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tionists currently in the industry’s ranks.
Cutler calls the issue, which resulted
from a parts misalignment that didn’t rear
its head during the testing process, “an
isolated occurrence. [The screening] was
not a failure, because they completed the
show. No one left without seeing the entire
movie… That’s why we have projectionists
and technicians. Because, just like your car,
[a projector] will break down.”
Ultimately, Chapin argues, “the number
of shows that were deficient is far less
than one percent. I think that’s a pretty
good track record.” On Reading/City Cinemas’
part, Sittig says there were “no real
problems” in any of their theatres, just a
few minor technical issues involving calibrating
the speed of the platters.
Another location that’s had no problems
with their screenings, which number
four a day, is Wehrenberg Theatres’ Ronnies
20 Cine, located in the St. Louis
metro area. Like several of the Reading/
City Cinemas theatres, the Ronnies 20
is planning to continue 70mm screenings
of The Hateful Eight past the original
two-week roadshow window set by The
Weinstein Company. The reason for that,
explains Wehrenberg president Bill Menke,
is simple: The film’s 70mm screenings
have been raking it in. “I would say virtually
every showing from Christmas Day
on through the New Year’s holiday was
sold out in the 70mm house,” he says, with
several screenings selling out online before
the film opened. Even once the Ronnies
also opened the non-roadshow version of
The Hateful Eight—projected digitally, and
minus the intermission and several minutes
of footage—70mm was still far and
away the preferred option among patrons.
“[The digital version] caught the overflow
of people who could not see it in the
70mm format,” says Menke. “In the second
week of the run, the 70mm house was still
producing three times the gross that the
digital format was… Right now, for us to
end it would be not prudent for us as good
businessmen and theatre operators, with
the gross that the 70mm screen is producing.
It’s still outperforming other shows
that have opened in subsequent weeks.”
Both Menke and Sittig cite Tarantino
and The Weinstein Company’s success at
making The Hateful Eight’s roadshow rollout
into a capital-E Event, of the sort that
were seen in the ’50s and ’60s with films
like Ben-Hur and The Sound of Music. There
are even The Hateful Eight programs that
were given out at screenings.
But, behind the curtain, a lot of
work was put into checking and doublechecking
equipment so things would run
smoothly. “We went over our equipment
not only with Chapin’s installers, but with
our technical crews as well, and the expert
[Boston Light & Sound] sent out did an
outstanding job training our personnel,”
we now know what to do in order to have
resolved that. There are things that we could
have done and should have done that we
didn’t even know we had to do.”
But the question remains: Will there
be a next time? Cutler demurs, noting that
it’s up to individual exhibitors and The
Weinstein Company to determine whether
Tarantino’s grand 70mm experiment was a
success. It’s also The Weinstein Company’s
call as to what happens to the equipment,
which they own; they could conceivably
use it themselves and/or work out a deal
with other studios, who might be more
willing to try something with 70mm now
that they wouldn’t have to pay to restore
the projectors themselves. (Cutler declined
to mention how much the endeavor cost.)
With projectors restored and projectionists
trained, Sittig argues, “there’s a
bit of an infrastructure that there wasn’t
there before.” Though film’s never going to
push digital off its throne, he argues that in
the future we could be looking at “one or
two” similar film rollouts a year, especially
if film-loving directors like Christopher
Menke explains. “We take a lot of pride in
projection excellence, and, knock on wood,
we’ve been running without interruption.
We have some very happy customers.”
On Boston Light & Sound’s part, Cutler
admits that, next time around, he’d like to be
able to institute even more double-checks—
though, he argues, they simply were not able
to do much more given the limited amount
of time they had. (The company spent the
last two months of 2014 planning and
“started in earnest looking for equipment” in
January of the following year.)
“By and large, we have had some operational
issues, primarily with platters,” Cutler
continues. “But, having been through that,
Nolan take this opportunity to throw their
weight around.
For his part, Menke is “very pleased
with the result that we’ve had on this picture,
and I think that Weinstein, if they
had the kind of success that we’ve had here
in St. Louis, ought to be very pleased with
the effort that they’ve put toward presenting
70mm… I think there are an awful
lot of people out there who, first of all,
saw 70mm for the first time, secondly saw
film for the first time, and third saw Ultra
Panavision 70 for the first time, that were
blown away by it. So I think, by almost any
metric, that makes it a success among the
patrons of the theatres that played it.”
FEBRUARY 2016
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