar’s side?
Absolutely. I’ve been a vegetarian for a long
time and part of the reason I became a vegetarian
was because of compassionate world
farming movements when I was a student,
and anti-vivisection.
To play Caesar as a baby ape who’s raised
as though he was a human baby, was it
like tapping into your own childhood?
The great thing about performance capture
is you can be scaled up and down. You can
be a 25-foot gorilla or a 3-and-a-half-foot ring
junkie. That was really part of the thrill of a
job was playing that whole journey from an
innocent to the leader of a revolution.
Your roles take so much muscular control.
I’ve always wanted to ask: are you a
good dancer?
I wasn’t ever a trained dancer, but I know
people thought when I did The Lord of the
Rings, “Oh, here’s this guy who is a movement
expert, a sort of contortionist, physical
performer and dancer.” No, that’s not the
case. I was a regular actor. But having said
that, I suppose I’ve always found a way into
characters through physicality. Sometimes
in a very obvious or overt way, but other
times more about where a character carries
their pain or where they center their
emotions physically. That’s the thing about
performance capture. People say, “Well,
you’re doing an ape so you’re doing ape
movements.” In a way, that’s actually the last
thing that was on my mind as Caesar. There’s
obviously sort of a choreographic element
and a dance element to learning how apes
move. You have to know the steps. You have
to know how your shoulders roll, how your
knuckles relax, their placement on the floor.
But it’s actually nothing to do with that, really—it’s
about character and you have to
come at it from a character point of view. I
face people and they ask me, “Is there any
difference in performance capture acting
opposed to normal acting?” There is no difference.
Any of the characters I’ve played in
performance-capture, either in prosthetic
make-up or a suit or on stage, I wouldn’t
approach the character any differently. It is
an acting job and the physical aspect of it is
only one part.
How do your shoulders roll and your
knuckles move when you get into character
as Caesar?
There are lots of other apes in this film and
they were coached by Terry Notary, who is a
wonderful movement coach. He’s worked on
Avatar and he’s worked with Cirque du Soleil.
He is a brilliant physical performer and
an absolutely incredible gymnast and he
coached a lot of the other actors in Rise of
the Planet of the Apes to move like chimpanzees
or gorillas or orangutans. With Caesar
I was looking at this Oliver character, who
was extraordinary because he walks like
a human being. I was trying to find the
difference, the otherness, the not being an
ape within in an ape’s skin. It’s a slightly
different job description. He’s much more
upright and human in his behavior, and
the tension of that movement with that
skin looks quite strange—that’s what I was
after.
When you’ve played a character for a
while, do they leave a muscular imprint
in your body where you remember
how you were holding your arms and
moving your legs? And now that you’re
returning to Gollum for The Hobbit, is it
easy to shift back into character?
Your muscle memory definitely does kick
in. No question. I mean, when I had to
do reshoots for Apes just even a couple of
weeks ago—a year after the fact—your
body immediately kicks in. Reprising Gollum
10 years, 12 years on, it’s just all there.
Does your physical body change when
you switch from characters? Are you
more built up on the top or on the bottom
depending on how they move?
(continued on next page)
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BIG PICTURE > 30 RISE MINUTES OF THE OR PLANET LESS OF THE APES
For sure. Definitely. Whatever character
you’re playing, whether it’s performance
capture or not, your body changes shape all
the time constantly. Weights shift up and
down. It’s kind of strange, you know—I don’t
even know what my default body shape is!
The Academy should respect that. Don’t
they love when somebody changes
weight for a role?
Absolutely. I think they love all that kind of
stuff. But they don’t see it as much in performance
capture, I suppose.
When you look at your characters on
film, do you see yourself underneath
them?
Totally. The digital mask that each of those
characters have allows certain face calibrations
and types of expressions. I know the
emotions that underlie and generate those
facial expressions. Obviously, there’s such
a gray area still about performance capture.
You know: is it acting or is it rotoscope?
Without riling the animators too much, performance
capture allows for a brilliant interface
between director and actor on set. Ignoring
that you’re wearing a suit with facial
markers and stuff, it’s all about performance.
Then the director can choose how much he
wants to adhere to the actor’s performance
in the moment and be truthful to what he’s
got on his reference cameras—because you
always film with reference cameras, as well,
so that you can judge whether the performance
is any good. At that stage, you can’t
see what the digital mask is doing, so you cut
with that. The director uses the reference of
the actual performance the actor is giving,
regardless of the digital skin that’s going to
be overlaid on top. So I’m saying in a rather
long-winded way that I can see myself. But it’s
really complicated because people don’t still
understand what performance capture is as
a medium. When people say to me after Lord
of the Rings, “So you did the voice of Gollum?”
or they’d say, “You lent your movements
to Kong.” I didn’t lend my movements to
anybody. Or for Tintin, “Were you referenced
for Captain Haddock?” There was a big sea
change after Avatar when Jon Landau and
Jim Cameron actively went out and said,
“These are actors’ performances.” Still, I just
don’t think people quite get it.
I don’t think they do. I feel like you get
applause and James Cameron gets applause,
but everyone else gets judged
very harshly. With performance capture,
people immediately try to say they see an
uncanny valley. Robert Zemeckis can’t
get a break.
No, I know. Really, it’s down to the eyes with
performance-capture. It’s down to who can
make the eyes work. And Weta are just world
class leaders. Joe Letteri, head of Visual Effects
at Weta, understands that performance
must feel grounded and emotionally connected.
At the end of the day, it either moves
an audience or it doesn’t, and Joe Letteri and
Weta totally get that. On the whole, other
films I’ve seen that have used performance
capture, that doesn’t happen for whatever
reason, for whatever reason it is. The thing
with Weta Digital is that they understand
story telling, so all the visual effects—performance
capture or not—are always story and
character-driven. They understand the necessity
of bending and bowing the wizardry to
the telling of a story, the connecting of visual
effects to story and character.
Do you almost feel like you’ve taken a
master class in primatology after studying
to play Kong and Caesar?
Well, when I worked on Kong, I did lots of
study into gorillas both in captivity and in
the wild. I went to Rwanda with the Dian
Fossey Gorilla Fund International, which
was up close and personal in the wild and it
was extraordinary. It was an amazing experience.
I’m on the Board of Trustees for the
Dian Fossey fund now so I had to be very
careful when I took this job that it wasn’t
going to oversimplify primates or cast them
in a bad light. We could have used real apes
in these films, but to get apes to perform—
animals in the entertainment industry have
been raised so much around humans it’d
be hard to get the wild from them. I think I
did pretty much as much as you can do to
prepare. With Kong, it was all about finding
the real gorilla, whereas to say with Caesar,
it has been a necessity to anthropomorphize
him. Human behavior affecting primate
behavior is very interesting because it’s
true. Chimps—or any apes that have been
brought up in a zoo—will reflect human
behavior because they’re surrounded by
them and faced with them and watched by
them every single day of their lives. Whereas
the mountain gorillas, for instance, there’s a
world of difference between them. I wouldn’t
presume to teach a master class on primates.
But when I first starting working on Kong, I
was like: okay, I’ve got to work out an algorithm
of what a gorilla is and how they behave.
And then you start to realize that they
are like we are, which is totally idiosyncratic,
totally individual. Some have mood swings,
some are aggressive, some are really pleasant.
You start to think that actually it’s back
to character again. It’s not really about busting
moves, it’s purely about character. We
know that from domestic pets that we have.
If you’ve got dogs or cats, you know that they
have personalities, very strong personalities.
Whether you’re projecting that or not is another
question.
I have this image of my cat as a big tough
guy, but he actually might not be.
Exactly! You’ll probably never know. We
presume that we know how species feel because
of the way that they demonstrate, but
perhaps we can be getting it totally wrong. I
don’t know.
Do you play-act animals at home with
your kids?
Yeah—I’m always chasing them around and
being a monster. They’re growing up, but
they still love it.
At the end of a long day of filming do you
stretch? Do you get a massage? How do
you relax your muscles?
It’s physically grueling. Unlike live action
filming where the camera set ups dictate
when you break, and we actors get to sit
down and rest in the trailer, the thing about
performance capture is that you can just
keep going because there’s no cameras set
up. You can literally be filming all day and
not really sit down. Playing roles like these
does take it out of you. I’ve been very fortunate
when I’ve been down in New Zealand
to work with this particularly brilliant
neuro-muscular therapist. Her name is Tracy
Anderson and she’s worked on a lot of actors
down there. She is brilliant. There was kind
of an eight week block on Kong where I was
just on the motion capture stage by myself
from morning until night and she literally
got me through that. I don’t think I could
have survived it without her because it was
tough, really tough.
30 BOXOFFICE PRO AUGUST 2011

Do you look in the mirror when you’re
preparing for a role? How do you watch
yourself so you know you have the
movement down?
With performance-capture, you use a real
time CG imagery to, in effect, look in the
mirror. Once you’re doing it, you’re not actually
aware. I think you pass a point where
you no longer need it. In the early stages
of rehearsal, especially if it’s something as
technical as Kong, because a gorilla’s got
shorter legs and the longer forearms, we
had to find a way to do that. For Kong, it was
shrinking my legs digitally so that Kong’s
legs ended up where my knees are. And
then we built these rungs so that my knuckles
could make contact with these benches.
There was a technical aspect to it, so I
needed to watch myself. There’s a period
of calibration where you’re watching your
own movements and learning, in effect,
how to puppeteer the digital character. You
are this sort of puppet master and you’re
learning how to use a digital marionette,
but it’s driven by your own body movements.
These are extreme characters, obviously:
Gollum, Kong. There are things you
have to achieve to get the character to read.
But Tintin, playing Captain Haddock—do
you know Tintin?
I do.
I only ask because when we started on the
film, everyone in North America thought
we were doing Rin Tin Tin, they thought
I was playing a dog. But playing Haddock,
there’s a whole tapestry of poses and attitudes
that he has in the book, so it’s all
about experimentating with his physicality
and using it for the CG puppet.
Not to mention his nonsense swears
like “Jellyfish!”
That was great fun!
Do you have a favorite?
Oh my gosh. There are so many. “Sea gherkin!”
is one of my favorites. “Vegetarian!” as
an expletive is pretty cool.
Did you cringe on the inside to blaspheme
vegetarians?
Absolutely.
THE MAGIC MAKER
We ask Weta’s Senior Effects Supervisor Joe Letteri:
“Is anything possible?”
You’ve been in this business since ILM in the ‘80s. You’ve seen so much evolve—tell
me about just what’s changed in fur.
I remember doing the first shots where we put fur on a character. we did a saber tooth cat for
The Flintstones right after we did Jurassic Park, which was around ‘94 and it was really crude in
comparison to what we’re doing now. For me personally, the time that I really got to look at
the problem in-depth was when we did King Kong a few years back. To really understand all
the issues that are involved with fur: how it grows, how it moves, how it reacts to everything.
What you realize shortly is there are no shortcuts. Fur is a tiny little hairs and you have to be
able to account for what each one is doing—both for how it moves and how the light reacts
to it and what happens when the wind hits it, when it brushes against things and stuff gets
in it. It gets dirty and wet—there’s a whole lot of complexity in there. For King Kong, we had
something that worked and we were really happy with it. But when it came time to do Rise
of the Apes, we realized we were less happy with it and needed something a little better. We
realized we really needed something that was more directly controllable by the artist. So we
took a different approach with the fur we did for Apes and created a lot of combine tools and
grooming tools so the artist could get in and work with it directly, which was really helpful
especially for some of the long fur, like on the orangutans. You kind of learn as you go, but it’s
behaving more realistically each time you take another try at it.
The CG world moves so fast. Every time you start a new project, do you have to relearn
what you used to know?
Yeah, but that’s what we really like about the whole process. Every time we start something
new, you get to become an expert in it. You just start to open up all the books and study, say,
what makes a chimp a chimp. You look at everything: the size, the mass of the body, how
their muscles are laid out, what their face look likes, how it works. And obviously with
chimps, you quickly come to relate things to human terms. How is their face different from a
human face? How are their teeth different, how are their hands different? They’re so similar
that it’s very easy to make those relations. You just start getting into all these aspects of it so
when you go to create the character and put it on the screen, everything is acting as realistically
as possible. Believability is the bedrock. We want it to feel like there were chimps and we
just photographed them for the movie.
The tradeoff for you is that the more realistic you make an ape look, the less the audience
is aware of how much hard work and effort you spent—or that you worked on it
at all.
Exactly. In a way that’s really the idea, to make it feel like this always existed. With a film like
Planet of the Apes, especially going back to its origin story, you want to get caught up in the
believability of it. With any film that’s what you want to do: immerse yourself in it and see
where it takes you.
But do you want to wave your hands and say, “Guys! You have no idea how hard this
was to do!”
No, it’s nice when it’s all done to actually sit back and watch it. That’s the wonderful part.
I always hear that eyes are the hardest. Why is that?
They’re really hard for a lot of reasons. The main reason is that we’re so familiar with them.
You come to realize with eyes that a lot of things that make them interesting are really subtle.
The way they capture light, the way light reflects and refracts through the lens. Just little
AUGUST 2011 BOXOFFICE PRO 31

BIG PICTURE > RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
ANIMAL PRISON BLUES
Who wouldn’t want to escape from these cages?
changes in the way light hits an eye can actually
make you look like you’re looking either
in the right place or the wrong place. When
we’re speaking with each other, you’re
always aware of what the eyes are doing.
Even if you’re not looking at it directly, they
always give you a clue of the person you’re
seeing, where their attention is going, what
their emotions are. So there’s the physical
aspect of it, creating it geometrically so that
the lighting works, fitting it in with the emotion
of the skin around it, then summing all
that up into a performance and having the
animation work to give you a sense of the
emotional intent. What they’re thinking,
what’s going on in the character, really every
frame it’s just constantly changing.
When you’re working on something so
complicated, how do you know when it’s
still just not good enough?
We constantly check for that. There’s a point
when you go in and critique all the things
you should be doing. And then there’s a
point when you have to sit back and ask, “Do
I believe it or not?” And if you still don’t for
whatever reason, then you have to go back to
all the pieces and see, “Okay, is there something
that’s not firing here?” It’s amazing
how little it takes to make it unbelievable.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes, in its own
way, seems almost as hard as your work
on Avatar. Sure, you’re not creating a
whole digital world. But you’re trying to
make something digital look natural in
front of a real backdrop.
You know, they’re both really hard. And they
both complement each other. When you’re
creating digitally in a real backdrop, it’s you
have to make sure it fits in. What’s good
about that is you have something to match
it to, so you have a really good self-critical
adjustment. You can just look at it and say,
“How can we put a light there? There wasn’t
a light there on the day we shot it.” You can
say this works or this doesn’t work with specific
clues. When you’re dealing with Avatar,
the hard part of it is the opposite because
you don’t have specific clues. It’s easy to drift
off from what’s real, so you have to constantly
keep going back to real things and just trying
to say, “Okay, if this were real, do we have
it looking right?” With computer graphics,
it’s too easy to fake things and that’s obviously
the thing you don’t want.
Do you feel like digital technology can
now do anything, or are there still goals
that you’re reaching for?
I think we could take on pretty much anything,
but most of it’s still not easy. We were
talking to Jim [Cameron] right before we
started King Kong. Peter [Jackson] was interested
in 3D and Jim was getting the new 3D
camera systems working. We thought we
might be able to shoot Kong in 3D, but it was
too early those days. But we talked to Jim
about what were doing and how much of it
we would have to create virtually. Coming
off of Lord of the Rings, those films progressed
and we started doing more and more completely
digitally. And we had Gollum in
there, so we had a character who really had
to hold up with the other actors in shots,
very similar to what we’re doing now with
Apes. We had this big discussion about what
that means for characters and filmmaking
and Jim didn’t really say anything. But about
two years later when we were finishing Kong,
we got a call and he said, “I got this Avatar
script, do you want to read it?” And we said,
“Of course.” It turns out he had written it
ten years earlier with the idea of being able
to use digital characters, but it just wasn’t
32 BOXOFFICE PRO AUGUST 2011

possible until we had gone through all these
steps. He knew because we had to do parts of
the jungle in Kong digitally and we had digital
characters that we would be able to look
at putting it all together in the jungle with
new characters for Avatar. A lot of it is just
really the right person with the right idea at
the right time. And it happens that a lot of
the time, that’s been Jim. With The Abyss, to
Terminator 2, Titanic to Avatar, and obviously
that’s the reason why I love working with
him.
Is it more interesting for you to create
a believable real world animal or create
something imaginary?
Apes have been good—we’ve done them a
couple of times now—because of the closeness
to humans. You’re looking, in this case,
for lead characters that can carry their performance.
A lot of other times we get asked
to do a fantastic creature, so those are always
fun for us, as well. You really walk the line
when you’re creating effects. Most of it has to
believable because by nature you’re creating
something that’s not real—there’s an element
of fantasy or science fiction. What that
means is you have to make everything else
as real as possible, so that one unreal thing
kind of sits well with the audience and the
believability is there. If you make too many
things completely unreal, it just breaks.
It’s been almost a decade since you guys
have returned to Middle-earth. Is there
anything you can do now that you wish
you could have done before?
Interestingly enough, the performance
capture we did on Apes, we brought back to
Middle-earth. When we started with Andy,
even the idea of doing motion capture at all
was a big discussion. Should it be animated
or can you actually motion capture it? The
breakthrough at the time was having Andy
on set as a performer. So, at least you were
through that hurdle. But a lot of what we
had to was Andy had to book his performance
afterward on a separate stage and
then we had to fit in his performance with
everyone else. Right at the end of Return
of the King, we started doing some performance
capture with Andy live on the stage,
which we actually did for two sequences.
We pretty much put it on the shelf because
we didn’t have a reason to do it in the intervening
years. We couldn’t do it with Kong
because he was too big—Andy couldn’t be
in the shot with the other performers. And
the same thing with Avatar because Sam
Worthington and Zoe Saldana were not ten
feet tall, so they couldn’t actually be physically
in scenes with everyone else. Then we
come to Apes and as I said before, because
chimps and apes are roughly the same size
as humans, they can be on the set. We took
those early ideas from Lord of the Rings and
combined them with the technology we
created for Avatar to come up with a new
trick for Apes. So it made sense when we
starting doing Gollum again to bring Andy
back and look at it that way. Why not? It’s
cycled around to where it all started.
Is it intense to work at a company that
audiences expect to have the best technology?
Well, so do we. In a way it’s not about being
the best—it’s making sure we have the best
answer to the problem, and that’s what we
keep trying to do.
Do you get any vacation time?
Not much, no.
AUGUST 2011 BOXOFFICE PRO 33

ON THE HORIZON
A PUNCH WITH A CRUNCH
The robot boxers of Real Steel were choreographed by Sugar Ray Leonard
REAL STEEL
FORGED TO FIGHT
DISTRIBUTOR DreamWorks, Touchstone Pictures CAST Hugh Jackman, Dakota Goyo, Kevin Durand,
Anthony Mackie, Evangeline Lilly, Hope Davis, James Rebhorn, Olga Fonda DIRECTOR
Shawn Levy SCREENWRITERS Leslie Bohem, John Gatins, Shawn Levy PRODUCERS Shawn Levy,
Susan Montford, Don Murphy, Robert Zemeckis GENRE Action/Sci-fi RATING PG-13 for some
violence, intense action and brief language RUNNING TIME TBD RELEASE DATE October 7, 2011
> Think boxing’s too brutal? You’ll love this semi-near future flick
where the government has outlawed man-on-man combat, at least
inside the ring. Instead, the crowd’s bloodthirst is sated by battling
‘bots, huge constructions of steel and springs that can throw—and
take—a punch. Sound familiar? Novelist Richard Matheson (I Am
Legend, The Incredible Shrinking Man) sketched out the story in 1959
and sold it to Rod Serling who shaped it into a season five episode of
The Twilight Zone. That one ends with Lee Marvin disguising himself
as a robot and getting beaten senseless.
DreamWorks’ version is a bit more peppy. When director Shawn
Levy signed onto the project in 2009, he asked to retool the script
from a grim, dystopian future to a more hopeful ramshackle America,
a plucky, county fair view of the country that could have been
production designed by Norman Rockwell … if Norman Rockwell
was into fighting robots. Hugh Jackman plays a bitter former boxer
cut down when his career path was criminalized. Forced to reconcile
with his estranged 8-year-old son (Dakota Goyo, last seen as Young
Thor in Thor), he slums the country with his lower tier machines
trying to scrounge up enough money to fix up a ‘bot with enough
brawn to change their fortunes. How certain is the studio that Real
Steel will be a four-quadrant hit? In April, they announced they’re
developing a sequel.
THE IDES OF MARCH
ET TU, CLOONEY?
DISTRIBUTOR Sony Pictures CAST Ryan Gosling, George Clooney, Philip Seymour Hoffman,
Paul Giamatti, Evan Rachel Wood, Marisa Tomei, Max Minghella DIRECTOR George Clooney
SCREENWRITERS George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Beau Willimon PRODUCERS George Clooney,
Grant Heslov, Brian Oliver GENRE Drama RATING TBD RUNNING TIME TBD RELEASE DATE October
7, 2011
> When disgruntled Howard Dean worker Beau Willimon watched
his candidate flame out in the 2004 election, he decided he had to
speak out about the lust and greed and hubris in politics. Not on
Dateline or CNN—he wrote a play, Farragut North, about a young
press secretary for an unseen Democratic presidential hopeful who
sabotages his own fortunes during a chaotic 24-hours in Iowa.
The fleet, frantic drama opened in 2008 in New York and Los
Angeles with Chris Pine and Chris Noth. But even before it hit the
stage, George Clooney snatched up the film rights and announced
that Leonardo DiCaprio would tackle the starring role. That didn’t
come to pass, though DiCaprio is still signed on as Executive
Producer. But, like elections, a good idea in Hollywood feels inevitable.
And so four years later, Clooney’s film—his fourth time at
the helm of a feature—is ready to enter the fray with Ryan Gosling
snatching up the lead part and Clooney inserting the candidate
into the script so he can play the would-be president. Rounding
out the cast are Evan Rachel Wood as an ambitious intern, Marisa
Tomei as a manipulative reporter and Paul Giamatti as a rival
campaign manager. With the 2012 election still 13 months away,
the challenge for Sony Pictures is to get audiences pledging to see
the entertainment value in the flick as the kick off to a long and
hard-fought political season.
34 BOXOFFICE PRO AUGUST 2011

YOU INSPIRE ME
Anonymous questions who actually wrote Shakespeare’s sonnets
IN TIME
RUN FOR YOUR LIFE
DISTRIBUTOR 20th Century Fox CAST Amanda Seyfried, Justin
Timberlake, Cillian Murphy, Vincent Kartheiser, Collins
Pennie, Olivia Wilde, Johnny Galecki, Alex Pettyfer, Matt
Bomer DIRECTOR Andrew Niccol SCREENWRITER Andrew Niccol
PRODUCERS Marc Abraham, Eric Newman, Andrew Niccol
GENRE Action/Thriller/Sci-fi RATING TBD RUNNING TIME
TBD RELEASE DATE October 28, 2011
> Justin Timberlake: Singer. Actor. Action
star? He’ll get the chance to prove his
physical prowess in In Time (previously I’m.
Mortal), a breakneck sci-fi thriller about a
semi-near future in which humans have to
pay to stay alive. Naturally, the rich never
die while the poor get dispatched at 30. Timberlake
plays a blue-collar grunt who inherits
decades of life from a wealthy friend. But
the Time Keepers—a clock-watching police
force—are convinced the years are stolen,
sending Timberlake on the run with heiress
Amanda Seyfried as his hostage.
Director Andrew Niccol has a stack of sci-fi
flicks under his belt including the Uma
Thurman/Ethan Hawke DNA drama Gattaca
and the virtual-reality-conquers-Hollywood
film S1m0ne, which in 2002 predicted that
soon our movie stars will be mere pixels.
(Thankfully, today that’s only half true.)
When In Time started shooting last October,
its timing couldn’t be better. Timberlake
would ascend to serious leading man status
after his turn in The Social Network, ingenue
Amanda Seyfried’s career has continued to
skyrocket and Tron introduced audiences
to their co-star Olivia Wilde, the intelligent
beauty just seen in Cowboys & Aliens. Niccol’s
cast of hot young things will get the
teen crowds curious. But he wants to make
them think. And that’s the challenge.
ANONYMOUS
THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE
APOCALYPSE
DISTRIBUTOR Columbia CAST Vanessa Redgrave, David
Thewlis, Rhys Ifans DIRECTOR Roland Emmerich SCREEN-
WRITER John Orloff PRODUCERS Roland Emmerich, Larry J.
Franco, Robert Leger GENRE Thriller RATING TBD RUNNING
TIME TBD RELEASE DATE October 28, 2011
> What distinguishes Roland Emmerich
from Michael Bay? Both directors love
destroying the planet. But Emmerich wrecks
havoc historically, finding inspiration in the
Revolutionary War (The Patriot), ancient Mayan
texts (2012) and caveman lore (10,000
bc). He’s the thinking man’s annihilator, and
in his latest, he’s laying waste to five centuries
of English scholarship.
Rogue academics doubt William Shake-
OFF WITH HIS HEAD
Vanessa Redgrave as the hard-to-please monarch
speare authored his plays. Some doubt
he even existed. Roughly 15 years ago,
screenwriter John Orloff (A Mighty Heart)
penned a thriller that positioned the 17th
Earl of Oxford as the rightful writer, a genius
and philanderer mired in the drama of the
weakening Elizabethan court. But when
Shakespeare in Love romanticized audiences
in 1998, screenwriter John Orloff stuck his
script in a drawer. Enter Roland Emmerich
to the rescue who bought the film in 2001
and bode his time until he had the clout and
availability to shoot his oddest film to date.
“I used the success of disaster movies to
make something like this,” said Emmerich.
But he hasn’t lost his zest—this historical
thriller is anything but stuffy, mildmannered
or of middling ambition. Vows
Emmerich,“It’s about kings, queens, and
princes. It’s about illegitimate children, it’s
about incest, it’s about all of these elements
which Shakespeare plays have.”
AUGUST 2011 BOXOFFICE PRO 35

COMING SOON
COME HERE, CAVE GIRL
Can Jason Momoa also electrify female audiences in Conan the Barbarian?
DIRTY GIRL
NO SOAP NEEDED
DISTRIBUTOR The Weinstein Company CAST Juno Temple,
William H. Macy, Milla Jovovich DIRECTOR Abe Sylvia
SCREENWRITER Abe Sylvia PRODUCERS Rob Paris, Jana Edelbaum,
Rachel Cohen GENRE Comedy RATING TBD RUNNING
TIME TBD RELEASE DATE August 5, 2011
Juno Temple and Milla Jovovich star in
this ‘80s-based comedy about a misbehaving
“dirty girl” who befriends an innocent
closet-case after being sent to special ed.
Their unexpected friendship takes a turn
when they decide to go on a road trip. With
indie royalty William H. Macy.
MAGIC TRIP
A HIPSTER’S LUCID DREAM
DISTRIBUTOR Magnolia Pictures CAST Ken Kesey, Neal Cassady,
The Merry Band of Pranksters DIRECTOR Alison Ellwood,
Alex Gibney SCREENWRITERS Alex Gibney, Alison
Ellwood PRODUCERS Will Clarke, Alex Gibney, Alexandra
Johnes GENRE Documentary RATING R for drug content,
language and some nudity RUNNING TIME TBD RELEASE DATE
August 5, 2011
In 1964, Ken Kesey and The Merry Pranksters,
a counterculture group, set off on a
wild drug-infused road trip to the New York
World’s Fair (fueled by guess what). This
documentary resurrects their retro adventure
for modern audiences using original
16mm footage.
FINAL DESTINATION 5
DEATH COMES TO ALL OF US—AGAIN
DISTRIBUTOR Warner Bros. CAST Nicholas D’Agosto, Emma
Bell, Arlen Escarpeta DIRECTOR Steven Quale SCREENWRIT-
ERS Eric Heisserer PRODUCERS Craig Perry, Warren Zide
GENRE Horror/Thriller RATING TBD RUNNING TIME TBD RE-
LEASE DATE August 12, 2011
In the fifth installment of this terrifying tale,
Death is unleashed to take out a group of
hotties after a premonition saves them from
a collapsing bridge. The group must fight to
escape their bloody, gruesome, 3D-inspired
fates. Which, of course, they can’t.
THE HELP
BREAKING TRADITION
DISTRIBUTOR Touchtone Pictures CAST Emma Stone, Viola
Davis, Octavia Spencer DIRECTOR Tate Taylor SCREENWRIT-
ERS Thomas Bezucha, April Blair, Maria Maggenti, Kelly
Bowe PRODUCERS Chris Columbus, Michael Barnathan,
Michael Radcliffe GENRE Drama RATING PG-13 for thematic
material RUNNING TIME 137 min. RELEASE DATE August 12,
2011
A southern society girl, Skeeter (Stone),
returns from college just before the dawn of
the Civil Rights movement with dreams of
becoming a writer. She finds her angle when
she convinces local black maids to share
their life stories in a film that’s out to jerk
tears and inspire outrage.
CONAN THE
BARBARIAN
THE LEGEND RETURNS—IN 3D
DISTRIBUTOR Lionsgate CAST Jason Momoa, Rose McGowan,
DIRECTOR Marcus Nispel SCREENWRITERS Thomas Dean Donnelly,
Joshua Oppenheimer, Sean Hood PRODUCERS Fredrik
Malmberg, Avi Lerner, Boaz Davidson GENRE Action/Adventure/Fantasy
RATING TBD RUNNING TIME TBD RELEASE
DATE August 19, 2011
Conan (Jason Momoa), now brunette and
with a fierce perma-scowl, is the great Age
of Hyboria’s only hope against evil. In his
quest to defeat a host of ugly monsters, he
grunts, sweats and kicks ass in this pulp
franchise that already launched one governor.
Senator Momoa, anyone?
FRIGHT NIGHT
MY NEIGHBOR’S A VAMPIRE?
DISTRIBUTOR Touchtone Pictures CAST Anton Yelchin, Colin
Farrell, Toni Collette DIRECTOR Craig Gillespie SCREENWRIT-
ERS Marti Noxon PRODUCERS Michael De Luca, Alison R.
Rosenzweig GENRE Horror RATING TBD RUNNING TIME 106
min. RELEASE DATE August 19, 2011
In this ‘80s remake, high school student Anton
Yelchin (Star Trek) is a normal teenager
clawing his way out of geekdom. But then
he discovers that neighbor Colin Farrell is a
vampire—and if he doesn’t keep his secret,
Farrell will kill his hot, popular girlfriend.
36 BOXOFFICE PRO AUGUST 2011

ONE DAY
ONE COINCIDENTAL LOVE
DISTRIBUTOR Focus Features CAST Anne Hathaway, Jim Sturgess, Patricia
Clarkson DIRECTOR Lone Scherfig SCREENWRITERS David Nicholls PRODUC-
ERS Nina Jacobson GENRE Drama/Romance RATING PG-13 for sexual
content, partial nudity, language, some violence and substance abuse
RUNNING TIME 108 min. RELEASE DATE August 19, 2011
After graduating from the University of Edinburgh on
July 15, 1988, Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess begin
a lifelong friendship, which we see only on other July
15ths spaced throughout their lives. Like a young
Same Time Next Year, it’s a time-skipping romance.
SPY KIDS 4: ALL THE TIME
IN THE WORLD
THE KIDS ARE BACK IN TOWN
DISTRIBUTOR Dimension Films CAST Jessica Alba, Jeremy Piven, Joel
McHale DIRECTOR Robert Rodriguez SCREENWRITERS Robert Rodriguez
PRODUCERS Robert Rodriguez GENRE Action/Adventure/Comedy RATING
PG for mild action and rude humor RUNNING TIME 104 min. RELEASE DATE
August 19, 2011
When the state of Earth is threatened by a villain
called The Timekeeper (Jeremy Piven), the squabbling
Wilson family must team up to save the innocent.
Former Spy Kids Carmen and Juni Cortez, now teenagers,
teach the Wilsons all about their wickedly fun
weapons and gadgets.
THE DEBT
SECRET AGENTS, SECRET MISSIONS, MYSTERIOUS PLOT
DISTRIBUTOR Miramax Films, Focus Features CAST Helen Mirren, Sam Worthington, Tom Wilkinson DIRECTOR John
Madden SCREENWRITERS Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman, Peter Straughan PRODUCERS Matthew Vaughn, Kris
Thykier, Eduardo Rossoff GENRE Drama/Thriller RATING R for some violence and language RUNNING TIME 113 min.
RELEASE DATE August 31, 2011
IT’S TIME TO COLLECT
Helen Mirren’s fearsome agent in The Debt
COLOMBIANA
A LITTLE ANGST, A LOT OF MURDER
In 1997, shocking news
reaches secret agents Helen
Mirren and Tom Wilkinson
about their former colleague.
The trio tangled with a
risky mission in the 1960s.
How successful they were
is brought to question in a
tricky, twisty thriller that
cuts between both time
periods.
DISTRIBUTOR Tristar Pictures CAST Zoe Saldana, Michael Vartan, Callum Blue DIRECTOR Olivier Megaton SCREEN-
WRITERS Luc Besson, Robert Mark Kamen PRODUCERS Luc Besson, Pierre-Ange Le Pogam GENRE Action/Adventure/Drama
RATING TBD RUNNING TIME 105 min. RELEASE DATE August 26, 2011
After witnessing her parents’ murders in Bogota, Zoe Saldana (Star Trek, Avatar)
studies to become a murderer herself. Hitwoman by day, vigilante murderer by
night, she’s set on tracking down the mobster responsible for slaughtering her
parents.
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AUGUST 2011 BOXOFFICE PRO 37

BOOK IT!
SMALL FILMS, BIG POTENTIAL
CHILLAX, MAN
This Vacation! is anything but mellow
VACATION!
These girls are nothing like the
Go-Gos
Matthew Nestel says … When Judd Nelson’s
John Bender was mounting Breakfast
Club hallway high jinks, he snickered to
goody two-shoes Claire Standish: “Being bad
feels pretty good, huh?” The quartet of exclassmates
in Vacation! would contest that.
Helmer Zach Clark’s stylized, sugar-laced
feature really pops. About four college gals
who reunite for a beach trip, these girls’ last
stand against the indefinite daily grind (i.e.
adulthood) makes you feel the invulnerability
of youth. Donna (Trieste Kelly Dunn)
is the attractive brunette who wishes she’d
been a wilder student. Sugar (Maggie Ross)
is the geeky follower granted a waiver into
the cool circle. The alpha females are Lorelei
(Lydia Hyslop) and Dee-dee (Melodie Sisk),
who vie for the spotlight. Their rented playspot
is a pink, beachfront dollhouse. Lots of
laughs. Heart-to-hearts about relationships.
Life’s a blast. A flick of the blender switch,
slip into the bikinis and it’s on. But trouble
brews when the girls’ voracious appetite
for deviance backfires. From first lick, the
nostalgic film carries a hypnotic charge.
Viewers, beware of this one: it’s sure to break
hearts with its throbbing synth music tracks
by Portland-based duo Glass Candy. Plenty of
folks will develop just a school-yard crush on
Vacation!, but those who fall will fall hard.
CAST Melodie Sisk, Maggie Ross, Trieste Kelly Dunn, Lydia
Hyslop, Michael Abbott Jr. DIRECTOR/SCREENWRITER/EDITOR
Zach Clark PRODUCERS Zach Clark, Daryl Pittman, Melodie
Sisk GENRE Comedy RATING Unrated RUNNING TIME 95 min.
RELEASE DATE May 13 NY
CONTACT
Candy Castle Motion Pictures, Zach Clark
(703) 909 6928 vacation.movie@gmail.com
LEAVE IT ON THE
FLOOR
The movie musical is dead.
Long live the movie musical!
Ray Greene says … Leave It On The Floor,
Sheldon Larry’s slamming, profane, microbudget
musical has fire in its belly. The film
is set in a world most people know little
about: the drag ball scene, where gay men
compete against each other by assuming
a kaleidoscopic array of identities, from
buttoned-down businessmen to matronly
Baptist dowagers. Gritty and fantastical all
at once, this film loves its characters and the
city of LA (where LIOTF was filmed), like
nobody’s business. It also loves its enemies.
Perhaps the most moving number occurs
at a funeral, where the lead ensemble,
comprised of a dysfunctional but loving
household of gay African-American men, is
confronted by a chorus of their disaffected
parents. You’d expect this to be a “fish in a
barrel” moment, with director Larry and
screenwriter/lyricist Glenn Gaylord knocking
down homophobic straw men. Instead,
a rousing gospel number (the film’s excellent
and varied music is by veteran music
director Kimberly Burse) allows each point
of view (and each point of view within each
point of view) to be heard. If you’re of voting
age and have a toe to tap and an ass to wiggle
you should see it—and more than the
gay arthouse circuit will love it—provided
exhibitors see the possibilities for this film
to be seen by their spirited customers.
CAST Ephraim Sykes, Miss Barbie-Q, Phillip Evelyn, Andre
Myers, James Alsop, Cameron Koa, Metra Dee DIRECTOR
Sheldon Larry SCREENWRITER Glenn Gaylord PRODUCERS
Glenn Gaylord, Gabriel Blanco GENRE Musical RATING Unrated
RUNNING TIME 105 min. RELEASE DATE Unset
CONTACT
Jeffrey Winter The Film Collaborative
(818) 679-8751 jeffrey@thefilmcollaborative.org
GREEN
Watching in the woods
Pam Grady says … Sebastian and Genevieve
(Kate Lynn Sheil) are urbane show-offs,
constantly competing for intellectual superiority.
Sebastian (Lawrence Michael Levine)
gets a new gig blogging about sustainable
farming and heads to the country with his
girl. Genevieve, meanwhile, displays no
desire to help him even as their rural isolation
makes her more dependent on him
than ever. Takal has a gift for dialogue and
character, the latter especially strong when
it comes to Genevieve. She wears the mantle
of the good girlfriend, but she’s an emotion-
38 BOXOFFICE PRO AUGUST 2011

MORE BOOK IT! >
al vampire, bored at her circumstances and needy, overly dependent
on Sebastian to fill her emptiness. There is a kind of horror at work
here, but of a much more intimate variety than serial killers or monsters.
Green is not always comfortable to watch. But it is a rewarding
drama that would be a hit at any theater with a strong community
of arthouse-goers. Additionally, a community near rural areas could
conceivably read this as a partial comedy—Sebastian’s amateur
farming is pretty funny.
CAST Kate Lyn Sheil, Sophia Takal, Lawrence Michael Levine DIRECTOR/SCREENWRITER Sophia
Takal PRODUCER Lawrence Michael Levine GENRE Drama RATING Unrated RUNNING TIME 75
min. RELEASE DATE Unset
CONTACT
Sophia Takal
(917) 743-1271 sophiathecoolest@gmail.com
ONE LUCKY ELEPHANT
My pal, the pachyderm
John P. McCarthy says … When One Lucky Elephant begins in
2000, David Balding, the proprietor and ringmaster of a small St.
Louis-based circus, has decided it’s time to part ways with his namesake
attraction, an African elephant named Flora. He realizes she’s
unhappy and doesn’t enjoy performing in “Circus Flora” anymore.
Is she suffering from PTSD after having watched her mother killed
and then being forcibly removed from the wild? Is she reacting to
the dominance training that she, like the vast majority of captive
elephants, underwent? Is Flora a woman scorned, chafing at having
been abandoned by Balding? Or is she simply a normal elephant
with a moderately obdurate personality? At the movie’s center is
a relationship you don’t need to be an elephant whisperer to understand:
Balding summarizes it thusly, “I loved her and she loved
me. It’s as simple as that.” This understated movie will turn many
animal lovers into activists, while enlightening both champions of
animal rights and those who, if they give them any thought at all,
would count every captive creature as fortunate. Communities with
animal rights groups, exotic pet groups or even just active pet owners
could love this and marketed smartly to those groups, box office
could be elephantine indeed.
DIRECTOR Lisa Leeman PRODUCERS Cristina Colissimo, Jordana Glick-Franzheim GENRE Documentary
RATING Unrated RUNNING TIME 84 min. RELEASE DATE June 8 NY, June 24 LA
CONTACT
Cristina Colissimo
(310) 951-2995 cristina@oneluckyelephant.com
BELOVED Les bien-aimés
Song and soufflé
Richard Mowe says … This musical romance interweaves the lives
and loves of a mother and daughter (Catherine Deneuve and reallife
daughter Chiara Mastroianni) across Paris, Prague, London and
Montreal. Beloved owes allegiance to the tradition established by
Gallic auteur Jacques Demy in the ’60s with Umbrellas of Cherbourg
and Young Girls of Rochefort (both also feature Catherine Deneuve).
This is not a musical in the highly produced style of Busby Berkeley
or Gene Kelly, it utilizes a looseness unfamiliar to most American
audiences—the style’s closest relation in American cinemas is
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AUGUST 2011 BOXOFFICE PRO 39

Woody Allen’s 1996 musical Everyone Says
I Love You. Beloved will appeal to those seduced
by director Christophe Honoré’s 2007
Love Songs (Les chansons d’amour) and vintage
Jacques Demy. And of course, to lovers of le
cinéma français, Deneuve can do no wrong,
which makes Beloved a fitting closing choice
for this year’s Cannes Film Festival and a
film with considerably earning potential
in American arthouses. Communities with
admirers of foreign film will flip.
DIRECTOR Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Ludivine
Sagnier, Louis Garrel, Milos Forman DIRECTOR/SCREENWRIT-
ER Christophe Honoré PRODUCER Pascal Caucheteux GENRE
Romance/Musical; French-language, subtitled RATING Unrated
RUNNING TIME 140 min. RELEASE DATE Unset
CONTACT
Celluloid Dreams
+33 1 49 70 03 70 info@celluloid-dreams.com
AUGUST RELEASES
MYSTERIES OF
LISBON
Mistérios de Lisboa
Gorgeous! Sumptuous! Long!
Richard Mowe says … Raúl Ruiz’s ambitious,
globetrotting flick embraces Dumas,
Dickens and Hugo into these tales that span
Portugal and Paris, Italy and Brazil. Based
on a novel by Camilo Castelo Branco (no
relation to the producer) Mysteries follows
the destiny of Pedro da Silva (played as a
child by João Arrais and as an adult by José
PASTOR, PLEASE!
Finding your destiny in Mysteries of Lisbon
Alfonso Pimentel), an orphan who ventures
out to find his true identity. Along the way
he becomes embroiled with jealous countesses,
reformed libertines and mysterious
priests (but not necessarily in that order). It
is rather like watching the details of a tapestry
come slowly to life. Indeed Ruiz’s elegant
camerawork and sharp eye for imagery
prove seductive, despite the film’s epic running
time. This is a gargantuan feast for the
senses although often it is too overwhelming
for comfort. Against the odds Mysteries
received the prestigious Louis Delluc prize
from the French last year—a controversial
choice given that the film is mainly in Portuguese
… and 4 1/2 hours. Short or long, this
prestige pic is by a master and in a language
we rarely hear in pictures. Distributor Music
Box Films is nothing if not sharp about its
acquisitions.
DISTRIBUTOR Music Box Films CAST Adriano Luz, Maria João
Bastos, Ricardo Pereira, Clotilde Hesme, José Afonso Pimentel,
João Luís Arrais, Albano Jerónimo, João Baptista
DIRECTOR Raúl Ruiz SCREENWRITER Carlos Saboga PRODUCER
Paulo Branco GENRE Drama; Portuguese- and French-languages,
subtitled RATING Unrated RUNNING TIME 272 min.
RELEASE DATE August 5 NY/LA
THE
WHISTLEBLOWER
Bosnian badlands
Barbara Goslawski says … Severe and
unflinching, The Whistleblower relies on
journalistic realism to pack its punch.
Academy Award Winner Rachel Weisz plays
Kathryn, a regular cop from Nebraska who
quickly finds herself in over her head when
she joins a UN mission in Bosnia. Though
initial evidence is murky, Kathryn dives into
the investigation of a rumored sex crime
ring. Her motives remain unclear; this is
a riskier venture than we’d expect from a
woman who joined the force for a paycheck.
Factual evidence goes missing, threats are
made and the sexism among colleagues and
superiors reaches peak levels. Curiously,
this atmosphere serves to fuel her determination.
Kondracki pushes the boundaries
of the political thriller in sordid directions
but shields the audience early on, as if to
prepare us for the kidnappings and torture
we watch the sex trade workers face further
into the film. But she loses her grip when
the film transitions from stark realism to
sensory overload. What should have been a
natural progression becomes a too-violent
swing towards Big Emotion. Based on a true
story, this drama will lure the CSI crowd
with it ripped-from-the-headlines origin,
and lure Weisz fans along with people looking
for stories about strong women.
DISTRIBUTOR Samuel Goldwin CAST Rachel Weisz, Vanessa
Redgrave, David Strathairn, Monica Bellucci DIRECTOR
Larysa Kondracki SCREENWRITERS Eilis Kirwan, Larysa Kondracki
PRODUCERS Christina Piovesan, Celine Rattray, Amy
Kaufman GENRE Thriller RATING R for disturbing violent content
including a brutal sexual assault, graphic nudity and
language RUNNING TIME 130 min. RELEASE DATE August 5 ltd.
BELLFLOWER
An edgy, beautiful, challenging
debut
Steve Ramos says … Wisconsin buddies
and L.A. transplants Woodrow (played by
writer/director Evan Glodell) and Aiden
(Tyler Dawson) spend their days building
muscle cars and flame throwers in honor
of their favorite movie, Mad Max. They’re
lackadaisical artists whose lives change
after Woodrow meets Milly (Jessie Wiseman).
The two immediately connect and
bond over an impromptu road trip, but
they break apart just as abruptly, split by
jealousy, infidelity and startling acts of
violence. Bellflower premiered at Sundance
2011 in the NEXT competition, a section
for films of an experimental nature. Like
many titles distributed by boutique Oscilloscope,
Bellflower is meant for the edgiest
arthouse crowds; those who get excited
over the latest Bruno Dumont release and
start philosophical debates about violence
in Michael Heneke’s movies. Bellflower will
attract passionate moviegoers but modest
box office during the dog days of August.
Still, Glodell’s film will be a prestige picture
for Oscilloscope and likely land on a
number of year-end top ten lists from critics
who embrace and advocate edgier fare.
DISTRIBUTOR Oscilloscope Laboratories CAST Evan Glodell,
Jessie Wiseman, Tyler Dawson, Rebekah Brandes, Vincent
Grashaw DIRECTOR/SCREENWRITER Evan Glodell PRODUCERS
Vincent Grashaw, Evan Glodell GENRE Science Fiction RAT-
ING R for disturbing violence, some strong sexuality, nudity,
pervasive language and some drug use RUNNING TIME
103 min. RELEASE DATE August 5 ltd.
40 BOXOFFICE PRO AUGUST 2011

OVER YOUR CITIES THE
GRASS WILL GROW
No match for mother nature
MORE BOOK IT! >
Barbara Goslawski says … Sophie Fiennes’ engrossing documentary
about German born artist Anselm Kiefer illuminates his vision
and engages with his artistic process; in fact, Fiennes literally
plunges us into this formidable artist’s work. Kiefer has adopted a
long abandoned factory in the South of France as both studio and
creation. He works with the decrepit structure, shifting and rearranging
its corroded cast-off materials to create an absurd steel
artifact in the wilderness, one that taunts the all-powerful natural
forces surrounding it to swallow it whole. The opening sequence
is extraordinary as Fiennes’ camera moves into and through every
nook and cranny of this phenomenon in action, her camera crawling
through labyrinthine corridors, over and around the encroaching
greenery. Fiennes’ technique is extraordinary in its simplicity,
balancing a literal prowl through his immense sculptural environs
with a respectful observational distance. It is this balance that will
absolutely delight fans of this multidimensional artist’s style, however,
more middle-of-the-road audiences will likely find themselves
frustrated. For anyone willing, however, prepare to have your sensibilities
overwhelmed.
DISTRIBUTOR Alive Mind DIRECTOR Sophie Fiennes PRODUCERS Sophie Fiennes, Kees Kasander,
Émilie Blézat GENRE Documentary RATING Unrated RUNNING TIME 105 min. RELEASE DATE August
10 NY
THE HELP
Substantive social drama goes south
Sara Vizcarrondo says … Set just before the onset of Civil Rights,
The Help begins in the romantic milieu of upper class Mississippi,
where “Skeeter” Phelan (Emma Stone) has returned from university,
unfashionably toting a diploma instead of a fiancé. Her friends,
society mavens all, group to play bridge—it’s a thin veil to cover
their real careers: back-sassing and rumor-spouting. Hiding from
villainous mean girl Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard), Skeeter
tentatively befriends maids Aibileen (the incomparable Viola
Davis) and Minny (Octavia Spencer) for a book about about their
life stories in repressive Mississippi. Once Civil Rights hits almost
full swing, their joint mission puts them all in tear-jerking peril.
While it’s possible for a man to aptly portray cunning women,
writer/director Tate Taylor is no George Cukor; this sorority of bad
mothers and conniving maidenheads is little more than a tacky
regurgitation of already lame southern stereotyping. None of The
Help’s transgressions are inherently evil, but for a film that guarantees
the audience this one does—with its glittering cast, fempowerment
message and almost inspiring depiction of successful
social struggle—one would think the filmmakers and distributor
would be a tad more conscientious. Regardless, audiences will be
lured to this spoonful of sugar that makes palatable our painful
recent history.
DISTRIBUTOR Walt Disney CAST Viola Davis, Emma Stone, Allison Janney, Bryce Dallas Howard,
Octavia Spencer, Jessica Chastain, Cicely Tyson DIRECTOR/SCREENWRITER Tate Taylor
PRODUCERS Michael Barnathan, Chris Columbus, Brunson Green GENRE Drama RATING PG-13
for thematic material RUNNING TIME 90 min. RELEASE DATE August 10, 2011
AUGUST 2011 BOXOFFICE PRO 41

BOOK IT!
I’M THE REAL TALENT IN THE FAMILY
Sibling rivalry and male drag in Mozart’s Sister
MOZART’S SISTER
Nannerl, la soeur de Mozart
18th century society constricts a
prodigy
Ed Scheid says … Wolfgang was not the
only child prodigy in the Mozart family.
His sister Nannerl (Marie Féret), almost five
years older than he, was an accomplished
singer and musician. Writer/Director René
Féret’s screenplay contains many unusual
historical details that help this film sustain
interest. When the Mozart family stays at a
convent, Nannerl meets Louise de France,
daughter of French King Louis XV., and is
pressed into composing music, which she
plays at night dressed as a young man ( such
performing was closed off to women). Here,
Féret tells the absorbing and ultimately
tragic story of this gifted young woman
now forgotten by history. The connection to
the celebrated musical genius of Wolfgang
Amadeus will add to the appeal of the film,
particularly to music and period film aficionados.
Teens could also find inspiration in
this story of social frustration and creative
triumph, and marketing to high school music
programs seems like a quick way to build
awareness in the right circles.
DISTRIBUTOR Music Box Films CAST Marie Féret, Marc Barbé,
Delphine Chuillot, David Moreau and Clovis Fouin DIREC-
TOR/SCREENWRITERS René Féret PRODUCERS René Féret,
Fabienne Féret GENRE Historical Drama; French-language,
subtitled RATING Unrated RUNNING TIME 120 min. RELEASE
DATE September 16 ltd.
AMIGO
Keep your friends close …
Barbara Goslawski says … A complex political
statement, Amigo is an epic that trades
the schmaltz of the traditional war film for
a more resolute treatment of the subject. It’s
1900 and Rafael (Joel Torre) is the autocrat of
a feudal Filipino village. A benevolent taskmaster,
he reaps the rewards from the toil
of others and occasionally redeems himself
by meting out justice and maintaining the
calm of village life. When musket-toting
U.S. soldiers burst into this oddly idyllic
setting. the clash of cultures is immediate
and electric. Individuals in this troupe,
from the commander down to the lowest
ranked soldier, find that their objectives in
the town are not so cut and dry. Meanwhile,
rebel forces surround the township, further
complicating the situation. Writer-director
John Sayles (Lone Star) layers the conflicts to
examine the contrast between enemy and
friend, and his exploration of the effects of
governmental, local and insurgent interests
is fascinating. He clearly feels heroism and
villainy co-exist organically, even within the
same being. With no great star draws, Sayles’
own reputation should provide decent
box office returns, particularly when word
of mouth begins to spread and friends tell
friends that Sayles is back on his game.
DISTRIBUTOR Variance Films CAST Joel Torre, Chris Cooper,
Ronnie Lazaro, Yul Vazquez, Garret Dillahunt DIRECTOR/
SCREENWRITERS John Sayles PRODUCER Maggie Renzi GENRE
Historical Drama RATING R for some violence and language
RUNNING TIME 128 min. RELEASE DATE August 19 ltd.
THE DEBT
Collections are coming
Richard Mowe says … This top-notch thriller
about Mossad agents trying to capture a
war criminal in order to bring him to justice
boasts an excellent cast including Helen Mirren,
Sam Worthington and Tom Wilkinson.
Spanning the decades from the Cold War to
the contemporary, and locations from Berlin
to Tel Aviv, director John Madden sustains
the taut atmosphere, changing considerably
the organization of the story as it appeared in
Israeli film Ha-Hov, upon which The Debt is
based. The young Mossad agents David (Sam
Worthington), Rachel (Jessica Chastain) and
42 BOXOFFICE PRO AUGUST 2011

Josef (Marton Csokas) have been charged with bringing to justice a
Nazi war criminal (Jesper Christensen), dubbed the “Surgeon of Birkenau.”
Ordered to kidnap him and move their operation from East to
West Berlin, their task is one that requires incredible reserves of ingenuity
and careful timing. Three decades later, the agents are considered
heroes. Rachel (now played by Helen Mirren) has married Stefan
(Tom Wilkinson), while David (Ciarán Hinds) has reappeared on the
scene after having departed for several years on his travels. But not all
is what it seems on the surface. Rachel’s daughter (Romi Aboulafia)
publishes a book about the team’s Cold War exploits, thus reopening
the events and highlighting a convenient omission of facts. Now is
the time to settle old scores. Word of mouth is likely to be extremely
positive and won’t short-change audience expectations. Given careful
nurturing and time to build, The Debt has the ability to clock up some
impressive returns.
DISTRIBUTOR Focus Features CAST Helen Mirren, Sam Worthington, Marton Csokas, Jessica
Chastain, Jesper Christensen, Ciarán Hinds, Tom Wilkinson DIRECTOR John Madden SCREEN-
WRITERS Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman, Peter Straughan PRODUCERS Matthew Vaughn,
Kris Thykier, Eitan Evan, Edouardo Rossof GENRE Thriller RATING R for some violence and
language RUNNING TIME 113 min. RELEASE DATE August 31, 2011
THE HEIR APPARENT:
LARGO WATCH
The British playboy Horacio Alger
Richard Mowe says … Unfurling in a mix of French, English and
Serbo-Croatian-languages, this Gallic adaptation of the best selling
series of Belgian graphic novels has shades of James Bond and
Jason Bourne and should come with a ready-made cult following.
Largo (Tomer Sisley) is an improbably named hero who was adopted
from a Bosnian orphanage as a baby by the mega-wealthy
Nerio Winch (Miki Manojlovic). The tycoon is the founder and
majority shareholder of the global W Group. As a boy, Largo is kept
under wraps and left in the care of a friend of the family. Thirty
years later, Nerio is bumped off aboard his luxury yacht in Hong
Kong’s Victoria Harbor, leaving his secret heir to be revealed to
the rest of the W Group’s board. The now darkly handsome Largo,
who’s been travelling the world in denial of the role his adoptive
father planned for him, steps forward to claim his 20 billion euro
inheritance. Although there are plenty of chases, stunts and athletic
fights between the protagonists, much of the tussle happens in the
boardroom, where the evil Ann Ferguson (Kristin Scott Thomas in
menacing mode and an unflattering coif) attempts to thwart the
young pretender’s rise to the throne. Jérôme Salle’s direction may
not reach the heights of Bourne and Bond but Largo Winch has its
moments. A sequel (known as Largo Winch 11: The Burma Conspiracy)
has already been released in France, with Sharon Stone joining
Sisley and Company. Primarily based on the first two volumes of
illustrator Philippe Francq and writer Jean Van Hamme’s 16-part
series, the comic book fan base should provide a considerable audience
for this adaptation.
DISTRIBUTOR Music Box Films CAST Tomer Sisley, Kristin Scott Thomas, Miki Manojlovic, Mélanie
Thierry, Gilbert Melki, Karel Roden, Steven Waddington, Anne Consigny DIRECTOR
Jérôme Salle SCREENWRITERS Jérôme Salle, Julien Rappeneau PRODUCERS Nathalie Gastaldo,
Phillippe Godeau GENRE Thriller; French- English- and Serbo-Croatian-languages, subtitle
RATING Unset RUNNING TIME 109 min. RELEASE DATE Unset August 2011
AUGUST 2011 BOXOFFICE PRO 43

BOOKING GUIDE
Action = Act Arthouse = Art Documentary = Doc Family = Fam Horror = Hor
Adventure = Adv Biography = Bio Drama = Dra Fantasy = Fan Kids = Kids
Animated = Ani Comedy = Com Epic = Epic Foreign Language = FL Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgend. = LGBT
FILM RELEASE DATE STARS DIRECTOR(S) RATING GENRE RT FORMAT
CBS FILMS Lauren Douglas / 310 575 7052 / lauren.douglas@cbs.com
THE WOMAN IN BLACK Fri, 1/20/12 Daniel Radcliffe, Alexia Osborne James Watkins NR Dra/Mys
DISNEY 818 560 1000 / ask for Distribution / 212 536 6400
THE HELP Fri, 8/12/11 Bryce Dallas Howard, Emma Stone Tate Taylor PG-13 Dra
FRIGHT NIGHT Fri, 8/19/11 Colin Farrell, Anton Yelchin Craig Gillespie NR Com/Hor Digital 3D
THE LION KING Fri, 9/16/11 Matthew Broderick, Jeremy Irons Roger Allers/Rob Minoff G Ani 89 3D
REAL STEEL Fri, 10/7/11 Hugh Jackman, Evangeline Lilly Shawn Levy NR Act/Dra IMAX
THE MUPPETS Wed, 11/23/11 Jason Segel, Amy Adams James Bobin NR Com/Fam
WAR HORSE Wed, 12/28/11 David Thewlis, Emily Watson Steven Spielberg NR Adv/Dra Quad
ARRIETTY Fri, 2/17/12 Amy Poehler, Carol Burnett Dir Hiromasa Yonebayashi NR Ani Dolby Dig/DTS
JOHN CARTER Fri, 3/9/12 Mark Strong, Willem Dafoe Andrew Stanton NR Ani/Adv Digital 3D/Quad
CHIMPANZEE Fri, 4/20/12 Alastair Fothergill/Mark Linfield NR Doc
THE AVENGERS Fri, 5/4/12 Robert Downey Jr., Don Cheadle Joss Whedon NR Act/Adv
FILM DISTRICT Deborah Johnson / djohnson@fi lmdistrict.com
DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK Fri, 8/26/11 Guy Pearce, Katie Holmes Troy Nixey R Hor/Sus
DRIVE Fri, 9/16/11 Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan Nicolas Winding Refn R Act/Dra
THE RUM DIARY Fri, 10/28/11 Johnny Depp, Amber Heard Bruce Robinson NR Adv/Dra Flat
IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY Fri, 12/23/11 Zara Marjanovic, Goran Kostic Angelina Jolie NR War/Rom/Dra
PLAYING THE FIELD Fri, 3/9/12 Gerard Butler, Jessica Biel Gabriele Mucino NR Rom/Com
LOCKOUT Fri, 4/13/12 Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace James Mather/Stephen St. Leger NR SF/Act
FOCUS Christopher Ustaszewski / 818 777 3071
ONE DAY Fri, 8/19/11 Anne Hathaway, Jim Sturgess Lone Scherfig PG-13 Dra Scope/DTS/Dolby SRD
THE DEBT Wed, 8/31/11 Hellen Mirren, Jessica Chastain John Madden R Act/Sus 113 Scope/Quad
TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY Fri, 11/18/11 Gary Oldman, Colin Firth Tomas Alredson NR Thr
FOX 310 369 1000 / 212 556 2400
RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES Fri, 8/5/11 James Franco, Freida Pinto Rupert Wyatt NR Adv/Act/SF Scope/Quad
THE GLEE 3D CONCERT MOVIE Fri, 8/12/11 Kevin Tancharoen NR Mus 3D
WHAT’S YOUR NUMBER? Fri, 9/30/11 Anna Faris, Chris Evans Mary Mylod R Com Flat/Quad
THE BIG YEAR Fri, 10/14/11 Steve Martin, Jack Black David Frankel NR Com Scope
IN TIME Fri, 10/28/11 Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried Andrew Niccol NR SF/Thr Scope
THE SITTER Fri, 12/9/11 Jonah Hill, Sam Rockwell David Gordon Green NR Com
ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: CHIPWRECKED Fri, 12/16/11 Jason Lee, Amy Poehler Mike Mitchell NR Fam/Com 3D
WE BOUGHT A ZOO Fri, 12/23/11 Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson Cameron Crowe NR Com/Dra
CHRONICLE Fri, 2/3/12 Milla Jovovich, Kate Mara Josh Trank NR Cri/Thr
STAR WARS: EPISODE 1: THE PHANTOM MENACE Fri, 2/10/12 Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson George Lucas PG Act/Adv/Fan 136 3D
THIS MEANS WAR Fri, 2/17/12 Tom Hardy, Reese Witherspoon McG NR Act/Com
FOX SEARCHLIGHT 310 369 1000
MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE Fri, 10/7/11 LTD. Elizabeth Olsen, John Hawkes Sean Dirkin R Dra/Thr 120
THE DESCENDANTS Fri, 12/16/11 LTD. George Clooney, Beau Bridges Alexander Payne R Com/Dra
LIONSGATE 310 449 9200
CONAN THE BARBARIAN Fri, 8/19/11 Jason Momoa, Stephen Lang Marcus Nispel R Act/Adv/Fan 3D
WARRIOR Fri, 9/9/11 Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte Gavin O’Connor NR Act/Dra Scope
ABDUCTION Fri, 9/23/11 Taylor Lautner, Lily Collins John Singleton NR Act/Sus
SAFE Fri, 10/28/11 Jason Statham, Catherine Chan Dir Boaz Yakin NR Act
UNTITLED SAM RAIMI HORROR PROJECT FORMERLY DIBBUK BOX Fri, 1/6/12 Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kyra Sedgwick Ole Bornedal NR Hor/Sus
ONE FOR THE MONEY Fri, 1/27/12 Katherine Heigl, John Leguizamo Julie Ann Robinson NR Act/Rom/Com
TYLER PERRY’S GOOD DEEDS Fri, 2/24/12 Thandie Newton, Tyler Perry Tyler Perry NR Rom/Com
THE HUNGER GAMES Fri, 3/23/12 Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth Gary Ross NR Dra/Act/Adv
WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU’RE EXPECTING Fri, 5/11/12 Cameron Diaz Kirk Jones NR Rom/Com
PARAMOUNT 323 956 5575
FOOTLOOSE Fri, 10/14/11 Julianne Hough, Chace Crawford Craig Brewer PG-13 Com/Dra/Mus
PARAMORMAL ACTIVITY 3 Fri, 10/21/11 NR Hor/Sus
PUSS IN BOOTS Fri, 11/4/11 Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek Peter A. Ramsey NR CGI/Ani/Fam 3D
HUGO CABRET Wed, 11/23/11 Chloe Moretz, Sacha Baron Cohen Martin Scorsese NR Fam/Adv/Mys 3D
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL Fri, 12/16/11 Tom Cruise, Maggie Q Brad Bird NR Act IMAX
THE ADVENTURES OF TIN TIN: SECRET OF THE UNICORN Fri, 12/23/11 Daniel Craig, Jamie Bell Steven Spielberg NR Ani/Adv/Fam/Mys 3D
A THOUSAND WORDS Fri, 1/13/12 Eddie Murphy, Ariel Winter Brian Robbins NR Com/Dra
THE DEVIL INSIDE Fri, 2/24/12 Fernanda Andrade, Simon Quarterman William Brent Bell NR Thr/Sus
HANSEL AND GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS Fri, 3/2/12 Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton Tommy Wirkola NR Act/Com 3D
MY MOTHER’S CURSE Fri, 3/30/12 Seth Rogen, Barbara Streisand Anne Fletcher NR Com
TITANIC Fri, 4/6/12 Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio James Cameron NR Rom 3D
THE DICTATOR Fri, 5/11/12 Sacha Baron Cohen, Anna Faris Larry Charles NR Com
PARAMOUNT VANTAGE 323 956 5000
LIKE CRAZY Fri, 10/28/11 LTD. Jennifer Lawrence, Anton Yelchin Drake Donemue NR Dra/Rom
RELATIVITY MEDIA Mara Buxbaum 323-822-4800
SHARK NIGHT 3-D Fri, 9/2/11 Sara Paxton, Alyssa Diaz David R. Ellis NR Hor 3D
IMMORTALS Fri, 11/11/11 Henry Cavill, Mickey Rourke Tarsem Singh NR Fan/Adv 3D/Quad
HAYWIRE Fri, 1/20/12 Channing Tatum, Michael Fassender Steven Soderbergh NR Dra
ACT OF VALOR Fri, 2/17/12 Emilio Rivera, Roselyn Sanchez Mike McCoy/Scott Waugh NR Dra
UNTITLED RAVEN PROJECT Fri, 3/9/12 John Cusack, Alice Eve James McTeigue NR Thr
SNOW WHITE Fri, 3/16/12 Julia Roberts, Lilly Collins Tarsem Singh NR Adv/Dra/Rom
UNTITLED FARRELLY/WESSLER COMEDY Fri, 4/13/12 Jane Lynch, Damian Diamantopoulos
Bob Odenkirk/Brett Ratner/Elizabeth
Banks and 7 others
NR
Com
HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET Fri, 4/20/12 Jennifer Lawrence, Elizabeth Shue Mark Tonderai NR Hor
SAFE HAVEN Fri, 6/1/12 NR Rom
44 BOXOFFICE PRO AUGUST 2011

Live Action = LA Performance = Per Science Fiction = SF Suspense = Sus Urban = Urban
Martial Arts = MA Political = Poli Stop-Motion Animation = SMAni 3D = 3D War = War
Mystery = Mys Romance = Rom Sports = Spr Thriller = Thr Western = Wes
FILM RELEASE DATE STARS DIRECTOR(S) RATING GENRE RT FORMAT
ROCKY MOUNTAIN PICTURES ron@rockymtnpictures.com
THE LAST OUNCE OF COURAGE Fri, 11/11/11 Fred Williamson, Jennifer O’Neill Darrell Campbell/Kevin McAfee NR Dra 102
SONY 310 280 8000 / 212 833 8500
30 MINUTES OR LESS Fri, 8/12/11 Danny McBride, Aziz Ansari Ruben Fleischer NR Adv/Com
COLOMBIANA Fri, 8/26/11 Zoe Saldana, Michael Vartan Olivier Megaton NR Act/Adv/Dra/Thr
BUCKY LARSON: BORN TO BE A STAR Fri, 9/9/11 Stephen Dorff, Christina Ricci Tom Brady NR Com
STRAW DOGS Fri, 9/16/11 Alexander Skarsgård, James Marsden Rod Lurie NR Dra
MONEYBALL Fri, 9/23/11 Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill Bennett Miller NR Dra
COURAGEOUS Fri, 9/30/11 LTD. Alex Kendrick, Kevin Downes Alex Kendrick PG-13 Dra 130 Scope/Quad
IDES OF MARCH Fri, 10/14/11 Marisa Tomei, George Clooney George Clooney NR Dra
ANONYMOUS Fri, 10/28/11 David Thewlis, Vanessa Redgrave Roland Emmerich NR Dra
JACK AND JILL Fri, 11/11/11 Adam Sandler, Katie Holmes Dennis Dugan NR Rom/Com
ARTHUR CHRISTMAS Wed, 11/23/11 James McAvoy, Bill Nighy Barry Cook/Sarah Smith NR Ani 3D
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO Wed, 12/21/11 Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara David Fincher R Dra/Mys
PREMIUM RUSH Fri, 1/13/12 Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jamie Chung David Koepp NR Act/Thr
UNDERWORLD 4: NEW DAWN Fri, 1/20/12 Kate Beckinsale, Michael Sheen Patrick Tatopoulos NR Act/Fan 3D
THE VOW Fri, 2/10/12 Channing Tatum, Rachel McAdams Michael Sucsy NR Rom
GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE Fri, 2/17/12 Nicolas Cage, Violante Placido Mark Neveldine/Brian Taylor NR Act/Dra 3D
21 JUMP STREET Fri, 3/16/12 Jonah Hill, Emma Stone Chris Miller/Phil Lord NR Act/Cri/Dra
PIRATES: BAND OF MISFITS! Fri, 3/30/12 Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Russell Tovey Peter Lord NR Ani 3D
THINK LIKE A MAN Fri, 4/6/12 Kevin Harvey, Gabrielle Union Tim Story NR Com
MEN IN BLACK 3 Fri, 5/25/12 Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones Barry Sonnefeld NR SF/Act/Com 3D
SONY PICTURES CLASSICS Tom Prassis / 212 833 8851
RESTLESS Fri, 9/16/11 EXCL. NY/LA Mia Wasikowska, Henry Hopper Gus Van Sant PG-13 Dra
THE SKIN I LIVE IN aka La piel que habito Fri, 10/7/11 EXCL. NY/LA Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya Pedro Almodóvar NR drama 120
TAKE SHELTER Fri, 10/14/11 EXCL. NY/LA Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain Jeff Nichols R Dra
CARNAGE Fri, 11/18/11 EXCL. NY/LA Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz Roman Polanski NR Com/Dra
SUMMIT 310 309 8400
50/50 Fri, 9/30/11 Seth Rogen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt Jonathan Levine NR Com/Dra
THE THREE MUSKETEERS Fri, 10/14/11 Christoph Waltz, Logan Lerman Paul W.S. Anderson NR Act/Adv 3D
THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN Fri, 11/18/11 Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson Bill Condon NR Thr/Rom
THE DARKEST HOUR Fri, 12/23/11 Emile Hirsch, Olivia Thirlby Chris Gorak PG-13 SF/Thr 3D
MAN ON A LEDGE Fri, 1/13/12 Sam Worthington, Elizabeth Banks Asger Leth NR Thr SCOPE
GONE Fri, 2/24/12 Amanda Seyfried, Jennifer Carpenter Heitor Dhalia NR Sus
THE COLD LIGHT OF DAY Fri, 4/6/12 Bruce Willis, Henry Cavill Mabrouk El Mechri NR Act
UNIVERSAL 818 777 1000 / 212 445 3800
THE CHANGE-UP Fri, 8/5/11 Jason Bateman, Ryan Reynolds David Dobkin NR Com Quad
JOHNNY ENGLISH REBORN Fri, 9/16/11 Rowan Atkison, Rosamund Pike Oliver Parker PG Com
DREAM HOUSE Fri, 9/30/11 Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz Jim Sheridan NR Thr 110 Scope/Quad
WANDERLUST Fri, 10/7/11 Paul Rudd, Jennifer Aniston, David Wain NR Com Quad
THE THING Fri, 10/14/11 Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton Matthijs Van Heijningen Jr. R Hor/Mys/SF Scope/Quad
TOWER HEIST Fri, 11/4/11 Ben Stiller, Charles Q. Murphy Brett Ratner NR Act/Com Scope/Quad
EVERYBODY LOVES WHALES Fri, 1/13/12 John Krasinski, Drew Barrymore Ken Kwapis NR Dra/Rom Quad
SAFE HOUSE Fri, 2/10/12 Denzel Washington, Ryan Reynolds Daniel Espinosa NR Act/Hor/Thr Quad
THE LORAX Fri, 3/2/12 Zac Efron, Taylor Swift Chris Renaud/Cinco Paul/Ken Daurio NR CGI/Ani 3D/Quad
CONTRABAND Fri, 3/16/12 Mark Wahlberg, Kate Beckinsale Baltasar Kormakur NR Sus Quad
AMERICAN REUNION Fri, 4/6/12 Alyson Hannigan, Seann William Scott John Hurwitz R Rom/Com Quad
BATTLESHIP Fri, 5/18/12 Liam Neeson, Rihanna Peter Berg NR Act/War
SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN Fri, 6/1/12 Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron Rupert Sanders NR Adv Quad
WARNER BROS. 818 954 6000 / 212 484 8000
FINAL DESTINATION 5 Fri, 8/12/11 Emma Bell, David Koechner Steven Quale NR Hor/Sus 3D/Quad
DOLPHIN TALE Fri, 9/23/11 Morgan Freeman, Ashley Judd Charles Martin Smith NR Dra 3D/Quad
CONTAGION Fri, 10/21/11 Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow Steven Soderbergh NR Act/Thr 119 3D/IMAX/Quad
A VERY HAROLD & KUMAR 3-D CHRISTMAS Fri, 11/4/11 Neil Patrick Harris, Elias Koteas Todd Strauss - Schulson NR Com 85 3D/Scope/Quad
HAPPY FEET 2 Fri, 11/18/11 Brad Pitt, Matt Damon George Miller NR Ani 3D/IMAX/Scope/Quad
NEW YEAR’S EVE Fri, 12/9/11 Ashton Kutcher, Lea Michele Garry Marshall NR Rom/Com Quad
SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS Fri, 12/16/11 Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law Guy Ritchie NR Mys/Act/Com Flat/Quad
JOYFUL NOISE Fri, 1/13/12 Queen Latifah, Dolly Parton Todd Graf NR Com/Dra/Mus Quad
JOURNEY 2: THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND Fri, 1/27/12 Dwayne Johnson, Michael Caine Brad Peyton NR Act/Adv/Fam 3D/Quad
CLASH OF THE TITANS 2 Fri, 3/30/12 Liam Neeson, Sam Worthington Jonathan Liebesman NR Act 3D/Quad
DARK SHADOWS Fri, 5/11/12 Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer Tim Burton NR Dra/Hor/Mys
ROCK OF AGES Fri, 6/1/12 Tom Cruise, Julianne Hough Adam Shankman NR Mus
THE WEINSTEIN CO. / DIMENSION 646 862 3400
DIRTY GIRL Fri, 8/5/11 LTD. Juno Temple, Milla Jovavich Abe Sylvia NR Dra Scope
SPY KIDS 4: ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD Fri, 8/19/11 Antonio Banderas, Alexa Vega Robert Rodriguez PG Act/Adv 3D
OUR IDIOT BROTHER Fri, 8/26/11 Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks Jesse Peretz NR Com Flat
APOLLO 18 Fri, 9/2/11 Gonzalo López-Gallego NR Hor DTS/Dolby SRD
I DON’T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT Fri, 9/16/11 Greg Kinnear, Sarah Jessica Parker Douglas McGrath NR Com
MY WEEK WITH MARILYN Fri, 11/4/11 LTD. Emma Watson, Michelle Williams Simon Curtis NR Dra
THE BULLY PROJECT Fri, 11/11/11 LTD. Lee Hirsch NR Doc
PIRANHA 3DD Wed, 11/23/11 Neil Hopkins, Aubrey O’Day John Gulager NR Hor 3D/Flat
THE ARTIST Wed, 11/23/11 LTD. Malcolm McDowell, John Goodman Michel Hazanavicius NR Rom/Com/Dra
COROLIANUS Fri, 12/2/11 LTD. Gerard Butler, Ralph Fiennes Ralph Fiennes NR Dra/Hist/Thr
THE IRON LADY Fri, 12/16/11 LTD. Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent Phyllida Lloyd NR Bio/Hist/Dra
THE AMITYVILLE HORROR: THE LOST TAPES Fri, 1/27/12 Casey Lascala/Daniel Farrands NR Hor
SCARY MOVIE 5 Fri, 4/20/12 Regina Hall David Zucker NR Com
AUGUST 2011 BOXOFFICE PRO 45

AD INDEX
ADAPTIVE MICRO SYSTEMS
7840 N 86th ST
Milwaukee, WI 53224
800-558-4187
www.adaptivedisplays.com
PG 48
CARDINAL SOUND & MOTION
PICTURE SYSTEMS
6330 Howard Ln.
Elkridge, MD 21075
Cathy Rockman
410-796-5300
cardinal@cardinalsound.com
www.cardinalsound.com
PG 46
CHRISTIE DIGITAL SYSTEMS
10550 Camden Dr.
Cypress, CA 90630
Craig Sholder
714-236-8610
craig.sholder@christiedigital.com
www.christiedigital.com
Inside front cover
CINEDIGM
55 Madison Ave., Ste. 300
Morristown, NJ 07960
Suzanne Tregenza Moore
973-290-0080
info@accessitx.com
www.cinedigm.com
PG 1
DOLBY LABORATORIES
100 Potrero Ave.
San Francisco, CA 94103
Christie Ventura
415-558-2200
cah@dolby.com
www.dolby.com
Inside back cover, PG 15
DOLPHIN SEATING
313 Remuda St.
Clovis, NM 88101
575-762-6468
www.dolphinseating.com
PG 33
FRANKLIN DESIGNS
208 Industrial Dr.
Ridgeland, MS 39157
601-853-9005
franklindesigns@aol.com
www.franklindesigns.com
PG 13
GOLD MEDAL PRODUCTS
10700 Medallion Dr.
Cincinnati, OH 45241-4807
Erin Meyer / 513-769-7676
info@gmpopcorn.com
www.gmpopcorn.com
PG 17
HARKNESS SCREENS
Unit A, Norton Road
Stevenage, Herts
SG1 2BB United Kingdom
+44 1438 725200
sales@harkness-screens.com
www.harkness-screens.com
PG 19, 27
KERNEL SEASONS
1958 N. Western Ave.
Chicago, IL 60647
Krystal LaReese-Gaul
773-292-4576
info@kernelseasons.com
www.kernelseasons.com
PG 23
MAROEVICH, O’SHEA &
COUGHLAN
44 Montgomery St., 17th Fl.
San Francisco, CA 94104
Steve Elkins / 800-951-0600
selkins@maroevich.com
www.mocins.com
PG 3
MOTION TECHNOLOGY, INC.
(AUTOFRY)
10 Forbes Rd.
Northborough, MA 01532
800-348-2976
www.mtiproducts.com
PG 43
NATIONAL TICKET COMPANY
P.O. Box 547
Shamokin, PA 17872
Ginger Seidel
ticket@nationalticket.com
www.nationalticket.com
PG 48
ODELL’S
8543 White Fir St. #D-1
Reno, NV 89523
Arthur Anderson / 775-323-8688
odells@popntop.com
www.popntop.com
PG 21
OMNITERM DATA TECHNOLOGY
2785 Skymark Ave., Unit 11
Mississauga, ON L4W 4Y3
Greg Coman / 905-629-4757
gregcoman@omniterm.com
www.omniterm.com
PG 5
PACKAGING CONCEPTS, INC.
9832 Evergreen Industrial Dr.
St. Louis, MO 63123
John Irace / 314-329-9700
jji@packagingconceptsinc.com
www.packagingconceptsinc.com
PG 37
PETER’S PRETZELS
Great Western Products
30290 U.S. Hwy. 72
Hollywood, AL 35752
800-239-2143
info@gwproducts.com
www.gwproducts.com
PG 47
PROCTOR COMPANIES
10497 Centennial Rd.
Littleton, CO 80127-4218
Bruce Proctor
303-973-8989
sales@proctorco.com
www.proctorco.com
PG 39
QUARTZ LAMPS, INC.
4424 Aicholtz Rd.
Cincinnati, OH 45245
Justin Register
justin@qlistore.com
888-557-7195
www.qlistore.com
PG 48
READY THEATRE SYSTEMS
4 Hartford Blvd.
Hartford, MI 49057
Mary Snyder
865-212-9703x114
sales@rts-solutions.com
www.rts-solutions.com.com
PG 46
SCHULT INDUSTRIES
900 N.W. Hunter Dr.
Blue Springs, MO 64015
800-783-8998
sales@schult.com
www.schult.com
PG 9
SCREENVISION
1411 Broadway 33rd Fl.
New York, NY 10018
Darryl Schaffer
212-497-0480
www.screenvision.com
Back cover
SENSIBLE CINEMA SOFTWARE
7216 Sutton Pl.
Fairview, TN 37062
Rusty Gordon
615-799-6366
rusty@sensiblecinema.com
www.sensiblecinema.com
PG 48
TEXAS DIGITAL
400 Technology Pkwy.
College Station, TX 77845
Romney Stewart
979-446-0173
www.txdigital.com
PG 29
TK ARCHITECTS
106 W 11th St., Ste. 1900
Kansas City, MO 64105
tkapo@tkarch.com
816-842-7552
www.tkarch.com
PG 47
USHIO AMERICA, INC.
5440 Cerritos Ave.
Cypress, CA 90630
800-838-7446
www.ushio.com
PG 41
VISTA ENTERTAINMENT
SOLUTIONS LTD.
P.O. Box 8279
Symonds Street
Auckland, New Zealand
Meika Kikkert
011-649-357-3600
info@vista.co.nz
www.vista.co.nz
PG 11
WHITE CASTLE
555 West Goodale St.
Columbus, OH 43215
Timothy Carroll
614-559-2453
carrollt@whitecastle.com
www.whitecastle.com
PG 11
46 BOXOFFICE PRO AUGUST 2011

FROM ACCLAIMED
DIRECTOR BRIAN
DEPALMA
… the explosive
underworld
epic
Scarface, starring
Al Pacino,
arrives on BlurayTM
Hi-Def
September 6th
from Universal
Studios.
Now, fans can
experience the film’s raw power in
the newly restored, high-resolution,
high-definition picture and explosive
7.1 audio for the first time ever.
Coming Sept. 6
to Blu-Ray
AUGUST 2011 BOXOFFICE PRO 47

Brilliant Lighting Solutions
for a Brighter Future!
CLASSIFIED ADS
DRIVE-IN CONSTRUCTION
DRIVE-IN SCREEN TOWERS since 1945. Selby Products
Inc., P.O. Box 267, Richfield, OH 44286. Phone: 330-659-
6631.
EQUIPMENT FOR SALE
3D/DIGITAL EQUIPMENT FOR SALE: Barco DP-2000
projector; lens; lamp; 3D/server; etc. Purchase out-right
for $80,000. Equipment list provided upon request. Contact:
Michael Schwartz; email: mschwartz@pennprolaw.
com; phone: (212) 354-7700 x 3012.
3D/DIGITAL EQUIPMENT LEASE AVAILABLE: Barco
DP-2000 projector; lens; lamp; and 3D/server; etc. Assume
lease at $2,200 per month/42 months remaining
or purchase out-right at $85,000. Equipment list provided
upon request. Contact: Michael Schwartz; email:
mschwartz@pennprolaw.com; phone: (212) 354-7700 x
3012
ASTER AUDITORIUM SEATING & AUDIO. We offer the
best pricing on good used projection and sound equipment.
Large quantities available. Please visit our website,
www.asterseating.com, or call 1-888-409-1414.
BOX OFFICE TICKETING AND CONCESSIONS EQUIP-
MENT. Stand-alone ticketing or fully integrated theater
ticketing and/or concessions systems are available. These
fully tested, remanufactured Pacer Theatre Systems have
extended full-service contracts available. Complete ticketing
and concessions systems starting at $2,975. Call Jason:
800-434-3098; www.sosticketing.com.
WWW.CINEMACONSULTANTSINTERNATIONAL.
COM. New and used projection and sound equipment,
theater seating, drapes, wall panels, FM transmitters, popcorn
poppers, concessions counters, xenon lamps, booth
supplies, cleaning supplies, more. Call Cinema Consultants
and Services International. Phone: 412-343-3900; fax: 412-
343-2992; sales@cinemaconsultantsinternational.com.
CY YOUNG IND. INC. still has the best prices for replacement
seat covers, out-of-order chair covers, cupholder
armrests, patron trays and on-site chair renovations!
Please call for prices and more information. 800-729-
2610. cyyounginc@aol.com.
DOLPHIN SEATING At www.dolphinseating.com Find
today’s best available new seating deals 575-762-6468
Sales Office.
TWO CENTURY PROJECTORS, complete with base,
soundheads, lenses. Pott’s 3-deck platter,like new. Rebuilt
Christie lamp, goes to 150 amps. Model H-30. 603-747-
2608.
EQUIPMENT WANTED
OLD MARQUEE LETTERS WANTED Do you have the
old style slotted letters? We buy the whole pile. Any condition.
Plastic, metal, large, small, dirty, cracked, painted,
good or bad. Please call 800-545-8956 or write mike@
pilut.com.
MOVIE POSTERS WANTED: Collector
paying TOP $$$ for movie
posters, lobby cards, film stills,
press books and memorabilia. All
sizes, any condition. Free appraisals!
CASH paid immediately! Ralph
DeLuca, 157 Park Ave., Madison,
NJ 07940; phone: 800-392-4050;
email: ralph@ralphdeluca.com;
www.ralphdeluca.com.
POSTERS & FILMS WANTED:
Cash available for movie posters
and films (trailers, features, cartoons,
etc.). Call Tony 903-790-1930 or
email postersandfilms@aol.com.
OLDER STEREO EQUIPMENT
AND SPEAKERS, old microphones,
old theater sound systems
and old vacuum tubes. Phone Tim:
616-791-0867.
COLLECTOR WANTS TO BUY: We pay top money for any
1920-1980 theater equipment. We’ll buy all theater-related
equipment, working or dead. We remove and pick up anywhere
in the U.S. or Canada. Amplifiers, speakers, horns,
drivers, woofers, tubes, transformers; Western Electric, RCA,
Altec, JBL, Jensen, Simplex & more. We’ll remove installed
equipment if it’s in a closing location. We buy projection and
equipment, too. Call today: 773-339-9035. cinema-tech.com
email ILG821@aol.com.
AMERICAN ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCTS LLC is buying
projectors, processors, amplifiers, speakers, seating, platters.
If you are closing, remodeling or have excess equipment in
your warehouse and want to turn equipment into cash, please
call 866-653-2834 or email aep30@comcast.net. Need to
move quickly to close a location and dismantle equipment?
We come to you with trucks, crew and equipment, no job too
small or too large. Call today for a quotation: 866-653-2834.
Vintage equipment wanted also! Old speakers like Western
Electric and Altec, horns, cabinets, woofers, etc. and any tube
audio equipment, call or email: aep30@comcast.net.
AASA IS ASTER AUDITORIUM SEATING & AUDIO. We buy
and sell good used theater equipment. We provide dismantling
services using our trucks and well-equipped, professional
crew anywhere in the United States. Please visit our website,
www.asterseating.com, or call 1-888-409-1414.
FOR SALE
ALL FIRST RUN THEATRES: 4 screen in beautiful northern
Illinois town of 16,000, only theatre in county, expansion possibilities,
great potential $399,000. 3 screen in southern Illinois
town of 9,000, closest theatre 45 miles, $299,000. Successful
drive-in with huge drawing area and good customer base
$229,000 … better if sold as package. 217-549-3000, Principals
only.
TWIN THEATRE WITH FOUR RENTALS IN ZEPHYRHILLS,
FL (NE of Tampa) Rental income is more than mortgage payments.
Appraised at $325,000 land & building. Next in line for
$60,000 improvement Grant. Excellent Draft House possibility.
larry.rutan@verizon.net. Cell 813-299-0665.
ART DECO TWIN FOR SALE In Quaint Western New York
Town. NO COMPETITION. Colonial Home Located Behind
Theatre. $389K for Theatre Only. $459K For Both. 585-610-
8640.
FIRST RUN MOVIE THEATER. Vibrant Vermont college town.
Vaudeville stage, 3 screens, 298 seats, renovated. $850,000.
802-999-9077.
FOR SALE Independent owned & operated, eight-screen, all
stadium-seating theater complex located in suburban Chicago.
Completely renovated in 2004. Seating capacity for 1,774 people
within a 48,000-square-foot sqft building on 5.32 acres. Preliminary
site plan approval for expansion of additional screens.
Proximate to national/regional retail and dining. Strong ticket
and concession revenues. Excellent business or investment opportunity.
Contact Kevin Jonas at 305-631-6303 for details.
FIVE-PLEX, FULLY EQUIPPED AND OPERATIONAL:
$735,000, land, bldg., equip., NW Wisconsin. Priced $50,000
below appraised value. 715-550-9601.
THEATER FOR RENT 1,500 seating capacity. No hanging
balconies. Largest single screen in Chicagoland. Over 500,000
potential patrons, serving NW side of Chicago and suburbs.
Contact dkms72@hotmail.com.
THEATERS FOR SALE Three screens (370 seats), North Florida.
First-run, no competition 60 miles. Additional large multipurpose
room (75 seats), with HD projector on 13.5-by-7-foot
screen for birthday parties, conferences, receptions and café.
Contact 850-371-0028.
HELP WANTED
WANTED THEATRE MANAGERS TO INTERVIEW FOR
BOOK on movie industry to talk about your jobs, responsibilites
and careers. What lessons have you learned about the film
business? What do love about your job? You are important.
Tell me your stories. To set up a phone interview email davidsikich@comcast.net
PARTNER AND/OR EXPERIENCED GM NEEDED for
ground floor opportunity in Arizona. New and popular “Brew
and View” concept in outstanding area. Contact Stadiumtheatres@aol.com
HELP improve movie-goer experiences and the industry, go to
movie-goer-rights.org or youtube.com/user/moviegoerrights
SERVICES
DULL FLAT PICTURE? RESTORE YOUR XENON REFLEC-
TORS! Ultraflat repolishes and recoats xenon reflectors. Many
reflectors available for immediate exchange. (ORC, Strong,
Christie, Xetron, others!) Ultraflat, 20306 Sherman Way, Winnetka,
CA 91306; 818-884-0184.
FROM DIRT TO OPENING DAY. 20-plus years of theater experience
with the know-how to get you going. 630-417-9792.
SEATING
AGGRANDIZE YOUR THEATER, auditorium, church or
school with quality used seating. We carry all makes of used
seats as well as some new seats. Seat parts are also available.
Please visit our website, www.asterseating.com, or call 888-
409-1414.
ALLSTATE SEATING specializes in refurbishing, complete
painting, molded foam, tailor-made seat covers, installations
and removals. Please call for pricing and spare parts for all
types of theater seating. Boston, Mass.; 617-770-1112; fax:
617-770-1140.
DOLPHIN SEATING At www.dolphinseating.com, find today’s
best available new seating deals: 575-762-6468 Sales Office.
THEATERS WANTED
WE’LL MANAGE YOUR THEATER
OR SMALL CHAIN FOR YOU. Industry
veterans and current exhibitors with 40-
plus years’ experience. Will manage every
aspect of operations and maximize
all profits for you. Call John LaCaze at
801-532-3300.
WELL-CAPITALIZED, PRIVATELY
HELD, TOP 50 THEATER CHAIN is
looking to expand via theater acquisitions.
We seek profitable, first-run theater
complexes with 6 to 14 screens located
anywhere in the USA. Please call
Mike at 320-203-1003 ext.105 or email:
acquisitions@uecmovies.com
NATIONAL THEATRE ACQUISITION
CO. site acquisition, brokerage of theaters
on a sale, purchase or lease basis
and related services. Phone: 248-350-
9090, email: rkomer@wkbldg.com.
48 BOXOFFICE PRO AUGUST 2011

MOVING PICTURES. FORWARD.
More than
2,100
Dolby ® Surround 7.1
screens installed
More than
8,000
Dolby 3D
systems shipped
More than
9,200
Dolby Screen Servers
shipped
Working to bring you the next generation of digital cinema.
Learn more at www.dolby.com.
Dolby and the double-D symbol are registered trademarks of Dolby Laboratories. © 2011 Dolby Laboratories, Inc. All rights reserved. S11/24436/24452