Film Journal November 2018

Film Journal International ShowEast Edition Vol. 121, No. 11 / November 2018 

ShowEast Issue 

INTERNATIONAL 

November 2018 

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A Time of Transition 

Over the last 39 years, it has been easy to come 

up with topics for the editorials in Film Journal 

International because of our knowledge of the industry 

as well as all of the changes we have witnessed. This 

editorial is not as easy to pen and is bittersweet, as 

the next issue of Film Journal International will be our 

last. After 84 years in business, FJI will no longer 

be published each month, as the magazine is being 

merged with the publication BoxOffice. Mort Sunshine, 

publisher and editor for more than 29 years and my 

dad, is probably rolling over in his grave with this 

news, but knowing that this will benefit the industry 

might have made it easier to accept. 

There is certainly a need for a trade press that is 

dedicated to the exhibition community, and with the 

combined resources of BoxOffice and FJI, BoxOffice 

parent company Webedia will be able to deliver more 

information on a regular basis to both big and small 

cinema owners. 

It’s been a privilege to be the publisher of Film Journal 

International for the past 39 years. We have covered the 

news and witnessed just about everything during this 

period, and we still believe that a movie shown on a big 

screen in a theatre is the only way to see a feature. And 

we are encouraged that the industry in 2018 has a chance 

to break the all-time box-office record for a single year. 

The past 39 years have been a lot of fun. We have 

seen extraordinary changes, everything from xenon 

bulbs, multiplexes, stadium seating, digital cinema, 

immersive sound and lasers to dine-in theatres. It’s been 

a remarkable evolution, but the one thing that remains 

the same is that good content always lights the way. 

We have seen numerous independents come and 

go, but the stalwarts remain strong and continue to 

release hit films. Sony Pictures Classics, Fox Searchlight 

and Focus Features remain at the top of the class in 

the specialty arena. Giants of exhibition like Salah 

Hassanein, Sumner Redstone, Bernard Myerson and 

Ted Mann helped create and led this great industry, but 

today companies like Cineworld/Regal, Wanda/AMC, 

Cinemark, Cinépolis and CJ CGV dominate exhibition. 

The industry has changed so much with digital and 

lasers and the likes of Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and 

Google. It is difficult to imagine what the industry will 

look like in ten years. 

I have followed in the footsteps of Mort and my 

brother Jerry, who both had the honor of heading 

up this publication, and I truly feel that we have been 

fair, reasonable and trustworthy with what we have 

published. 

In turning over the reins to BoxOffice, we are 

confident that Julien Marcel and his team will carry on 

the great tradition of reporting the news in a professional 

manner. Together with Andrew Sunshine, we will 

continue to manage and run CineEurope, CineAsia and 

ShowEast. We will continue to do what we do best— 

promote the motion picture industry honorably around 

the globe. 

We extend our best wishes to Julien and his 

associates at BoxOffice and this new and expanded 

From the Editor’s Desk 

In Focus 

endeavor. We are delighted that Kevin Lally, our executive 

editor, will be going over to BoxOffice along with Rebecca 

Pahle, his associate editor. 

So as we close this chapter, inevitably a new one begins. 

Andrew and I will be as visible as ever with our three 

major events—and don’t be surprised if you see some new 

things in the years ahead. We’ve grown up in the business 

and have a great affinity for the people we work with in all 

parts of the globe. They are intelligent and generous and 

make it easy to love this industry. 

Heading to Miami Beach 

ShowEast always stages at this time of the year, when 

we have a good idea of how the industry is doing and can 

ultimately project the year’s box office. Summer receipts 

were up 12% over 2017 and total box office for the year 

(currently 9% better) could maintain that level. 

Theatres are being built and refurbished and lots of 

equipment is being sold. Coupled with the upswing in 

box office, the industry has a lot to be happy about and 

it’s certainly a good time to travel to Miami Beach to see 

what’s happening in the industry, network with friends 

and associates and see some great films. There are some 

very exciting things happening at ShowEast in 2018. The 

highlights include the honorees, both domestic and from 

Latin America, the tradeshow with many new technologies, 

outdoor roundtable seminars, the Hall of Fame inductees 

and, of course, the films. 

What is bittersweet is that this will probably be the 

last convention that 20th Century Fox will attend. Fox 

has been around since 1935 and has had such great hits 

as The Grapes of Wrath, Titanic, Avatar, Star Wars, Hidden 

Figures, The Devil Wears Prada, Die Hard and so many 

more. With their acquisition by Disney, we envision that 

the distribution, marketing and production teams will be 

absorbed into the mouse house. We can only guess what 

other acquisitions and mergers are being considered for 

the near future. 

Fox and Chris Aronson have been an integral part of 

ShowEast for many years and it is always great to have 

Chris onboard. This year, Chris is receiving the Salah M. 

Hassanein Humanitarian Award. Although he is not as 

flamboyant in Miami Beach as he is in Las Vegas, we can 

expect something special this year, as he tells us that 

surprises are in order. We wish him well in any future 

endeavors. 

Please see our special section on ShowEast in this 

edition. Enjoy the show! 

4 FILMJOURNAL.COM / NOVEMBER 2018 

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NOVEMBER 2018 / VOL. 121, NO. 11 

FJI introduces 

The Legacy Series, 

profiles of top 

families in cinema 

exhibition, 

pgs. 72-75. 

PUBLISHING SINCE 1934 

FILM FEATURES 

Steve McQueen directs Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki 

and Viola Davis in Widows, pg. 28. 

Merrick Morton © 2018 Twentieth Century Fox 

INDUSTRY VIEWS 

A Word from Your Sponsor. . . . . . 56 

Lending support to industry shows 

has lasting benefits. 

Changing Landscape.. . . . . . . . . . . . 60 

The global economy impacts M&A 

activity in film exhibition. 

A New Shade of Green.. . . . . . . . . . 62 

Cinemas prioritize eco-friendliness. 

Deep Dive .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 

Movio’s Weekend Insights provides 

detailed audience intl. 

Emerging Technologies. . . . . . . . . . 66 

Innovation in cinema is far from over. 

Spider-Girl .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 

Claire Foy takes on the role of hacker 

Lisbeth Salander in Sony reboot 

of the Millennium franchise. 

#We Four.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 

Steve McQueen directs heist thriller 

about widows who take fate into their 

own hands. 

Net Value.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 

Ralph and Vanellope discover a wi-fi 

router that leads them on a new digital 

adventure. 

Boy Erased, Boy Embraced.. . . . . . . 36 

Joel Edgerton directs searing drama 

about gay conversion therapy. 

Speaking Out.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 

A teenager witnesses a police shooting 

and comes forward in The Hate U Give. 

Big Sky Story.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 

Paul Dano makes his directorial debut 

with critically acclaimed Wildlife. 

Blythe Danner, Hillary Swank, pg. 48 

Lost and Found.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 

A daughter returns to her childhood 

home to help her brother and father 

come to terms with her ailing mother. 

Celluloid Junkie’s Top Women in Global Cinema, pgs. 52-54 

Profiles of Vilma Benitez of Bardan Cinema, and Elizabeth Frank of AMC Theatres. 

Bleecker Street 

Around the Hub .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 

Exhibitors benefit from centralization. 

Making Moviegoing Memorable.. . . 70 

Display solutions elevate the theatre 

experience. 

DEPARTMENTS 

In Focus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 

Reel News in Review .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 

Trade Talk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 

Film Company News. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 

Concessions: Trends .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 

Concessions: People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 

Ask the Audience.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 

Buying and Booking Guide . . . . . . . . . . 118 

Calendar of Feature Releases.. . . . . . . . 130 

European Update.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 

Russia in Review.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 

Asia/Pacific Roundabout. . . . . . . . . . . . 136 

Advertisers’ Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 

HOLIDAY PREVIEW 

WIth just two more months 

left in the year, there are 

still a ton of movies to get 

out and see, from big-budget 

actioners to foreign indies, 

pages 76-89. 

© 2018 Disney 

FJI’s preview of the 2018 edition of the Miami Beach 

show includes interviews with honorees Neil Campbell, 

Chris Aronson, Miguel Rivera, Robert Carrady and a 

preview of the tradeshow, pgs. 90-117. 

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REEL 

NEWS 

IN REVIEW 

 

825 Eighth Ave., 29th Floor 

New York, NY 10019 

Tele: (212) 493-4097 

AMC Secures 

$600 Mil. Investment 

AMC Entertainment Holdings has entered 

into an agreement with private-equity firm 

Silver Lake, a leading technology investor. 

Per AMC’s official announcement, they have 

“issued $600 million senior unsecured convertible 

notes due 2024.” A portion of the 

proceeds from these notes has been used to 

buy back a group of shares from Dalian Wanda 

Group, AMC’s lead investor. Said AMC’s CEO 

Adam Aron, “We are very excited to welcome 

a new, highly sophisticated investor with a 

great track record of success. Silver Lake 

believes in the inherent value of AMC now, 

and in the likelihood of AMC’s success going 

forward resulting from our global leadership 

position and our proven growth strategies.” 

U.S. Imports 

Struggle in China 

A keynote speech by box-office analyst 

Rance Pow at the fifth annual U.S.-China 

Film & Television Industry Expo painted a 

somewhat bleak picture of the future of Hollywood’s 

position in the massive Chinese 

market. “On a year-to-date basis, Chineselanguage 

films are outperforming, while imports 

are underperforming,” Pow explained. 

Ticket sales for U.S. imports during the first 

three quarters of 2018 were down to $1.64 

million, compared to $2.17 billion over the 

equivalent period last year. The success of 

local titles, however, means China’s total 2018 

box office is up nearly 14% to date. 

Tom Rothman 

Re-Ups with Sony 

Tom Rothman, chairman of Sony Pictures 

Entertainment’s Motion Picture Group, 

signed a new contract that carries his involvement 

with the studio through several 

more years. Rothman, who took over for 

Amy Pascal in 2015, oversaw Sony’s transition 

from a bleak 2016—a year which saw a $719 

million loss for the studio—to a profitable 

2017 boosted by the success of such films 

as Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Spider- 

Man: Homecoming. 

Entertainment Studios 

Launches Int’l Division 

Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios 

Motion Pictures is launching an international 

sales and distribution division, to be 

appropriately titled Entertainment Studios 

Motion Pictures International. The division 

will work together with FilmNation Entertainment 

to handle the international releases 

of titles to which Entertainment Studios 

has worldwide rights. Upcoming Entertainment 

Studios Motion Pictures releases 

include 47 Meters Down: The Next Chapter, 

the sequel to their surprise 2017 hit 47 

Meters Down. Said Allen, “As we continue to 

distribute content across an ever-increasing 

number of domestic and global broadcast 

television, network television, theatrical and 

digital platforms, it is only natural for us 

to incorporate worldwide movie distribution 

into our overall content distribution 

strategy going forward, and FilmNation 

Entertainment is the perfect partner for us 

to achieve this goal.” 

China Cracks Down 

On Online Ticket Subsidies 

Regulators of China’s film market are 

reportedly preparing to crack down on 

one of the country’s more controversial 

exhibition practices. The practice relates 

to online ticket sales, which accounts for 

over 90% of all ticket sales in the country. 

Specifically, online ticketing services (and, 

later, producers and distributors themselves) 

have a habit of subsidizing openingweekend 

movie ticket costs, bringing prices 

down to rock bottom and artificially 

inflating films’ box-office take. Regulators 

plan to crack down on this practice as 

well as put a cap on the ticketing services’ 

service charges. 

Subscriptions: 1-877-496-5246 • filmjournal.com/subscribe • subscriptions@filmjournal.com 

Editorial inquiries: kevin.lally@filmjournal.com • Ad inquiries: robin.klamfoth@filmexpos.com 

Reprint inquiries: fji@wrightsmedia.com • 1-877-652-5295 

Publisher/Editor 

Robert Sunshine 

President, Film Expo Group 

Andrew Sunshine 

Executive Editor 

Kevin Lally 

Associate Editor 

Rebecca Pahle 

Art Director 

Rex Roberts 

Senior Account Executive, 

Advertising & Sponsorships 

Robin Klamfoth 

Exhibition/Business Editor 

Andreas Fuchs 

Concessions Editor 

Larry Etter 

Far East Bureau 

Thomas Schmid 

CEO, Film Expo Group 

Theo Kingma 

FJI ONLINE 

Visit www.filmjournal.com 

for breaking industry news, 

FJI’s Screener blog and reviews 

Like us on Facebook 

www.facebook.com/ 

filmjournalinternational 

Follow us on Twitter 

@film_journal 

for updates on our latest content 

Film Journal International © 2018 by Film 

Expo Group, LLC. No part of this publication 

may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval 

system, or transmitted, in any form or by any 

means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, 

recording or otherwise, without prior written 

permission of the publisher. 


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TRADE TALK 

CINEASIA TO HONOR 

FU RUOQING 

Fu Ruoqing, deputy director 

of the China Film Producers’ 

Association and deputy 

director of the Beijing Film 

Academy, will receive the 

“Distributor of the Year” 

Award at CineAsia 2018 on 

Dec. 13 at the Grand Hyatt in 

Hong Kong. 

Ruoqing has served as 

general manager of China 

Film Equipment Co., Ltd, 

deputy general manager of 

China Film Group, General 

Manager of State Production 

Base of China Film Group, 

and VP of China Film Co. Ltd. 

and currently serves as chairman 

of Huaxia Film Distribution 

Co. Ltd. 

CineAsia will also honor 

film producer Bill Kong, president 

of Edko Films Ltd., with 

the “Icon Award.” Kong leads 

one of the top film distribution, 

production and exhibition 

companies in Asia. He is also 

one of the most successful 

film producers in Asia, with 

credits that include Crouching 

Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, 

House of Flying Daggers and the 

Monster Hunt series. 

KINEPOLIS HOSTS 

ESPORTS SESSIONS 

EclairGame, the new 

eSports-based entertainment 

solution for cinemas, and Belgian 

public broadcaster RTBF 

announced the signing of an 

agreement for ten eSportsbased 

Ciné Sessions cinema 

events, in partnership with 

the Kinepolis cinema chain. 

Premiering on Sept. 27 

and held weekly from 7-11 

p.m. through Dec. 6, the ten 

Ciné Sessions events branded 

under RTBF’s new urban playground 

“Tarmac” take place 

ICTA president Alan Roe (l) presents the annual 

Teddy Award to Cinionic, accepted by Joe DeMeo, director 

of sales. Kobe Bone of Rodney Award winner 

Tri-State Theatre Supply looks on. 

at the Kinepolis Brussels 

complex. They are hosted by 

popular gaming personalities 

Sunny, Tahiti and Mr Quaraté, 

and live-streamed on the 

Tarmac’s official Twitch channel, 

Tarmacbe, as part of its 

Thursday evening “Que Le 

Stream” show, aka #QLS. 

Open to players across Belgium, 

the Tarmac Ciné Sessions 

are expected to attract 

up to 150 players per event, 

AMC STUBS A-LIST 

REACHES 400,000 

AMC Theatres announced 

that its AMC Stubs A-List has 

crossed more than 400,000 

enrolled members. AMC Stubs 

A-List rewards guests with 

up to three movies per week, 

all for $19.95 (plus tax) per 

month. Through A-List, members 

can enjoy every available 

showtime, at every AMC location, 

in every format—including 

IMAX at AMC, Dolby Cinema 

at AMC, RealD 3D, Prime 

at AMC and BigD. 

CGR CINEMAS 

CONVERTS WITH CHRISTIE 

CGR Cinemas has chosen 

Christie as its exclusive laser 

projection partner as it moves 

to convert all 700 of its theatres 

to RGB pure laser technology. 

In a landmark agreement 

that sees CGR becoming 

the largest investor in Christie 

RealLaser systems in the 

world today, 200 CGR Classic 

auditoriums will be redeveloped 

for Christie RealLaser 

over the next two years. 

The initiative complements 

CGR’s successful ICE 

(Immersive Cinema Experience) 

theatres, which also utilize 

RGB pure laser systems. 

The first 100 projectors will 

be installed in 2019, with the 

remaining 100 projectors to 

arrive in 2020. 

SMPTE PUBLISHES 

IMMERSIVE AUDIO SPECS 

The Society of Motion 

Picture and Television Engineers 

(SMPTE) announced 

the publication of new SMPTE 

ST 2098 standards for immersive 

audio. The Society 

has published ST 2098-1:2018, 

Immersive Audio Metadata; ST 

2098-2:2018, Immersive Audio 

Bitstream Specification; and ST 

2098-5:2018, D-Cinema Immersive 

Audio Channels and 

Soundfield Groups. 

Brian Vessa, founding chair 

of SMPTE’s Technology Committee 

on Cinema Sound Systems 

(TC-25CSS) and executive 

director of digital audio 

mastering at Sony Pictures Entertainment, 

said, “By supporting 

delivery of a standardized 

immersive audio bitstream 

within a single interoperable 

digital cinema package, the 

new SMPTE immersive audio 

standards simplify distribution 

while ensuring that cinemas 

can confidently play out immersive 

audio on their choice 

of compliant immersive sound 

systems.” 

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE 

COMING TO NYC. L.A. 

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema 

announced that construction 

is underway on Alamo 

Drafthouse Los Angeles, and 

that the company will break 

ground next month on their 

first location in Manhattan. 

Alamo Drafthouse Los Angeles 

is an 11-screen theatre located 

in downtown urban center 

The Bloc, set to open in the 

second quarter of 2019. Alamo 

Drafthouse Lower Manhattan 

is a 12-screen location in the 

Financial District at 28 Liberty, 

and is expected to open in the 

third quarter of 2019. 

MARCUS CORP. NAMED 

‘EXEMPLARY EMPLOYER’ 

The Wisconsin Department 

of Workforce Develop- 


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TRADE TALK 

continued 

ment (DWD) presented a 

2018 “Exemplary Employer 

Award” to The Marcus Corporation 

in honor of the 

company’s commitment to 

recruit and hire individuals 

with disabilities. The honor is 

awarded annually during National 

Disability Employment 

Awareness Month to select 

companies in each of the 11 

workforce development areas 

of the state. 

Accepting the award 

was Rolando B. Rodriguez, 

executive VP of The Marcus 

Corporation and chairman, 

president and CEO of Marcus 

Theatres. 

METROPOLITAN DEBUTS 

REWARDS PROGRAM 

Metropolitan Theatres 

launched a free loyalty program 

called “M Rewards.” 

Guest benefits include earning 

points on every qualifying 

dollar spent, receiving 

M Rewards dollars to spend 

on movie tickets, concessions 

and bar service, a 

free medium popcorn upon 

registration, a free refill on 

large popcorn and large soda 

purchases, and a free medium 

popcorn on their M Rewards 

anniversary. Additionally, 

members will receive access 

to exclusive offers, screenings 

and more. 

SPOTLIGHT NETWORKS 

HIRES GREG COZINE 

Greg Cozine was named 

VP, Eastern sales, at cinemaadvertising 

company Spotlight 

Cinema Networks. He will be 

responsible for selling onscreen 

and off-screen programs 

to national marketers 

across Spotlight’s luxury and 

art-house cinema network. 

Cozine joins Spotlight 

from National CineMedia, 

where he worked for 

nearly five years successfully 

negotiating the sale of premium 

video ad campaigns and 

branded entertainment to 

leading national advertisers. 

CINEPLEX ADDING 

4DX LOCATIONS 

CJ 4DPLEX and Cineplex 

announced a new agreement 

that will bring the 4DX 

experience to as many as 13 

additional Cineplex locations 

across Canada over the coming 

years. The companies 

opened Canada’s first 4D 

auditorium at Cineplex Cinemas 

Yonge-Dundas and VIP 

in downtown Toronto, Ontario, 

in 2016. CJ 4DPLEX’s 

4D technology enhances the 

onscreen visuals of blockbuster 

films through special 

effects including motionsynchronized 

seats, wind, fog, 

rain, lightning, snow, bubble, 

vibration and scents. 

MEDIAMATION ARMREST 

EARNS U.S. PATENT 

MediaMation, Inc. (MMI) 

announced that the United 

States Patent and Trademark 

Office has issued U.S. Patent 

10,076,712, entitled “Systems 

and methods for fluid delivery 

in seat systems.” The special 

armrests have the capability 

to emit wind, air, water blasts 

and scent effects on cue to 

MMI’s 4D motion EFX seat 

programming. This innovation 

essentially replaces the need 

for setting up a network of 

fans throughout the theatre 

that would traditionally serve 

the purpose of helping create 

these effects. 

MAJOR CINEPLEX 

WINS TECH AWARD 

Major Cineplex will 

receive the “Cinionic Technology 

Innovator of the 

Year” Award at CineAsia 

in Hong Kong. Under Vicha 

Poolvaraluk’s leadership, 

Major Cineplex became the 

first exhibitor in the world to 

install ScreenX outside of the 

CGV network, Thailand’s first 

IMAX cinema in Southeast 

Asia in 1998, and the third 

cinema operator worldwide 

to install 4DX. 

SCREENVISION XBOX 

AD USES MX4D 

Leading cinema-advertising 

company Screenvision 

Media teamed up with Xbox 

for the national debut of two 

new cinema ads that utilize 

immersive MX4D technology 

in select theatres. The Xbox 

advertisements are running 

in select MX4D technologyenabled 

theatres through 

Nov. 1. 

CANALOLYMPIA 

ROLLS OUT VEEZI 

Vista Group International 

company Vista Entertainment 

Solutions (Vista Cinema) 

and Vivendi’s CanalOlympia 

signed an agreement to roll 

out Vista Cinema’s Veezi 

across all their cinema 

venues. Veezi, utilized by 

cinemas in 27 countries, is 

Vista Cinema’s SaaS cinema 

management solution for 

independent cinemas. 

Currently operating 

nine venues across seven 

countries, CanalOlympia 

is the leading network of 

cinema and live-performance 

venues in Africa. 

JOHN TRAFFORD-OWEN 

JOINS REALD 

John Trafford-Owen 

joined RealD Inc. as managing 

director of Europe, Middle 

East, Africa and Russia 

(EMEAR). Based out of RealD 

Europe’s headquarters 

in the U.K., Trafford-Owen 

will be responsible for overseeing 

sales and marketing 

of all EMEAR territories and 

reports directly to Travis 

Reid, chief operating officer 

of RealD. 

Trafford-Owen has 

worked in exhibition and distribution 

for over 25 years. 

Most recently at Gower 

Street Analytics, he previously 

served as head of theatrical 

distribution, U.K. and 

Ireland, for StudioCanal. 

MYCINEMA DELIVERS 

VIA THE CLOUD 

NAGRA, leading independent 

provider of content 

protection and multiscreen 

television systems, announced 

a world first in digital cinema 

with the successful use of 

cloud technology and HEVC 

compression with myCinema, 

a cloud-based Content 

as a Service (CaaS) that brings 

together content creators, 

cinema owners, and movie 

lovers. 

Emagine Entertainment, 

a U.S. movie theatre circuit 

and myCinema exhibition 

licensee, collaborated in the 

deployment of the NAGRA 

technology at its Royal Oak 

Cinema in Detroit with 

the presentation of the 

first-run movie Ideal Home, 

starring Paul Rudd and 

Steve Coogan, earlier this 

summer. 


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FILM CO. NEWS 

A24 

A24 stays in the high-class 

horror game with the acquisition 

of North American 

rights to In Fabric, from The 

Duke of Burgundy director 

Peter Strickland. Marianne 

Jean-Baptiste, Hayley Squires, 

Leo Bill, Julian Barrett, Steve 

Oram and Gwendoline Christie 

star in the thriller, about 

a cursed dress that passes 

from person to unlucky person. 

A24 will release In Fabric 

theatrically in 2019. 

Following its debut at the 

Toronto International Film 

Festival, the fact-based drama 

Skin has been picked up for 

North American distribution 

by A24. Jamie Bell stars as a 

young man, raised by skinheads, 

who turns his back on 

the racist group he grew up 

with. The film was written, 

directed and produced by 

Guy Nattiv and co-stars Vera 

Farmiga, Danielle MacDonald, 

Mike Colter and Bill Camp. 

ANNAPURNA PICTURES 

Charlize Theron, Naomi 

Watts, Kate McKinnon, 

Margot Robbie, Allison Janney 

and John Lithgow are 

set to star in a yet-untitled 

film from director Jay Roach 

(Austin Powers, Trumbo). 

Charles Randolph, an Oscar 

winner for co-writing The 

Cary Fukunaga Takes Over 

Bond Franchise 

Cary Fukunaga has replaced Danny Boyle as the director 

of MGM’s upcoming James Bond film, the 25 th in 

the franchise. Boyle, taking over from Skyfall and Spectre’s 

Sam Mendes, left earlier this year due to “creative differences.” 

Fukunaga, whose credits include “True Detective,” 

Jane Eyre and Beasts of No Nation, will be the franchise’s 

first American director. The yet-untitled film will likely be 

the last for star Daniel Craig. 

Cynthia Erivo to Play Harriet Tubman 

At long last, Harriet Tubman is getting her own movie. 

Tony winner Cynthia Erivo (Broadway’s The Color Purple, 

the upcoming Widows) will star in Harriet, acting alongside 

fellow Tony winner Leslie Odom, Jr. (Hamilton), Janelle 

Monáe (Hidden Figures, Moonlight) and Billy Lynn’s Long 

Halftime Walk star Joe Alwyn. Kasi Lemmons (Eve’s Bayou) 

helms and co-writes (with Remember the Titans’ Gregory 

Allen Howard) for Focus Features. 

Jon Stewart Re-teams with Steve Carell 

Former “The Daily Show” collaborators Jon Stewart 

and Steve Carell are teaming up for the political 

satire Irresistible, to be produced by Brad Pitt’s Plan B 

production banner. Stewart came up with the story and 

will direct, with Carell in early talks to star. Stewart has 

one feature film, 2014’s Rosewater, under his belt already. 

Big Short, penned the script, 

which centers on a group of 

women working at Fox News, 

specifically their efforts to 

bring to light the culture of 

sexual harassment fostered 

by (now former) CEO Roger 

Ailes. Theron and Watts play 

Megyn Kelly and Gretchen 

Carlson, respectively, with 

Lithgow as Ailes. 

DISNEY 

Chloé Zhao, whose coming-of-age 

drama The Rider 

was one of the most critically 

acclaimed indies to come out 

of last year’s festival circuit, 

has landed a larger directing 

gig in the form of Marvel’s 

The Eternals. Kevin Feige, the 

mastermind behind the Marvel 

Cinematic Universe, will 

co-produce the film, which 

is based on a run of comics 

about a group of super-powerful 

cosmic beings. Zhao has 

been in the ring with Marvel 

before, having been considered 

to direct their Black 

Widow standalone film before 

the gig went instead to Cate 

Shortland. 

FOCUS FEATURES 

Focus has announced a 

Sept. 20, 2019 release for 

their feature-film version of 

the popular British TV series 

“Downton Abbey.” The show, 

which ran from 2010 to 2015 

and scooped up a handful of 

Emmys in that time, boasted 

Dame Maggie Smith, Dan 

Stevens (who left midway 

through the show’s run), 

Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth 

McGovern among its large 

ensemble cast. The film will 

be set after the show’s conclusion 

and will add new castmembers 

Imelda Staunton, 

Geraldine James, Simon Jones 

and more to the show’s mainstays. 

Michael Engler, who 

directed much of the show, 

directs a script from “Downton” 

creator Julian Fellowes. 

Chloë Grace Moretz stars 

in Greta, a thriller about a 

young woman who befriends 

a lonely widow (Isabelle 

Huppert), only for their relationship 

to go in a disturbing 

direction. Only to be expected, 

as the film is written 

and directed by Neil Jordan 

(The Crying Game, Byzantium). 

Maika Monroe also stars in 

the pic, which was acquired 

by Focus Features following 

its debut at the Toronto International 

Film Festival. 

FOX SEARCHLIGHT 

Recent Oscar winner 

Guillermo Del Toro serves 

as a co-producer on Antlers, 

a horror thriller from Crazy 

Heart and Black Mass director 

Scott Cooper. Keri Russell 

and Jesse Plemons star as 

a pair of siblings who come 

into contact with a student 

(Jeremy T. Thomas) hiding a 

dangerous secret. Graham 

Greene and Rory Cochrane 

also star in the film, which 

was co-written by Nick Antosca 

and Henry Chaisson and 

based on Antosca’s short. 

GUNPOWDER & SKY 

Elisabeth Moss stars in 

director Alex Ross Perry’s 

(Listen Up Philip and Queen of 

Earth, also featuring Moss) 

Her Smell, acquired for theatrical 

distribution by Gunpowder 

& Sky. Moss plays 

Becky, a one-time riot-grrl 

rocker who struggles with 

sobriety and the waning 

spotlight. Cara Delevingne, 

Dan Stevens, Agyness Deyn 

and Amber Heard co-star. A 

theatrical release is planned 

for 2019. 


008-022.indd 14 

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FILM CO. NEWS 

continued 

IFC FILMS 

IFC Midnight acquired 

U.S. distribution rights to 

The Wind, a western/horror 

hybrid directed by Emma 

Tammi and written by Teresa 

Sutherland. Insidious: The Last 

Keys’ Caitlin Gerard stars as a 

woman whose isolation in the 

plains of the late 1800s drives 

her towards insanity. A 2019 

release is planned. 

NEON 

Neon acquired North 

American rights to The Biggest 

Little Farm from director 

John Chester. Chester stars 

in the documentary, along 

with his wife Molly; the film 

centers on their eight-year 

quest to create their own 

slice of farmland utopia. 

Another TIFF acquisition 

for Neon is Wild Rose, from 

up-and-coming director Tom 

Harper. Jessie Buckley (Beast, 

“War and Peace”) stars as a 

young Scottish woman who 

dreams of country-music 

stardom in Nashville. Julie 

Walters and Sophie Okonedo 

co-star. Taylor is also 

slated to direct the historical 

drama The Aeronauts, starring 

Eddie Redmayne and Felicity 

Jones. 

THE ORCHARD 

The Orchard acquired 

North American distribution 

rights to Hurley, slated 

for theatrical release early 

next year. Directed by Derek 

Dodge, the documentary 

tells the story of Hurley Haywood, 

a racecar driver who 

hid his homosexuality due 

to the macho atmosphere of 

the ’70s racing scene. Patrick 

Dempsey, a racing aficionado 

himself, executive produces 

along with Dodge. 

ORION PICTURES 

Loser no longer. Sophia 

Lillis, one of the young stars of 

Andy Muschietti’s It, has been 

tapped to star in a new version 

of the fairytale “Hansel 

and Gretel”—titled Gretel and 

Hansel this time around—for 

Orion Pictures. The film will be 

directed by Osgood Perkins, 

formerly of The Blackcoat’s 

Daughter and I Am the Pretty 

Thing That Lives in the House, 

and co-written by Perkins and 

Rob Hayes. Lillis will be returning 

as Losers’ Club member 

Beverly March in Muschietti’s It: 

Chapter 2, out next September 

from Warner Bros. 

SCREEN MEDIA 

Screen Media acquired 

North American rights to 

Luz, from German writerdirector 

Tilman Singer. The 

slow-burn supernatural thriller 

stars Luana Velis as the 

eponymous Luz, a taxi driver 

whose life is caught up with 

that of a mysterious demon. 

SONY 

Mexican superstar Eugenio 

Derbez is attached to star 

in The Three Tenors, a comedy 

from a story by producer 

Patrick Aiello. As indicated by 

the title, Derbez will play an 

opera singer. Little else about 

the film is known, and a director 

is yet to be hired. Derbez 

starred in the 2013 surprise 

hit Instructions Not Included, 

which earned just shy of $100 

million worldwide. 

20TH CENTURY FOX 

Ryan Reynolds plays a 

bank teller who realizes he’s 

a background character in a 

videogame in Free Guy, a sci-fi 

action comedy from Shawn 

Levy, director of Real Steel 

and the Night at the Museum 

movies. The script, penned 

by Matt Lieberman of the 

upcoming Addams Family and 

Scooby Doo reboots, was 

picked up by 20th Century 

Fox several years ago. Levy, 

himself a prolific producer, 

will co-produce along with 

Reynolds and others. 

UNIVERSAL 

Malcolm D. Lee is turning 

to the world of early hip-hop 

with the comedy Real Talk 

for Universal. The central 

character in the film—yet to 

be cast—is the member of 

a once-influential rap group 

who, years later, attempts to 

reunite with his old partners. 

Radha Bank (“She’s Gotta 

Have It,” “Empire”) is the 

writer. Universal previously 

collaborated with Lee for this 

year’s Night School and the 

enormously successful Girls 

Trip, which earned $140 million 

worldwide in 2017. 

“Game of Thrones” star 

Emilia Clarke and Crazy Rich 

Asians’ Henry Golding will 

lock lips in the London-set 

holiday romance Last Christmas 

for Universal. The film 

reunites Golding with his A 

Simple Favor director Paul 

Feig, who directs and coproduces. 

WARNER BROS. 

Warner Bros. subsidiary 

New Line has come out of 

top of the bidding war for the 

English-language remake rights 

to South Korean zombie hit 

Train to Busan. Originally starring 

Gong Yoo and Ma Dongseok, 

the film—directed by 

Yeon Sang-ho—is about a father 

taking his young daughter 

on a train ride to visit his estranged 

ex-wife…and then the 

zombie apocalypse happens. 

James Wan, director of such 

films as Aquaman, Insidious and 

The Conjuring, will co-produce 

along with Gary Dauberman, 

one of the writers on Warner 

Bros.’ horror hit It. 

Eddie Murphy’s about to 

get grumpy. The comedian is 

reportedly in talks to star in a 

remake of Grumpy Old Men for 

director Tim Story. The original 

film, released in 1993, starred 

Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon 

as longtime friendly rivals 

whose relationship is tested 

by the arrival of an attractive 

neighbor (Ann-Margret). Murphy’s 

co-star is yet to be cast. 

James Wan, who directed 

the first two films in New 

Line’s Conjuring franchise, is 

dialing back to a producer-only 

role for number three. Stepping 

into Wan’s shoes will be director 

Michael Chaves, who previously 

helmed the Wan-produced 

horror outing The Curse 

of La Llorona, out from New 

Line on April 19 of next year. 

David Leslie Johnson, a writer 

on The Conjuring 2 and Wan’s 

upcoming superhero debut 

Aquaman, will pen The Conjuring 

3’s script, with stars Patrick 

Wilson and Vera Farmiga also 

confirmed to return. 

WELL GO USA 

Well Go USA acquired 

North American rights to the 

sci-fi thriller Jonathan, directed 

by first-time feature helmer 

Bill Oliver. Ansel Elgort (Baby 

Driver) stars as a pair of brothers 

inhabiting the same body. 

Their time-share agreement 

erodes when both men fall for 

the same woman (Suki Waterhouse). 

Patricia Clarkson also 

stars. Well Go will release the 

film in theatres and on demand 

on Nov. 16. 


008-022.indd 16 

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CONCESSIONS 

TRENDS 

PIZZA PIZZAZZ 

We’ve Come a Long Way, Bambinos 

by Larry Etter, Concessions Editor 

Twenty-five years ago, pizza began to make a splash 

in concessions operations at cinemas. It was determined 

that moviegoers love pizzas as a snack 

alternative. The cost of building a pizza almost matched 

the profitability of sodas and candy; therefore, it met the 

cost-of-goods criteria for cinemas. Over time, the pizza 

category has seen a plethora of modifications to fit the 

cinema objectives of speed, entertainment and convenience. 

Today we are seeing a revolution in the way pizzas 

are prepared and served. 

The affordable microwaveable single-serve pizza 

could offer a representative product with little expense 

and a speedy “bake” time. The advantages were preconstructed 

pizzas, consistent cost, little if any waste, 

and cooking as needed in under two minutes. Next, we 

were introduced to the “Turbo Chef,” which would take 

a frozen pre-engineered pizza and bake it in under three 

minutes to embody the quality and likeness of the local 

pizzeria. Not to be satisfied, some aficionados began 

making scratch pizzas, using dough balls for the crust, authentic 

pizza sauce, aged cheese and elevated ingredients 

to meet the standards of competitive pizza diners. What 

this industry realized is that every time a food category is 

introduced in cinemas, patrons’ expectations are so modest 

that poor quality is acceptable—until conventional 

likenesses raise their game. So the theatre channel had to 

improve its offerings to meet or exceed patrons’ higher 

expectations. 

Today, cinemas are in a new pizza culture where microwaveable 

pizzas are no longer suitable. While the vector 

ovens offering three different types of cooking methods— 

infrared, microwave and conventional heat—still exist, it is 

possible this method is leaving the arena of pizza production. 

There are now advanced means of baking pizzas being 

tapped for the unique styles that cinemas employ. 

The right oven makes a considerable difference to 

individuals with a passion for pizza. One of the first sloggers 

was the stone deck oven. Baker’s Pride has been the 

primary manufacturer of this style of oven. These ovens 

delivered a consistent, well-baked pizza—until the baker 

2018 SHOWEAST HALL OF FAME CLASS 

CONGRATULATIONS 

LARRY ETTER 

MALCO THEATRES, INC 

Thank you for your outstanding contribution 

and service to the motion picture industry. 


008-022.indd 18 

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allowed for blackened meal and uneven temperatures applied to 

the ingredients. The oven is the most important asset for making 

the ultimate pie. The objective is to have every pizza taste 

exactly the way it should. In other words: How can we produce 

consistent pizza every day on every request? 

Basic deck ovens are conventional and make a delicious 

pizza, but should be used in locations that experience low to 

moderate business. Deck ovens are very good for multiple size 

pies, single serve or 18-inch pies that be divided and served by 

the slice. These ovens can support various types of pizzas, such 

as par-baked dough, pre-made or handcrafted crust. Deck ovens 

will bake thin-crusted pizzas evenly and will support the thicker 

crust as well. They generally bake at 450º to 650º F depending 

on the recipes developed. The advances in these types of stonebed 

ovens now make heat distribution more reliable, which leads 

to more consistent results. 

Impinger ovens, also known as conveyor ovens, are characteristically 

used for the highest volume. The impinged-style oven 

operates with a conveyor that moves the pizza under heat, as 

jets of hot air blanket the pizza. The critical piece to conveyor 

ovens and their performance is the number of columnating 

panels in the unit. Columnating panels provide coverage and distribution. 

When programing the settings, there are three basic 

points: speed of the conveyor that times the heat allowed, bottom 

heat temperature and top heat temperature. The user must 

consider how much heat to apply to the bottom/crust and how 

much heat is applied to the top. Based on preference and the 

speed of the conveyor, these components should be tested regularly 

to maintain consistency. The process and settings will block 

the jets of air, which can allow, for example, 100% open on the 

bottom heat and maybe 50% open on the top. This will deliver 

a firm crust and a soft topping. If the operator desires a softer 

crust with a crispy topping and golden-browned cheese, the bot- 

tom jets would be at 50% and the top jets at 75%. 

Hearth ovens are very entertaining and offer a “show and 

tell” type production. These ovens convey a specific ambience 

and feel that sell pizza. Hearths represent a homemade, straightfrom-the-oven 

appeal that guests love. Like other ovens, hearths 

can bake bread, sandwiches, calzones and vegetables; therefore, 

they can be multi-use ovens. Hearth ovens can also use various 

types of fuel: gas, wood, charcoal, electricity or a combination. 

These ovens can reach temperatures of 600º F, which speeds up 

the baking time, yet also requires skilled personnel to watch the 

pizza constantly. The tradeoff for the glamour of hearth ovens is 

that they usually cost over $30,000, require specific installation 

at about one-third the unit cost, and then a specific grease-rated 

venting system with specialized makeup air since they generate 

so much heat. These ovens are best utilized when there are a 

limited number of pizza options, as they are only capable of baking 

in one way. Hearth ovens also require more maintenance 

and a regular cleaning schedule. 

The fact is, ingredients and recipes will dictate what kind of 

oven one should employ. Some pizza makers like a heavy dough, 

others a light flatbread. What type of cheese will you use: mozzarella 

with skim milk or whole milk? Will the cheese be grated 

or sliced? How much water is in the sauce itself? Is it made with 

fresh crushed tomatoes, or will you use a branded commodity 

sauce? Will the pizzas be baked on screens, pans or flat on the 

deck? In simple terms, do your homework. Create the recipes 

for the pizza you want to serve; then scour the marketplace for 

equipment that will serve those ingredients best. 

Larry Etter is senior vice president at Malco Theatres 

and director of education at the National Association of 

Concessionaires. 

JUNE 2017 / FILMJOURNAL.COM 19 

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CONCESSIONS 

PEOPLE 

FOOD ENGINEER 

Roberta Correa Guides Cinemark’s 

F&B in Latin America 

This month it is a pleasure to introduce to our international 

readers a Latin American superstar: 

Roberta Correa, who is in her 18th year serving as 

the VP of food and beverage at Cinemark International. 

Born in Natal, Brazil, and raised in Rio de Janeiro, 

Correa today resides in São Paulo. She has become a 

visionary for Cinemark International and leads the entire 

Latin American team as a developer of talented managers, 

overseeing foodservice in 15 countries. 

Correa’s father was a member of the Brazilian Air 

Force; hence she traveled with her family often in her 

early years. She earned her first degree in electrical engineering 

from Pontifica Universidade Católica, followed by 

a Master’s degree in production engineering, and worked 

as an engineer at Embraer, an airline enterprise 

“My father was a pilot in the Brazilian Air Force,” she 

remembers. “It was so much fun, as he would always take 

us for rides in his plane since he had to earn flying time. 

My brother, sister and I always loved being with my father 

in his planes. My dad was a huge influence in my life, so 

professional and educated in aeronautics. I think this is 

why I wanted to be an engineer.” 

After working for a local brewing company building 

and constructing new facilities, Roberta approached her 

supervisor about finding other employment since she had 

just had her first child—she wanted something a little 

less stressful. She was elated when he suggested a job in 

the cinema industry. “My boss was very kind and referred 

me to Cinemark. I was so happy,” she recalls. “It seemed 

like an excellent idea to work [in] the entertainment business 

and help make the world a happier place.” 

Correa began her employment at Cinemark in 2000, 

when they operated seven locations in Brazil. “My first 

interview was with Maria Angles, the vice president of 

food and beverage at Cinemark, who presided over the 

international concessions operations. Maria was very special 

and became my mentor. I cannot thank her enough.” 

Through her tenure, the number of locations has 

grown to over 85 cinemas in Brazil alone. After Angles 

left her position at Cinemark, Correa was chosen to 

guide the Latin America concessions operations. Currently, 

she oversees food and beverage for 201 Latin 

American cinemas. In November, Cinemark will open 

its first self-serve concession operation in Costa Rica. “I 

am so proud of how we can improve our offerings to the 

Latin American communities. This will be a big step for 

us, not only for Cinemark International, but for all the 

people in Costa Rica.” This endeavor may become the 

model for future developments. 

As for the future of foodservice in the Latin American 

countries, “I believe we must listen to the customers and 

provide the provincial snacks and beverages that meet 

local preferences,” she contends. “Each country has distinctive 

fare and I think we should deliver those unique 

snacks to our patrons.” She admits she cannot do it alone. 

“I try to give a lot of autonomy to each country head. So I 

develop very clear guidelines for each F&B model/project 

that Cinemark offers; this includes looking for trends, recommended 

presentations, training and product mix.” 

Correa believes her success stems from multiple styles 

of management. “I think I am a prognosticator in that I 

attempt to foresee the future, yet I try to be a sculptor 

in forming plans. I know I am an engineer, since we build 

paths to reach the intended goals.” She also enjoys developing 

her team’s individual aptitudes. She admits sometimes 

she has to be a magician to bring it all together. 

“Our great challenge will always be training [our] staff. 

We know that technology has changed a lot the way we 

sell tickets and popcorn, but it cannot replace the service 

provided by a well-trained staff when accommodating the 

guest or delivering their order. Service is the DNA of our 

business.” In a time when most operators are dealing with 

the challenges of bigger menus, adult beverages and intheatre 

dining, she believes service to the guest will always 

be the number-one goal. 

Roberta enjoys telling a story about her children’s visit 

to her workplace. “I had to take the boys to work with 

me one day—after all, they want to see why Mommy goes 

to the office. I let them see the paraphernalia and things 

while I worked on my computer. At the end of the day, 

the youngest asked the oldest, ‘So what does mommy do?’ 

The eldest responded, ‘She makes popcorn on her computer.’” 

Ah, if only it were that simple. 

Roberta confesses that while she tries to maintain a 

healthy diet, she does enjoy popcorn (with lemon pepper 

topping) and candy at the movies. And not a small amount, 

“only the biggest sizes,” she laughs. When she is not at the 

movies, she enjoys tennis, swimming in the ocean and running—she 

competes in at least one half-marathon each year. 

She also affirms that she will watch E.T. anytime it appears 

onscreen. Her favorite actor of all time is Robert De Niro. 

Roberta Correa has engineered a terrific career and 

shares her life with her two sons, Miguel, 18, and Rafael, 16. 

—Larry Etter 


008-022.indd 20 

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ASK THE AUDIENCE 

- A COLLABORATION BETWEEN - 

Ask the Audience is a monthly feature from Film Journal International 

and National CineMedia (NCM) that allows you to ask an audience of 

5,000 frequent moviegoers, known as NCM’s Behind the Screens panel, 

the pressing questions of our industry. 

We all fall victim to our customers 

leading busy lives—and heading to 

the movies isn’t always at the top of 

their priority lists. It’s impossible to 

measure how much potential ticket and 

concessions revenue has been lost to an 

“Eh, I don’t really feel like going to the 

movies anymore” mentality. But what 

causes people to change their minds? 

Have advance ticket sales helped to 

combat this conundrum? That’s what 

one of our readers asked us to explore. 

Time to ask the audience. 

36% of the Behind the Screens panelists 

responded that they will always follow 

through with seeing a movie in the 

theatre once they’ve decided they’re 

interested in watching it, and another 

52% will usually make sure they make it to 

the theatre. Only 6% said that they would 

back out if they had purchased their 

ticket in advance. And the good news 

is that the panelists frequently buy their 

ticket ahead of time. For theatres with 

reserved seating, 50% bought their ticket 

at least a day in advance. That number 

was much smaller for those without 

reserved seating, with only 18% leaving 

at least 24 hours between the purchase 

and the movie. Logically, if there’s no 

reserved seating, the customers are 

going to get to the theatre earlier to get 

a good seat, so they can just grab their 

ticket at the box office. To get the best 

seats in a reserved seating auditorium, 

it makes sense that the customers 

would want to get their tickets as early 

as possible. In fact, 78% said the reason 

they purchase tickets ahead of time is to 

get a good seat. 

Blockbusters are the other big driver for 

advance ticket sales. 50% of the panelists 

buy tickets for blockbusters at least a day 

in advance, including 20% who make the 

purchase at least a week ahead of the 

big premiere. And 65% say their main 

incentive for an advance purchase is to 

grab a ticket before they sell out. 

When asked what the main deterrent 

was if they planned to go to the movies 

but didn’t end up making it, 68% said 

that something more important comes 

up, and 29% said they lose interest 

in the movie. For example, they were 

perhaps intrigued by the trailer, but were 

dissuaded by negative reviews closer 

to the release date. 22% added that 

when the time comes, they don’t have 

the energy to head out to the theatre— 

they’d prefer to relax at home. When we 

asked the Behind the Screens panel what 

their local theatre could do to convince 

them to attend when they’re on the 

fence, the answer was clear—deals and 

discounts. 57% wanted more ticket deals, 

48% asked for concessions discounts, 

and 45% requested reward perks. 

It’s impossible to always get customers 

to follow through on their moviegoing 

plans, but by incentivizing advance 

ticket purchases, as well as offering 

competitive promotions that make the 

customer feel like they’re getting a good 

value at your theatre, we can do our best 

to counteract the disregard of even the 

best laid plans. 

To submit a question, email 

AskTheAudience@ncm.com with 

your name, company, contact 

information, and what you would like 

to ask the Behind the Screens panel. 

31% 

OF MILLENNIALS PURCHASE 

TICKETS FOR BLOCKBUSTERS 

A WEEK OR MORE IN ADVANCE 

X 

51% 

BUY THEIR TICKET IN ADVANCE 

TO AVOID WAITING IN LINES 

19% 

67% 

HAVE DECIDED TO NOT SEE A MOVIE 

BECAUSE THEIR COMPANION CANCELED 

MILLENNIALS WERE 

MORE LIKELY TO BE 

INCENTIVIZED BY 

MOVIE-RELEATED 

PROMOTIONS THAN 

OLDER GENERATIONS 


008-022.indd 22 

10/9/18 2:59 PM

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SPiDER-GiRL 

Claire Foy takes on the role of hacker Lisbeth Salander 

in Sony’s reboot of the Millennium franchise 

by Stephen Whitty 

Is the world ready for “a feminist 

Batman”? 

That’s how director Fede Alvarez 

describes his new heroine, anyway—and 

personally, he thinks her appearance is long 

overdue. 

Audiences will soon get to decide for 

themselves when they see the Uruguayan 

filmmaker’s most ambitious project yet, 

Sony’s The Girl in the Spider’s Web. A fresh 

take on the Nordic noir series, it stars Claire 

Foy (“The Crown”) as cyber-vigilante 

Lisbeth Salander—and her take-noprisoners 

rage feels particularly made for 

this newly empowering time. 

“Honestly, I think the things these books 

represent have always been relevant,” says 

Alvarez, 40. “We actually had our script 

ready before the #MeToo movement really 

happened. But there’s definitely something 

in the zeitgeist, the collective consciousness—people 

are finally listening to women’s 

struggles—and in this movie we wanted 

to take care of things in a different way.” 

So, developing this story—which features 

righteous justice, masked assassins, a stolen 

weapons program and an old family tragedy—meant 

having Lisbeth take the lead. 

Nadja Klier © 2018 CTMG. All Rights Reserved. 

024-075.indd 24 

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NOVEMBER 2018 / FILMJOURNAL.COM 25 

024-075.indd 25 

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“This is the first movie that’s really about her,” Alvarez says. 

“The other stories, it’s the reporter Blomkvist who’s your way 

in. Lisbeth shows up, and tags along and becomes part of his 

story but it’s never really her story—he has the big arc, you stay 

in his head. This time, though, he falls into her story—it’s really 

about her. You get into her head and you see the story through 

her eyes. And so you get to know her in a way you didn’t before.” 

It’s an all-new cast, with Foy now the third actress to 

play the role, after Noomi Rapace and Rooney Mara. The 

iconography and attitude of the character remain the same, 

however. Lisbeth’s fond of punkish black leather, piercings, 

tattoos and computer hacking. She’s coolly contained, sexually 

liberated, physically fit and fearless—in one of the film’s most 

stunning scenes, she races her motorcycle across a barely frozen 

lake, as the ice begins to crack beneath her. 

Director Fede Alvarez 

She never hesitates. And the film mirrors Lisbeth’s calm 

confidence throughout by refusing to leer at her, or treat her as 

some sort of kick-butt sex object. 

“That was the thing, and Claire was the main guardian of 

that,” Alvarez says. “We were careful never to exploit her that 

way, to pretty her up, to put on too much makeup. She gets 

in fights, she gets messed up, and that’s how it’s presented. I 

mean, in the Bourne movies, Matt Damon doesn’t always look 

amazing, you know? And that was the idea here—to be fair to 

Lisbeth. Not to just reduce her to this sexy character in tight 

pants.” 

The result is a film that fully fits into the “Dragon Tattoo” 

universe, yet bears the personal stamp of its new director. 

“This was the chance to work on a much bigger canvas, but 

like any of my other movies, I had full creative control,” he says 

happily. “I came in, and there was an amazing draft, but then I 

was allowed to write a script and empower the aspects that felt 

relevant to me, to explore the themes—shame, and secrets, very 

basically—that felt important to me. The secrets we keep—it’s 

never because we’re proud of them, you now. And you hold 

them inside and you become a victim of that, until you finally 

confront it, and try to atone for it. Those are the sort of stories I 

gravitate to.” 

And that’s a personal approach that, he says, the “Dragon 

Tattoo” series has always made room for. 

“The original Swedish films—these were not run-of-the-mill 

movies done by some studio,” he notes. “The last film—I mean, 

David Fincher is not just some director for hire. I know studios, 

Nadja Klier © 2018 CTMG. All Rights Reserved. 

they can be such big machines. And I knew, going into this, 

fans would be watching me very carefully, too. But I thought, 

this is a good problem in a way because, before you even do it, 

it means you’re doing something that people care about. And in 

the end, I still made the film I wanted.” 

It’s definitely a film with its own striking visuals. The palette 

is gloomy and monochromatic—black and white and grey. The 

interiors are often empty and inhuman—bare floors, cement 

walls, rows of fluorescent lights. 

“The visual style is there to empower the story, and the story 

is all about the mood,” Alvarez explains. “Every shot, every 

angle, you’re trying to get the audience to feel unsettled, to 

not ever let them feel cozy and warm. And the coldness of the 

environment, the control—that is another aspect of it, because 

you wonder, what is hidden inside? What happens when you 

crack that egg open? That is when the deep secrets come spilling 

out. It is this very cold world. But inside, something is on fire. 

And that is Lisbeth, completely.” 

It’s no secret this is a hugely important project for Alvarez. 

He loved movies from the start (“E.T. was the first movie I saw, 

but my mother says the first movie I heard was Jaws, because she 

went to see it when she was pregnant with me!”). He then began 

making them as a kid, starting with a friend’s video camera and 

crude stop-motion animation. Eventually he moved on to doing 

commercials, and music-videos. 

Finally, nearly ten years ago, Alvarez went out and shot 

“Panic Attack,” five frantic minutes of pretty Montevideo 

crumbling under an alien invasion. When he uploaded it to 

YouTube, he had no idea what would happen. 

“What did that even mean, ‘YouTube movie’?” he asks. 

“The channel didn’t really have original content then, it was all 

cats, and kids doing stupid things. But this little film, with no 

promotion, people liked it, passed it around. It was something 

new and it had millions of views overnight.” 

That viral sensation led to that first studio deal, and two 

successful genre films, Evil Dead and Don’t Breathe. But, 

Alvarez acknowledges, although shooting The Girl in the Spider’s 

Web really didn’t feel any different, the stakes are higher. As are 

the fans’ expectations. 

“When I was a child, watching Cronenberg’s The Fly, I 

remember my father going, ‘The original was way better,’” 

Alvarez says with a laugh. “Really? I didn’t know there was an 

original. But, I mean, there were people who didn’t know Evil 

Dead was a remake, either. They just liked it. Just like I’d known 

I loved the movie I was watching.” 

“So, of course,” he adds, “I know people will compare 

Spider’s Web to the films that came before. But this is not a 

remake. It’s not even really a sequel; it’s a reinterpretation. 

People will say: Why would you do it? Why is it necessary? 

Because that’s how you keep it alive. Lisbeth, she’s more 

relevant today than ever, and the world needs to see her again 

and hear her out.” 

And Alvarez can’t wait to give them that chance. 

“I know how demanding audiences are. Every time they go 

into a theatre, they hope a movie touches them. I know I sit 

down, the logo comes on, and it doesn’t matter what I’ve heard, 

I just hope, maybe this is going to be the one. This is a movie 

which will change me. It’s like looking for love, every date 

you’re saying, maybe this is the one where I’ll fall in love again. 

But in the end, with movies, all that really matters is—is it good 

or is it bad? Either it’s great, or it sucks. And I believe this one 

is great.” 


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10/9/18 3:10 PM

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y trevor hogg 

Growing up in England, filmmaker 

Steve McQueen found himself 

drawn to a six-part BBC miniseries 

called “Widows” created by Lynda 

La Plante, who would go on 

to produce “Prime Suspect” 

with Helen Mirren. His fascination 

with the story about four 

women deciding to stage a heist 

planned by their deceased husbands 

persisted over the next 35 years. 

“They were being judged by 

their appearances and believed to 

be incapable,” recalls McQueen, the 

day after the world premiere of his 

version of Widows at the 43rd Toronto 

International Film Festival. “I was 

being judged the same way going to 

school in London. It stuck with me. I 

didn’t know at 13 years old that I would 

be a filmmaker. I wanted to take this 

narrative and steep it within the social 

reality of Chicago.” 

The original premise intrigued 

McQueen. “I loved how grief can compel 

you into being reckless. I asked a friend 

Steve McQUeen 

directs heist 

thriller about 

widows who 

Take fate 

into their 

own hands 

#WE 


024-075.indd 28 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

of mine whose mother died, ‘How did it 

make you feel?’ She said, ‘Reckless.’” 

Exploration of cruelty and resilience 

can be found in McQueen’s Hunger, 

Shame and Oscar winner 12 Years a 

Slave. “What I wanted to do was run 

the gauntlet of the human condition in 

a situation where we can see ourselves 

onscreen. Yes, there is a kind of 

endurance. Yes, there is some kind of 

hardship. But these four women are not 

superheroes; they’re human with all of 

their frailties and faults.” 

It was important to find a co-writer 

with the right dynamic. “It had to be 

a female voice,” notes producer Iain 

Canning, who was involved in making 

Hunger and Shame. “Gillian Flynn [Gone 

Girl] is the best in the business in that 

sense; she has such a proven track record 

of doing extraordinary thrillers, suspense 

and surprises. That was the key first 

relationship to get right.” 

There was no doubt that the Windy 

City situated on Lake Michigan was 

the best place to set and shoot Fox’s 

cinematic adaptation. “I had my first 

museum show in Chicago,” recalls 

McQueen. “While I was there, my 

then-girlfriend, now-wife Bianca 

Stigter went to the Democratic National 

Convention [also being held in Chicago] 

as a journalist. Chicago was always 

interesting as far as art and politics 

right from the beginning 22 years ago. 

I wanted to place this fiction into a 

heightened Western contemporary city 

and that for me was Chicago.” 

A crime noir classic directed by Roman 

Polanski and starring Jack Nicholson 

was thematically influential. “What I love 

From Left: Viola Davis, Michelle 

Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, and 

Cynthia Erivo in Widows. 

FOUR 

Photos: Merrick Morton © 2018 20th Century Fox Film Corp. 


024-075.indd 29 

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about Chinatown is the whole idea that 

everyone is in on it. “If you go to Chicago 

and talk to the FBI, the police, private 

investigators, people in the underworld, 

gang members and clergymen, you realize 

that there’s this whole matrix. You know 

what is the catchphrase for Chicago? It’s 

‘I’ve got a guy.’” 

Intercutting moments from the 

personal lives of the spouses with the 

failed heist was part of the original plan 

for the opening sequence. “I’m British, 

so what happens is that you always try 

to stretch a pound,” McQueen explains. 

“But within economics you get invention. 

Your train leaves the station, but you 

stop at other stations along the way. It’s 

so economical and also thrilling. You’re 

picking up things as you move along. It’s 

beautiful. I wanted you to get an idea of 

what the relationships were like between 

these women and their partners. It 

ends with an explosion and they’re now 

widowed.” 

Subtext was an important element of 

the opening narrative. “There’s a little 

moment where Harry Rawlings [Liam 

Neeson] is playing with Veronica [Viola 

Davis] and leans forward,” remarks 

editor Joe Walker, who joined the 

project immediately after completing 

Blade Runner 2049. “It alludes to the 

violence that’s inside those relationships, 

even though they’re having breakfast or 

getting up in the morning.” 

A signature scene is a continuous 

two-and-a-half-minute shot that follows 

local politician Jack Mulligan (Colin 

Farrell) and his assistant Siobhan (Molly 

Kunz) as they leave a poor neighborhood 

in a car with tinted glass windows, have 

a heated conversation, and return to his 

mansion; it’s captured entirely outside of 

the moving vehicle with the actors being 

heard, not seen. “I loved the idea. It’s like 

good radio. I grew up in England with 

the BBC and radio. What happens is as 

an audience member you listen more. 

You’re in there. There are so many things 

going on in one shot. The public and the 

private. The landscape. The issue that 

Jack has with his father [Robert Duvall]. 

The shift from poor to rich. The only 

time Jack’s assistant speaks is behind 

closed doors; that’s who she really is as 

opposed to how she presents herself, 

which is often the case in politics and 

with people in high positions of power.” 

Violence is not glamourized. “It’s 

steeped in reality,” notes McQueen. “For 

example, Jatemme Manning [Daniel 

Kaluuya] is a soldier in the sense that he 

Colin Farrell and Robert Duvall in Widows. 

works for his brother Jamal [Brian Tyree 

Henry], who has an enterprise. He kills 

people sometimes and is numb to the violence, 

as so many black men are in Chicago. 

Jatemme doesn’t even participate in his 

last act of violence because he is so bored 

of it. He’d rather watch TV. His other acts 

of violence are perverse because he’s trying 

to make it interesting for himself.” 

A cinematic technique has been 

developed between McQueen and his 

longtime cinematographer, Sean Bobbitt. 

“Steve and I have discovered over the 

years that by using a long continuous shot 

in association with violence, it takes you 

away from the conscious idea that you’re 

watching a movie,” Bobbitt observes. “If 

you don’t put a cut in, then you have no 

escape, so the violence compounds itself 

to great dramatic effect.” 

McQueen has put together a stellar 

cast that includes Oscar winner Viola Davis, 

Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki 

and Cynthia Erivo as the titular widows, 

along with the aforementioned Farrell, 

Duvall, Neeson, Henry and Kaluuya. “Colin 

Farrell is a great artist,” enthuses Mc- 

Queen. “Liam Neeson is a great thespian. 

Viola Davis is a Marlon Brando. There’s a 

fearlessness, depth and familiarity. People 

love Daniel Kaluuya because whatever he 

does, he tells you the truth.” 

Scheduling the actors was tricky but 

not impossible. “It provided a wonderful 

atmosphere, because you had the core 

widows who were there for the majority of 

the time, and Colin Farrell, Liam Neeson 

or Jacki Weaver would come in for their 

sections of the shoot and bring a whole 

new energy with them,” notes Canning. 

“Sometimes the challenge can be keeping 

the same group of people enthused and 

energized through a whole shoot.” 

Improvisation was allowed. “Oh my 

god,” remarks McQueen. “All of the 

time. Virtually all of scenes between 

Robert Duvall and Colin Farrell were 

improvised. It was beautiful. You know 

what it is? It’s like music. You write the 

melody and harmony, but within that 

they can improvise. I don’t care what you 

do. You can knock yourself out.” 

The music metaphor carries over 

to cinematographer Bobbitt and editor 

Walker, as both of them have worked 

on all four movies by the resident of 

Amsterdam. “It’s like a band. You come 

together every three or four years to 

make an album. It’s intense. But you 

understand that as a unit you do things 

exceptionally.” 

“I talked to [composer] Hans 

Zimmer early on,” recalls McQueen. 

“I asked him, ‘What does heartbreak 

sound like?’ Hans was also a teaboy on 

the ‘Widows’ TV show, so he understood 

what Widows was about. How do you 

balance the dramatic with the action? 

The only time when you can smell a city 

is through the sound. That was one of the 

pleasures of spending a lot of time trying 

to get a realism and also a surrealism, 

because realism doesn’t sometimes bring 

the truth. The idea of perspective and 

space within sound was important.” 

Production designer Adam 

Stockhausen (The Grand Budapest 

Hotel) found and dressed 60 locations 

in Chicago. “That’s why it looks real,” 

McQueen notes. “One has to embrace 

the environment. I don’t bring my stencil 

into a situation and go, ‘I want it like 

this.’ The environment has to tell you 

what it wants.” 

Photos: Merrick Morton © 2018 20th Century Fox Film Corp. 


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Ralph and Vanellope discover a wi-fi router 

that leads them on a new digital adventure 

© 2018 Disney. All Rights Reserved. 

NET VALUE 

by Daniel Eagan 

Opening Nov. 21, the Disney Animation 

release Ralph Breaks the Internet 

continues the stories of the characters 

in Wreck-It Ralph. John C. Reilly returns 

as the voice of Ralph, this time helping his 

friend Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) save her 

Sugar Rush arcade game. 

In fact the whole arcade where Ralph, 

Vanellope and their friends live is in jeopardy, 

losing customers to streaming and 

online gaming. Ralph believes their troubles 

all stem from the Internet, and going there 

is the only way he thinks he can solve their 

problems. 

Directors Rich Moore and Phil Johnston 

met with Film Journal International in 

Disney’s New York offices. Johnston also 

wrote the screenplay with Pamela Ribon. 

Joining Moore and Johnston was Josie 

Trinidad, head of story. 

Film Journal International: I was going 

to ask how you expanded the story and world 

from the original movie, but one look at the 

footage and it’s very apparent that this is a 

much larger project. 

Phil Johnston: It was really complicated 

when we first started talking about it. 

“They’re going to go to the Internet? That’s 

a great idea!” 

Josie Trinidad: But what is the Internet? 

Johnston: What does it look like? How 

does it work? How will they function? How 

do people get around? What does a website 

look like? What is the Internet, really? 

This is the biggest film in the history of 

Disney Animation in terms of the number 

of characters, locations, and us three knuckleheads 

never did intend for that to happen. 

FJI: Your vision of the Internet is filled 

with brand names, just as your cast is filled 

with characters from other movies and studios. 

Were there copyright issues? 

Johnston: Copyright law says we don’t 

Ralph ( John C. Reilly) and fellow 

misfit Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) 

venture to the internet. 

have to ask permission to use a sign or 

brand name. So in our Internet, you see 

the Google building, you see Amazon and 

all kinds of other things. There are probably 

80,000 brands in the movie in the 

background. We didn’t ask their permission, 

we just did it, which is totally legal under 

copyright law. 

But most of our story takes place in 

BuzzzTube, which we created, Slaughter 

Race, which we created, KnowsMore.com, 

which we created. 

Moore: When it gets into characters, 

you can show McDonald’s, but you can’t 

show Ronald McDonald. That’s trademark 

infringement. Another studio could show 

Disney, but if they have Mickey Mouse as 

a character, that’s where you need to ask 

permission. 


024-075.indd 32 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

FJI: Can you talk about the writing process? 

Johnston: I wrote a draft of this about 

three and a half years ago. Then Josie was 

working on Zootopia, and I joined that for 

the last year or so. Then I re-read my draft 

and thought, “This kind of sucks,” threw it 

out, started a new draft, and we did a table 

read of that in 2015. 

FJI: In projects like these there always seem 

to be dead ends and false starts. 

Moore: Oh, they always do. This was 

not one that kind of went for a while and 

then hit a point, okay, reset. This was more, 

let’s try that, no let’s try that, no let’s try this 

one, no. It was more kind of feeling our way 

through the ideas. 

We make the film internally. Each of 

those screenings is a very simple version of 

the movie, hand-drawn animatics married 

to a temp soundtrack. No actors, it’s us playing 

all of the parts. The reason is we can put 

it up and actually see it and take the best of 

what’s there and move on to the next version. 

For this film, it felt like several different 

versions of the movie were made. When 

we got to about the fifth one, that’s around 

the time we really started to hone the story. 

FJI: What wasn’t working? 

Trinidad: Thankfully, we were able to 

learn from each of those versions. For example, 

here’s the Vanellope version, she’s more 

the protagonist. The next one maybe it’s 

Ralph’s journey, or maybe it’s a two-hander. 

So by that fifth screening, we were able to, 

not combine them so much, but learn which 

path to take. 

Moore: I would say it was a way to test 

the thematics of the film, try different 

themes. Does Ralph think that the Internet 

is his enemy? There was an early version 

where he wanted to destroy it because 

he thought it was threatening his way of 

life in the arcade. 

But we realized, nope, that’s not right. 

Our process lets us make a version of the 

movie, watch it in real time, kind of dissect 

it—see what’s working and what’s not 

working. Or do we even like it? 

FJI: Is the Internet good or bad? 

Johnston: I think it’s a little of both, and 

I think that’s the most interesting thing 

about the movie. Similar to Zootopia, that 

city, we’re not judging one way or the other. 

It’s beautiful on one hand, but then when 

you get in close you find dirty spots and 

places where things are a little bit ugly. 

The Internet is a place where right this 

minute you could go take a course at MIT, 

or you could go to 4Chan and find some 

troll selling viruses. You have beauty and 

hideous ugliness existing in the same plane. 

We’re interested in exploring the grey area 

in between. 

This is a place where Vanellope goes 

and finds this online racing game that for 

her is a dream, it’s everything she ever could 

Ralph directors Phil Johnston and Rich Moore with head of story Josie Trinidad. 

have hoped for. Ralph, on the other hand, 

is trolled and bullied in an online comment 

room, and will end up going to the Dark 

Net to get a virus. 

Moore: As we said with Zootopia, the 

goal of that movie was not to say the character 

Judy Hopps is solving racism. Because 

it’s a little more complicated than that. She’s 

experiencing racism herself, and she’s committing 

it herself. Then we get to see how 

does this individual rise above it. It’s kind of 

the same with Ralph in his journey through 

the Internet. For us, that’s much better than 

trying to preach to an audience: “Do not 

troll people! Do not be racist!” 

FJI: I’m fascinated by an animation process 

where nothing is actually finished until the 

very last moment. 

Trinidad: What we always say in animation 

is the story’s never finished, you just 

run out of time. Because I’m so familiar 

with the boarding part of it, I can never see 

beyond that. I always have that vision where, 

oh, I wish we could fix that, I get swept into 

that temp track from before. Little things, 

the minutiae, rather than seeing the overall 

picture. That’s the beauty of working with 

these guys, they’re seeing the whole thing. 

FJI: How does the voice cast affect the animation? 

Johnston: John C. Reilly is a masterful 

improviser, as is Sarah Silverman. Taraji P. 

Henson turned out to be a fantastic improviser, 

really quick on her feet. And Jack Mc- 

Brayer and Jane Lynch are awesome. 

What we try to do, obviously there’s a 

script, there’s a story, there are scenes that 

need to be very focused. But we try to allow 

them room to play. We never say no, stick 

to what’s on the page. We get what’s on the 

page, but if they find something, we’ll use 

that. Often they find magic if they’re riffing 

off one another. 

As Rich often says, animation is the 

least spontaneous process, it’s frame-byframe, 

one at a time. 

Moore: But you need it to look spontaneous. 

Johnston: You need it to look and feel 

and sound that way. I think allowing improvisation 

when the actors are together is a 

great way of bringing spontaneity, to make 

the film feel more like life. 

FJI: So you’re not really sure what the 

movie looks like until the very end. 

Moore: We live with it in a state of 

kind of “in progress.” It doesn’t start to 

congeal until the last six months of the 

production process. You are taking things 

on blind faith, believing this is going 

to look great when it’s finished and put 

together, the lighting is right and the 

effects are put in, when it’s the production 

soundtrack and not something temporary. 

But somehow it always does get done. 

And I’m always surprised. 

FJI: How did advances in technology affect 

this? 

Johnston: The complexity, the level of 

detail, this is the biggest animated film ever 

made. There are literally millions of characters 

and buildings, and netizens, and hair 

moving, none of which could have been accomplished 

six years ago. This movie could 

not have been done six years ago. 

Moore: Not at this level. And I think that 

can be attributed to the Hyperion rendering 

software they developed right before Big 

Hero 6. Here, we wanted the Internet to feel 

like the biggest city that’s ever been realized 

in animation. Hyperion made that possible. 

Very little of it is mapping. We still do 

mapping in animated films. Very few of the 

shots have any set extensions or mappings 

because we are capable now of building a 

set of immense proportions. So if you zoom 

in to any area of the set, it would be crystalclear, 

you can see the expressions on the 

extras’ faces, you can see the texture on their 

clothing. This was something that we couldn’t 

have done when we were doing Zootopia. Or 

even when we started this film. 


024-075.indd 34 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

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Boy 

Erased, 

Boy 

Embraced 

Joel Edgerton Directs Searing Drama 

Joel Edgerton’s acting career has been on a steady rise since 

he appeared as Luke Skywalker’s uncle in 2002’s Star Wars: 

Episode II: Attack of the Clones. He was the shoe factory 

heir in Kinky Boots, one of the Melbourne criminals in the 

acclaimed Animal Kingdom, Tom Buchanan in Baz Luhrmann’s 

The Great Gatsby, Ramses in Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and 

Kings, tainted FBI agent John Connolly in Scott Cooper’s 

Black Mass, Richard Loving of the groundbreaking interracial 

couple in Loving, and Jennifer Lawrence’s CIA mark in this 

year’s Red Sparrow. 

Quite a resume, but the ambitious New South Wales native 

is also on a notable parallel track as a filmmaker. His feature 

directing debut, The Gift (2015), was a box-office hit—a 

chilling suspense tale he wrote and in which he co-starred as 

a mysterious figure from Jason Bateman’s high-school past. 

His second feature, Focus Features’ Boy Erased, which recently 

debuted at the Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals, is chilling 

in a different way. Edgerton’s screenplay is based on the 2016 

memoir by Garrard Conley, who recounted his experience 

of being sent to the Memphis gay-conversion facility “Love 

in Action” after coming out to his Baptist parents at age 19. 

Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea, Lady Bird) plays the boy, 

here named Jared Eamons, opposite Australian Oscar winners 

Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe as his anguished parents. 

Interviewed at the Toronto Fest, the very genial Edgerton 

says there’s a direct line between his role in Loving (for which 

he earned a Golden Globe nomination) and his involvement 

with Boy Erased. “Loving made me realize how much I get 

taken by stories of injustice,” he confides. “When I was a kid, 

I was terrified of things that were limitations of freedom, like 

being abducted or going to prison or going to war. When I 

was in my young religious Catholic phase, these were things 

I would pray about and have nightmares about. As I grew up 

and became a film actor and filmmaker, I loved breaking-outof-prison 

stories. I read the book because of what I’d heard 

about conversion therapy. I went in there with a little bit of 


024-075.indd 36 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

Photos © 2018 UNERASED FILM, INC. / A Focus Feature release. 

Above, Joel Edgerton directs and acts 

in Boy Erased. 

Far left, Nicole Kidman and Russell 

Crowe. 

Left, Théodore Pellerin and Lucas 

Hedges. 

about Gay Conversion Therapy by Kevin Lally 

salaciousness, and what I found was something much deeper 

and rich and more upsetting—this question of how would you 

feel and what would you do if the people you love the most 

and hold the most stock in, your parents, told you there was 

something wrong with you and withdrew their love from you, 

which is what his father [a preacher] does in many ways.” 

Edgerton himself appears in the film as Victor Sykes, 

director and head therapist at the gay-conversion “refuge,” 

based on John Smid, who eventually resigned, publicly 

apologized for the harm he caused and is now married to 

a man. ‘I’ve met John Smid,” Edgerton says, “and reading 

Garrard’s book it struck me that (a) Garrard wasn’t 

demonizing anybody. He really depicted this sense that 

everybody was there to try to help. I started to create a parallel 

analogy to drug addiction. Imagine if your beliefs, apart 

from the fear-of-God aspect, meant that when you found out 

that your son or your daughter was gay, you’d been told by 

the church it was a choice…that their behaviors were out of 

control based on deficiencies in them—imagine that a parent 

looked at that as something it was necessary to correct, a 

problem to be solved. That’s sort of similar to a parent going, 

‘I have a son who’s addicted to heroin and I’m going to send 

him to rehab and cross my fingers that it works. I’m helping 

them.’ And Sykes, the therapist—they’re in the position of 

wonderful responsibility to hold kids’ hands and bring them 

closer back to God. That to me is terrifying, because if those 

people have the conviction of belief that it’s possible to change 

your sexuality, and deep inside yourself you’re going, ‘I’m 

not feeling any different,’ it makes you feel worse and worse 

and worse. And to have your parents tell you or agree with 

someone else that you’re misshapen or broken, I think that 

would be the most unsettling thing in the world. What’s less 

unsettling to me, even though it’s diabolical, is a facility that 

would take parents’ money, wave them off at the gate, and then 

go inside and start hooking them up to electric shocks. There 

are those places, by the way—it’s just that Garrard’s story 


024-075.indd 37 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

wasn’t that story. The ‘We’re here to help’ thing has a weird 

Stepford Wives kind of unsettling nature to it.” 

Edgerton notes that the release of his film will be 

accompanied by a podcast, and he’s happy that this year has 

brought another successful film about conversion therapy, The 

Miseducation of Cameron Post. “All of these things are going 

to be good information for young kids to remind them, ‘Hey, 

listen, the rest of the world knows you’re not broken, and all 

these smart people are making projects that are letting you 

know we stand on the other side of things. We say that you’re 

OK, we say that you’re born the way you are and you should 

embrace it, and everybody else should fucking embrace you too.’ 

A kid came up to me at Telluride, a volunteer, and he said, ‘If 

only this film had been around when I was 15 years old.’ That’s 

one thing. The other thing is just opening the minds of parents. 

If they can come and watch Russell and Nicole depict two real 

people who went from A to B, A being devastated and shocked 

and threatened by the sexuality of their son, to realizing the 

damage that they’ve caused and the misinformation they 

had, and in their own different ways evolved to a place of 

acceptance… 

“The father’s still on his way, he’s on that journey. The mother 

will be in Toronto today, she’s all behind the movie, she’s a 

champion to her son and she’s a role model to other mothers 

who are about to be or in the middle of or have gone through a 

similar situation… The thing about parents I discovered in this 

movie that I hadn’t really thought about, but now it makes perfect 

sense, is that if you have a gay son or gay daughter, a queer 

son or daughter of anything that’s outside the sense that a kid 

should grow up to be straight, the parents have to come out too, 

or they feel like the children are a reflection of them. My mom, 

anytime I did anything silly or dumb or weird or dressed weird, 

she’d get so upset. And my father would say, ‘Marianne, if he 

wants to do what he does, it has nothing to do with you. You’re 

just his parent.’ It’s a massive thing that parents attach their 

identity to their children’s identity and their sexuality.” 

Edgerton reflects on the evolution of Garrard Conley’s 

mother Martha, played so movingly by Kidman. “It’s a mouse 

that ends up with a lion’s roar. She is under the thumb, she is 

a quiet participant in everyone else’s agenda. But a mother’s 

intuition is so deep and strong that when you go against the 

grain of that, it’s quite evident for people. Martha just went: 

I’m not going to stand for this, I’m not going to be a silent 

participant in my son’s demise. And now she’s got such strength 

to her, in such a small frame—she’s such a fragile-looking 

woman. It’s cool. And that’s a better strength to me—it’s like 

someone with skinny arms winning at arm-wrestling. 

“I’m not sure when Garrard’s father will see the film, but 

he knows about it. Rightfully so, he’s nervous about his representation. 

I sat opposite him in Arkansas and I’d written 

a couple of drafts, and he urged me: I want you to paint me 

honestly—meaning, he doesn’t want to be painted as a hero in 

the movie, because that would be dishonest. Because he’s still 

on that journey. Also, he has his congregation to think about. 

He’s kind of in the middle between his son and this congregation 

he’s running. He said, ‘I just want you to paint me how 

I am,’ and I said, ‘I’m going to paint you as somebody who’s 

trying, but not yet succeeding.’ And he said, ‘Well, that’s about 

right.’ He’s a tough guy, like Russell—that’s why I cast Russell. 

You see a photo of him and you go: OK, I know why Russell is 

in this. He sat opposite me and we were talking about all sorts 

of stuff, and I wanted to steer the conversation towards the 

story of the film, and he just burst into tears. He was pointing 

at Garrard, who was sifting through family photos with my 

assistant Michael, and he said, ‘This whole thing has got me 

licked.’ And this hulking man is just sobbing at the table. And 

you don’t do that if there’s not a lot of love there. He’s trying 

to compute and put it all together, and I think it’s a wrestle 

for him. I don’t expect him to come to the movie easily, and I 

know that finding out that Russell was going to play him made 

him a little more scared than if it was some little independent 

film that would come and go and disappear. Nicole and Russell’s 

involvement I think made him take a step back and go: 

Oof! OK. But he never once tried to talk Garrard out of it. He 

embraced me, he wishes me well, he invited me to his church. 

I heard his point of view, and so did Russell. My kind of quiet 

agenda for the film is that he will see it and it will push him 

closer to his son. And not further away from his congregation, 

but closer to his congregation in bending further so that 

he can also bend other minds. People put a lot of stock in a 

preacher—in certain communities they’re kind of a rock star.” 

At the center of Boy Erased, of course, is rising star Lucas 

Hedges, who delivers a subtle and powerful performance. “Peter 

Hedges [Lucas’ father] directed me in 2011 in Atlanta in The 

Odd Life of Timothy Green,” Edgerton recalls. “Lucas was like 14 

and we would play basketball and hang out. He just landed at 

the end of that shoot his first acting job, in Moonrise Kingdom. 

I’d written him a little congratulatory note with a P.S.: 

‘Whatever you do, don’t grow up and start stealing my jobs.’ So 

it was kind of cool to read this book and go: Wow, I think he 

would be really great for this. There’s a stillness, a sensitivity, 

he’s super-intelligent. There’s a certain everyman quality to him, 

a beautiful ordinary nature. Audiences really can identify with 

someone like him. 

“I think he beautifully handled his discussion about his 

sexuality in an article recently. It was never really a conversation 

I had with him—it was a conversation Garrard and he had, 

because they spent a lot of time together. But there was 

definitely a question for me about who do I cast in that role and 

how do I represent right—there was something that felt right 

about him and I’m very proud of him.” 

When we spoke in Toronto, Edgerton had just recently 

wrapped shooting on Netflix’s The King, an adaptation of 

Shakespeare’s Henry IV and Henry V he wrote with director 

David Michôd (Animal Kingdom) and in which he plays 

Falstaff opposite Ben Mendelsohn and Timothée Chalamet as 

the two Henrys. 

“It went incredibly well, very smooth shoot,” Edgerton (also 

a producer) reports. “Adam Arkapaw shot it, just some epic 

stuff. The fact that David and I sat in Lombok mapping out the 

Battle of Agincourt in the sand like two grownup kids, and six 

years later we’re in a field in Budapest and in castles in London 

with all these extras and people in armor and eighty horses…we 

were kind of pinching ourselves, because getting to play on that 

scale thanks to Netflix was awesome.” 

Edgerton plans to continue splitting his time between acting 

and directing. “I’d really love to keep directing movies. But I 

gotta be in love with something completely before I embark on 

it, which is what happened with Boy Erased. I’m just waiting 

for the next thing to really get under my skin. And I want to 

pivot—I’d love to do something different, maybe a comedy or 

something outside the box. Definitely love suspense, though, so 

one day I‘ll go back to doing something to really unnerve an 

audience.” 


024-075.indd 38 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

PROUD SPONSOR OF 

SHOWEAST 2018

Speaking Out 

A teenager witnesses 

a police shooting and comes 

forward in The Hate U Give 

by Anna Storm 


024-075.indd 40 

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Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter 

has just arrived at a party in her 

impoverished neighborhood of 

Garden Heights feeling terrifically out 

of place. She’s been dragged there by the 

fiery Kenya, her half-brother’s half-sister. 

(Their brother, Seven, and Starr share 

a father, while Seven and Kenya share 

a mother.) Starr and Kenya are not kin, 

but in Angie Thomas’ bestselling novel 

The Hate U Give, and in the experience 

of George Tillman, Jr., the man who 

directed the adaptation that Fox released 

on Oct. 5, “family” is an expansive word. 

One of the most important there is. 

But soon enough, not-quite-sister 

Kenya is leaving Starr to fend for herself. 

Starr knows some of the others at the 

party, but most of them she wouldn’t call 

friends, necessarily. There’s a figurative 

distance between them informed by a 

highly literal one: For the past few years, 

Starr has been attending the private 

school Williamson in a posh and predominantly 

white neighborhood several 

miles and worlds away from Garden 

Heights. Until a childhood friend plucks 

her from the wall she’s veritably hugging, 

Starr hangs back. 

“I really liked the first scene in the 

book when Starr goes into the party 

and she says, ‘I don’t really know if it’s 

enough for me to be at this party.’ ‘Am 

I enough? Am I black enough?’ is really 

the subtext of the scene,” says Tillman 

over the phone. “And then we see her 

later going into Williamson and the 

white world. And I just thought, you 

know, we’d never seen a movie with 

code-switching,” the term he uses to 

describe the way Starr tries to act more 

“black” among her African-American 

friends and more “white” among her 

white friends, “or a project that deals 

with an African-American character who 

has to deal with that.” 

The director of the classic Soul Food 

(which he also wrote, based on his own 

family experiences), as well as Men of 

Honor, The Inevitable Defeat of Mister 

and Pete and Notorious, knows a thing 

or two about code-switching, parties 

and what is signified by the guest lists. 

“There were only a few of us [African- 

American directors] in 1997, ’96, when 

I first started,” he remembers. “There 

were rumors or things that said black, 

African-American movies don’t travel 

overseas. So that was always the stigma.” 

He remembers a tacitly segregated world: 

“It was always like black Hollywood or 

white Hollywood. Or there’s African- 

American parties in the business, or 

there’s the white parties.” Just like Starr, 

Tillman felt “it was always like a codeswitching 

as a director in terms of how 

to make other people feel very comfortable. 

Just [in] the last ten years, six, seven 

years, we’ve had more African-American 

directors, women directors and African- 

American women, more show-runners. 

And now we’re telling our stories and I 

feel really good that The Hate U Give is in 

the middle of all this.” 

Hate is a story that is unafraid to 

place itself in the middle of tragic and 

controversial headline events. The 

childhood friend who arrives to rescue 

Starr at the party is the attractive, 

dimply Khalil (Algee Smith in the film), 

with whom Starr used to play Harry 

Potter when they were kids. A kid no 

longer, Khalil’s been “keeping busy” 

selling drugs. The two fall easily into 

their old patter, and when gunshots 

at the party ring out and scatter the 

revelers, they enjoy a ride home together 

that’s cozy, even rom-com sweet, until 

it’s cut short by a white police officer who 

pulls Khalil over for a minor offense. 

The encounter between a mouthy Khalil 

and an increasingly righteous officer 

escalates, until Khalil is told to stand 

outside his car while the officer examines 

his papers inside his patroller. Defying 

the officer’s instructions to remain still, 

Khalil reaches inside the driver’s seat for 

his hairbrush…and the panicked officer, 

mistaking the brush for a weapon, fires. 

Several times. Khalil falls. 

Distraught, confused, afraid and progressively 

angry, it’s up to Starr (a gifted 

Amandla Stenberg) as the sole witness 

to Khalil’s murder to speak for him. But 

with the menacing drug lord (Anthony 

Mackie) who worked as Khalil’s boss 

threatening her to keep silent, not to 

mention Starr’s own anxieties about how 

the students at Williamson—including 

her white boyfriend—will perceive her if 

she does speak out, standing up for her 

friend is a fraught choice with no easy 

outcome. 

“Obviously, I just felt it was very 

timely with the police brutality,” says 

George Tillman, Jr. directs Amandla 

Stenberg in The Hate U Give. 

Photos: Erika Doss © 20th Century Fox. All Rights Reserved. 


024-075.indd 41 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

Tillman of the narrative. He doesn’t 

need to mention the names of African- 

American men, women and children 

whose deaths following confrontations 

with policemen have inflamed and 

divided the nation for those names to 

hover between us: Tamir Rice. Philando 

Castile. Eric Garner. Sandra Bland. Yet 

Tillman’s interest in the story derived 

from its ultimate, if hard-won, positivity. 

“But the story of a girl finding her voice 

and finding who she is at the end of the 

day really just attracted me from the very 

beginning.” 

As cast and crew worked their way 

through the difficult choices Starr navigates, 

on set “the tone was very responsible… 

Everyone who was there was very 

committed, we knew there was a responsibility 

to tell this story that was very timely, 

so we had a dedication to that.” With 

heavy sequences often stretching over 

several days—Khalil’s shooting took two 

days to film, while the climactic protest in 

his name at the end of the movie lasted for 

five—it was important, helpful, that the 

main players who portrayed Starr’s family 

indeed “were a family.” And, just as any 

family does, it had its cut-ups. 

“In between takes, Regina Hall 

[who plays Starr’s mother] and Anthony 

Mackie, these guys were veterans, so we 

were able to break and have fun between 

takes.” He mimics Hall’s ribbing with a 

laugh: “’Oh, George, I got your camera 

angle over here!’” Says the director, “And 

Anthony Mackie’s the same way.” They 

were lucky to secure Mackie, whose 

commitment to the project was such he 

took eight or nine days off from shooting 

one of the Marvel films in which he plays 

the superhero Falcon to embody The Hate 

U Give’s violent drug lord, King. “He can 

turn it on and off,” says Tillman of the 

actor’s joshing. “And this was really just 

a blessing, because we were doing very 

emotional scenes.” 

As the center—heart, soul and 

expressive face—of those scenes, the 

19-year-old Stenberg, who was a senior in 

high school when she was cast, brought 

a level of dedication that impressed her 

seasoned director. “On the set, I like to do 

a lot of takes. I like to try a lot of different 

things. And she was there, always 

committed, always…was prepared, and 

there was just a really good relationship in 

terms of how we worked together.” Brace 

for a doozy of a compliment comparing 

the up-and-comer to one of The Greats: 

“And that relationship was just something 

that I learned working with De Niro on 

Men of Honor. It becomes a partnership. 

Not an actor working for you: It becomes 

a partnership.” 

What the actor who is best known 

for playing the much-loved Rue from 

The Hunger Games brought to the role of 

Starr was more than just a willingness to 

collaborate, however. Her talent and her 

skills were complemented by deeply personal 

experiences. Like Starr, Stenberg 

grew up in an impoverished neighborhood—South 

Los Angeles, in her case. 

Like Starr, Stenberg went to school in 

an upper-class enclave: in L.A.’s Westside. 

“So a lot of these things in terms 

of details, what she felt growing up in 

Englewood and going to a white private 

school, some of these behaviors, how she 

speaks to students in the white private 

school, and her fears and her pain, all 

that [were] what I endorsed and loved 

for her to bring to the role,” says Tillman 

of the generous input into her character 

Stenberg enjoyed. 

It was just that sort of insight which 

the actor brought to her conversations 

with The Hate U Give’s screenwriter, the 

late Audrey Wells, as well. Stenberg, Tillman 

and author Thomas all spoke with 

Wells as she worked on and polished 

the script. Tillman says there was never 

any hesitation about bringing on a white 

woman to adapt the novel. (Wells’ credits 

include Tarzan and Under the Tuscan Sun, 

among others.) Like his actors, “Audrey 

was very committed to the role from the 

beginning.” Plus, “with me being there 

and developing the material and the script 

with Audrey day-to-day, and a lot of that 

was with Angie there,” he felt confident in 

what they were producing. He mentions 

that Tina Maybry, a “great young African- 

American writer and director” (of USA’s 

“Queen of the South” fame) also wrote a 

draft. “So between us and Angie, we were 

in a really great place adapting the book.” 

Tillman was himself able to bring 

some Starr-like understanding to the 

project. “I was able to move in a better 

educational system than some of my 

cousins who lived in the inner city,” he 

remembers of his childhood. He credits 

his father with instilling in him a respect 

for education, “which was always sort 

of key,” and a sense of its importance. 

“I was actually moved to a white public 

school that was maybe 60 or 70 percent 

white. I was exposed to different things.” 

Anyone who has seen his Soul Food 

must respond with a knowing nod to 

hear the director explain, “I came from a 

very strong family background.” Recalls 

Tillman, “We had a working-class family,” 

though sometimes they were “middle-class.” 

He admits, “We had a lot of 

ups and downs, but we always had hope. 

And I had family members who were in 

prison and went through the system, just 

like Mav,” Starr’s father, played by Russell 

Hornsby (Fences) in the film. And 

those family members “gave us ‘the talk.’” 

That “talk’” is the same one Mav 

gives in flashback to a young Starr and 

Seven and his then-infant son Sekani in 

the opening scene of the film. It consists 

of a series of instructions for how to act 

when a policeman pulls you over—a scenario 

that is treated not as a hypothetical, 

but as an inevitability. It serves Starr 

well the night Khalil is murdered: she 

puts her hands on the dash, where the 

officer can see them. And she does what 

he says. In fact, to say it served her well 

is perhaps a gross understatement; it may 

have saved her life. 

Although Tillman was never made 

to memorize the Black Panther’s 10 

Point Program as Mav insists his 

children do, he does remember being 

“in the car with one of my cousins, and 

the police officer would stop right by, 

and [my cousin] would be like, ‘Look 

straight ahead…keep your hands out, 

act not suspicious, just be yourself.’ And 

explaining where the police came from 

in history, in terms of slave patrol. And 

all that was just from cousins and family 

members. Or my father just telling me 

how to conduct myself in public around 

police officers.” These moments stayed 

with him. “All that was just drilled in 

me as a young boy when I was growing 

up and it was there for me when I 

started making The Hate U Give.” 

Midway through the film, Starr 

sits on her living-room floor, scrolling 

through her Tumblr. From her page 

stare the faces of Eric Garner, Sandra 

Bland and Emmett Till, who, as a 

15-year-old boy in 1955, was savagely 

murdered for allegedly whistling at a 

white woman—although in a 2007 interview 

that woman admitted to making 

up her accusation. Emmett’s mother 

insisted on an open-casket funeral. She 

left her son lying viewable to the public 

for five days in order to “let the world 

see what has happened, because there is 

no way I could describe this.” 

The camera lingers on Emmett’s 

face, brutalized beyond recognition. It 

remains in the frame while Starr reads 

a message her white friend Hailey (a 

great Sabrina Carpenter) has posted 


024-075.indd 42 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

underneath it—a reply to the effect of 

“OMG, really Starr???” And it remains 

in the frame when Starr turns away 

from her computer to read a text. 

“I felt as a young boy growing 

up, it was always Emmett Till,” says 

the director. His father was from 

Mississippi, where Till was murdered, 

and Tillman spent time in Chicago, 

where Till was from. “I always wanted 

to do that film, the Emmett Till story. 

I’ve always felt really connected to it. So 

the idea of Hailey not looking at it the 

same way as someone who’s African- 

American would was very important.” 

In order to clear the images for this 

scene, “I had to call up the families of 

Eric Garner and Sandra Bland. And just 

speaking to their families and being one 

person removed from these individuals, 

and hearing in their voice a sense of 

pain and a sense of hope and a sense 

of support to use their pictures in the 

film, all of that was important for me in 

this moment. And these are people who 

were victims and people who I feel like 

we were honoring in the film.” 

To hear the director speak, his film 

fundamentally dramatizes the effects 

of a broken system. The story’s title is 

a nod to Tupac Shakur’s THUG LIFE 

tattoo and philosophy: “The Hate U 

Give Little Infants Fucks Everyone.” 

Meaning, as Khalil explains to Starr 

just minutes before he is killed, the 

hatred society feeds African-American 

children comes back to bite it when 

those children grow up to “wild out.” 

“So you look at the system, and why 

racism and why the drugs and why this 

in our neighborhood: It’s because the 

system is designed to keep us there,” 

Tillman lays it out bluntly. 

But just as Starr finds the voice to 

speak for her friend by the end of the 

film, the film’s director finds a stirring 

current amid the weightiness of its 

themes. “It’s so amazing,” he marvels, 

“we look at Tupac, his philosophy from 

’93, ’94, is still here, it’s very prevalent, 

it’s very relevant… When you look at 

that philosopher, you know, that’s really 

what Tupac really was, he was much 

more than an artist.” He admires “the 

technical side of being a hip-hop artist” 

that the Notorious B.I.G., the subject 

of Tillman’s 2009 biopic Notorious, 

demonstrated, and refuses to say 

outright which of the rappers that once 

bitterly divided fans he prefers. “Isn’t 

it great we can look back in history” at 

both of them, he muses, mentioning as 

well the nice circularity of Mackie, who 

played Tupac in Notorious, having a role 

in this film inspired by Tupac’s words. 

What the director will not hedge 

about are his hopes for what viewers will 

take away from The Hate U Give. The 

last thing he mentions before hanging 

up is a scene that occurs the morning 

after Khalil’s shooting. Starr’s family 

is sitting around the breakfast table: 

Mom, Dad, Seven, and younger brother 

Sekani, who is now around six or seven. 

Starr’s father reminds her that he named 

her Starr because, as Tillman explains, 

“she’s the light in the darkness.” Her 

father and her mother and Seven are 

concerned for her. The tone is serious; 

the air itself seems breakable. And then 

Sekani acts the consummate me-first 

little brother and steals a piece of bacon 

from her plate. “And the family laughs. 

I think that represents the movie more 

than anything. It’s that, no matter how 

bad, how tough things get, the family 

has hope.” 


024-075.indd 43 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

Paul Dano makes his directorial debut with this critically 

acclaimed adaptation of a Richard Ford novel 

Courtesy of IFC Films. 

Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenha al star in Wildlife. 

Big Sky Story 

by Anna Storm 

Acclaimed actor Paul Dano is discussing 

in characteristically thoughtful tones 

what he learned directing his first feature 

film, the accomplished adaptation of the 1990 Richard Ford novel, Wildlife. 

“On a budget and on a certain schedule, not everything is going to go according 

to the plan. And from that, sometimes, some really great stuff blossoms, [but] 

it’s so hard to trust that. So I think the biggest thing I took away was really trusting 

the process.” 

A brief digression: As many basketball fans are wont to know, the phrase 

“Trust the process” was made famous several years ago by the then-general 

manager of the Philadelphia 76ers. Sam Hinkie’s “process” was controversial: He 

purposefully tanked games in order to rebuild the failing team he had inherited 

and turn it into a stronger outfit. Although that might sound strange to someone 

who counts herself a greater fan of sports movies than she is of sports, the 


024-075.indd 44 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

overarching idea behind the credo “Trust the process” is fairly 

comprehensible: its notion of prizing patience and maintaining 

faith in a long-range vision. 

I do not know if Dano is a sports fan. We have not made it 

there in our conversation, nor do we ever arrive. I have no idea 

if he is aware of Hinkie, the 76ers, or if he puts stock in selfsabotage 

as a means of ascendance. But, boy, does the newly 

minted director and screenwriter (a credit he shares on Wildlife 

with his partner, the writer/actress Zoe Kazan) believe in 

“trusting the process.” In the fundamental things that apply to 

the uphill-mountainous worlds of film and sports both: trusting 

your abilities and to perseverance to see you through inevitable, 

unavoidable challenges on a road to success lined with 

spectators. Trusting, with patience and with faith, in yourself 

to the process you have set in motion. 

The first challenge Dano faced with Wildlife arrived before 

he had much of an idea of there being a process to ignite. He 

read and loved the novel by Richard Ford. The book charts 

the unraveling of a family in 1960 Montana. When dad Jerry 

(Jake Gyllenhaal in the film) loses his job as a golf-course 

groundskeeper, he leaves his wife Jeanette (a firecracker Carey 

Mulligan) and son Joe (Ed Oxenbould of Alexander and the 

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day) to join a group of 

volunteers battling wildfires up in the mountains. Faced with 

new freedom and not nearly enough money, Jeanette goes 

off the rails and into another, richer man’s arms, forcing our 

protagonist Joe to grow up quickly. 

The book struck several personal chords for Dano, who is 

best known for disappearing inside critically heralded roles 

like those in Little Miss Sunshine, There Will Be Blood, 12 Years 

a Slave and Love & Mercy, to name a few. In his Director’s 

Statement, he admits to growing up in a home like the one 

depicted in Wildlife, where there was “an extraordinary 

amount of love” but “also incredible turbulence.” When asked 

to expand upon this thought, Dano is understandably cagey 

and distant, although, to credit his professionalism, neither 

defensive nor resistant. Always he speaks measuredly, often 

pausing for several beats after he is asked a question. “I think 

the first thing I was struck by when I read it was Jeanette’s 

character,” he muses. “The feeling of discovering that your 

parents are people. And that they’re flawed people.” In fact, all 

three of the central characters “felt like me, like people I knew. 

They reminded me of my family, and I think I just wanted to 

try to understand a little better.” 

But the challenge was, Dano wasn’t sure if the story— 

emotionally resonant but, like many novels, resonant with 

its protagonist’s interior reflections—was right for the visual 

medium of the movies. 

“I spent about a year daydreaming about it. Probably reread 

the book several times and kind of just kept turning 

it over in my head.” The questions that stumped him were: 

“Could I do it, and why would I do it, and, you know, is there 

really a film here?” 

His patient ruminations paid off. “Eventually I thought 

of the final scene of the film and the final image,” which gave 

him the confidence to move forward. You can see which scene 

he is talking about if you watch the IFC movie’s teaser trailer: 

Mulligan and Gyllenhaal sitting against a blue dropcloth, staring 

into the camera, she with a sad and cracking determination 

to keep it together, he with a more vacant melancholia. In the 

film, it’s photography-apprentice Joe who takes this portrait of 

his family. But in the book, this scene never happens. 

It was Wildlife’s author, Richard Ford, who encouraged 

Dano to deviate from his text. The second challenge the director 

faced was optioning the novel—although that hurdle, to 

his delighted surprise, would prove the easiest to surmount. 

“I’m grateful to you for your interest in my book,” wrote 

Ford to Dano in an e-mail, “but I should also say this—in 

hopes of actually encouraging you: My book is my book; your 

picture—were you to make it—is your picture. Your moviemaker’s 

fidelity to my novel is of no great concern to me... Establish 

your own values, means, goal; leave the book behind so 

it doesn’t get in the way—and where it’s safest.” 

“That was a great sense of permission from somebody who 

you admire,” remembers Dano. “If I could have asked for him 

to say anything, it would have been something like that.” 

A smooth process, by all accounts, then, was Widlife the 

picture, in the beginning. 

And then Dano picked up a pen. 

For Challenge No. 3, The Writing (not to be confused with 

“The Reaping,” although a sense of horror-movie anxiety is 

not out of place here), Dano enlisted the help of his partner, 

Kazan. 

What was that dynamic between the couple like? One 

wants pryingly to know. 

“The initial conversations were probably more of a fight 

than anything,” Dano reveals with uncharacteristic alacrity. 

First he wrote a draft on his own that Kazan tore apart. That 

earliest attempt was “more about the image,” Dano admits. 

“And I didn’t write in screenplay format… I sort of wanted to 

write from a very naïve place, just to get the guts of it out on 

the page.” After he showed it to, and fought with, Kazan, “she 

was like, ‘I see what you’re trying to do, why don’t you just let 

me do a pass?’ And I said, ‘Great.’ I was so devastated—no, I 

mean, I wanted her help.” 

Kazan pulled Dano’s collection of images together into 

a dramatic structure. And then the real work, fueled by that 

patience and that faith which were already defining Dano’s 

methodology, began. For a few years the duo passed the script 

back and forth. “If she was acting in a film, I might do a pass 

on the script, you know, we’d talk about it; or if I was away, we 

would talk about it, and then she would do a pass.” 

In his 2016 resignation letter from The 76ers, Hinkie reflected: 

“This story underscores what our players, particularly 

our best players, are in greatest need of—time.” If you were 

to substitute the word “scripts” for “players,” this quote might 

well have come from Dano himself. The filmmaker agrees 

“that time was a great virtue for the [writing] process. Because 

in all the other parts of the process, time is such a precious 

commodity. Like, you don’t have time. Once you’re paying 

people,” he clarifies, mentioning the film’s small budget. 

With Challenge No. 4—the Technical Challenge, you 

might call it, or pre-production—Dano, a veteran of the movies 

as an actor, was surprised as a director by just how “technical, 

logistical, so much about money and schedule” it all was. 

It became useful for him to remind himself that “even when 

you’re making a budgetary decision, you’re making a film. It’s 

gonna impact what you put in front of the camera.” 

It’s here he mentions how hard it is to trust to “great stuff” 

blossoming beneath budgetary and scheduling constraints. But 

his faith in the process would soon be roundly, even uncannily, 

justified. 

“So the film takes place in Montana,” Dano recounts, 

“but we could only afford to shoot four days in Montana.” The 


024-075.indd 46 

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production moved on to Oklahoma, for a sound technical, 

logistical, monetary and scheduling reason—namely, “they 

have a really great tax incentive there. 

“We found a town [in Oklahoma] that had a lot of period 

vibes to it still. And we ended up finding a house that was 

one of the last locations we found, which was the scariest 

thing, because so much of the film takes place there [inside 

the family’s home.] And it ended up being some guy’s house 

from the late ’50s, who took care of the grounds at a golf 

course.” Some guy, that is, who had had the same job that Jake 

Gyllenhaal’s character, Jerry, has at the beginning of the film, 

and during the same era. This real-life Jerry whom Dano and 

his crew discovered “was blind and he had a lot of stuff from 

the ’60s still in his house.” As “bummed” as Dano was to forgo 

capturing more of the “beautiful” and “lonely” landscape of 

Montana, having now come out the other end, “I can’t imagine 

doing it any other way.” 

Nor could he imagine working with any other DP for this, 

Challenge No. 5: The Shooting. Prior to filming, Dano was 

given a list of 300 working cinematographers by an agent at 

WME. He chatted with many of them, but it was Diego Garcia 

(Neon Bull), who happened to speak the poorest English 

of the bunch but “the closest dramatic language to me,” who 

stood out. 

“Watching his stuff it was clear how it just felt like [there 

was] a great sensitivity to his frames. And also a great sense 

of composition, which was something that was really, really 

important for this film.” Indeed, the compositions in Wildlife 

are precise, delicate, at times exquisite in their formal arrangements 

and in their restraint. Garcia “also just felt immediately 

that sense of camera, cinematography, that was in the writing” 

and that had survived from Dano’s first “naïve” draft through 

Kazan’s restructurings. 

Such a sympathetic grasp of what Dano meant was crucial, 

for Dano was in thrall to the idea of portraiture, to paintings 

that “peel back the layers of what you see at first.” Hence his 

decision to deviate from the novel and have Joe photograph his 

family at the end, as well as to arrange his own frames with a 

painterly eye. True to Ford’s advice, this is very much Dano’s 

version of Wildlife, the way he both visually and thematically 

processes emotions on display—a process that also appears to 

be very much about catharsis, if not self-revelation. 

“Ultimately I think I’m most aligned with the kid, Joe,” 

the filmmaker says. It was through the character of Joe that 

Ford in his book captured “the way I would have, and still deal 

with, situations and struggles…this kid, rather than rebelling 

or acting out, he was kind of trying to hold the whole thing 

together. Like, trying not to let things get too far in the wrong 

direction. And that’s just kind of who I am, probably.” 

Dano had worked as an actor alongside Gyllenhaal before 

(in Prisoners; they also both appear in Okja, although never 

together), and Mulligan he deservedly raves about: She was “so 

all-in” and “such a wonderful collaborator… I was surprised 

how much she trusted me as a first-time filmmaker.” But Oxenbould 

was something else. 

“I started acting around his age,” explains Dano, who 

made his onscreen debut at 14 in a 1998 episode of The Disney 

Channel show “Smart Guy.” “I really felt it was important 

to me to make him a collaborator.” He describes the patient 

line of questioning he would put to Oxenbould: “Ed, what do 

you think? How do you feel? Does it feel true to you? Do you 

want another take?” But “Ed didn’t need” more takes or his 

director’s kid gloves. “We were so excited when we cast him, 

because we were like, ‘The kid’s a real actor’… He wasn’t just 

using natural abilities as a kid; he’s an actor.” 

It’s tempting to speculate Dano was so excited by his lead 

actor because of the sympatico understanding he shared with 

this teen showing up to prove his mettle on-set each day. It 

doesn’t seem too far off the mark to reflect—to use Dano’s own 

phrasing—if you were to peel back the layers of Oxenbould’s 

performance, you might find that behind the native Australian 

boy you see at first is Dano himself. Exposed, through the 

filmmaker’s decisions of framing and direction, in a way that 

starring in his own film, with the mannerisms of a character to 

hide behind, never could have left him. 

What is certain is that Dano would still be immersed in 

Challenge No. 6: The Edit, if given the chance. Of the editing 

bay he says: “If somebody had allowed me to, if we had the 

money, I would probably be in there for another year, just trying 

to move four frames somewhere. I mean, it’s an obsessive 

line of work.” 

Not to mention the fact one can never be certain what will 

happen once the picture closes. Inadvertently, I myself present 

Dano with another iteration of his process’ final and still 

ongoing challenge: The Reception. I wonder aloud if the “sort 

of distance” I think is evident in his highly aesthetic film was 

intentional, part of the “weight of myth or nostalgia” with 

which he has just said he wanted to imbue the movie. 

Pause for reflection. 

“I think—no. I don’t think so. For me, I don’t think 

distance was part of the vocabulary.” Dano then lists those 

factors that could have contributed to my misperception: how 

he wanted the characters to speak for themselves, without 

novelistic voiceover; how “the feeling of the camera” was 

partially inspired by (static) painting; how he wanted the 

movie to rely on the image and the cut to move things forward. 

“I think if it was a film that had push-ins on big moments, it 

would end up, for me, feeling a bit reductive.” 

In other words—the words of the nameless woman in T.S. 

Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” seem the most 

appropriate here—That is not what I meant at all; that is not it, 

at all. His patience has yet to wear. 

“We talk a lot about process—not outcome—and trying 

to consistently take all the best information you can and 

consistently make good decisions,” said the reliably analogous 

Hinkie when he was hired in May of 2013. “Sometimes they 

work and sometimes they don’t, but you reevaluate them all.” 

Despite journalists who might blunder in their readings, 

the outcome for Wildlife has been unanimously positive: As 

of this writing, the film stands at a ripe 100% on Rotten 

Tomatoes. And yet the point, it seems, is not only to focus on, 

but to find something galvanizing in the process of decisionmaking 

as you work towards the outcome; otherwise, every 

stage is a challenge to be got through, rather than met. Dano 

appears to understand this. “You are choosing the colors and 

the texture and the feeling of the house,” he says of being a 

director. “It’s so fun.” 

He is already reevaluating and thinking about his follow-up 

effort. He “couldn’t care less” if he made another adaptation or 

filmed an original story, so long as it’s “something to be inspired 

by.” Something worth his considerable patience and faith. 

“Hopefully, I’ll be able to say next time, ‘OK: This is gonna 

work, somehow.’ The first time it’s like: ‘Is this gonna work?’ 

And it’s scary not to know.” 


024-075.indd 47 

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Courtesy Bleecker Street 

A daughter returns to her childhood home to help her brother and father 

come to terms with her ailing mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s 

lost and found 

by Harry Haun 

What Elizabeth Chomko had before What They Had was a 

string of 16 under-distinguished film appearances—bits in 

indies or guest-shots-that-sometimes-swelled-to-recurring-roles 

in TV series—but running alongside this newbie actress was a 

writer trying to get out, followed quickly if not simultaneously by 

a director. 

Both emerged in a dazzling double-debut via this domestic 

drama from Bleecker Street that drew warm receptions at its U.S. 

premiere at Sundance as well as its international one in Toronto. 

“My love, really, was theatre,” Chomko confesses. “I went to 

school for theatre and philosophy and played a bunch of regional 

theatres in D.C. where I went to school. That’s how I learned to 

story-tell—through acting—but I was always a writer. My family 

moved around a lot when I was a kid, and my journal became 

my confidant.” 

Pages from that journal inform What They Had. Chomko lived 

it before she wrote it, which is why her characters come over so 

accessible and identifiable and life-sized. 

“The whole film is really a meditation on everything I know 

about love and where I learned it—from my parents’ relationship 

and my grandparents’ relationship, what was different, what was 

similar. They had different ways of communicating love.” 

Chomko and her two sisters did not grow up cinephiles, but 

their mother put them in front of films that had female storylines, 

“not for any political reason, but because that was the stuff 

she related to. I watched Anne of Green Gables and Julie Andrews 

musicals and Norma Rae—but what I really grew up doing was 

reading novels. It’s a difficult art form to bring into the cinema. 

Elizabeth Chomko (above right) wrote and directed What 

They Had, starring Blythe Danner and Hilary Swank (left) 

and Michael Shannon and Robert Forster. 

You have so much more real estate with a novel. That sort of interwoven 

storytelling was a big influence on writing this film.” 

Her specific inspiration came from observing her grandmother 

lose her memories—a tragedy that went into overdrive 

after her grandfather’s death in 2010. She herself died only three 

months ago, without ever seeing the film. “She had a 17-year 

battle with Alzheimer’s and, at the end, was quite debilitated by 

it and in no frame of mind to process what she saw. But I think 

she’d have been pleased with it. Her brothers were. My favorite 

moment so far was getting my uncles’ reaction after they saw it 

at Sundance. They said, ‘You couldn’t have given us a better gift.’ 

That’s when I realized what a film our memories are. Without 

our memories, what are we? Just living in the present without any 

context, and I didn’t want to take my memories for granted.” 

Some of her authentic past punctuates her picture, in fact. 

The rickety remains of her family’s home movies are sprinkled 

throughout. “I went out with a Super 8 camera myself and shot 

a bit, but all the archival footage is my grandfather’s. He was 

quite a documentarian. I don’t think he knew how intuitive he 

was with the camera, but he really found his moments with it. 

He had all this beautiful footage I always thought was so stunning, 

and I wanted to use it—in keeping with the themes and 

visual true-line of a film about memory. These flashes of the past 

and nostalgia certainly inspired me to make the movie. I was 

honored to be able to include them.” 

Such familiarity with the home turf gave Chomko the extra edge 


024-075.indd 48 

10/9/18 3:10 PM


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and authority that most first-time-out writer-directors are denied. 

There’s an unerring ring of truth about what is said and how the cast 

connects with those words. So confident is she as a screenwriter, she 

doesn’t always need words to make intimate scenes work. 

Two marriages come to an end in the movie without us hearing 

one word. And the film’s final fillip (which leaves us smiling) silently 

tells us why a turkey crosses the road (basically, the same reason a 

chicken, with much less fuss ’n’ feathers, does). 

“Turkey” is the pet name that passes between two elderly lovebirds, 

Burt and Ruth (Robert Forster and Blythe Danner, both 

in award-courting performances). As age creeps over him and 

Alzheimer’s over her, it’s their one true constant—but she can still 

identify her husband of four or five decades as her “boyfriend,” so 

there’s hope. 

The story starts on Christmas Eve, but it’s not a midnight clear. 

The momentarily unattended Danner blithely slips out into a blinding 

Chicago blizzard, forcing a family reunion whether they like it or 

not—and they don’t like it because it means deciding where they can 

safely stash Mama. There are a variety of views on this. 

Bridget (Hilary Swank), the daughter who fled to the West 

Coast, comes in with her college-age daughter, Emma (Taissa 

Farmiga)—who’s in an emotional freefall of her own—while 

Nicky (Michael Shannon), the son who dutifully stayed behind, 

comes from across town where he serves his prize-winning 

Manhattans in a bar he owns. 

Casting kudo: Swank and Shannon actually do look like they 

could be Forster’s issue, and the blunt head-butting that follows 

has an unmistakable familial reality to it. 

Not only was Swank the first to sign up for the film, she decided 

to extend her duties to help produce it as well. “Hilary really 

was an inspiring muse and pushed her character that extra 20 

percent to make her a real, tangible human being,” says Chomko. 

“I’d worked hard on the script to develop the characters as 

much as I could. Then, once I had my cast, I rewrote it to make 

magic out of the people that they were. The casting was perfect— 

thankfully!—because we had just 22 shooting days in Chicago, with 

no time to prepare or rehearse. It all suddenly came together, and 

we just went for it. Everyone was utterly committed to making it 

happen and getting it done. 

“I did encourage them to go off on their own. I let the camera 

roll and allowed them all to take their parts and run with it. They 

could change words, say it in their own way or improv. I wanted that 

almost Cassavetes-like overlapping of dialogue that happens when 

you’re with family. What I’m proudest of is how they really do seem 

like family—and for that I can’t take a lot of credit. They are the ones 

who did that.” 

What Chomko can take credit for is providing every member 

of the family with a full plate of conflict and angst. “People ask 

me which character in the film is me. In a way, they all are, I’m 

always working out some wound of my own with everybody. 

“With Hilary’s character, I can really relate to her sense of being 

a caregiver and wanting to please people. I think maybe that’s 

something women trouble about, and I’m hard on myself about 

that. Michael’s character is that voice of reason in my head that 

we all have. He’s that guy who forces everybody to reckon with 

the truth. What’s more, he’s almost always right, so, in effect, he 

prompts all of them to grow and see their own flaws. In a way, this 

is a kind of coming of age for all of them.” 

The kids are all right, but the real takeaway of this film comes 

from the parents in the supporting ranks, from Danner and Forster 

deep in the throes of life’s “badly written third act.” She has her 

dotty moments—answering a stapler instead of a phone or proudly 

announcing at dinner that she’s pregnant—but, toward the end in 

her last scene with Swank, Chomko allows her a moment of heartbreaking 

lucidity. 

If you think you’ve seen this Robert Forster before, you probably 

have. Chomko cast him right out of Alexander Payne’s The 

Descendants, where he played a short-fused, old-fashioned grandfather 

who bops a smart-mouthed teenager in the face. Burt in 

What They Had is a double-downed edition of that—a constantly 

charging engine for the film as well as the family, battling his offspring 

over his wife’s uncertain future. 

“I love the tone Alexander Payne found in that film,” Chomko 

admits. “He beautifully walked that line between hilarity and heartbreak, 

and Robert’s performance of a traditionally minded patriarch 

was funny and still had gravity. He was someone I wanted to see a 

whole movie about, so I made one. He was so in line with Burt.” 

Right now, the one-time actress is enjoying the film-festival 

fruits of her labors. “I really did the whole process— 

the writing and rewriting and learning how to be a filmmaker. All 

the other stuff that came from that—Sundance and Toronto—is 

really icing. For me, it was about the doing of it. Every part of it 

was a joy, in and of itself. 

Having given her own family tree a substantial shaking, Chomko 

is next branching out into a true story that’s not hers. She is adapting 

the memoir of the daughter of Jordan Belfort (a.k.a. The Wolf of Wall 

Street), telling how his conviction for white-collar crime impacted, 

and pretty much wrecked, the lives of his whole family. 

“The films I’m connected to, the stories I want to tell and be part 

of telling, all feel personal in some way—regardless of how actual 

and reflective of my life they are,” she says. “I don’t know how to connect 

unless it is something that I’m working out.” 


024-075.indd 50 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

dts.com/in-theaters

C elluloid J unkie’s T op W omen in G lobal C inema 

The Integrator 

Vilma Benitez Celebrates Four Decades at Bardan Cinema 

by Rob Rinderman 

In celebration of Celluloid Junkie’s third 

annual survey of its “Top 50 Women in 

Global Cinema,” we spoke with Bardan 

Cinema’s CEO, Vilma Benitez, who is 

listed as number 31 in CJ’s ranking. 

“I feel humbled and deeply honored to 

be in such good company,” she admits. “The 

diversity of our industry is so much of what 

makes it such a wonderful ecosystem to be 

a part of and I am glad to see that being 

celebrated.” 

Benitez has been the international service 

provider’s chief executive for the past 

11 years, first joining the organization way 

back in the late 1970s—an impressive fourdecade 

run. 

By way of a quick introduction for 

those who may be a little less familiar with 

the company, Bardan is a leading cinema 

systems integrator in Latin America and 

the Caribbean, with an increasing presence 

in the U.S. market. 

According to Benitez, “For three 

generations we have worked intimately 

with our customers and vendors to 

continuously nurture and develop the entertainment 

industry in our region. As the 

landscape has changed, we have helped 

our market to adapt in new technologies 

and modes of operation while focusing on 

traditional, high-touch customer service as 

a guiding principle.” 

Among those new technologies they are 

emphasizing and capitalizing upon is the 

growing popularity of laser projection. Recently, 

Bardan has noted tremendous positive 

momentum continuing to build behind laserilluminated 

projectors, Benitez confirms. 

More full laser complexes (cinemas 

where all of a facility’s auditoriums are 

outfitted with either laser phosphor or 

RGB laser projectors) have been opening in 

South and Central American countries such 

as Chile, Peru, El Salvador and Colombia, 

as well as in downtown Miami, just a stone’s 

Vilma Benitez, Bardan Intl. 

throw from the company’s Florida offices. 

“Not only are moviegoers beginning 

to take note of difference in image quality 

that RGB laser projectors provide,” Benitez 

affirms, “but exhibitors are now more intrigued 

than ever by the benefits an all-laser 

complex can afford them, from both an operational 

cost and maintenance perspective.” 

Provided a system is properly designed 

for a customer’s specific needs, the total cost 

of ownership (TCO) can be very compelling 

when compared to Xenon-illuminated 

projectors, especially when combined with 

special warranty packages, such as the ones 

Bardan offers to its international clientele. 

In the coming months, the company 

plans to make some “exciting” announcements 

related to new cinema projection 

system product offerings, so 2019 promises 

to be an even stronger year ahead for laser, 

Benitez predicts. 

Bardan’s technical arm—D-CinemaNOC—features 

a highly skilled team of 

technicians that are available on-demand 

and ready to provide a wide range of services 

to theatrical exhibitors. These include 

proactive equipment monitoring, remote 

support and onsite maintenance, system 

design and staff training. 

“With over 40 years in the cinema business, 

we know that we are an industry built 

on relationships, and at Bardan those relationships 

are paramount,” Benitez states. 

“Though the times have changed, our 

core focus has always remained the same 

since the company’s inception: to provide 

our customers with the right products and 

the best service experience possible. 

“We get to know our clients well, so that 

when we design a system for them, we know 

it is going to work for them from the very 

beginning and we follow through on that 

investment through the life of the products. 

We curate our list of vendors deliberately 

and thoughtfully, working with like-minded 

companies who understand the value of reliability 

and strong post-sale support.” 

According to its corporate website 

(www.bardaninternational.com), Bardan’s 

robust roster of industry partners includes 

Figueras, Strong/MDI, Dolby Atmos, Philips 

Lighting International, Cinionic/Barco 

Laser, Klipsch, Severtson Screens, Arts Alliance 

Media, DepthQ, APC by Schneider 

Electric, Dell and Cisco. 

The Bardan team has grown dramatically 

over the years and the organization continues 

to expand its local presence throughout 

the regions it operates in to better serve 

customers. Says Benitez, “As the industry 

has evolved technologically, we have served 

as advisors to our clientele, helping them 

make the investments worth making and 

avoid the risks not worth taking.” 

She continues, “We have leveraged 

continued on page 138 


024-075.indd 52 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

C elluloid J unkie’s T op W omen in G lobal C inema 

A-List Executive 

Elizabeth Frank Oversees Programming at AMC 

by Rebecca Pahle 

moviegoing experience is 

better than it ever has been,” 

‘The 

explains Elizabeth Frank, 

executive VP and chief content and 

programming officer at AMC Theatres. 

Technology is improving, luxury seating 

is on the rise and moviegoers who want 

to plop down their $8.97 to see a movie 

(2017’s average ticket price, calculated 

by NATO) have more food and beverage 

options to take advantage of than ever 

before. 

“Moviegoing,” notes Frank, “has 

always been the most affordable [form 

of entertainment]”—a more financially 

reasonable option than taking the family 

out to a sports event or live theatre. No 

doubt about it, 2018 is a good year for 

the movies—and a good year for AMC, 

North America’s largest exhibitor. And 

part of that is because of Frank, justly 

named #2 on Celluloid Junkie’s 2018 

list of the “Top 50 Women in Global 

Cinema.” “It is a great honor to be 

recognized with so many talented and 

committed executives,” Frank says. 

Frank is approaching her decade 

mark at AMC, having joined the 

company in 2010 as senior VP, strategy 

and strategic partnerships, a role she 

held until assuming her current position 

in 2012. Her first job, she explains, was 

“working for an independent distributor. 

For many years I worked on the content 

side of the industry. I was excited to join 

AMC to build stronger strategic and 

operational connections between content 

and consumers through exhibition/ 

distribution partnerships.” 

During Frank’s time at AMC, the 

company has been through a lot of 

changes. Chinese behemoth Wanda Film 

became their lead investor. AMC’s international 

acquisitions include Odeon/ 

Elizabeth Frank, AMC Theatres (USA) 

UCI and Nordic Cinemas, and they’ve 

moved into the Saudi Arabian market. 

More recently, AMC got into the 

burgeoning subscription-service market 

with A-List, which lets subscribers 

enjoy three movies per month at AMC 

theatres on top of their already-existing 

AMC Stubs benefits. “Consumer 

response to AMC Stubs A-List has been 

very enthusiastic,” Frank says of this 

“high-value program,” which recently 

hit 400,000 members. “In the first few 

months of program operation, we’re 

seeing A-List members significantly 

increase their moviegoing frequency and 

bring more friends and family to the 

theatre as well.” 

Expansion—whether of physical 

theatres or of services at already 

existing locations—is in the air for this 

moviegoing institution. For now, Frank 

says, AMC is going to be doubling 

down less on expanding to new markets 

(they’re already “the largest exhibitor in 

the world, with market-leading positions 

in both North America and EMEA”) 

than enhancing their existing theatres; 

it’s there that Frank sees AMC’s 

“strongest growth potential.” 

“AMC is updating theatre interiors 

and introducing premium moviegoing 

formats, expanding food and beverage 

offerings and installing customer 

amenities and conveniences,” she says. 

“These improvements are attracting 

greater audiences across the United 

States and Europe.” In the United 

States alone, “AMC entertains over a 

quarter-billion people each year, drawing 

audiences of all ages, ethnicities, 

interests and affinities.” 

Frank herself loves a good comedy: 

“Sharing the laughs with an audience 

makes the movie all the funnier.” It’s that 

shared experience that makes going to 

the movies so great—and what makes the 

theatrical industry, and AMC itself, such 

a vital part of the lives of so many. 


024-075.indd 54 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

A Word 

from Your 

Sponsor 

Lending Support to Industry Shows 

Has Lasting Benefits by Bob Gibbons 

Through the years, the 

major cinema shows have 

changed their names and 

locations; they’ve grown larger 

and more elaborate, attracting 

new participants, introducing 

new ideas, encouraging new 

thinking—and helping to 

unveil and advance the power 

of digital technology in an 

industry refreshing, reshaping 

and realigning itself for the 

future. 

All of that has made the 

shows more vital than ever to 

those who are serious about 

succeeding and growing in 

this business. Four principal 

shows—CinemaCon, 

CineEurope, ShowEast, and 

CineAsia—anchor the year; at 

each, sponsors help provide 

reasons for attendance. Here, 

four industry leaders talk 

about what they do at the 

shows—and why. 

Bob Raposo (Head of 

Cinema, Sony Electronics): 

We use trade shows for 

several purposes. We use 

them to get meetings 

with key customers and 

prospective customers 

around the world—so 

they’re gathering places 

for us. We also use them 

as a tool to gain industry 

knowledge—to find out 

what else is going on in 

the industry. And we use 

them as vehicles to demonstrate our latest 

products, our latest innovations. 

Jelle Deconinck (Communications 

Director, Cinionic): 

The shows allow us 

to communicate and 

demonstrate the passion 

we have for cinema; they 

allow everyone to see the 

quality of the big picture 

we’re delivering. Those 

are the moments when 

we can show what we’ve 

promised and meet with 

the customers and other 

partners who help drive 

our vision. 

Bob Raposo 

Jelle Deconinck 

Tony Adamson 

(Senior Vice President, 

Strategic Planning, GDC 

Technology): And there’s 

not a better place to find 

so many customers. We’ll 

have hundreds of formal 

meetings at CinemaCon. 

And then, there is always 

the “hallway meeting”; 

we’ve found it’s a good idea 

to walk the hallways when 

we can—because we often 

run into somebody who 

wants to get together for coffee or a drink, 

and that sometimes turns into a beneficial 

conversation. 

Steve Ochs (Senior Vice 

President, Brand & Content 

Development, NCM): 

We want to be where the 

exhibitors are—to continue 

the conversations that are 

fundamental to success in 

our industry. It’s the right 

place for us to integrate our 

big ideas into what’s going 

on—and in a way that adds 

seamless entertainment 

and value to those in the 

audience. 


024-075.indd 56 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

Raposo: Our goal 

is to create impact. The 

sponsorships packages 

we choose are those that 

align with what we need 

to accomplish, where we 

need to create impact as 

a company today. If we 

need to communicate 

a big message that has 

importance for the whole 

industry, we look at 

something that provides 

the opportunity to deliver 

a presentation to all attendees at the 

convention. 

Deconinck: The size, scope, scale and 

purpose of the show determine what 

we do and how. But, it’s important for 

us to bring a comprehensive story to 

exhibitors, to explain to them that, with 

all the changes happening in the cinema 

landscape, we can guide them to make 

good choices for the future. And this year, 

Barco launched a new brand, Cinionic, 

so it was important to introduce that 

brand—and to get our message across that 

we are taking this major step because we 

believe it’s needed at this moment in time. 

Tony Adamson 

Raposo: I think your 

sponsorships have to be 

responsible to your brand, 

wherever it fits in its brand 

cycle today. We’re very particular. 

We want to make sure 

our sponsorship enables us to 

get the right message to the 

right audience where they’ll 

listen to the message. We prefer 

a sponsorship that gives us 

an opportunity to speak. 

Deconinck: We are often 

part of panel discussions 

where we share our observations about 

what is happening today— 

and our vision of what 

we see happening in the 

future—so exhibitors can 

see how to react to those 

trends we believe are 

coming. 

Raposo: A panel 

discussion is a good 

opportunity to collaborate 

with peers and competitors 

on a specific message to 

a very targeted audience 

that’s interested in that 

Steve Ochs 

subject matter. But I think that sometimes 

panels lack a moderator who will 

challenge people on the panel, someone 

who can take the panel in directions that 

are relevant to the panelists, the audience 

and the industry today. 

Adamson: We prefer to sponsor an 

event that offers a speaking opportunity. 

At CinemaCon, we’ve been the 

co-sponsor of the Amazon Studios luncheon 

for the last three years. It’s a great 

opportunity for [GDC founder, chairman 

and CEO] Dr. Chong to speak to 

the audience because we know it’s going 

to be a well-attended event. We often 

consider sponsoring food 

functions, especially at 

the four major shows. 

Raposo: There are three 

reasons to sponsor a meal. 

You can do it to build a 

relationship with whoever 

is running the particular 

event. Secondly, you can 

sponsor the meal to give 

you access to people you 

might not otherwise have 

access to. Or, the third 

reason is that it gives you 

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024-075.indd 57 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

an opportunity to speak, to convey your 

message to a specific—and sometimes 

very large—group. 

Ochs: But we just don’t buy 

sponsorship packages off the shelf. We 

may buy elements of packages, but we 

try to craft each of our participations 

or integrations in coordination with 

the organizers who run each of the 

conventions. One of the things we like to 

do is to really integrate into the events, to 

find creative ways for NCM’s products to 

be part of the larger show events and add 

value for the attendees. 

Deconinck: It’s always important to 

consider who is visiting the show and 

what partnerships make sense. For us, we 

don’t just consider the short term, we also 

look at the long term, to see where the 

possibilities are and what are the interests 

of those attending the show. 

Adamson: Developing a show strategy 

starts with understanding the market, 

understanding your products and how 

they meet the needs of customers in a 

particular area, and then aligning your 

strategy—and your budget—for each 

show with those understandings. 

Ochs: The fact that shows are getting 

bigger and tougher to break through 

the noise and clutter just speaks more 

to the point that we want to be an 

integral and seamless part of the show. 

So, things like our “Ask the Audience” 

presentation, things like our CEO giving 

audiences a view on what’s trending 

in Millennial moviegoing, things like 

creating a customized pre-show for use 

before “The State of the Industry” event 

at CinemaCon—those are the sorts of 

things that enable us to integrate NCM 

into the show itself. 

Deconinck: At CineEurope this year, 

we sponsored a networking event in the 

evening; it was very successful because 

of its timing. During the day, a lot of 

people we want to talk to have a very 

busy schedule; it’s difficult to find a moment 

to connect with them. Organizing 

our event in the evening was a key opportunity 

for us. 

Adamson: Tradeshow positioning of 

our booth is one of the most important 

factors for GDC; we always want to be 

front and center, if that’s possible. From 

a booth-design perspective, we lay out 

our booth in zones—to best showcase our 

solutions available worldwide, and those 

developed for the specific region. 

Ochs: We don’t usually have a booth 

on the tradeshow floor, but as we become 

more of a consumer-facing company 

with our digital products, such as Noovie 

Arcade, we may start to think about 

having more of a tradeshow presence. 

Raposo: Someone who doesn’t 

understand our industry may struggle 

with the question of why you’d spend 

this amount of money at a tradeshow. We 

evaluate the price of being there against 

the price of not being there. The industry 

we’re in is very unique. It’s a very small 

community and you’re either a member 

or you’re not. And if you want to be 

taken seriously as a member, you have to 

participate. Tradeshow investments are 

one “price of admission.” 

Deconinck: But measuring is also 

important. We consider how many of our 

key customers attend those shows—and 

whom do we see? We also measure the 

success of our participation in the show 

by what we learned: what trends are 

happening, what is taking place in studios 

that will impact the business, what we 

have we learned from our customers and 

their expectations for the future. All of 

those are reasons why we believe we need 

to be a part of the show. 

Ochs: I don’t know if you can really 

ever draw a straight line between “show 

participation” and “sales,” because so 

many of these relationships are longerterm; 

we really value the relationships that 

can be created at these events. 

Adamson: It’s also a great opportunity 

to bring in your customers one-on-one, 

show them what’s new, and thank them 

for their business. Dr. Chong attends 

CinemaCon and CineAsia and I know 

our customers consider it a special 

opportunity to meet the founder of our 

company. 

Deconinck: Shows are also a learning 

experience. Every day, we have earlymorning 

briefings with our sales and 

marketing teams to share what we’ve 

learned—while it’s still fresh. And we try 

to make sure that everyone on our team 

knows what we’ve told our customers; 

we’re a global company and we need to 

speak consistently. When we return from 

the show, we also share our learning with 

our people who couldn’t attend. 

Raposo: And then we begin planning 

for next year. But planning gets serious 

during the budgeting process—to be 

sure we’ll have the money to accomplish 

what we need to. For me, there are two 

aspects to a sponsorship: There’s writing 

the check and there’s activation against 

that check. If you don’t have the resources 

and the ability to activate against your 

sponsorship, you may be disappointed. 

Ochs: You have to think holistically 

when you are engaging in a sponsorship. 

Adamson: It’s important to display 

your messaging at various touchpoints 

around the venue. You want your branding 

around every corner. Heavy exposure 

shows leadership in the industry; it 

shows that you care about the industry, 

that you support the industry, that you’re 

here to stay. 

Raposo: For what we pay for any 

sponsorship, we allocate at least double 

that for our activation expenses to create 

impact. 

Ochs: One of the best pieces of advice 

I’ve ever had is: Always think about how 

you can add value to the partnerships 

you’re going into. You can write a check 

for a sponsorship, but even better is 

everyone having gotten a lot out of 

what you did—and associating you with 

delivering that value. 

Adamson: Even if you’re not a major 

sponsor, it’s a good idea to know the 

organizers because you may not be able to 

sponsor a major luncheon, but they may 

bring you some ideas you’ve never thought 

of that could really make a difference to 

your business. 

Raposo: Talk to the show organizers 

and tell them: “This is where I am; this 

is what I want to accomplish. What do 

you have that could help me to accomplish 

this?” They’ve done this for a long 

time and they can help put together 

something that helps you reach the people 

you need to reach with the impact 

you need to have. 

Deconinck: Being at shows and events 

is about knowing each other, it’s about 

listening to each other, learning from each 

other, sharing experiences and finding solutions 

that make long-term sense. Shows 

provide moments in time when we can 

meet each other, enjoy each other’s company 

and strengthen our relationships. 

Ochs: We’re all part of the entertainment 

community. We’re involved as a 

sponsor because we believe that our ability 

to do things at the level we love—and 

with the passion we have for the movies—is 

going to pay off in the long run. 

Adamson: Because finally, the trade 

show is a great opportunity for us to show 

customers that the innovations we provide 

enable them to show motion pictures 

under the best possible conditions—and 

to bring added value to their audience. 

We help them to deliver on the promise 

and the potential of digital cinema; we 

help them to keep their theatres viable for 

the future. 


024-075.indd 58 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

Let your silver screen 

shine with St. Jude kids 

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital ® is leading the way the 

world understands, treats and defeats childhood cancer and 

other life-threatening diseases. But we can’t do it without you. 

By donating pre-show advertising to screen the annual St. Jude 

Thanks and Giving ® movie trailer, you can support our lifesaving 

mission: Finding cures. Saving children. ® The generosity of you 

and your patrons helps ensure that families never receive a bill 

from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing or food—because 

all a family should worry about is helping their child live. 

St. Jude patients 

Felicity and Axel 

For more information, please email chance.weaver@stjude.org or visit stjude.org/theaters 

NEW STRAND Theatre 

West Liberty, Iowa 

Over 100 Years of Entertainment 

©2018 ALSAC/St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (37302) 

9/24/18 11:09 AM

Changing 

Landscape 

The Global Economy Impacts 

M&A Activity in Film Exhibition by EFA Partners 

The past several years have seen unprecedented 

changes in the business 

world, with much of that spawned 

from technological advances and the growing 

dynamics of social media. Each country’s 

economic outlook is becoming more 

and more intertwined with the rest of the 

world. This has resulted in companies seeking 

an increased global reach. 

This outlook has transformed many industries, 

including film exhibition. The industry 

that was once dominated by the Hollywood 

studios and the North American box 

office has now entered a new era. International 

box office is growing at a record pace, 

with 2017 at $29 billion, up from $24 billion 

five years earlier in 2012. This is over two 

and a half times North American box office 

of $11 billion, only modestly up from $10.8 

billion in 2012. The number of international 

screens has also grown, primarily fueled by 

China, which increased its screens in the past 

ten years from about 5,000 to almost 49,000. 

This surpassed the total of the North American 

market, which has about 43,000. 

The film exhibition industry has found it 

necessary to transform itself with the digital 

age. Almost all screens in North America 

and worldwide are now digital. The advent of 

digital projection has reduced the costs associated 

with movie delivery, while also providing 

for benefits such as 3D movies, increased 

alternative content, more dynamic sound, 

motion seating, laser projection, and more efficient 

auditorium usage. However, the digital 

age has also provided increased theatre competition 

from movie-streaming services such 

as Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and others. This 

has forced film exhibitors to be innovative 

with enhanced services and amenities such 

as luxury recliner seating, enhanced food 

options, beer, wine and cocktails, in-theatre 

dining, and even adding attractions such as 

bowling and laser tag. 

All of the above has culminated in 

much consolidation within the film exhibition 

sector in the past few years, resulting 

in an increase in theatre values. Certain 

companies worldwide are seeking to expand 

their business platforms, while others are 

electing to sell rather than invest in theatre 

upgrades. 

M&A Activity 

The film exhibition sector has recently 

seen major consolidation globally. Up until 

recently, most consolidation had been regional, 

such as various acquisitions in the 

U.S. or companies such as Odeon and Vue 

acquiring companies throughout Europe. 

This changed dramatically with Dalian 

Wanda entering the market. In less than 

three years, it acquired AMC in the U.S. 

and Hoyts in Australia; subsequently, AMC 

acquired Carmike, Odeon/UCI and Nordic. 

Following a similar path to growth, U.K. 

operator Cineworld acquired Regal Entertainment, 

making it one of the industry’s 

largest companies. 

Wanda and Cineworld are not alone in 

the pursuit of establishing an international 

platform. Others have expanded into North 

America, such as European exhibitor Kinepolis 

acquiring Landmark Cinemas in Canada, 

Mexico’s CMX acquiring Cobb Theatres 

in the U.S., and Mexico’s Cinepolis acquiring 

certain U.S. theatres from Bow Tie Cinemas 

and from Krikorian Premier Theatres. 

In the U.S., various exhibitors have 

grabbed market share by acquiring theatre 

circuits that are complementary to their 

existing theatre portfolio. 

Motivation of Acquirers 

Larger exhibitors are continuously seeking 

ways to increase shareholder value via 

growth, whether from building new theatres, 

upgrading existing theatres, acquisitions, 

or some combination thereof. 

While organic growth or upgrades can 

result in significant returns on capital over 

the long term, acquisitions can result in nearterm 

increases in revenue and profitability. 

Wanda has demonstrated this with its various 

acquisitions, as it quickly gained market 

share in countries where it previously had 

little or no presence. More recently, Wanda 

has curtailed its growth due to the cash constraints 

associated with growing so quickly. 

Larger exhibitors with an established 

corporate infrastructure have an advantage, 

as they can acquire theatres based upon a 

multiple of theatre level cash flow without 

absorbing duplicative corporate overhead. 

Acquisitions can also take place when exhibitors 

want to venture into new theatre platforms. 

This was demonstrated when Southern 

Theatres acquired Movie Tavern to delve into 

the increasing popularity of in-theatre dining. 

Motivation of Sellers 

The motivation of sellers varies greatly 

depending on the outlook of ownership. 

Smaller exhibitors may not have easy access 

to the capital necessary to upgrade and stay 

competitive in their markets. 

Also, owners of theatres that are operated 

by older generations may not have the inclination 

to go through an extensive upgrade 

project, as the payback can be long for investments 

in luxury seating and other amenities. 

Another primary factor is the current 

market. Traditionally, film exhibition companies 

have sold in the range of six times 


024-075.indd 60 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

the net theatre-level cash flow. The multiple 

varies depending upon the size of the theatre 

portfolio, capital expenditure needs, and the 

economic outlook for the theatres’ markets. 

While these factors all still play an important 

role in acquisition pricing, cash flow 

multiples for larger circuits are now as high 

as eight times, and potentially higher for 

exhibitors with diversified revenue sources 

such as in-theatre dining. These increases are 

primarily due to new entrants in the industry 

paying a premium to gain market share. 

On the other hand, many exhibitors are 

currently focused on deploying capital for their 

theatre upgrades and so are reluctant to sell 

until they see the benefits of the upgrades that 

will in turn increase their overall circuit value. 

Real Estate 

As exhibitors explore strategic options, 

those that own their theatres’ real estate 

have an alternative to selling the business by 

instead only selling the real estate. This can 

be accomplished via a sale/leaseback transaction 

that can provide owners with significant 

funds but also allow them to continue 

operating their theatres. 

Exhibitors of all sizes have completed 

sale/leasebacks including large exhibitors 

such as AMC and Regal, and mid-sized exhibitors 

such as Georgia Theatre Company, 

Krikorian Premier Theatres, Muller Family 

Theatres and many others. 

As compared to a mortgage in which 

banks typically lend 60 to 70% of property 

value and the funds must be used for the 

business, a typical sale/leaseback provider 

will buy the property at full value and the 

proceeds can be used for ownership dividends, 

capital expenditures or other needs. 

Typical lease terms are 15 to 20 years with 

several extension options. In most cases, the 

providers of this type of financial instrument 

require the rent to be about half of the cash 

flow generated by the theatre. 

There are certain financial companies 

that have a focus on theatre sale/leasebacks, 

and more have recently entered the market. 

All understand the increasing value of theatre 

properties in good markets. 

Conclusion 

The global economy and the digital age 

have brought significant change to many 

industries, including film exhibition. While 

the industry has grown, as demonstrated by 

the increased number of theatres and rising 

box office, theatre owners have needed to 

be innovative to compete against streaming 

services. This has resulted in opportunities 

for both buyers and sellers in the sector. 

Many companies feel that acquisitions are 

the quickest route to gain market share, while 

others want to sell to take advantage of increasing 

business values rather than investing 

capital for upgrades. While this trend may 

slow down, M&A activity could remain very 

prevalent during the next several years as 

both potential buyers and sellers explore an 

ever-changing business environment. 

EFA Partners is a boutique financial 

advisory firm that provides investmentbanking 

services focused on M&A and 

arranging capital for entertainment, media 

and technology companies. 


024-075.indd 61 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

A New Shade 

of Green 

Cinemas Make Eco-friendliness a Priority 

by Tom Bert, Senior Product Manager, Barco n.v. 

In our recent series of articles on the 

future and trends of the cinema market, 

the common denominator was the 

growing maturity around going digital. 

While exhibitors started adopting digitalprojection 

technology 15 years ago, true 

fully digital workflows have been generally 

lagging. As a projector manufacturer, we 

experience the changing mindset every 

day based on the types of questions we get 

from our customers. Where initially these 

centered on performance metrics (“How 

much light does it generate?”), we now see 

a focus change to operational efficiencies 

(“How can I best integrate and automate my 

cinema workflow?”). Part of this conversation 

is the aspect of energy efficiency and ecofriendliness: 

Having the most lumens is 

no longer front of mind, but, linked to the 

broader TCO focus, power consumption and 

ecological footprint come into play. Is “green” 

the new “white” in cinema? And what does it 

take to design and operate a green projector? 

That is the topic of this article. 

The world around us 

Green product design and ecological 

awareness is not something new. Many 

markets outside cinema already have 

gone through complete maturation in 

this domain, often driven by government 

regulation. Let’s zoom in on an initiative 

that comes very close to the cinema 

market: the Directive of the European 

Parliament and of the Council with regard 

to eco-design requirements for standby, 

networked standby and off-mode electric 

power consumption of electrical and electronic 

household and office equipment 1 . 

This directive stipulates—amongst other 

things—an “Off mode power” of 0.3W 

and “Standby power” of 0.5W. “Networked 

standby” is specified at 2W. Being active 

in a world where 6kW lamps have been 

considered normal for many years and 

10kW flagship laser projection systems 

have been deployed for a few years, these 

wattage numbers sound frighteningly low. 

The good news is that this directive does 

not enforce its rules on cinema projectors; 

it explicitly mentions “excluding projectors 

with mechanisms for exchanging the lenses 

with others with different focal length.” 

The “bad” news is that it impacts almost all 

other electrical appliances in our everyday 

life…and will actively do so by 2020. 

This European legislation is not the 

only change happening. The Chinese government 

is also putting in place similar 

green rules. As part of the United Nations 

Framework Convention on Climate 

Change (“the Paris Agreement”), other 

countries and governments will take action 

from 2020 onwards. The writing is on the 

wall that these regulations will impact a 

broader scope of products in the future, including 

cinema equipment and projectors. 

What the market thinks of it 

Cinemark, one of the world’s leading 

exhibitors, has been proactive in engaging 

in energy-efficiency projects to ensure that 

new and existing theatres meet their energy 

goals. When they were recognized with 

the Built Environment award in 2015, they 

stated: “As we continue to be diligent and 

proactive with our environmental projects, 

Cinemark’s energy savings will continue to 

rise as we work toward reducing our environmental 

footprint.” 2 That year, through 

its environmental sustainability program, 

Reel Green, they saved 41,570,375 kWh 

and $4.4 million through facility energy 

efficiency upgrades. 

In a 2018 interview with Cinema Technology, 

3 Kathryn Pritchard, group chief 

people officer at The Odeon Group, stated: 

“Odeon has a major Corporate Social 

Responsibility strategy across all of its 14 

territories, targeting three important promises: 

to become more inclusive through 

‘Our Incredible Differences’ program, 

to reduce our carbon footprint, and to 

contribute more in our communities.” An 

example given was electricity consumption 

reduction by nearly 14%. Odeon was also 

rewarded the Carbon Trust Standard for 

Carbon, thanks to a 14.8% reduction in 

CO 2 

footprint. 

There are clearly benefits to gain from 

going green. Cost savings due to lower 

energy consumption and waste is an attractive 

one. The numbers mentioned in 

the examples above show that the savings 

can be significant. The added brand value 

is as important, but harder to quantify. As 

consumers are confronted with more green 

initiatives in the world around them, moviegoers 

will also look for those efforts when 

choosing which cinema to visit. As an 

exhibitor, it is no longer a topic that can be 

ignored. The good news is that taking steps 

in the right direction is not difficult: In the 

next paragraph, we will explain how Barco 

helps as a projector manufacturer 

The green projector 

Introducing energy savings and stepping 

up ecological operations is of course 

not only a matter of the projector. Material 

re-use (in concessions) and building 

management are as important to consider. 

Barco has an online white paper that talks 

about HVAC for lamp and laser cinema 

projectors and how to optimize this for 



024-075.indd 62 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

Deep Dive 

Movio’s Weekend Insights Provides 

Detailed Audience Intel by Rob Rinderman 

Movio CEO Will Palmer 

With its recent debut of Weekend 

Insights (WI), Movio— 

the global, cinema-centric 

and marketing data analytics-based 

organization—is now focused on providing 

a weekly window each Monday into 

cinemagoing audience composition for the 

previous weekend. 

Through its proprietary deep-learning 

AI algorithms, the company continually 

crunches the wealth of information it 

collects via theatrical exhibitor loyalty 

programs and online ticket-sales platforms 

based on purchases made by hundreds of 

thousands of moviegoers across the U.S. 

The audience is broken down by gender 

into three broad demographic segments: 

Millennials, Gen X and 50+. Weekend 

Insights also highlights which specific 

audience segments’ attendance was up, 

down or underserved. The most recent 

version of WI is always accessible via 

movio.co/resources/weekend-insights. 

According to CEO Will Palmer, 

“Movio’s mission is to connect all 

moviegoers to their ideal movie.” The 

company has created two products 

designed to help achieve that purpose. 

Movio Cinema is connected to POS 

(Point of Sale) and loyalty programs of 

leading worldwide cinema chains and 

profiles every moviegoer, allowing Movio’s 

partners in exhibition to send personalized, 

relevant communications to them. 

The second product, Movio Media, 

provides studios with access to an 

aggregated and anonymized set of U.S. 

moviegoers. This allows analytical teams 

the ability to analyze the ideal audience and 

connect with them via digital advertising. 

The WI publication is designed to provide 

the media and other industry bodies 

with insight into who (by demographic categories) 

made up the past weekend’s cinemagoing 

audience, offering up valuable intelligence 

beyond simply calculating industry 

box-office grosses for individual titles. 

“Our primary objective is to help the 

industry understand which audiences were 

well served by the films in theatre, every 

weekend,” says Palmer. “The goal here is 

help film programmers and those dating 

the films to look at the audience dynamics 

rather than purely box-office performance, 

to ensure all audiences are served as best 

as possible every weekend.” According 

to Palmer, Weekend Insights starts the 

conversation about audiences and how 

they were catered to on a regular basis. It is 

Movio’s hope that as the industry becomes 

more aware of each film’s audience 

composition, this valuable intelligence 

will help drive a change in approach in an 

effort to have something in the theatre that 

appeals to everyone, every day. 

Palmer observes, “By providing this 

high-level, easy-to-digest window into 

who attended what film, the narrative 

starts to evolve and the approach to 

marketing and programming may well 

change.” 

Weekend Insights also offers the film 

industry valuable feedback as to the success 

of their overall and specific marketing 

efforts in reaching their desired audience, 

or perhaps bringing into the theatre an 

unexpected audience. Let’s look at a recent 

example from summer 2018, a period in 

which the box office was widely seen as 

achieving significantly more success than 

in the prior year. According to Movio, the 

data identifies a couple of high-level factors 

for the year-over-year outperformance. 

First was record-breaking performances 

by Avengers: Infinity War and Incredibles 2, 

combined with a very strong performance 

by Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. While 

Avengers wasn’t technically a summer 

movie, its strong holdover meant that it 

made in excess of $400 million after the 

first of May, so it no doubt contributed to 

the sense that more people were going to 

the movies during the summertime. 

A couple of other releases—The Meg 

and Crazy Rich Asians—outperformed 

expectations and also generated some 

excitement in August, which was lacking 

in the prior summer. We may see this 

reverse in September, according to Palmer 

(note: we spoke to him when the month 

was more than half over), as there isn’t 

anything comparable to It. Although The 

Nun brought in a lot of horror fans, the 

movie didn’t have the almost blockbusterlike 

audience that Stephen King’s It drew 

in 2017. 

Drilling down and looking deeper 

at changes in attendance between this 


024-075.indd 64 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

summer and last (Movio calculates an 

attendance rise of roughly 15% in 2018), 

the overall increase was largely driven 

by a rise in women’s attendance (>20%). 

Interestingly, this doesn’t appear to be 

the result of a large number of films 

targeted specifically at women—perhaps 

this summer’s films were simply less 

focused on the male audience. 

Child attendance rose approximately 

7%, although there actually wasn’t that 

much quality content aimed at children 

in the summer of 2018. Incredibles 2 

accounted for in excess of 25% of all 

child attendance over the summer, with 

Hotel Transylvania 3 at 12%, followed by 

the Jurassic and Marvel films. 

While Weekend Insights is 

essentially a backward-looking service, 

we asked Palmer to look into his 

(and Movio’s) crystal ball and make 

some prognostications about the 

upcoming holiday period—between 

Thanksgiving and Christmas—which 

is typically a big contributor to a full 

year’s success at the box office. Below 

is his response. 

Thanksgiving looks like an 

interesting weekend this year, with 

something for everyone: 

▶Ralph Breaks the Internet for 

families. 

▶Second weekend of Fantastic 

Beasts for blockbuster fans—it will 

be interesting if we see a lot of repeat 

viewings, as frequent moviegoers that 

went on opening weekend come back 

with their families/friends. 

▶Creed 2 and the second weekend 

of Widows for Mature Action fans. 

▶Second Act for those Comedy/ 

Romance fans. 

▶Instant Family (second week) for 

fans of all-ages comedy. 

Christmas is somewhat less 

interesting: 

▶Mary Poppins Returns will 

dominate with families and older 

moviegoers. 

▶The competition between 

Aquaman and Bumblebee for the 

sci-fi/blockbuster audience will be 

fierce. It’s notable that the majority 

of the top-grossing films for the past 

few years have been part of existing 

franchises. This competition will 

presumably also affect the second 

weekend for Mortal Engines, which 

will probably drop significantly from 

week one, and may also pull males 

under 50 away from Will Ferrell’s 

Holmes and Watson. 

A New Shade continued from page 62 

performance, lifetime and TCO. 4 In this 

article, we will zoom in specifically on the 

digital cinema projector and how it can 

contribute. 

1. Electro-optical efficiency: This metric 

quantifies how efficient a projector is in creating 

light-out-of-the-lens from electricityout-of-the-wall. 

The transition from lampto 

laser-based projectors has introduced a 

major step forward here, with efficiencies 

that are more than double compared to the 

equivalent lamp model. Looking, for example, 

at a popular mainstream 20,000- 

lumens cinema projector, the lamp model 

consumed around 5.2kW. The equivalent 

(form-fit-function compatible) laser-based 

model only requires 2.8kW. At a typical 

electricity cost of $0.15 per kWh and 4,000 

operational hours per year, this yields (not 

even taking into account the cost of lamp 

swaps) a $1,440 cost saving per year. When 

you start scaling that to a multiplex, across a 

complete chain, the impact is massive. 

2. We did an analysis of what the consequences 

for the European cinema market 

could be. Taking into account the screen 

size mix in Europe—and hence the mix 

between high, medium and low-brightness 

projectors—and the screening hours, we 

found that a mind-blowing 700GWh is 

consumed per year by European cinema 

projectors! Yes, that is Giga Watt hours! If 

we would replace every lamp-based cinema 

projector with its equivalent laser-illuminated 

version, this number would drop by 

150GWh. That is the equivalent production 

of a small nuclear power plant in one 

month! Note that if we did the same for the 

worldwide cinema market, results would be 

between three to five times higher! 

3. Eco mode: In the calculation above, 

we zoomed in on the 4,000 hours per year 

that a typical cinema projector is running 

and actually screening movies. This is an average 

that does not take into account what 

the projector is doing in between screenings. 

What happens overnight (between 

the last screening of the day and the next 

screening of the following morning) varies: 

Either the complete setup is shut off (there 

are exhibitors that close down after the last 

screening by turning off the main power) 

or the electronics are kept running. The 

latter case is typically to allow for backend 

processes such as ingests or updates to happen 

overnight. What happens in between 

screenings (between the first and the last of 

the day) also varies: Either the light source 

stays on (advised for lamps when the break 

is short—lamps need time to cool down and 

can show wear from each strike) or is shut 

off (no problem with laser light sources, 

independent of the duration of the break). 

In any case, the projector electronics typically 

stays on. When looking at the power 

consumption of a projector with only its 

electronics on, you are looking at a 300W- 

500W number. Even in what is defined as 

“sleep mode,” such a system hardly gets below 

10W. If we look back at the below 1W 

numbers that are being imposed by regulations 

on other electronic devices, there is a 

big gap to cross. 

4. Reusable modules: Of a different type 

and often overlooked is the ability to reuse 

certain modules on the projector as part of 

its scheduled maintenance cycle. The two 

most obvious ones are air filters and cooling 

liquid. Barco projectors all have reusable 

air filters: The service technician can easily 

blow, vacuum and/or rinse these out and put 

the same module back in the projector. This 

is not only the most eco-efficient approach; 

feedback from customers with a mixed 

installed base confirms that it is also the 

most cost-efficient. The same applies to the 

internal cooling liquid: Where older designs 

required a regular refill or replacement of 

cooling liquid, it is today perfectly possible 

to design a projector to run its entire lifetime 

without worrying about that. 

Conclusion 

Looking at the evolving trends around 

and inside the cinema market, there is a 

growing importance of energy-efficient and 

eco-friendly product design. This not only 

yields potential cost savings for exhibitors, 

but also an opportunity to take it along in 

their branding. Consisting of many contributors, 

“running green” can be impacted 

significantly by a proper projector selection. 

Things like wall-plug efficiency, eco-mode 

power consumption and reusability of modules 

are enablers that exist today. However, 

looking at where the bar is being placed in 

other markets, cinema will have to step up 

as well. As an exhibitor, you should reach 

out to your equipment suppliers and not 

only talk about the green colors onscreen, 

but also about how they can help support 

your green value proposition. 

1 

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/ 

LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2009:285:0 

010:0035:en:PDF 

2 

www.ase.org/news/six-star-energyefficiency-award-winners-behonored-alliance-save-energy 

3 

www.cinematech.today/index. 

php/2018/08/24/the-september- 

2018-edition-of-ctm-is-now-online 

4 

www.cinionic.com/news/cinionic-barcohvac-white-paper 


024-075.indd 65 

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Emerging 

Technologies 

Innovation in the Cinema Is Far from Over 

by Adam MacDonald, Regional Sales Head, Sony Digital Cinema 

Over a century on from the 

Lumière brothers inventing the 

cinematic experience, the world 

of film continues to innovate. 

The digitization of cinema has not 

only shifted the projection environment 

but created a landscape characterized by 

impressive technological evolution. While 

advancements in the areas of 4K and HDR 

are continuing to evolve the viewing experience 

today, there are also cutting-edge 

technologies emerging that will set the 

stage for the further future of cinema. 

Ultra High Definition 

We’re living in the age of 4K. Consumer 

adoption has accelerated, in some 

cases faster than the move from standard 

definition to high definition, to the extent 

that 100 million 4K TVs are expected to 

be sold globally in 2018 alone. 

When it comes to the audience experience, 

the benefits of 4K in the theatre 

can’t be understated. Pixilation is a risk in 

cinemas, particularly for those sitting at 

the front of an auditorium, and the distraction 

created by jagged edges or blur simply 

won’t cut it for today’s viewers who have 

come to demand crystal-clear, lifelike images. 

Indeed, in some European markets, 

81% of viewers have stated they would 

prioritize 4K film screenings over 2K. 

Currently, around one-third of cinemas 

in the U.K. are 4K-capable. It’s a strong 

start, but as cinemas compete to retain 

their rightful place as the ultimate moviewatching 

destination, engage audiences 

and differentiate their content, 4K capabilities 

could be just the ticket they need to 

future-proof their business. 

…and beyond 

While 4K adoption is paramount to 

meeting and exceeding audience expectations 

around image quality, it’s not the only 

ingredient in the recipe for an incredible 

visual experience. High Dynamic Range 

(HDR) technology provides vivid, lifelike 

colors, closing the gap between the range 

of colors the human eye and the screen can 

reproduce and detect. On top of this, great 

contrast ratio—the ability to display deep 

blacks—is essential to lifelike pictures. 

This is all particularly pertinent today. 

As the move to digital took place well over 

a decade ago, and cinemas migrated to 2K 

digital projection in the decade following, 

many exhibitors are understandably now 

looking at what comes next. The current 

era will not necessarily be defined by novel 

experiences—such as 3D—but on refining 

the most important element of cinema— 

the image. By arming themselves with today’s 

leading 4K, HDR-capable projection 

technology, exhibitors will be set for years 

to come. 

The cinemas of tomorrow 

Across the industry, laser projection 

will continue to grow in popularity thanks 

to its combination of incredible picture 

quality, ease of maintenance and longlasting 

lifespan. Yet with screen technology 

constantly evolving, we’re also seeing a 

diversification of the types of screens entering 

the cinema environment. 

Crystal LED is one emerging technology 

that offers a scalable solution while 

having incredible color reproduction, and 

in some cases near 180-degree viewing 

angles. As the Premium Large Format sector 

continues to grow, new forms of screen 

technology, such as Sony’s Crystal LED, 

will become a further option for those 

looking to offer the largest, most immersive 

Premium Large Format screens. 

Beyond the image itself, we can expect 

to see experimentation with technologies 

such as augmented reality. By allowing 

viewers to interact with the big screen 

through their smartphones using gamification, 

for example, some cinemas are exploring 

the potential for AR applications to 

alter the cinema experience. Others, meanwhile, 

are placing screens on every wall of 

the cinema, filling the viewer’s peripheral 

vision, or offering “4D” experiences incorporating 

movement and physical feedback 

into cinema chairs. 

Where do we go from here? 

Screen technology is just one important 

factor when it comes to the future of 

the cinema. Operators must also consider 

high-definition formats for audio and 

immersive sound, expand and differentiate 

their content and find new ways to 

generate exciting new revenue possibilities 

through diversifying the use of their space. 

In short, cinemas need to keep reinventing 

themselves as high-end entertainment destinations 

in their own right. 

While the cinematic experience may 

have progressed a staggering amount from 

when the Lumière brothers hand-cranked 

the first minute-long short films to an audience 

in Paris, the days of cinematic innovation 

are far from over—and the time for 

cinema owners to look ahead is now! 

For more information, go to pro. 

sony/4K-cinema-projectors. 


024-075.indd 66 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

PRESENTS 

ExcEllEnt contEnt 

& lIVE EVEnts 

iN YouR ThEaTRE 

sporting events 

• Broadway • movies • ConCerts 

Untitled-1 1 

10/5/18 3:48 PM

Around 

the Hub 

How Exhibitors Benefit from Centralization 

by Danny Jeremiah, Head of Cinema Products, Arts Alliance Media 

Humans organize our activities 

around hubs. In fact, it’s one of the 

most powerful tools at our disposal. 

Gathering people, goods or data around a 

hub enables efficiencies that would be otherwise 

unachievable, and it is this kind of 

cooperative organization that has made our 

species so successful. It’s the reason we have 

cities, schools, offices and airports, to name 

just a few examples. 

The benefits of centralizing on a process 

or organizational level are apparent in most 

cases: economies of scale, head office visibility 

and control, and reduction in human 

error. There are fewer examples of centralization 

on an industry level, because of 

the complexity of aligning companies that 

might otherwise be competitors, but the 

stories of those that managed to get it right 

are powerful. 

Consider airports. The air-travel industry 

has developed routes centered around 

hubs across the world like London, Dubai 

and New York. Because of these hubs, you 

can reach practically any commercial airport 

in the world from any other with at most a 

couple of layovers. 

But imagine a world where each airport 

could only get you to a handful of others. A 

world where an airline built their own proprietary 

radar system, which only integrated 

with one particular air-traffic-control program, 

which was only installed at airports in 

the region. To get from one side of the world 

to the other, you would be looking at dozens 

of changes and days of wasted time hopping 

between services, all because suppliers 

couldn’t decide on any collective standards. 

Airlines, local governments and manufacturers 

all foresaw that possible future, 

and realized it wasn’t workable. They must 

have set aside some of their own agendas 

and processes to devise a solution that 

worked for them and their customers. 

Deciding to centralize operations around 

hubs was key to ensuring their operating 

standards were compatible, and would 

remain so as they evolved. 

And yet, up to this point the cinema 

industry has had mixed success in applying 

this logic. The DCI standardization 

was a triumph in quality assurance and 

interoperability, but the core mechanics 

behind putting a movie onscreen today 

are still technically complex, often manual 

processes conducted in isolation by 

separate parties. 

If we do think about centralizing, it is 

still on a process or organizational level, 

such as with exhibitors managing their 

playlists from the head office. In reality, 

however, the worldwide network of digital 

technology we have installed in over 

160,000 screens has already opened up the 

possibility of industry-level centralization 

around new “hubs.” These hubs could form 

around many of those multi-party tasks I 

mentioned before: the creation and delivery 

of KDMs (Key Delivery Messages), preshow 

ads, trailers, etc. 

Arts Alliance Media, for example, has 

been serving as a hub that connects our 

existing Screenwriter Theatre Management 

System (TMS) customers and Deluxe 

Technicolor Digital Cinema (DTDC), in 

order to facilitate fully automated KDM 

delivery. By connecting two completely 

separate parts of the industry via the cloud, 

we have provided them both the results 

they wanted: DTDC now gets proof of 

delivery for their KDMs, and the exhibitors 

don’t have to worry about managing those 

KDMs, because they simply appear directly 

on their screen servers. 

We are starting to see what we can 

achieve when we collaborate, but automating 

all the background processes that put 

a film onscreen is really only the tip of the 

iceberg. Creating hubs of data and building 

ecosystems that foster connections 

across the industry would provide everyone 

involved with invaluable insights. It isn’t 

as much about forcing transparency as it is 

about parsing the data that’s already available. 

For example, there is something of a 

black hole when it comes to identifying who 

has viewed a particular trailer. This is because, 

traditionally, both the playback data 

and exhibitor ticket sales or loyalty program 

data you need to cross-reference are stored 

at site level in impenetrable logs on playback 

servers and other internal systems. 

By pulling those logs from the servers, 

centrally processing them and making that 

playback data available, exhibitors would 

be able to drive decision-making in much 

the same way that online providers such 

as Netflix can. They could grow revenue 

by introducing more intelligent audience 

targeting, and perhaps even create new revenue 

streams by offering distributors or advertisers 

better reporting. Distributors and 

advertisers could then, in turn, predict audience 

tastes more accurately and serve them, 

thereby providing exhibitors with an uplift 

in ticket sales and audience satisfaction. 

Once we reach a critical mass of big data, 

it’s rendered analyzable, which means the 

industry can turn that data into information 

and act on the insight it presents. By bringing 

disparate data sources together in central 

hubs and, more importantly, acting on the 

insights, we can give audiences the experiences 

they want, when they want them, and 

ultimately keep them coming back. 


024-075.indd 68 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

CINEASIA 

10-13 DEC 

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10/9/18 3:37 PM

Making 

Moviegoing 

Memorable 

Display Solutions Elevate 

the Theatre Experience by Rich McPherson 

To meet the expectations of today’s 

moviegoers, exhibitors are adopting 

a wide range of digital display 

solutions to create unforgettable experiences 

for their customers. From the first 

touchpoint outside the theatre, through 

the lobby, concession and entertainment 

areas, and into the auditorium itself, digital 

display solutions are elevating the entire 

theatre experience. 

Direct-view LED displays installed 

outside a theatre are an effective way to 

grab the attention of passersby. These 

cutting-edge displays provide bright, 

high-contrast and crystal-clear images. 

With many pixel spacing options available, 

the optimum display resolution can be 

achieved regardless of viewing distance. 

They’re perfect for presenting movie 

trailers and other video content to attract 

new customers and build excitement for 

moviegoers entering the theatre. 

Creating an exciting experience 

as customers enter the theatre should 

ultimately result in greater customer 

satisfaction and increased sales. Whether 

a customer purchases their ticket via a 

theatre representative or using the latest 

technology (a kiosk with an incorporated 

touch-enabled desktop monitor for selfticketing), 

that first contact should be 

given high precedence for the complete 

moviegoing experience. 

In lobbies, large-format displays 

can provide customers with real-time 

information about movie times and show 

trailers and other video content to promote 

current and upcoming movies. They’re a 

cost-effective alternative to print posters, 

and by entertaining customers they 

help reduce perceived wait times. With 

the addition of touch-enabled overlays, 

digital screens can engage customers with 

interactive movie posters and other types 

of entertainment content. 

Some exhibitors are also using 

projectors in their lobbies to display videos 

and other content onto empty walls, 

screens or even floors. This content can 

create an exciting or soothing mood in 

waiting areas. 

Digital displays have also found a 

home in concession areas. Digital menu 

boards provide clearer information and 

vibrant images to entice moviegoers to 

buy concession offerings. They also allow 

instant updates to reflect changes in menu 

items, different time-of-day selections and 

promotions. For smaller-scale signage in 

concession areas, desktop displays are a 

perfect solution. Not only do digital signs 

boost revenue by persuading customers 

to add a snack, beverage or meal to their 

ticket purchase, they enrich the customer’s 

experience during their stay. 

Beyond the concession stand, largeformat 

displays and projectors can display 

images and content in bar and dining areas. 

For example, parents can watch a sporting 

event in the theatre’s bar while their kids 

are enjoying the latest Pixar feature in an 

auditorium. 

Exhibitors have another customerengagement 

opportunity as moviegoers 

make their way to auditoriums. By 

transforming empty walls into an 

experience, digital signage and projectors 

in corridors can create an appropriate 

ambiance as customers enter and leave an 

auditorium. For example, they can display 

dynamic content for an action film or a 

sedate presentation for a somber drama. 

Inside auditoriums, projectors have 

always been the keystone of the theatre 

experience. To create the type of viewing 

experience that modern moviegoers 

expect, a theatre should have an up-todate 

cinema projector that offers high 

brightness, crisp imaging and a superior 

color gamut. 

New-generation laser cinema 

projectors have mostly replaced traditional 

lamp-based projectors: More than 95 

percent of cinema screens worldwide now 

use laser projectors. Several factors have 

contributed to the widespread adoption of 

laser technology. Laser projectors increase 

viewer engagement by providing vibrant 

images and incredible brightness levels 

that last longer than lamp-based projectors. 

Some of these projectors support 3D, live 



024-075.indd 70 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

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Untitled-1 1 

9/24/18 10:25 AM

LEGACY SERIES 

In association with the 

Will Rogers Motion Picture 

Pioneers Foundation, Film 

Journal International 

launches a “Legacy” 

series saluting pioneering 

families in motion picture 

exhibition. Our first profiles 

are the Marcuses of Marcus 

Theatres and the Bagbys 

of B&B Theatres. 

‘Change 

Is the Only 

Constant’ 

Marcus Theatres Passes 

Down Wisdom Through 

Three Generations 


For three generations, the Marcus 

family has been bringing movie 

magic to the Midwest. Launched in 

1935 as a single theatre in a former 

department store in Ripon, Wisconsin, 

over the decades Marcus Theatres has 

ballooned into one of the largest chains 

in North America. They go beyond 

movies, too, with hotels and foodservice 

both having fallen under the Marcus 

Corporation’s banner. (Now, The 

Marcus Corporation has two divisions: Marcus Theatres and Marcus Hotels 

and Resorts.) And the company is thriving; in 2016, Marcus purchased the 

Wehrenberg chain, bringing their screen count close to the 900 mark. 

What has made Marcus Theatres so successful? It’ s a question that 

defies a simple, succinct answer. But in speaking with Greg Marcus, CEO 

of The Marcus Corporation and grandson of founder Ben Marcus, one word 

comes up that gives us a key as to how Marcus has been pleasing moviegoers 

for 85 years: “continuity.” 

Continuity, that is, between the three generations of Marcuses who have 

guided their family business through the better part of a century, with all its 

attendant technological (like the rise of digital cinema) and social (the move 

towards an all-inclusive movie experience) shifts. 

Marcus Theatres’ “foundation [was] laid down by my grandfather 

and perpetuated by my father [Steve Marcus],” Greg explains. “It’s about 

learning those family philosophies.” A key philosophy—perhaps the key 

philosophy of Marcus Theatres, and one certainly understood by Ben 

Marcus when he founded that first theatre in 1935—is that “change is the 

only constant.” 

It was a big change in the way people consumed media—namely, the 

introduction of television—that led Ben Marcus to extend to the restaurant 

and hotel industries. “He felt the need to have diversity in his businesses,” 

Steve Marcus says of his father. “But over time, I think he became more 

confident that the movie business was here to stay, as long as you kept it 

current and stayed one step ahead of the sheriff, if you will.” 

Marcus Theatres has definitely 

stayed one step ahead of the sheriff 

when it comes to dine-in. It didn’t 

hurt that, since the ’50s, The 

Marcus Corporation has had its 

fingers in the restaurant business. 

In 1958, Ben Marcus opened the 

first Marc’s Big Boy restaurant in 

Milwaukee; by 1970, there were 21 

additional locations. Marcus was 

also an early partner with this little 

up-and-coming business called 

Kentucky Fried Chicken. Greg 

himself entered the family business 

back in 1992 from the real estate 

angle, with some of the properties 

he oversaw belonging to Marcus’ 

restaurant concerns. 

Given The Marcus 

Corporation’s background in 

foodservice and its “change is the 

only constant” mentality, it’s no 

surprise that they made their first 

foray into dine-in theatres a full 

decade ago; Greg Marcus justly 

credits Rolando Rodriguez, CEO 

of Marcus Theatres since 2013, 

with much of the success there. 

Marcus Theatres’ early and 

continued success with dine-in 

brings us to yet another of Ben 

Marcus’ philosophies that have 

served not just him but his son and 

grandson so well. “He had a handy 

theory, which is: ‘It’s OK to make 

mistakes, but keep them small,’” 

says Greg. Try new things, but be 

responsible about it. To that end, 

Ben and Celia Marcus and, below, 

Ben and Steve Marcus at the 

Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee. 


024-075.indd 72 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

Marcus Theatres’ entire dine-in enterprise started in a single theatre. “We thought, 

‘Food and beverage is going to be important. Let’s try it out,’” says Greg. “So we tried 

it out in one theatre. One at a time. And we went from there.” Now, Marcus Theatres 

boasts an entire lineup of in-theatre dining options across its dozens of locations, 

ranging from the ’50s diner-inspired Reel Sizzle (currently in place at Brookfield, 

Wisconsin’s Majestic Cinema) to the Big Screen Bistro in-theatre dining experience 

to the more relaxing Take Five Lounge. 

Greg Marcus describes himself as “so fortunate,” both to have had Ben Marcus 

in his life—the founder of The Marcus Corporation passed away in 2000 at the 

age of 89—and to have worked so closely with Steve, who served as The Marcus 

Corporation’s CEO from 1988 until Greg took on the role in 2010. “I look at my 

dad, and I see a man who brought professional management to our business, hired 

smart people and let them do their job,” Greg says. “I try to do that. The idea of 

maintaining our balance sheet, the importance of a sound financial structure, the 

importance of your people—I hear that from my dad. He heard that from his dad. 

These things transcend generations.” 

“Every meal, you talk about the business,” Greg says—a common experience 

for family businesses. Theatres weren’t the only facet of that business, of course, but 

for Greg it was the most compelling component. (If he hadn’t gone into the family 

business, he guesses that he would have ended up a movie producer.) 

“With my own kids, it’s much easier for them to understand their involvement 

in the movie theatre business than the hotel business,” he explains. “When you’re 

really little, you to the movies and you can see, ‘OK, this is what we do. I get it.’ As 

opposed to going to a hotel: ‘This is what we do.’ ‘What do we do?’” As for whether 

we’ll be looking at a fourth generation of Marcuses in the theatre business, Greg 

stresses that, though working with his own father is “something I’m appreciative of 

every day,” his children’s career choices are entirely their own decision. 

It all comes back to that one word: continuity. Marcus Theatres wouldn’t be what 

it is today without its founding principles, established by Ben Marcus and reinforced 

through decades of shared experience. “It’s been a family ethic, all the things that 

I’ve been telling you about the way we look at our business,” says Marcus. “Making 

sure we maintain a strong balance sheet. Remembering that people are our most 

important asset. We are a people business. It’s remembering that, again, change is the 

only constant. 

“If you’re open to change and you’re talking about what that is, or what it’s going 

to be, then you’re going to be able to take advantage of it. Or make sure it doesn’t 

take advantage of you!” 

The Bills 

and Bagby 

Story 

B&B Theatres 

Is a Family Affair 

by Kevin Lally 

family tree would be helpful in tracing the 

A colorful history of B&B Theatres, whose 

roots go back nearly a century to 1924. It was 

then that Elmer Bills, Sr. bought the Lyric 

Theatre in Salisbury, Missouri, and founded 

Bills Theatres. His future wife, Johnnie, was a 

piano accompanist there for silent movies. 

Ben and Celia with Walt Disney. 

In 1936, Bills hired ten-year-old Sterling 

Bagby as a concession clerk. Sterling grew up, 

fought in World War II and later married his 

ticket seller, Pauline. Together, they launched 

the Bagby Traveling Picture Show and drove 

across rural Missouri with their films, projection 

equipment, seats and snack bar, screening 

movies in barns, schools and parks. Eventually, 

the company transformed into a Kansas circuit 

of indoor and drive-in theatres. 

Meanwhile, in something of a family tradition, 

Elmer and Johnnie’s son, Elmer Bills, 

Jr., met his wife-to-be, Amy, when both were 

13 and she was working behind the counter 

selling popcorn. After Elmer Jr.’s graduation 

from the University of Missouri in 1959, he 

and Amy joined his parents as second-generation 

partners in the business. 

On January 1, 1980, the Bills and Bagby 

families formally merged their two theatre 


024-075.indd 73 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

companies into B&B Theatres (for Bills and 

Bagby, of course). At the same time, Sterling 

and Pauline’s son Bob married Elmer 

Jr. and Amy’s daughter Bridget, uniting the 

families on a personal level as well. 

Bob Bagby became president of B&B 

Theatres in 1980, and he and Bridget 

have grown the company from a small, regional, 

17-screen circuit to what is now the 

seventh-largest circuit in the United States, 

currently operating about 50 locations and 

more than 400 screens. Married for 39 

years, Bob and Bridget have three children, 

Bobbie, Brittanie and Brock, who are all 

executive vice presidents at B&B Theatres, 

representing the circuit’s fourth generation. 

Of that second generation, Sterling Bagby 

died in October 2000, his wife Pauline died 

earlier this year, and Elmer Bills, Jr. and his 

wife Amy both passed away just this summer. 

As Bobbie Bagley Ford wistfully notes, 

Elmer Jr. “was very involved in the industry 

and the company and read all the reports 

and was bugging us literally the day before 

he passed away. It was kind of sudden and 

surprising, and it’s been a big adjustment.” 

With dad Bob at the helm, Bobbie 

handles marketing, Brock oversees programming 

and business development, and 

Brittanie Bagby Baker handles business 

affairs, acting as a liaison between different 

departments. 

Pitching in at the theatres at a very 

young age is a family tradition: Bob was 

working behind the concession counter at 

age five, and Bobbie claims she was selling 

popcorn at nine months! 

“Most of my weekends as a kid were 

spent loading up and visiting theatres, making 

the rounds,” Bobbie recalls. “We had 

a motor home and we’d drive around our 

circuit—at the time it was only like 17 locations. 

We would try to hit all of them over 

a two-month period, and I would go in and 

count seats and we would watch whatever 

kids’ movie was playing. It was such a part 

of my weekend, being in movie theatres.” 

She continues, “What I learned from 

my parents, and my grandparents, who were 

very involved in my childhood, is that you 

work hard and play hard as a family. We 

would sit around the dinner table with my 

grandparents, who we would have dinner 

with many times a week. And my parents 

didn’t shelter the business from us—we 

were very aware of the ups and downs and 

HR things and all kinds of stuff from an 

early age. They thought it was important 

that we know what was going on. My parents 

and grandparents worked very hard, 

and they also took time to play, because 

ultimately family comes first.” 

Bob 

Bobbie 

Brock 

Brittanie 

Another essential lesson: “Integrity 

was always the most important thing and 

still is,” Bobbie asserts. “We don’t cheat 

the studios, we don’t cheat our vendors, we 

pay people on time as much as we possibly 

can… There are times we could make a deal, 

we could build against somebody, we could 

do something against our conscience… 

A good example of that is when we purchased 

Dickinson Theatres [in 2014]. My 

dad was literally lying awake at night, very 

concerned about laying people off. And he 

worked and worked and worked to not do 

that. We found a job for everybody in the 

corporate office. And managers, for that 

matter—we didn’t lay off a single person. 

Integrity and taking care of people is ultimately 

the most important thing.” 

In this magazine two years ago, Bob 

Bagby recalled that his father-in-law, Elmer 

Jr., “was the conservative voice, and taught 

me that we didn’t need to do every deal and 

that if the numbers don’t work, there will be 

‘another one around the corner.’” His father 

Sterling, on the other hand, “instilled in me 

a desire to aggressively pursue calculated 

expansion of the company.” 

“There was a lot of back-and-forth 

between fast expansion and conservative 

growth,” Bob noted, but rather than being 

at loggerheads, Elmer and Sterling were “a 

great team.” 

Meanwhile, the lesson Brock Bagby 

took from his grandparents, Elmer and 

Sterling, was that “everything will come in 

time, and if it doesn’t work out, there will 

always be another opportunity around the 

corner.” 

In recent years, B&B Theatres has truly 

become one of the cutting-edge domestic 

theatre circuits: It was one of the first to 

go all-digital and it recently unveiled the 

world’s largest panoramic ScreenX screen at 

its new flagship Liberty 12 complex in Liberty, 

Missouri. (The Liberty 12 even features 

Johnnie’s Jazz Bar, named after the company’s 

founding matriarch, with live music 

seven nights a week and the original piano 

Johnnie played in the silent-movie days.) 

Bobbie recalls B&B’s decision to transform 

for a new era. “Six or seven years ago, 

we sat down as a family and Dad said, ‘OK, 

what do you want to do? Do you want to 

get out, or we going to forge ahead and 

grow?’ We had deep conversations about it, 

and decided that we were in it and we were 

going to grow the company. One of the advantages 

of being a family business and being 

so heavily involved in the weeds as well 

as the higher-up operations is that we make 

decisions quickly. We want to be innovative 

and we’re always looking for the new thing, 


024-075.indd 74 

10/9/18 3:10 PM

and we can be mobile. So when we want to 

try something, we can jump on it—we don’t 

have to go to a board. Our operations team 

gets called in to talk about how it’s going 

to work, and we make it happen pretty fast. 

Being innovative and figuring out ways to 

make our locations entertainment venues is 

really important.” 

As the company’s marketing executive, 

“A lot of my job is making sure people pick 

a B&B theatre, but also getting them to stay 

longer and make it an experience,” Bobbie 

says. “We’ve always taken the ‘project picture’ 

approach, but I think being a showman 

is more alive and well than ever before. Creating 

events at our theatres has become a 

bigger deal. We used to do coloring contests 

and stuff like that, and that’s still prevalent, 

but now we’re doing major marketing campaigns 

to create an event. For First Man, we 

literally sent a B&B gift card and miniature 

figurines into the stratosphere. For Jurassic 

World, we had blowup dinosaur costumes in 

all 50 locations.” 

Bobbie marvels that “all six of us, the 

three children and their spouses, are all heavily 

involved in the company, which is not 

what we ever intended, but I think they get 

the bug and want in. It’s a fun industry! It’s 

hard not to get involved on some level. We 

try really hard on Christmas Day: OK, no 

talking about work. But we’re all so passionate 

and excited about what we’re doing…” 

So, will there be a fifth generation overseeing 

B&B Theatres? Bobbie laughs. “The 

oldest grandkid is mine—she’s five and a 

half. She’s convinced that my dad, who she 

calls Baba, is going to build a theatre here 

in Los Angeles [where Bobbie is based], 

and Dad said to her, ‘Well, Fiona, it’s really 

expensive to build in L.A.’ And she put up 

a lemonade stand and said, ‘This is to build 

Baba’s movie theatre.’ So you never know, 

she might just take over! Mom and Dad 

have six grandkids and they all love movies 

already, so we’ll see. But no pressure: They’re 

certainly welcome to branch out, and they’re 

also welcome [here].” 

For Bobbie Bagby Ford, “family” has a 

broad definition. “While my family is superimportant 

and we all work really hard, we 

have some employees who are absolutely 

family to us as well, people who have been 

with us twenty, thirty, forty years. Dan Van 

Orden, for instance, who has been around 

since I was born. Mike Hagan, our VP of 

finance, who started at 16 and worked his 

way up. Most of our corporate office are 

people who started as entry-level employees 

and moved their way up. We try really hard 

to cultivate that culture, that family feeling. 

We can’t do it by ourselves.” 

Bagby family portraits 


024-075.indd 75 

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Happy Holidays 


With just two more months left in the 

year, there are still a ton of movies 

to get out and see. From big-budget 

actioners to smaller and foreign indies, 

movie theatres have you covered in 2018. 

THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER’S WEB 

Pictured: Claire Foy 

Director: Fede Alvarez 

COLUMBIA / NOV. 9 

BUMBLEBEE 

Director: Travis Knight 

PARAMOUNT / DEC. 21 

Photos and art courtesy studios and distributors. All rights reserved. 

076-089.indd 76 

10/9/18 3:15 PM

at the Movies 2018 

SPIDER-MAN: 

INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE 

Directors: Bob Persichetti, 

Peter Ramsey 

COLUMBIA / DEC. 14 

CREED II 

Pictured: 

Michael B. Jordan, 

Tessa Thompson 

MGM / NOV. 21 

FANTASTIC BEASTS: 

THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD 

Pictured: Eddie Redmayne 

Director: David Yates 

WARNER BROS. / NOV. 16 

RALPH BREAKS 

THE INTERNET 

Directors: Phil Johnston, 

Rich Moore 

FOCUS FEATURES / NOV. 21 

November Highlights 

Mag-ni-fi-coooooooo. Rami Malek (“Mr Robot.”) plays the late, great Queens front man 

Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody. The script, by The Theory of Everything and Darkest 

Hour’s Anthony McCarten, focuses on the years leading up to Queen’s famed appearance at 

the 1985 Live Aid concert. (Fox; Nov. 2) 

One of Lucas Hedges’ two awards-season starring roles is in the Joel Edgerton-directed Boy 

Erased, about a teenage boy forced into gay conversion therapy by his conservative parents 

(Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe). Joel Edgerton (The Gift) directs. (Focus Features; Nov. 2) 


076-089.indd 77 

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THE NUTCRACKER AND THE FOUR REALMS 

Pictured: Mackenzie Foy, Keira Knightley 

Directors: Lasse Hallström, Joe Johnston 

DISNEY / NOV. 2 

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY 

Pictured: Rami Malek 

Director: Bryan Singer 

20 TH CENTURY FOX / NOV. 2 

BOY ERASED 

Pictured: Nicole Kidman, Lucas Hedges 

Director: Joel Edgerton 


A woman (Tiffany Haddish) 

recently released from prison vows 

to take revenge on the man who 

catfished her straitlaced sister (Tika 

Sumpter) in Tyler Perry’s Nobody’s 

Fool. Whoopi Goldberg, Omari 

Hardwick and Missi Pyle co-star. 

(Paramount; Nov. 2) 

Disney updates holiday classic 

The Nutcracker with Lasse Hallström 

and Joe Johnston’s The Nutcracker 

and the Four Realms, starring 

Mackenzie Foy, Keira Knightley, 

Morgan Freeman and Helen Mirren. 

In this version of the tale, a young 

girl (Foy) must save the mystical 

fantasy world created by her late 

mother from a wannabe dictator 

(Mirren). (Disney; Nov. 2) 

Master of tone Luca Guadagnino 

puts his own spin on Dario 

Argento’s horror classic Suspiria, 

about an aspiring dancer who joins 

a world-renowned dance company, 

only to discover some rather 

shady—and bloody—things going 

on underneath the surface. Dakota 

Johnson and Tilda Swinton star. 

(Amazon; Nov. 2) 

Hugh Jackman stars in Jason 

Reitman’s political drama The Front 

Runner, based on the downfall of 

presidential candidate Gary Hart, 

whose political career imploded 

when evidence of his extramarital 

affair was made public. Vera Farmiga 

and J.K. Simmons co-star. (Columbia 

Pictures; Nov. 7) 

Don’t Breathe’s Fede Alvarez 

directs Claire Foy, Sylvia Hoeks, 

Lakeith Stanfield and Sverrir 

Gudnason in The Girl in the 

Spider’s Web. The film is based 

on the fourth book in the Stieg 

Larsson-created Millennium series, 

which began with the twice-adapted 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. 

(Columbia Pictures; Nov. 9) 


076-089.indd 78 

10/9/18 3:15 PM

Benedict Cumberbatch takes 

over from Boris Karloff and Mike 

Meyers in voicing the title character 

of The Grinch, based on the classic 

children’s book by Dr. Seuss. The 

film is the latest from Illumination 

Entertainment, which has also 

brought the Despicable Me movies, 

Sing and The Secret Life of Pets to the 

big screen. (Universal; Nov. 9) 

A college-bound teenager (Tony 

Revolori) and an aimless mechanic 

(Jason Mantzoukas) go on a road 

trip across the American West in 

director Hannah Fidell’s The Long 

Dumb Road. (Universal; Nov. 9) 

Chris Pine plays the 14th-century 

Scottish king Robert the Bruce in the 

historical epic Outlaw King, which 

reunites the actor with his Hell or 

High Water director David Mackenzie. 

Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Florence 

Pugh co-star. (Netflix; Nov. 9) 

J.J. Abrams produces World 

War II drama Overlord, about two 

American paratroopers caught behind 

enemy lines in the aftermath of 

D-Day. There they discover, not just 

German soldiers, but the monstrous 

results of secret Nazi experiments. 

Wyatt Russell, Pilou Asbæk and Bokeem 

Woodbine star. (Paramount; 

Nov. 9) 

Joel and Ethan Coen return to 

the world of westerns for The 

Ballad of Buster Scruggs, an 

anthology film starring Tim Blake 

Nelson (as the eponymous Buster), 

Zoe Kazan, James Franco, Liam 

Neeson, Brendan Gleeson and 

more. (Netflix; Nov. 16) 

Eddie Redmayne returns to the 

Harry Potter universe in Fantastic 

Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, 

the first of a planned four 

sequels to 2016’s Fantastic Beasts 

and Where to Find Them. That film’s 

director, David Yates, returns for 

Crimes of Grindelwald, as do actors 

Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, 

Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller and Johnny 

Depp. (Warner Bros.; Nov. 16) 

A couple (Rose Byrne and Mark 

Wahlberg) become foster parents 

to three siblings who prove more 

of a handful than they anticipated 

in Sean Anders’ comedy Instant 

Family. (Paramount; Nov. 16) 

Steve McQueen directs one hell 

of a cast—including Viola Davis, 

Colin Farrell, Liam Neeson, Michelle 

Rodriguez, Robert Duvall, Daniel 

Kaluuya, Elizabeth Debicki and Cynthia 

Erivo—in Widows, about four 

women who turn to a life outside 

the law after the deaths of their 

criminal husbands. (Fox; Nov. 16) 

Michael B. Jordan suits up for 

the second time as boxer Adonis 

Untitled-1 1 


9/28/18 3:03 PM 

076-089.indd 79 

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THE FRONT RUNNER 

Pictured: Hugh Jackman 

Director: Jason Reitman 

COLUMBIA / NOV. 7 

Johnson in Creed II, with Sylvester 

Stallone once again playing mentor 

Rocky Balboa. This time around, 

Creed Jr. fights the progeny of Ivan 

Drago, who killed Creed Sr. in the 

ring in Rocky IV. (MGM; Nov. 21) 

Peter Farrelly directs Viggo 

Mortensen, Mahershala Ali and 

Linda Cardellini in ’60s-set drama 

Green Book, about a working-class, 

Italian-American man (Mortensen) 

who drives a famed African- 

American concert pianist (Ali) on 

his tour through the Deep South. 

(Universal; Nov. 21) 

Ralph (voice of John C. Reilly) 

and Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) 

explore the wilds of the World 

Wide Web when a router gets 

installed in their video arcade in 

Wreck-It-Ralph sequel Ralph Breaks 

the Internet. (Disney; Nov. 21) 

Kingsman star Taron Egerton 

becomes the latest actor to play the 

Prince of Thieves in “Peaky Blinders” 

director Otto Bathurst’s Robin 

Hood, co-starring Ben Mendelsohn, 

Jamie Foxx, Eve Hewson and Jamie 

Dornan. (Lionsgate; Nov. 21) 

A man (Steve Carrel) copes with 

the traumatic aftermath of a brutal 

attack by inventing an elaborate 

fantasy world in Robert Zemeckis’ 

Welcome to Marwen. (Universal; 

Dec. 21) 

Yorgos Lanthimos directs Olivia 

Colman, Rachel Weisz and Emma 

Stone in historical drama The Favourite. 

Colman dons the crown of 

18th-century British monarch Queen 

Anne, whose attentions are fought 

over by a longtime friend and advisor 

(Weisz) and a new servant girl 

(Stone). (Fox Searchlight; Nov. 23) 

Director Barry Jenkins follows 

up his Oscar-winning Moonlight 

with If Beale Street Could Talk, an 

adaptation of James Baldwin’s 1974 

novel about a pregnant woman’s 

DR. SEUSS’ THE GRINCH 

Directors: Yarrow Cheney, 

Scott Mosier 

UNIVERSAL / NOV. 9 

(KiKi Layne) attempts to prove her 

fiancé (Stephan James) innocent of 

a crime before her child is born. 

Regina King co-stars. (Annapurna; 

Nov. 30) 

Also in November 

A white, middle-class college 

student (Calum Worthy) enters the 

world of underground rap battles in 

Bodied, from music-video director 

Joseph Kahn. (Neon; Nov. 2) 

Murderball’s Dana Adam 

Shapiro directs the documentary 

Daughters of the Sexual 

Revolution, about the founding— 


076-089.indd 80 

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WIDOWS 

Pictured: Viola Davis 

Director: Steve McQueen 

20 TH CENTURY FOX / NOV. 16 

INSTANT FAMILY 

Pictured: Mark Wahlberg, Rose Byrne 

Director: Sean Anders 

PARAMOUNT / NOV. 16 

and cultural impact—of the Dallas 

Cowboys cheerleaders. (Nov. 2) 

A couple grieves over the death 

of their infant child just 57 hours 

after its birth in Patrick Wang’s 

The Grief of Others, based on the 

novel by Leah Hager Cohen. (In the 

Family; Nov. 2) 

Red Army director Gabe Polsky 

helms the documentary In Search 

of Greatness, which examines the 

phenomena of genius through the 

lens of some of the greatest athletes 

of all time. (Art of Sport; Nov. 2) 

At long (long, long) last, 

audiences will get to see The Other 

Side of the Wind, the final film 

from Orson Welles. John Huston 

stars as a Welles-esque director 

who returns from years of semiretirement 

in Europe to complete 

an ambitious final film. Peter 

Bogdanovich, Welles’ friend and 

protégé who worked for decades to 

see the film completed and released, 

co-stars. (Netflix; Nov. 2) 

Rosamund Pike plays celebrated 

28-29 AUG’18 | MUMBAI 

presented by 

REINVENTING IMAGINATION 

On Galalite screens, every movie 

is a fantasy-filled masterpiece. 

By reinventing imagination, we reinvent 

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info@galalitescreens.com | www.galalitescreens.com 


076-089.indd 81 

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GREEN BOOK 

Pictured: Viggo Mortensen, Mahershala Ali 

Director: Peter Farrelly 

UNIVERSAL / NOV. 21 

CREED II 

Pictured: Sylvester Stallone, Michael B. Jordan 

Director: Steven Caple Jr. 

METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER / NOV. 21 

war correspondent Marie Colvin, 

who died in 2012 while covering 

the Syrian civil war, in Matthew 

Heineman’s A Private War. Jamie 

Dornan and Stanley Tucci co-star. 

(Aviron; Nov. 2) 

Kim Sung-hoon directs the Korean 

historical fantasy epic Rampant, 

about a dissolute prince (Hyun Bin) 

who must step up and save his kingdom 

from a horde of undead monsters. 

(Well Go USA; Nov. 2) 

Directors Margarthe von Trotta, 

Felix Moeller and Bettina Böhler 

explore the life and legacy of one 

of film history’s most renowned 

directors in Searching for Ingmar 

Bergman. (Oscilloscope; Nov. 2) 

A group of students unexpectedly 

cause a rift in the space-time 

continuum while looking for their 

missing mentor in the sci-fi adventure 

Time Trap. (Paladin; Nov. 2) 

Brooklyn-based performance 

artist Narcissister directs and stars 

in Narcissister Organ Player, in 

which she examines her mother’s 

illness and death. (Film Movement; 

Nov. 7) 

Lorenzo Ferro stars in the crime 

drama El Angel, based on the true 

story of a baby-faced thief and killer 

who became the longest-serving 

criminal in Argentina’s history. (The 

Orchard; Nov. 9) 

Sarah Jessica Parker plays a 

ROBIN HOOD 

Pictured: Taron Egerton 

Director: Otto Bathurst 

LIONSGATE / NOV. 21 

singer/songwriter forced to 

reevaluate her life over the course 

of a single day in director Fabien 

Constant’s drama Here and Now. 

Common, Renée Zellweger, Simon 

Baker and Jacqueline Bisset co-star. 

(AMBI Distribution; Nov. 9) 

A college student (Jessica 

Barden) opts to avoid relationships 

with men her own age in favor of 

being a sugar baby to older men in 

Carly Stone’s The New Romantic. 

(The Orchard; Nov. 9) 

A millionaire speedboat enthusiast 

(John Travolta) gets himself tied 

up with the mob in the fact-based 

Speed Kills. (Saban Films; Nov. 9) 

Alessandro Nivola, Julianne 

Nicholson, and Johnny Knoxville 

star in first-time feature director 

Jaron Albertin’s Weightless, about 

a loner suddenly confronted with 

caring for his young child. (Paladin; 

Nov. 9) 

Zoe Renee and Simone Missick 

star in Nijla Mumin’s Jinn, about a 

teenage girl’s struggle to find her 

own identity after her mother 

converts to Islam. (Orion Classics; 

Nov. 15) 

Couple Eva (Oona Chaplin) 

and Kat (Natalia Tena) struggle 

with the question of whether to 


076-089.indd 82 

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RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET 

Pictured: John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman 

Director: Phil Johnston, Rich Moore 


have a child by one of their best 

friends (David Verdaguer) in Carlos 

Marquet-Marcet’s Anchor and 

Hope. Geraldine Chaplin co-stars. 

(Wolfe; Nov. 16) 

Willem Dafoe leads a stacked 

cast in The Diving Bell and the 

Butterfly director Julian Schnabel’s 

At Eternity’s Gate, about the 

later years of artist Vincent Van 

Gogh. Oscar Isaac, Mads Mikkelsen, 

Rupert Friend, Mathieu Amalric and 

Emmanuelle Seigner co-star. (CBS 

Films; Nov. 16) 

A young man (Charlie Plummer) 

begins to suspect that his father 

(Dylan McDermott)—a community 

leader respected by all—may be 

a serial killer responsible for the 

brutal murders of ten women in 

The Clovehitch Killer. (IFC Films; 

Nov. 16) 

A patients’-rights lawyer (Hilary 

Swank) has her life changed by an 

offbeat psychiatric patient (Helena 

Bonham-Carter) in Bille August’s 55 

Steps. (Sony Pictures Wolrdwide 

Acquisitions; Nov. 16) 

A small town tries to keep their 

beloved stock-car racing track open 

despite pressure from developers 

in Michael Dweck’s documentary 

The Last Race. (Magnolia Pictures; 

Nov. 16) 

Jennifer Lopez returns to the 

world of the rom-com in Second 


076-089.indd 83 

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THE FAVOURITE 

Pictured: Emma Stone 

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos 

FOX SEARCHLIGHT / NOV. 23 

Act, playing a former big-box retail 

employee who reinvents herself 

as a high-flying business executive. 

Milo Ventimiglia (“This Is Us”) and 

Vanessa Hudgens co-star. (STX 

Entertainment; Nov. 21) 

Alba August and Nico, 1988 lead 

Trine Dyrholm star in Danish director 

Pernille Fischer Christensen’s 

Becoming Astrid, about the creator 

of iconic children’s character Pippi 

Longstocking. (Music Box Films; 

Nov. 23) 

Japanese director Hirokazu 

Kore-eda is here to pummel your 

emotions yet again with Shoplifters, 

about a tight-knit family of 

thieves who adopt an abandoned 

girl they find on the street. (Magnolia; 

Nov. 23) 

Ella Hunt plays the title role 

BEN IS BACK 

Pictured: Julia Roberts, Lucas Hedges 

Director: Peter Hedges 

ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS / DEC. 7 

IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK 

Pictured: KiKi Layne, Stephan James 

Director: Barry Jenkins 

ANNAPURNA / DEC. 30 


076-089.indd 84 

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MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 

Pictured: Ian Hart, Jack Lowden, 

Saoirse Ronan, James McArdle 

Director: Josie Rourke 

FOCUS FEATURES / DEC. 7 

in John McPhail’s Anna and the 

Apocalypse, the world’s first (and 

only) Scottish zombie apocalypse 

Christmas musical. (Orion; Nov. 30) 

A miniature horse (voiced 

by Josh Hutcherson) attempts 

to secure a coveted spot as one 

of Santa’s team in the animated 

holiday offering Elliot: The Littlest 

Reindeer. (ScreenMedia; Nov. 30) 

A spoiled young boy resentful of 

his new baby sister meets an older 

version of that same sister from the 

future in time-travel drama Mirai, 

from anime auteur Mamoru Hosoda 

(Summer Wars). (GKids; Nov. 30) 

Hao Wu directs People’s 

Republic of Desire, a documentary 

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about Internet live-streaming 

culture in China. (Nov. 30) 

Director Cameron Yates 

documents preteen chef-turnedmedia 

sensation Flynn McGarry in 

Chef Flynn. (November) 

December Highlights 

Peter Hedges (Pieces of April) 

directs his son Lucas (Manchester 

by the Sea) in Oscar hopeful 

Ben Is Back, about a troubled 

youth who returns to the home 

of his mother (Julia Roberts) on 

Christmas morning, with potentially 

devastating consequences. 

(Roadside Attractions; Dec. 7) 

Saoirse Ronan stars in historical 

drama Mary Queen of Scots, 

playing the doomed Queen who 

unsuccessfully attempted to 

overthrow her cousin, Queen 

Elizabeth I (Margot Robbie). Guy 

Pearce and Gemma Chan co-star. 

(Focus Features; Dec. 7) 

It Follows writer-director David 

Robert Mitchell turns to A24 for 

his follow-up Under the Silver 

Lake. Andrew Garfield stars in the 

revisionist noir as Sam, a rootless, 

unemployed man attempting to 

untangle a conspiracy that he hopes 

will lead to the location of the 

mysterious woman (Riley Keogh) 

he’s obsessed with. (A24; Dec. 7) 

Peter Jackson produced and cowrote 

Mortal Engines, a futuristic 

dystopia tale set in a world where 

cities have transformed into giant 

machines that roll around the 

wasteland gobbling each other up. 

Hera Hilmar, Robert Sheehan, Hugo 

Weaving and Stephen Lang star. 

(Universal; Dec. 14) 

Clint Eastwood directs and stars 

in The Mule, playing a man offered 

some respite from his dire financial 

circumstances... by transporting 

illegal drugs. Bradley Cooper, Taissa 

MORTAL ENGINES 

Pictured: Hugo Weaving 

Director: Christian Rivers 

UNIVERSAL / DEC. 14 

BUMBLEBEE 

Pictured: Hailee Steinfeld 

Director: Travis Knight 

PARAMOUNT / DEC. 21 

AQUAMAN 

Pictured: Jason Momoa 

Director: James Wan 

WARNER BROS. / DEC. 21 


076-089.indd 86 

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Farmiga and Michael Peña co-star. 

(Warner Bros.; Dec. 14) 

The Spider-Man franchise gets 

an animated twist in Spider-Man: 

Into the Spider-Verse, which brings 

together an assortment of Spider- 

Men from parallel universes. Dope’s 

Shameik Moore voices fan-favorite 

Spider-Man Miles Morales, while 

Jake Johnson voices OG Spidey 

Peter Parker and Hailee Steinfeld 

lends her pipes to Gwen Stacy, aka 

“Spider-Gwen.” (Columbia Pictures; 

Dec. 14) 

Christian Bale packs on a few 

pounds and loses a few hair follicles 

to play former Vice President 

Dick Cheney in Vice, from The Big 

Short writer-director Adam McKay. 

Amy Adams undergoes a physical 

transformation of her own to play 

Lynne Cheney, while Steve Carell, 

Sam Rockwell and Tyler Perry play 

other political notables of the 

George W. Bush era. (Annapurna; 

Dec. 14) 

Jason Momoa can talk to the 

fishes in the DC Comics adaptation 

Aquaman. Set prior to Justice 

League, here Aquaman—aka Arthur 

Curry—must fight his half-brother 

Orm (Patrick Wilson) for control of 

MARY POPPINS RETURNS 

Pictured: Emily Blunt 

Director: Rob Marshall 

DISNEY / DEC. 19 

the underwater kingdom of Atlantis. 

Nicole Kidman and Amber Heard 

co-star. (Warner Bros.; Dec. 21) 

Travis Knight (Kubo and the 

Four Strings) directs 1980s-set 

Transformers spin-off Bumblebee, 

starring Hailee Steinfeld as the 

young friend of the eponymous 

Autobot. John Cena co-stars, with 

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076-089.indd 87 

10/9/18 3:16 PM

Justin Theroux and Angela Bassett 

providing the voices of other 

Transformers. (Paramount; Dec. 21) 

Ida’s Pawel Pawlikowski won 

the Best Director award at Cannes 

2018 for Cold War, a love story 

set in the 1950s in Poland, Berlin, 

Paris and Yugoslavia. Tomasz Kot and 

Joanna Kulig star. (Amazon; Dec. 21) 

Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly 

unite for the third time—after Step 

Brothers and Talladega Nights: The 

Ballad of Ricky Bobby—for Holmes 

and Watson, a comic take on 

WELCOME TO MARWEN 

Pictured: Steve Carell 

Director: Robert Zemeckis 

UNIVERSAL / DEC. 21 

Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories of 

Sherlock Holmes. Kelly Macdonald, 

Ralph Fiennes and Rebecca Hall costar, 

with Etan Cohen (Get Hard) in 

the director’s chair. (Sony; Dec. 21) 

Emily Blunt steps into Julie 

Andrews’ hat and teeny, tiny bow-tie 

in Mary Poppins Returns, a sequel 

to director Robert Stevenson’s 

1964 classic. This time around, Mary 

returns to London to help a grown 

Jane (Emily Mortimer) and Michael 

Banks (Ben Whishaw), as well as 

Michael’s three children. Colin Firth, 

Meryl Streep, Lin-Manuel Miranda 

and Julie Walters co-star. (Disney; 

Dec. 25) 

Felicity Jones plays Ruth Bader 

Ginsburg in On the Basis of 

Sex, about the early years of the 

trailblazing Supreme Court Justice. 

Armie Hammer stars as Ginsburg’s 

husband Marty, with Mimi Leder 

(Deep Impact, “The Leftovers”) 

directing. (Focus Features; Dec. 25) 

Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly 

play comedy legends Stan Laurel and 

Oliver Hardy—here, embarking on 

a theatre tour that the duo hoped 

would restart their careers—in 

Jon S. Baird’s Stan & Ollie. (Sony 

Pictures Classics; December) 

Also in December 

Sebastián Silva (The Maid) directs 

Jason Mitchell, Christopher Abbott, 

Caleb Landry Jones, Michael Cera 

and Reg E. Cathey in Tyrel, about 

a black man (Mitchell) attending 

a wild weekend party otherwise 

populated exclusively by white bros. 

(Magnolia; Dec. 5) 

ON THE BASIS OF SEX 

Pictured: Felicity Jones 

Director: Mimi Leder 

FOCUS FEATURES / DEC. 25 


076-089.indd 88 

10/9/18 3:16 PM

HOLMES AND WATSON 

Pictured: John C. Reilly, Will Ferrell 

Director: Etan Cohen 

COLUMBIA / DEC. TK 

Ron Perlman stars as a Mossad 

agent-turned-hitman trying to 

turn his life around in Michael 

Caton-Jones’ Asher. (Momentum 

Pictures; Dec. 7) 

Four young Jews hide in plain 

sight in World War II-era Berlin 

in the documentary/narrative 

hybrid The Invisibles, from 

director Claus Räfle. (Greenwich 

Entertainment; Dec. 7) 

Actress Karen Gillan (“Doctor 

Who,” the Guardians of the Galaxy 

movies) makes her directorial 

debut with The Party’s Just 

Beginning, about a young woman 

(Gillan) grieving her best friend’s 

suicide. Lee Pace, Matthew Beard 

and Paul Higgins co-star. (Dec. 7) 

A psychopath (Christopher 

Abbott), not wanting to succumb 

to the urge to hurt his infant 

daughter, makes a plan to kill a sex 

worker (Mia Wasikowska) instead 

in Nicolas Pesce’s dark comedy 

Piercing. (Universal Pictures 

Content Group; Dec. 7) 

A family attempts to survive in 

a post-apocalyptic world where 

humanity has been beset by a 

species of monsters endowed 

with acute hearing in The Silence. 

Kiernan Shipka, John Corbett 

and Stanley Tucci co-star. (Global 

Road; Dec. 7) 

Director Gene Graham 

examines contemporary black 

culture through the community of 

exotic dancing in the documentary 

This One’s for the Ladies. (Neon; 

Dec. 7) 

Nadine Labaki directs the 

modern-day fable Capernaum, 

about a Lebanese boy (nonprofessional 

actor Zain Al Rafeea) 

who sues his parents for the crime 

of giving birth to him. (Sony Pictures 

Classics; Dec. 14) 

Bollywood icon Shah Rukh Khan 

stars in Zero, a romantic drama 

about a vertically challenged man 

whose life is changed when he 

meets a superstar actress (Katrina 

Kaif). (Red Chillies, Dec. 21) 

WINTER 

Legendary filmmaker Hayao 

Miyazaki gets the documentary 

treatment in Never-Ending Man: 

Hayao Miyazaki. Kaku Arakawa’s 

tribute follows the director of 

Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke 

and more as he attempts to make 

his first CGI project. (GKIDS; 

Winter) 

Release dates are subject to change. 

Photos courtesy of studios and distributors. All 

rights reserved. 


076-089.indd 89 

10/9/18 3:16 PM

Miami Beach Welcomes 

The Cinema Community 

New technologies, new business strategies, new 

films—they’re all on the agenda as ShowEast 

kicks off its 32nd annual edition Oct. 22-25 

at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel in Florida. 

This year’s event for motion picture exhibitors 

will include screenings of six major movie releases: 

Disney’s Ralph Breaks the Internet (Oct. 23 at 4 

p.m.); Paramount Pictures’ comedy Instant Family, 

starring Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne (Oct. 

24 at 4 p.m.); Roadside Attractions’ drama Ben 

Is Back, starring Julia Roberts and Lucas Hedges 

(Oct. 24 at 6:30 p.m.); STX Entertainment’s 

romantic comedy Second Act, with Jennifer Lopez, 

Milo Ventimiglia and Vanessa Hudgens (Oct. 25 at 

3 p.m.), plus new offerings from 20th Century Fox 

and Warner Bros. 

The Opening Ceremony keynote address will 

be delivered by Dr. Radesh Palakurthi, dean at the 

University of Memphis’ Kemmons Wilson School 

of Hospitality and Resort Management, detailing 

a recent research study on which aspects of the 

cinema experience moviegoers are willing to pay 

extra for. Later that day, Loews Hotels chairman 

and CEO Jonathan Tisch will share his insights on 

what makes an exceptional customer experience. 

Monday afternoon roundtables on the 

Americana Lawn will include a session on using 

technology to market films and drive attendance, 

with executives from National Amusements, 

Cinépolis, Fandango and Atom Tickets, and FJI 

concessions editor and Malco Theatres VP Larry 

Etter discussing hot new cinema menu items. 

Exhibitors will get a clearer sense of what’s 

coming to their screens on Tuesday morning 

when Focus Features, Fox Searchlight, Lionsgate, 

Roadside Attractions, Universal Pictures, Walt 


090-111.indd 90 

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October 22-25 

2018 

Disney Pictures, Annapurna Pictures, 

Aviron Pictures and Trafalgar Releasing 

all offer previews of their latest fare. 

The session also includes a demo of the 

ScreenX panoramic format. 

The Wednesday morning session 

focuses on technology: the latest 

innovations from Christie, Cinionic, 

Dolby, GDC Technology, Samsung 

Electronics and Webedia. 

Thursday’s programming commences 

with NCM sharing insights from its 

“Ask the Audience” surveys (a monthly 

FJI feature), followed by the Fox 

screening and the always heartwarming 

ShowEast Hall of Fame Induction 

Ceremony. This year’s class includes 

Belton Clark, Larry Etter, Bill Lewis, 

Janet Murray, Paul Rogers, Bill 

Thompson and the late Harry Whitson. 

As always, ShowEast also includes 

special international programming on 

opening day, and a very active tradeshow. 

The festivities conclude with the 

ShowEast awards and an after-party 

sponsored by Coca-Cola and Cinionic. 

This year’s deserving honorees are 

Landmark Cinemas’ Neil Campbell, 

Fox’s Chris Aronson, Entertainment 

Studios Motion Pictures’ Mark Borde, 

Alamo Drafthouse’s Tim League, and 

innovator ScreenX. 

Among the films screening at ShowEast 2018: Ralph Breaks the Internet. 

090-111.indd 91 

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FILM CONVENTION & EXPO 2017 / LOEWS MIAMI BEACH 

A REGION IN TRANSITIONby David Hancock 

Latin American Cinema Admissions Outpace Screen Growth 

Latin America as a continent has been 

through several years of recession, but 

thankfully a more positive economy is 

now being experienced in many of the 

region’s countries. However, during these 

years and before, the cinema sector has grown 

as the older screen infrastructure has been 

transformed into a modern cinema realm. 

In the seven largest Central and Latin 

American countries that IHS Markit’s Cinema 

Intelligence tracks (Argentina, Brazil, 

Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela), 

the number of screens rose by 42.7% between 

2008 and 2017 to reach nearly 13,500, 

of which 50% are in Mexico and 24% are in 

Brazil. Therefore, 7.8% of the world’s screens 

are to be found in the continent. 

As for admissions, these countries accounted 

for 9.4% of the world’s admissions 

in 2017, and the growth rate of admissions 

grew by 91.9% between 2008 and 2017, 

almost doubling. This is significantly faster 

growth than the rise in screen numbers. 

Of these admissions, Mexico accounts for 

46.4% and Brazil for 24.9% of the total. 

Across the region, average admissions per 

head sit at 1.4 (also the same as the global average). 

However, there is a wide range in this 

metric, with Mexicans visiting the cinema an 

average of 2.4 times a year, down to Venezuelans 

at 0.6 times a year. Brazil, also a potentially 

huge market, has an average of 0.9 a year, 

which suggests that the “180-million-plus 

population” market has some space to grow. 

The continent continues to produce talent 

that feeds into the global film industry 

and produce globally visible films. Film production 

is behind some of the local enthusiasm 

for cinema. While Mexico and Brazil 

may be the big beasts in terms of box office, 

Argentina leads the way in production volume, 

with 181 features produced in 2017 

compared to 162 for Mexico. However, high 

production volumes don’t always translate 

into high levels of domestic market share, a 

deep-seated issue in Latin America. 

The high number of films being produced 

is of use at an industrial level and provides an 

opportunity for talent to emerge and develop, 

but it doesn’t necessarily translate into box 

office. In 2017, for example, Argentina took a 

13% market share, which is respectable, but for 

the number of films produced compares unfavorably 

with many countries in other parts of 

the world. Only two local films attracted over 

one million admissions in 2017 (Mama Se 

Fue De Viaje and El Fútbol o Yo). According to 

local research group Ultracine, admissions for 

local films in Argentina fell from 6.89 million 

in 2016 to 6.21 million last year, out of a total 

47.6 million. 

Likewise, according to local film data 

and research specialist Filme B in Brazil 

“national production has been releasing an 

average of 150 films a year, but only a few 

stand out at the box office.” 

However, the continent has led the way 

with cross-territory exhibition. U.S. circuit 

Cinemark operates 1,398 screens across 

the region in nearly 200 sites and in 15 

countries and has been present for well over 

20 years. Mexican chain Cinépolis has also 

spread wider than its domestic market, being 

present in 13 other countries including 

India and the USA, and has become one of 

the driver companies behind global consolidation 

and growth. National Amusements 

has circuits in both Argentina and Brazil. 

The continent is also picking up on the 

technology bug being experienced elsewhere. 

An example is immersive motion seating 

specialist D-Box, which extended a pan-continental 

deal with Cinemark in June this year, 

bringing the D-Box total in the region to 126 

auditoria. 4D specialist 4DX has a deal with 

Cinépolis that is helping grow its footprint 

in the region, and especially Mexico. Rival 

4D outfit MX4D (MediaMation) opened a 

manufacturing plant in Brazil in 2017 and is 

also present in a number of countries. In fact, 

while Latin America accounts for 7.8% of the 

world’s screens, some 13.8% of 4D installs 

have been made in the continent. 

On the PLF side, the continent’s exhibitors 

have embraced the concept of 

own-brand PLF screens and the continent 

accounts for 18.3% of the world’s exhibitorbranded 

PLF screens. Conversely, globally 

branded PLF (such as IMAX and Dolby 

Cinema) has had less luck in the region to 

date, as only 2.1% of the global total of this 

type are based in the continent’s cinemas. 

David Hancock is research director, film 

and cinema, at IHS Markit. 


090-111.indd 92 

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FILM CONVENTION & EXPO 2018 / LOEWS MIAMI BEACH 

CONSUMERS’ CHOICE by 

Study Reveals Which Attributes Influences Moviegoing Decisions 

Radesh Palakurthi, Ph.D., MBA 

Recently, a research forum was 

conducted by the University 

of Memphis on behalf of the 

National Association of Concessionaires 

that focused on the 

movie theatre attributes that patrons 

consider when choosing a cinema. The 

ten attributes considered in the study 

included: Movie Excitement Level 

(very to not at all), Theatre Proximity 

(distance in miles), Convenience of 

Showtime (very to not at all), Movie 

Ticket Price ($5.50 to $13.50), Theatre 

Food and Beverage Options (regular 

concession items, extended menus, adult 

options and dine-in options), Seating 

Options (reticulating rockers, oversized 

seating and recliners), Reserved Seating 

(required, not required), Food Ordering 

Options (Typical: in-person order 

and pick-up; Pager: in-person order, 

pager pick-up; Partial: in-person order, 

delivery to seat, and Electronic: order 

from seat, delivery to seat), Number 

of Screens at Theatre (single screen, 

2-7 screens, 8-16 screens, 16+ screens), 

and Theatre Location (suburban, mall, 

downtown and entertainment district). 

The basic thesis was that patrons 

often make tradeoffs among the 

attribute levels before making a final 

decision about which theatre to visit. 

The study was aimed at analyzing 

such tradeoffs and to understand the 

decision-making models of the patrons. 

Conjoint Analysis was used to evaluate 

the utilities (perceived benefits) for each 

of the attributes included in the study. 

A total of over 22,000 movie theatre 

profiles were evaluated in this study. 

Attribute Importance Results: 

Aggregate results show that patrons’ 

excitement level about seeing a movie 

drives one-third (33%) of the decision 

Figure 1: Top three attributes account for about 70% of moviegoing decisions. 

in choosing a movie theatre location; 

patrons are willing to discount many 

other attributes if they are very excited 

to see a movie (e.g., driving long 

distances or not having the expected 

food options at the theatre). Figure 1 

shows the relative importance of all 

the attributes. Movie ticket price and 

showtime convenience are the next two 

most important attributes, accounting 

for 23% and 16% of the decision, 

respectively. The top three attributes 

together account for almost 70% of the 

decision for choosing a movie theatre. 

Interestingly, in spite of the recent 

emphasis in the industry, food and 

beverage-related attributes do not seem 


Figure 2: A surge-pricing strategy might be a prudent option for popular movies. 


090-111.indd 94 

10/9/18 3:24 PM

SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT 

Proudly Supports 

ShowEast 2018 

and Congratulates All of Ľis Year’s Honorees 

including our very own 

Janet Murray 

201ƻ ShowEast Hall of Fame Inductee 

International Exhibitor of the Year 

Miguel Rivera 

Cinépolis 

Technology Innovator Award 

ScreenX 

International Star of the Year 

Ana Claudia 

Talancón 

International Distributor of the Year 

Jorge Liceĳi 

New Century Films 

Dan Fellman Show “E” Award 

Neil Campbell 

Landmark Cinemas Canada 

Award of Recognition 

Robert Carrady 

Caribbean Cinemas 

Salah M. Hassanein Humanitarian Award 

Chris Aronson 

20th Century Fox 

Bingham Ray Spirit Award 

Tim League 

Alamo Draĭhouse 

Al Shapiro Distinguished Service Award 

Mark Borde 

Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures 

comScore’s Latin American Box Office Achievement Award 

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International’s 

Avengers: Infinity War 

HALL OF FAME 

Class of 201ƻ 

Larry Eĳer Bill Lewis Janet Murray Paul Rogers Bill Ľompson Belton Clark Harry Whitson* 

*Posthumously 

www.sonypicturesreleasing.com 

©201ƻ Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. 

All Rights Reserved.


BLAZING ACHIEVEMENT by 

Landmark’s Neil Campbell Accepts Show ‘E’ Accolades 

Andreas Fuchs 

is about as good as it can get.” 

Neil Campbell, vice chairman 

at Landmark Cinemas Canada 

and this year’s recipient of the 

‘This 

Dan Fellman Show ‘E’ Award, is 

grateful to his industry colleagues. “We 

do not get an Academy Award. So, I am 

thinking this is as close to the Academy 

Awards as our industry has. Fellow exhibitors 

are giving me this award. And that 

is where I have set my whole career, in the 

movie theatre business.” 

About the distribution legend in 

whose name he will be honored at 

ShowEast 2018 for “unequaled achievements, 

accomplishments and dedication to 

the industry,” Campbell adds: “I do know 

Dan, and I have worked with him. He has 

been at Warner Bros. for so long… I think 

we have a good friendship.” 

Friendships in business are rare, and 

hard to maintain, especially when looking 

back at 44 years in theatrical exhibition 

and distribution. Campbell reflects on 

the achievements of Fellman and Warner 

Bros. “that stuck with me,” one related to 

another industry honor. “Every year they 

publish the tribute book for the Motion 

Picture Pioneer of the Year. Dan’s was 

the only one I ever saw that had three 

different Presidents—Presidents of the 

United States—included and giving him 

a full page. This guy travels quite a bit, I 

thought, and in quite the circle of influence. 

I was really impressed by that.” 

As for Warner Bros., “They have always 

been the number-one company. They 

did more promotional contests, they were 

always out there working—doing what 

they needed to do as a distributor to get 

the public to attend their films… I got 

like four or five television sets from them,” 

he chuckles, praising their showmanship. 

“It was just an absolutely natural to work 

with Warner Bros. and getting an award 

named after Dan makes perfect sense.” 

“Anybody who knows me knows that I 

love doing promotions,” Campbell elaborates. 

“Someone always said, ‘What are 

you talking about [with] promotions? You 

know, you don’t have a big budget.’ To 

which I responded, ‘For Blazing Saddles, 

I had a one-horse parade down Main 

Street.’ You know, you can make anything 

out of anything when it comes to promotions.” 

Saddles blazing down Main Street 

did indeed have a lasting influence on 

Campbell. “Barry Meyers, the film buyer 

for my very first theatre, really inspired 

me. ‘You know kid, you’re a go-getter,’ 

he told me. ‘That’s great. But never ever 

hold over a movie in a town that small.’ 

Of course, I thought, that is bullshit and 

that’s when I really got into doing promotions. 

And Blazing Saddles was the first 

movie I ever held over.” 

That happened at the Soo Theatre in 

Weyburn, Saskatchewan, in 1974, when 

Campbell first got involved with the 

movie business. “I married the popcorn 

girl who worked at our small-town singlescreen 

theatre,” he says about meeting 

Louise Campbell, who is celebrating her 

50th year in the business—with a certificate 

from the Motion Picture Pioneers 

of Canada—and their 46th anniversary. 

“Everybody knows her. Everybody loves 

her and way more than me. And I agree, 

she is a bunch nicer,” he confirms. By the 

time Campbell finished university, he was 

working at a bank. “Louise’s old boss was 

at Landmark by then. He invited us for 

dinner and…the next thing, you know, I 

stopped being a banker and I was in the 

movie business.” Continuously operated 

by Landmark until last November, the 

Soo Theatre, Campbell admits, “is just too 

small for a company of our size to carry.” 

Another business decision was the 

December 2017 sale of Landmark Cinemas 

to Belgium’s Kinepolis Group. (For 

additional details, see our July interview.) 

“At the end of the day, it was the right 

thing to do for our company.” Campbell 

adds that he had known Kinepolis as 

“really great” operators for several years. 

“They too have been in business for a long 

time and they understand how it works, 

why it works. Kinepolis puts the customer 

first. This is what we do every day and it is 

also their model. Aligning of the companies 

was easy, like matching brother and 

brother.” 

Without the sibling rivalry. “It’s been 

very, very good,” he assures, and exciting. 

“The most exciting event,” however, came 

when Campbell and business partner 

Brian McIntosh bought Landmark Cinemas 

of Canada Inc. in 2007. Landmark’s 

biggest growth occurred in 2012, with 

three new theatres plus fully digitizing 

the circuit, he proudly recalls. “And then 



090-111.indd 96 

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Congratulations 

Neil Campbell 

on the Dan Fellman Show “E” Award 

ShowEast 2018, Miami


FOX’S PHILANTHROPIST by 

Chris Aronson Receives Humanitarian Honors 

‘I 

define a humanitarian as someone 

who gives back by donating 

time, energy and money for the 

betterment of human beings.” 

Chris Aronson, president, 

domestic distribution, for Twentieth 

Century Fox Film, not only gets to the 

heart of the matter, but proves himself 

a living example in his philanthropic 

endeavors for our industry. 

Says Robert Sunshine, chairman 

of the Film Expo Group, “We are 

extremely pleased to honor Chris with 

the Salah M. Hassanein Humanitarian 

Award at ShowEast 2018. Having 

worked together on the Will Rogers 

Motion Pictures Pioneer Foundation, I 

have seen first-hand his commitment to 

giving back. We could not have found a 

more exceptional individual to recognize 

at this year’s show.” 

Equally so, Aronson worked 

alongside Salah Hassanein when he first 

joined Will Rogers. “It is a fitting honor 

that this award is named after Salah, as 

he is a great humanitarian.” Aronson 

also mentions the late Tom Sherak as a 

guiding force. “I would like to thank all 

the people I have met in our industry 

who have tirelessly given back, not only 

within our industry, but outside it as 

well. When it comes to philanthropy, 

Salah and Tom have always inspired 

me to find ways to give more. Also, the 

people who have dedicated their lives to 

running charities have always inspired 

me to do more. Their selflessness and 

dedication to their causes are truly 

inspirational.” 

“Two of my favorite causes are the 

Motion Picture Pioneers Fund and The 

Lollipop Theater Network,” he declares, 

having served them for 20 and 10 years, 

respectively. “These two organizations 

are doing tremendous work for both 

adults and children, respectively. The 

true reward is visiting a person, or a 

facility, that has been the beneficiary of 

your charity’s endeavors and witnessing 

first-hand how financial support can 

positively affect those less fortunate or 

afflicted.” 

Aronson brings up further examples. 

“Whether it be visiting a NICU 

[Neonatal, Intensive Care Unit] and 

seeing the infants and amazing doctors, 

nurses and staff who work there; or 

experiencing the look on a child’s face 

when they are watching a first-run movie 

in their hospital room and a star of 

the movie visits—it has all been pretty 

special and inspirational. Imagine being 

with The Greatest Showman himself, 

Hugh Jackman, walking into the 

UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital and 

surprising everyone there with a visit. It 

brought such joy, not only to the children 

Andreas Fuchs 

who were ill, but to their families who 

are all under a tremendous amount of 

stress. Witnessing that moment, and 

seeing the joy it brought, meant the 

world to me.” 

Witnessing more than 30 years of 

our industry—and actively shaping it in 

the process—Aronson has seen much 

and drawn his conclusions too. “The 

current state of the cinema industry is 

seemingly healthy on the surface, but 

if we look a little deeper, we see some 

cracks and fissures. Population has 

increased, but cinema attendance has 

shown a downward trend. We are in a 

very competitive environment when it 

comes to entertainment choices. Content 

creators must provide compelling 

content. Exhibitors must create an 

inviting experience for moviegoers.” 

While that is certainly happening, he 

is still concerned. “I am worried about 

our ability as an industry to increase 

attendance, as trends in exhibition seem 

to be leaning toward reduced capacity 

with luxury seating and higher prices. 

We need to ensure moviegoing remains 

affordable to all. I would like to see 

distribution and exhibition businesses 

work together to create a more symbiotic 

relationship.” 

As someone who has also spent close 

to a decade on the popcorn side, Aronson 

has “not only learned how that business 

works.” With positions at Rentrak 

Corporation, MGM Distribution 

Company, Destination Films and 

Columbia Pictures, among several 

others, before heading to Fox in 2005, 

“I also learned how differently various 

studios operated. This afforded me the 

opportunity to take the best practices 

approach of all…to create the most 

successful businesses possible.” 



090-111.indd 98 

10/9/18 3:24 PM


SHOWEAST 2018 

AWARD HONOREES

Aronson continued from page 98 

A self-proclaimed “purist” of popcorn 

and water, who considers “an aisle seat 

in the center section prime real estate,” 

Aronson has plenty of good moviegoing 

memories. “One of my favorite movie 

theatres was the Jack London Cinema 

in Oakland, California, because it was 

a one-of-a-kind theatre at that time and 

truly reinvigorated moviegoing in that 

area. Another was Pearl Highlands on 

Oahu, Hawaii, for the same reason. It 

was the first new theatre in that area in 

years and truly illustrated how to reenergize 

moviegoers.” Whereas both 

were built by Signature Theatres, his list 

of favorites from the past “would have 

to include the Empire Theater, which 

was my neighborhood theatre from 

my childhood, and the Fox Theatre on 

Market Street in San Francisco. Three of 

the earliest movies I recall are How the 

West Was Won, Grand Prix and The Scalp 

Hunters.” His all-time best include The 

Godfather and The Godfather Part II. 

Naturally, Aronson “can think of 

many exciting events in my career,” 

when we asked for more. “From my 

first day on the job at Universal in San 

Francisco to distributing Dirty Dancing, 

to my employment being greenlit at 

Twentieth Century Fox, and everything 

in between. What other industry gives 

one the opportunity to go to Mars with 

Matt Damon? To go back in time with 

The Greatest Showman, Hugh Jackman? 

To hang out with spies, comedians, 

aliens and superheroes? It is all quite 

wonderful, because this is a wonderful 

business. But the most exciting event 

is always the promise of the event that 

comes next!” 

Although Aronson and his team have 

quite the lineup coming up, the biggest 

promise might be bigger than anything 

ever before. “The Disney acquisition of 

Fox,” he says, “is occurring in a period 

of rapid change in our industry. It is 

imperative we embrace change, not fight 

it. If the industry works together, it will 

become even more vibrant and have an 

even brighter future.” 

As someone who strives for “honesty, 

integrity and a sense of fairness, both 

personally and professionally,” Chris 

Aronson makes that very future his key 

message to share. “It is important for 

all of us to work collaboratively for the 

future success of our industry. We also 

need to continue to give back—not just 

to our industry colleagues, but to anyone 

in need.” 

Campbell continued from page 96 

in 2013, Empire Theatres, the numbertwo 

company in Canada, came up for sale, 

and we were successful again…tripling in 

size in one day.” 

“I never had anything that was scary,” 

Campbell laughs at our suggestion. “No, 

I do not feel that we ever had anything 

that we were not in control of. The only 

thing that was scary was the movie Thirteen 

Ghosts. And I played it for matinees 

and it used to scare the hell out of all the 

kids in town. I loved it and think scaring 

kids is a good thing,” he chuckles. “Kids 

remember it forever. I still run into former 

customers and they remember this like it 

was yesterday.” 

Campbell also remembers “praying for 

the Greyhound bus to come in on time 

and to have my film onboard.” In those 

days of 35mm film, cans were loaded 

Thursday nights and Friday mornings, 

and transferred at the major bus depots, 

hopefully onto the right bus. “Every 

Friday was a nightmare day. We did not 

go out for lunch. We did not dare to do 

anything. Because the phone would start 

to ring, ‘I don’t have my film.’ No one 

wanted to run in there, because we had 

sold tickets, and say, ‘Can you give me 

half an hour?’ The film is supposed to be 

here, but the bus is running late.” 

Film supply remains a concern for 

Campbell, albeit not from a delivery 

standpoint. “I am very concerned over 

the [studio] mergers, because we are 

going to end up with less films than we 

have right now. I believe in more films 

to make this business bigger. The more 

you can offer, the better the rewards are 

going to be.” In addition to quantity and 

quality of product, he feels our business 

needs “a wider variety, whether family 

movies, an art picture or action film. We 

have customers who come every week 

and if I only have a new movie to offer to 

them, they do not like it… We are trying 

to be the one place for everybody to visit. 

And if you give the public what it wants, 

then that is success.” 

“My goal is for people to enjoy coming 

to the movies,” Neil Campbell says, 

sharing his mission as an exhibitor. “I 

want them to think about moviegoing as 

the premier out-of-home entertainment 

experience, and the cheapest. The way 

that movie theatres are being built today, 

it has never been better going to the 

movies… It is the best moviegoing time 

ever because the product is perfect every 

time we put it onscreen. That makes me 

very proud.” 

Consumers continued from page 94 

to be critical in the decision to choose 

a movie theatre, although they do 

show the ability to positively impact 

the overall revenue at a theatre. 

Effect of Movie Excitement Level: 

This research shows that there 

is approximately a 125% increase 

in moviegoers’ perceived utility 

(satisfaction or benefit) when they 

are indifferent to seeing a movie 

compared to a movie that they are very 

excited to see. This increase in utility 

is translated into theatre traffic, as is 

evidenced by the box-office sales of 

more popular movies. 

The increase in utility also results 

in moviegoers’ willingness to pay 

more for a movie ticket based on how 

excited they are to see the movie. This 

research shows that moviegoers are 

willing to pay up to $12.64 premium 

on a ticket price for a movie they are 

“very excited” to see compared to a 

movie that they are “not at all excited” 

to see. Figure 2 shows the premium 

amounts in ticket prices that patrons 

are willing to pay based on their relative 

excitement levels to see the movie. 

The results do seem to suggest that a 

surge-pricing strategy might be a prudent 

option for popular movies. 

The perceived utility relationships 

and the associated marginal dollar 

amounts in ticket prices that moviegoers 

are willing to pay for enjoying 

different options of theatre attribute 

levels (e.g., food ordering at concessions 

vs. order and delivery at seat; 

near vs. faraway theatres; recliner 

seats vs. reticulating rockers, etc.) are 

presented in a full report that will be 

available at ShowEast 2018. It is hoped 

that a fuller understanding of the 

subtle interplay between the theatre 

attributes and their levels will allow 

theatre owners and operators to make 

better decisions about the products and 

services that they should offer in order 

to increase traffic and revenues. 

Radesh Palakurthi, Ph.D., MBA, is 

a professor and Dean, I.H.G. Chair of 

Excellence, The Kemmons Wilson School 

of Hospitality and Resort Management 

at the University of Memphis. He 

will deliver two keynote addresses at 

ShowEast: “How Do Movie Theatre 

Attributes Influence a Patron’s Choice?” 

and “How to Determine the ROI of 

Attributes in Cinemas.” 


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GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE by 

Miguel Rivera Programs for Cinépolis’ Many Territories 

Doris Toumarkine 

In the great Hollywood tradition of 

surprise endings, we’ll wait till the close 

of this article to reveal the movie that 

Cinépolis VP of global programming 

Miguel Rivera, this year’s ShowEast 

“International Exhibitor of the Year” Award 

winner, names as his all-time favorite. First, 

the setting, background and some narrative 

for so impressive a career high. 

Reporting to the chain’s global chief operating 

officer Miguel Mier, Rivera is based 

in Mexico City (Cinépolis is headquartered 

in Morelia, about 200 miles west), so he can 

“be close to Mexico’s distributors” and because 

of his frequent air travel. “I travel a lot 

to all our offices in the 14 countries where 

we operate and I oversee our programming 

teams,” he explains. 

It’s a lot of travel. Cinépolis’ theatres are 

worldwide and number about 647 but are 

mainly concentrated in Mexico, where the 

company was founded in 1971. “Mexico 

is our biggest, most lucrative territory and 

where we’ve been in business for more than 

45 years.” 

The company went international about 

15 years ago and now has a footprint 

stretching to Brazil, Spain, India, the U.S., 

Argentina, Chile and places in between. 

Rivera describes his job as “supervisor of 

the programming teams, assuring that our 

weekly content offerings are aligned with 

reactions we expect from our audiences. So 

it’s helpful to be in so many territories, because 

that [the staggered release schedules] 

allows us to often gather information early 

on how films perform. Also critical to my 

work are the relationships we have either 

on the regional or global level with studios, 

not just Hollywood but with all the regional 

and locals distributors we deal with.” 

He also oversees supervision of alternative 

content, which, as with other circuits, 

Rivera clarifies as “programs with content 

that’s attractive during off-hours of demand 

like weekdays or early on weekends. This is 

mostly niche content and we’ve been successful 

with all sorts—from anime to opera 

to sports reruns to the classics.” 

Additionally in his purview are Cinépolis’s 

film distribution initiatives, which 

he describes as “a distribution operation in 

Mexico and Central America for mostly 

documentaries that couldn’t find other distribution. 

We started working as a distributor 

for them and realized we could be quite 

successful with this. We began the effort in 

2015 in Mexico with mostly Mexican films 

and expanded it to Central America.” 

Rivera also keeps a close eye on amenities 

related to presentations like 4D and 

maintains relationships with companies like 

IMAX (Cinépolis has about 15 screens) and 

with Korean exhibitor, distribution and tech 

giant CJ CGV. 

But for the vast majority of its more 

than 5,000 screens across 14 territories, 

Rivera says, Cinépolis programs both studio 

and art-house films. “We look at all 

that’s available for our market. Most of our 

theatres are in shopping centers and urban 

areas, so families and couples are important 

to consider. But art-house films also work 

well for us.” 

Rivera is also involved in the circuit’s 

ongoing digital deployment, anti-piracy 

initiatives and its film festival exhibition 

partnerships. (In New York, for instance, 

Cinépolis participates in the Tribeca Film 

Festival with its Chelsea multiplex.) Festival 

participation is important, he believes, 

because “festivals are integral to programming, 

not just because of the obviously 

commercial films they might offer, but for 

those less so that keep us very much aware 

of the more sophisticated audiences who are 

out there.” 

Cinépolis itself has festival roots: In 

Morelia, the beautiful colonial city where 

the chain is headquartered, it began its own 

festival 16 years ago, which “influenced 

our decision to work further with festivals, 

including our involvement with Tribeca and 

at Cannes,” where Morelia has a presence at 

the Fest’s important Critics Week sidebar. 

As for the wide spectrum of markets 

Rivera covers, he says predicting how films 

will perform is a tricky business everywhere. 

“Every now and then there are interesting 

surprises in every territory, but Mexico, of 

course, may be easiest for us. Yet no territory 

or even film is really predictable. We 

knew Disney’s Coco would be successful in 

Mexico, but never imagined how great this 

success would be.” 

He does, however, cite some telling 

clues. “In the case of Coco, it’s a film about 

family and that so often works; also, the film 

really captured the spirit of our ‘Day of the 

Dead’ tradition and I believe that was key.” 

In the art-house realm, he mentions 



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CARIBBEAN RESOLVE by 

Robert Carrady Triumphs After a Tough Year 

Kevin Lally 

Robert Carrady, president of Caribbean 

Cinemas, will receive a welldeserved 

“Award of Recognition” at 

ShowEast on Oct. 22. 

“ShowEast is thrilled to be able to 

honor Robert Carrady for his leadership 

in making the Caribbean a prosperous region 

for the moviegoing experience,” says 

Andrew Sunshine, president of the Film 

Expo Group, which manages ShowEast. 

“We would also like to take this opportunity 

to honor him for his integral role in 

rebuilding the cinema industry in Puerto 

Rico after the hurricanes in 2017.” 

Caribbean Cinemas, the largest theatre 

circuit in the Caribbean with 557 

screens and 66 locations in 14 territories, 

has made a remarkable comeback following 

the devastating blows of Hurricanes 

Maria and Irma 13 months ago. When we 

first spoke with Carrady back in March, 

16% of Puerto Rico was still without 

power. “The first weekend after the hurricane,” 

he noted, “we had 33 theatres 

closed—all 31 in Puerto Rico, plus our 

theatres in Saint Thomas and Saint Martin, 

which had closed two weeks before 

Maria because of Hurricane Irma.” 

By December of last year, all of 

Carrady’s Puerto Rican locations had 

reopened; Saint Thomas was back in 

operation in February, and Saint Martin 

this past summer. Meanwhile, the circuit 

forged ahead with plans for new venues: 

A brand-new 11-plex in the San Juan 

area with IMAX, a 4DX screen, a CXC 

premium-large-format auditorium and a 

full bar debuts on Nov. 1, and the first allrecliner 

theatre in Puerto Rico will open 

for Christmas in San Juan. Caribbean 

also opened a four-plex in the Dominican 

Republic this past July. 

“The bigger news,” Carrady reports, 

“is that in June we closed on a 61-screen 

circuit in Bolivia: Cine Center. That was 

spearheaded in large part by my nephews, 

Jason and Gregory Quinn. It’s a market 

that’s not saturated with the big boys, Cinépolis 

and Cinemark, so we saw it as an 

opportunity. What’s nice about the circuit 

is that it has a national presence—it has 

a location in the three major cities of the 

country, and it has three more theatres in 

smaller markets. We like the layout, and 

they’re big theatres—one’s an 18-plex, another 

is a 14-plex, and there’s a 10-plex.” 

Back on his legacy Caribbean turf, 

Carrady says every new location he builds 

will have a CXC premium auditorium. 

He estimates that the circuit will have 

24 new screens in four locations in 2019, 

including Puerto Rico, the Dominican 

Republic and Aruba. “And we’re looking 

to upgrade with remodels, but it’s been 

a really hectic 12 months between 

rebuilding and reopening and these two 

new theatres that were already online. 

As soon as we finish them, we have two 

theatres in particular in Puerto Rico we 

are looking to totally remodel.” 

Carrady notes, “We’re somewhat 

fortunate that we’ve dodged any type 

of repeat of last year in terms of the 

weather.” Still, “on a picture-by-picture 

basis, attendance is lower, because there is 

less population. But we continue to keep 

our admission prices affordable, for those 

who want to enjoy the social big-screen 

experience.” 

He’s happy to report that both Crazy 

Rich Asians and The Meg overperformed 

this summer, and other summer hits 

for Caribbean included Incredibles 2, 

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Hotel 

Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation. He 

also notes that his customers often opt 

for premium formats for the blockbuster 

releases, “which is a good sign considering 

that the economy is challenged. Our 4DX 

location does very well and we’re looking 

forward to opening a second one in the 

new theatre.” 

Intriguingly, the Caribbean Cinemas 

circuit includes three Fine Arts art houses 

totaling 17 screens, two in Puerto Rico 

(where the first one debuted in 1986) and 

one in Santo Domingo. 

“They continue to have a great following,” 

Carrady says, but he has no plans to 

open new Fine Arts venues. “As independent 

cinema continues to be challenged 

trying to make it to the theatre platform 

versus direct to Netflix, one has to be cautious 

in that area,” he explains. 

Still, the Fine Arts locations provide 

a welcoming and successful home for 

local independent productions, along 


090-111.indd 104 

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with Spanish comedies like Señor, Dame 

Paciencia that “continue to soar” for the 

circuit. Carrady names three Puerto 

Rican films that performed very well 

at his venues: the comedy Sanky Panky 

3; 1950, a drama that ran for 16 weeks, 

based on the true story of a Puerto Rican 

who shot up the U.S. Congress; and 

Héctor the Father, which earned $1.5 for 

this fact-based tale of a rapper and drug 

dealer turned evangelist. “These films 

bring in people who don’t normally go 

out to the movies,” he observes. In this 

fraught year, he finds, escapist movies 

have done especially well. “No one came 

to see a documentary on the hurricane 

that we played.” 

Carrady is especially grateful to his 

many employees who’ve proved their 

mettle in a troubled time for the region. 

“It’s been an unbelievable year. The 

enthusiasm, the passion, the dedication to 

our theatres has been fantastic. Our team 

loves the business and they love giving it 

100 percent week after week, and I think 

that’s why we were able to do everything 

we did this year… It’s amazing how the 

human condition just rises to the occasion 

when you have to. You just do what you 

gotta do.” 

Rivera continued from page 102 

how well the emotionally strong French hit 

The Intouchables worked, as did Presumed 

Guilty, the 2011 Emmy-winning documentary 

that Cinépolis distributed about the 

justice system. It did the festival circuit, built 

an audience and was a hit. 

Asked about programming challenges for 

audiences across so many different markets, 

Rivera responds, “Hollywood has that figured 

out quite well and maybe Disney does the 

best, in the sense that they have the strongest 

superhero franchises and the audiences for 

them in every territory. Horror is another 

strong genre, especially in Latin America; 

the response to horror is great and has grown 

over time as an audience favorite.” 

Depending on the need, Cinépolis 

shows both subtitled and dubbed films. “We 

do ask distributors to provide both, so we 

can program each version depending on demand. 

Sometimes the theatres like dubbed 

and others the subtitled versions.” 

Like the entire exhibition community, 

Rivera keeps an eye on getting audiences 

to theatres and making sure they return. 

“We’ve been successful with our VIP format, 

reclining seats and with our in-theatre 

food and beverage offerings. Our luxury 

theatres work well and we keep refining the 

model because we plan to export them to 

other territories.” 

As an example, he cites Manhattan’s 

Chelsea-area Cinépolis multiplex. “Our 

first plans with the multiplex were to create 

a luxury theatre there, but these things 

are challenging in Manhattan. But we are 

revisiting this opportunity because the concept 

works and our patrons, once they can 

enjoy the luxury experience, don’t want to 

go back.” 

What is certain is that Rivera brings a 

lot of experience to his job. He joined Cinépolis 

in 2005 as strategic planning director, 

then served as director of film programming 

for Mexico from 2009 to 2015 before 

stepping into his current position. Prior 

to Cinépolis, he worked at the Mexican 

Embassy with the Organization for Economic 

Cooperation and Development in 

Paris, France, as an analyst for the Technical 

Secretariat of the Social Cabinet in the 

Executive Office of the President of Mexico, 

and as a financial consultant with McKinsey 

and Co. He earned a B.S. in Economics 

from ITAM and a Master’s in Public Policy 

from the Kennedy School of Government 

at Harvard University. While at Cambridge, 

he became familiar with the city’s iconic 

Brattle Theatre art house. 

090-111.indd 105 

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2018 HONOREES 

ShowEast Salutes This Year’s High Achievers 

Mark Borde 

Mark Borde 

Al Shapiro Distinguished 

Service Award 

Mark Borde, president of theatrical 

distribution at Entertainment Studios 

Motion Pictures, will receive this year’s 

ShowEast “Al Shapiro Distinguished 

Service Award.” 

Each year, the Al Shapiro 

Distinguished Service Award honors 

a person who represents the ideals and 

standards that the late Al Shapiro set 

during his distinguished career. The award 

epitomizes his dedication and concern 

for the betterment of people within the 

motion picture industry. 

Borde’s reputation as a leading 

independent motion picture distributor 

began with his family business over 44 

years ago. His father, the late Seymour 

Borde, started their distribution company 

in 1962 as Seymour Borde and Associates. 

It quickly became the number-one 

independent feature film theatrical 

distribution company on the West Coast. 

After his father retired, Borde kept 

Borde Films and soon created Legacy 

Releasing. He sold Legacy to Independent 

Artists, and thereafter became president 

Tim League 

of theatrical distribution for Keystone 

Entertainment. Borde then created 

Innovation Film Group and after meeting 

his soon-to-be partner for decades (the 

late Susan Jackson), they created Freestyle 

Releasing in 2004 and broke new ground 

with the creation of “service deals.” 

In 2015, Freestyle Releasing was 

acquired by Entertainment Studios, Byron 

Allen’s multi-platform, global media 

company. Borde has also produced nine 

successful feature films under his own 

banner. Through Entertainment Studios 

Motion Pictures, he is an executive 

producer of Love Stinks, 47 Meters Down, 

Hostiles, Chappaquiddick, The Hurricane 

Heist and the upcoming Keanu Reeves scifi 

thriller Replicas. 

Tim League 


Tim League, founder and CEO of 

Alamo Drafthouse, will be honored with 

this year’s “Bingham Ray Spirit Award” at 

ShowEast. 

The Bingham Ray Spirit Award was 

established in 2012 in honor of the late 

Bingham Ray, one of the most beloved 

people in the independent film world. 

Each year, the award is bestowed upon 

an individual who has shown exemplary 

foresight and creativity in the world of 

independent film. 

After a two-year stint at Shell Oil in 

Bakersfield, California, League left the 

engineering profession and opened up 

his first movie theatre, the Tejon Theater, 

with his wife Karrie. When the Tejon 

closed after a short run in 1995, the couple 

loaded a truck with 200 seats, a projector, 

screen and speakers and headed to Austin, 

Texas. In 1997, they founded Alamo 

Drafthouse. Today there are 36 Alamo 

Drafthouse locations in 10 states, with 

eight more scheduled to open in the next 

year. As CEO, League remains committed 

to providing creative programming, 

marketing support for independent film 

and a zero-tolerance policy for disruption 

during the theatre experience. 

League also co-founded Fantastic Fest, 

the largest genre film festival in the United 

States, and Neon, the new U.S. distributor 

whose releases include Ingrid Goes West and 

I, Tonya. 

Jorge Licetti 

International Distributor 

of the Year 

Jorge Licetti, founder and CEO of 

New Century Films, will receive this year’s 

ShowEast “International Distributor of the 

Year” Award. 

A Business graduate from the 

University of Texas at El Paso, Licetti 

began his career as general manager for the 

Warner-Fox office in Peru in 1999. After 

five years in Lima, he moved to Santiago 

to be the general manager of the Warner- 

Fox office in Chile for another five years. 


090-111.indd 106 

10/9/18 3:24 PM

member of the National Film Council in 

Peru and as president of the Film Board in 

both Peru and Chile. 

Past recipients of the award include 

Diamond Films, Marcio Fraccaroli of 

Paris Filmes, Pedro Rodriguez of IDC, 

and Martin Iraola of Walt Disney Studios 

Motion Pictures. 

Jorge Licetti 

In 2009, Licetti returned to Peru and 

founded New Century Films, a licensee for 

both Warner Bros. Pictures and Twentieth 

Century Fox. 

New Century Films has established 

itself as the number-one distributor 

in Peru for nine consecutive years. The 

company has also been a strong supporter 

of local productions, having released the 

five biggest Peruvian films of all time. 

During his 19-year career, Licetti has 

always served Warner Bros. Pictures 

and Twentieth Century Fox. He has 

also distributed for New Line Cinema, 

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and DreamWorks 

Animation. Licetti has also served as 

Ana Claudia Talancón 

International Star 

of the Year Award 

Ana Claudia Talancón will receive 

this year’s “International Star of the Year” 

Award at ShowEast. 

Talancón has participated in Mexican 

box-office hits such as El Crimen del Padre 

Amaro, Matando Cabos, Fast Food Nation, 

Love In the Time of Cholera, One Missed 

Call and Arráncame La Vida. She was also 

in American Curious, and will appear in 

the film Perfectos Desconocidos, a remake 

of a successful Italian picture, directed 

by Manolo Caro and sharing credits with 

Manuel García Rulfo, Miguel Rodarte 

and Cecilia Suárez. She was also a 

producer of the TV series “Soy Tu Fan” 

(seasons 1 & 2). 

Talancón was nominated as “Best 

Actress” for her roles in El Cometa and 

El Crimen Del Padre Amaro at the Ariel 

Awards, the Mexican Academy Awards. 

She also won the Canacine Award 

and the “Diosa de Plata” Award in the 

category of Best Actress for the film 

Arráncame la Vida. 

Talancón has also participated in select 

campaigns such as Ciel for The Coca-Cola 

Company. National Geographic chose her 

to embark on a journey through the history 

of Mexico and host the show “Destinos: 

Xcaret.” She also was the host of the 

culinary reality show “Top Chef Mexico” 

for the first two seasons. 

Congratulations 

2018 ShowEast Winners 


Tim League, Alamo Drafthouse 

Al Shapiro Distinguished Service Award 

Mark Borde, Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures 

Salah M. Hassanein Humanitarian Award 

Chris Aronson, 20th Century Fox 

Dan Fellman Show “E” Award 

Neil Campbell, Landmark Cinemas Canada 

Technology Innovator Award 

ScreenX 

ShowEast Hall of Fame Class of 2018 

Larry Etter • Bill Lewis • Janet Murray • Paul Rogers 

Bill Thompson • Harry Whitson 

From your friends at Marcus Theatres Corporation 


090-111.indd 107 

10/9/18 3:24 PM

GET A MARY POPPINS RETURNS GOLD HEART PIN AND HELP A CHILD IN NEED 

Contact Erica Lopez at (323) 954-0820 for 

information on how your theatre can join 

more than 700 other locations throughout 

the country in supporting U.S. Variety’s 

signature fundraiser, the Gold Heart Pin 

Campaign, starting December 2018. Pins 

are given to moviegoers for a minimum 

donation of $3.00 each to raise funds that 

help us provide life-changing mobility 

devices, life-saving hospital equipment, 

and life-enriching experiences to children 

who are disabled and disadvantaged. Extra 

special thanks to The Walt Disney Studios 

for sponsoring this year’s campaign. 

HELP TRANSFORM THE LIFE 

OF A CHILD IN YOUR COMMUNITY 


090-110.indd 108 

10/10/18 7:59 AM


ALWAYS EVOLVING by The Coca-Cola Company 

Coca-Cola Adapts to Changing Consumer Tastes 

At The Coca-Cola Company, 

we’re committed to creating 

refreshing and rewarding movie 

moments that make the customer 

the star of the show. That’s why 

we’re excited to once again join the 

leaders and the best of the film industry 

at ShowEast 2018. We look forward to 

spending time together enjoying the 

Miami sunshine and learning about the 

latest in theatre trends, technologies 

and services. Throughout this exciting 

film convention, we want to continue 

to strengthen our industry partnerships 

and create new relationships that will 

help us perpetuate the magic of the 

moviegoing experience. 

The movie industry is changing, 

and so is The Coca-Cola Company. 

More than ever, we’re transforming 

our business to become a total beverage 

company. This means we’re continually 

evolving our offerings to reflect peoples’ 

June 17-20, 2019 

changing tastes, needs and desire for 

more information. For example, we’re 

working to reduce sugar in more than 

500 products around the world. We’re 

building brands in emerging categories, 

and next year we’re planning a blockbuster 

flavor expansion that will surprise 

and delight moviegoers with unexpected 

moments of refreshment and happiness. 

The key to driving this new strategy forward 

is a more agile operating structure 

that takes intelligent risks and generates 

quicker action. 

This new focus enables us to better 

provide moviegoers with the drinks they 

desire, helping to create magical moments 

at the theatre. After all, moviegoers 

already get to choose their movie, 

their snacks and their seats. Now, 

they’ll have even more refreshment options, 

underscoring our commitment to 

choice and allowing us to continuously 

bring new consumers into our brand 

family. 

Our journey to become a total beverage 

company is strengthened by the partnership 

with and power of our cinema 

partners. Together, we share the belief 

that the best place to enjoy a film is in a 

movie theatre—with an ice-cold Coca- 

Cola beverage and buttery, hot popcorn 

in hand. So, we will continue to focus 

our resources on this great industry. We 

will work closely with theatre owners 

and operators to garner insights, utilize 

space and collaborate on technology 

advancements to discover new and innovative 

opportunities. Our long-term 

commitment to the industry supports our 

shared vision of refreshing the moviegoing 

experience around the world. 

We are honored to have the best 

cinema partners in the world, and we 

are excited about the future and our 

ability to reshape it together. So, here’s 

to a future of innovation, customercentricity 

and making the theatre a 

must-visit destination. We look forward 

to celebrating our shared success and 

planning for future opportunities at 

ShowEast 2018. 


090-111.indd 110 

10/9/18 3:24 PM

CONGRATULATES 

TIM 

LEAGUE 

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE 

2018 Bingham Ray 

Spirit Award Recipient 

Share a 

at the movies 

with... 

Tim 

©2018 The Coca-Cola Company. 

Untitled-1 1 

9/26/18 12:12 PM


NEW PRODUCTS 

FJI’s Preview of the ShowEast EXPO 

Adaptive Technologies Group 

LED display prices are falling and in 

use everywhere. Exhibitors are exploring 

advantages to installing Direct View Cinema 

LED in place of traditional projector/ 

screen technology. Hi-Res LED panels 

deliver a mind-blowing visual experience 

and require an equally amazing precision 

framing system to display them. Adaptive 

Technologies Group has produced such 

precision-engineered LED framing systems 

for years. 

Introducing Adaptive’s GridMaster 

LED video wall frames, an easy-to-install 

precision framing system that provides 

service access, accommodates loudspeakers 

and is made specifically for Direct View 

cinema auditoriums. GridMaster accommodates 

any LED tile and in any configuration, 

providing a crystal-clear Direct 

View picture. Learn more at ShowEast 

booth 206. (adapttechgroup.com) 

Camatic Seating 

The Valencia Front Pivot cinema 

recliner offers the ultimate in comfort. 

It combines the benefits of the Valencia 

Low Line with the added ability to independently 

pivot the whole recliner from a 

front pivot point. To maintain optimal ergonomics 

of back and seat which does not 

alter during the recliner cycle. The reclined 

envelope is standard at 1470mm (58”), but 

this can vary with project requirements. 

Features include lowline seat height, 

heavy-duty recliner mechanisms, heavyduty 

foot extension, and safety footrest, 

removing any chance of entrapment injury. 

The range of upholstery details includes 

stitch options and two standard back 

upholstery finishes, with a range of faux, 

leather and fabrics, Seat, back covers and 

arm pads are removable, and the chair 

offers easy access for under-seat cleaning. 

Visit Camatic Seating at booth 301. (camatic.com) 

CES Plus/Cielo 

Cielo unveils version 5.8 Automation, 

by far the most ambitious release of the 

Internet of Things (IoT) platform. Cielo 

Rescue automation will save a failed show 

for you by going through a series of automated 

functions along with a series of 

checks and balances to make lost shows a 

thing of the past. Cielo is in over 11,000 

screens worldwide and integrated on over 

20,000 devices and growing. See a demo at 

ShowEast Poinciana suite 1. (ces.plus) 

Christie Digital Systems 

With the Christie CP2315-RGB and 

CP2320-RGB, you can offer customers 

a level of image quality not possible anywhere 

else. By combining 2K resolution, 

an expanded color gamut, and contrast 

ratio of 3000:1 (ANSI contrast of 1000:1) 

that far exceeds the DCI specification, the 

CP2315-RGB and CP2320-RGB reveal a 

whole new depth of detail. 

The affordable 2K cinema projectors 

with Christie RealLaser are here. With 

Christie RealLaser you benefit from more 

than 30,000 hours of optimal performance 

before dropping to 80% original brightness. 

Featuring all-new patented sealed 

optical path, Christie RealLaser provides 

unmatched long-term stability and reliability. 

Visit Christie at booth 110 and Poinciana 

2. (christiedigital.com) 

Cinionic 

Cinionic introduces Barco High 

Contrast Laser projectors, which deliver 

stunning images on smaller screens. Based 

on Barco’s Smart Laser platform, these 

models are highly efficient and costeffective, 

overcoming typical challenges 

of creating high-contrast movie images 

for smaller screens. An excellent value 

proposition for exhibitors, they feature 

consistent laser image quality, native 


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4K resolution, enhanced ANSI and 

native contrast, proven DLP technology, 

and long lifetime. The Barco DP4K- 

13BLPHC (11,500 lumens) is ideally 

suited to small- to mid-size screens and 

the Barco DP4K-18BLPHC (16,000 

lumens) is designed for mid-size screens. 

Learn more at ShowEast at Loews Hotel 

Level 3 MR Periwinkle. (cinionic.com) 

The 16- and 24-channel configurations 

now support Dolby Atmos®, Dolby 

Audio 5.1/7.1 via analog inputs, provide 

internal crossovers, and include enhanced 

power handling for lower-impedance 

loudspeakers. Come see it in the Venus 

meeting room! (dolby.com/cinema-pro) 

C. Cretors & Company 

Say goodbye to dried-out pizza! 

C. Cretors and Company’s pizza warmer 

(at right), constructed from heavy-duty 

#304 stainless steel, offers consistent product 

warming and humidification. The programmable 

digital-control maintains desired 

temperature and humidity levels while 

the recirculating air system keeps product 

fresh. An indicator light alerts the operator 

to low water levels. The base of the cabinet 

holds a removable, slide-out water tray with 

splash-guard that provides six to eight hours 

of humidification with three quarts of water. 

A separate clean-out tray catches crumbs 

for easy cleanup. The removable rotating 

rack with automatic shut-off holds up to 

four 14” pizzas. And the best part is, all this 

plugs into a standard 15-amp outlet. Visit 

Cretors at booth 207. (cretors.com) 

Dolby 

The advanced, high-density design 

of the Dolby multichannel amplifier can 

replace up to 16 stereo amplifiers, using 

less space and producing less heat, to lower 

your overall costs. With less equipment to 

install, power and maintain, you get a simpler 

and more efficient installation. Available 

in three configurations, 16, 24 

or 32 channels. 

Encore Performance Seating 

Encore Performance Seating worked 

with a customer to develop an innovative 

product aimed at filling the front-row seats 

in theatres. The Snuggle Lounger is the 

perfect option for the front row, offering 

a special, intimate moviegoing experience. 

Pair this great loveseat option with an ottoman 

to provide your guests with comfort, 

while filling the front row. The addition 

of a fixed or removable table helps drive 

revenue growth for theatres to support in- 

Digital Media Solutions at One Source ! 

Miami & Atlanta . Peru . Russia . Bahrain . Beirut . London 

Projectors: 

Century 

Simplex 

Kinoton 

Cinemeccanica 

Consoles: 

Xenon 2-3-4 KW 

Christie 

Big Sky 

Strong 

DTS 70mm Readers 

BARCO . CHRISTIE . NEC 

1998 N.E. 150th Street North Miami, Florida 33181 

Phone: (305) 573 7339 Fax: (305) 573 8101 

Web: www.myiceco.com Email: iceco@aol.com 


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seat dining. Encore offers various options, 

sources the finest materials, and provides a 

comprehensive warranty with exceptional 

customer service and ongoing support. Try 

out the Snuggle Lounger at booth 410. 

(encore.palliser.com) 

EOMAC 

Let us help bring your vision to life 

with the inclusion of wood light boxes 

within your theatre! These additions are 

perfect for your dining space, entranceways 

and hallways, as well as inside your auditorium. 

This is the perfect way to add the 

beauty and elegance of wood in a unique 

and completely customizable design. 

For more information, come by and see 

EOMAC at booth 211. (eomac.com) 

First Class Seating 

A Movie and Massage: Going to the 

movies can now feel like a trip to the spa. 

New massage and heat options take Bliss’ 

comfort to the next level. Moviegoers can 

indulge in luxurious comfort with eight 

massage zones in the seat and back and 

four modes of control. Add heat to the 

seat, recline and snuggle in. 

Bliss’ inherent design replaces the 

ubiquitous scissor mechanism with two 

kinematic motors. Users feel uninterrupted 

body support during recline, a sense 

that they are floating, defying gravity yet 

perfectly balanced while keeping their 

eyes aligned with the screen. Bliss Zero 

from First Class Seating: more Blissful. 

Experience Bliss at booth 405. (firstclass 

seating.com) 

Flexound Augmented Audio 

Flexound Augmented Audio combines 

high-quality audio with physical 

vibration, creating a unique immersive 

experience. It adds high value to your cinema 

offering and can easily be integrated 

into a range of seats. 

The proven technology is already in use 

in selected pilot cinemas to a great response 

from both operators and audiences. 

Flexound Augmented Audio is also available 

for auditoriums, museums, live theatre, 

concert arenas and any other venue with a 

seated audience. Visit Flexound at booth 

107. (flexound.com) 

GDC Technology 

Save thousands when you replace 

your cinema servers with GDC SR-1000 

Standalone IMB. TM SR-1000 is a digital 

cinema media server designed for nearzero 

maintenance and minimal total cost 

of ownership: 

▶ With CineCache TM (built-in cache 

memory), content playback can be performed 

without local HDD storage. 

▶ Ultra Storage technology enables the 

playback of over 1,000 movies when combined 

with Cinema Automation CA2.0 

▶ Seamless integration with series 1, 2 

and 3 projectors including Barco, Christie 

and NEC ensures reliable and secure content 

delivery 

To find out more about GDC’s limited-time 

offer, visit then at Triton Meeting 

Room, 3rd level, during ShowEast 2018 or 

contact us-sales@gdc-tech.com. 

Gold Medal Products 

Introducing the Hot Diggity Pro Series! 

(above right) Grill up hot dogs with professional 

style and unbeatable performance. 

This stainless-steel roller grill series from 

Gold Medal comes in three sizes: compact, 

standard,and large. Features include: 

▶ Convenient foot spacers for flat or 

angled presentation; 

▶ Improved seal between roller and 

cabinet; 

▶ Heat and serve with 10 rollers 

divided into front and rear heat zones 

▶ Front or rear counter serving; 

▶ Stainless-steel drip tray making 

cleanup easy; 

▶ Option to add food shields and bun 

cabinets to complete your setup. 

For all your concession needs, rely on 

Gold Medal to deliver snacks, smiles and 

success. Visit them at booth 300. (gmpopcorn.com) 

HONY3D 

Based on the HONY3D-T triplebeam 

3D system, HONY3D-T-Laser is 

optimized for RGB laser light sources and 

effectively improves the horizontal colorstripe 

problem. At the same time, it inherits 

the high efficiency, low crosstalk and 

excellent color reproduction of HONY3D- 

T for perfect image alignment and picture 

clarity and long-term image stability. This 

high-efficiency 3D solution optimizes the 

compatibility of RGB lasers to effectively 

solve the problem of horizontal crosshatch 

stripes for RGB laser, 6P and 9P 

laser projectors. Learn more at booth 215. 

(hony3d.com) 

Inorca Seating 

The sensory overload in a front row is 

exactly what makes the zone so appealing, 

so why not make it more comfortable? 


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Increased sales, better sightlines, appealing 

love-seat configurations, design and 

comfort are the strengths of Inorca’s latest 

releases. Features include deluxe upholstery 

with the widest selection of stitching designs, 

lightened numbering and lettering, 

exchangeable embroidered numbers, privacy 

panels and much more. Visit Inorca at 

booth 310. (inorca.com) 

Irwin Seating Company 

Irwin Seating Company, leader in 

seating solutions for the cinema industry, 

is pleased to showcase ZG4 (above), the 

latest Spectrum Recliner Luxury model. 

This version features a new seat module 

that offers exceptional comfort with a deep 

cushioned ride. This seat works in conjunction 

with a new proprietary recliner 

mechanism for smooth motion. Early 

screenings of ZG4 have led to rave reviews 

as patrons find their optimum personalized 

comfort and viewing position. Spectrum 

ZG4 provides more recline than previous 

models, enhanced comfort and unmatched 

operational imperatives only offered by 

Irwin Seating. For additional information, 

call (866) 464-7946 or stop by ShowEast 

booth 210. (irwinseating.com) 

Jack Roe USA 

Following three years of extensive development 

and the completion of JACRO’s 

purchase of cinemawebsites.com, JACRO 

launches its new look and fully responsive 

cinema websites at Showeast 2018! Visit 

booth 400 on the tradeshow floor and see 

how easily you can be up and running with 

an all-inclusive cinema IT package, boasting 

a full-featured film booking and rental 

module, a new customer-facing website, 

native Android and iPhone apps, and easily 

accessible and meaningful online data, all 

protected online with another industryfirst 

from cinema’s most innovative PoS 

provider, two-factor authentication. Film 

bookers love TaPoS—visit booth 400 to 

find out why. (jackroe.com) 

Mars Wrigley Confectionery 

M&M’s® is bringing back a Peanut 

Flavor Vote with a new and engaging 

theme: “Around the World with M&M’s.” 

New flavor choices are English Toffee 

Peanut, Mexican 

Jalapeño Peanut and 

Thai Coconut Peanut. 

Leverage the Flavor 

Vote with an international 

theme to drive 

cultural relevancy 

with Millennials, since 

Millennials are regularly on the search for 

the next big thing and view global flavors 

as must-try items. Voters have a chance to 

win a trip. Flavor Vote 2016 grew the core 

by 4%, and 3.4% of vote volume came from 

new chocolate buyers. Learn more at booth 

201. (mars.com) 


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Mobiliario 

The most advanced technology and 

comfort merged in one seat: Dreamer 

Rocker combines the excellence of our 

rocker devices and the gorgeous comfort 

of a luxury recliner, making the investment 

much lower while still keeping the look 

of your theatre as beautiful as having full 

recliner seats in house. 

Built tough! The prime quality steel 

and wood frames give Dreamer a long life 

and will keep your investment secure. Try 

out the Dreamer Rocker at booth 202. 

(mobiliarioseating.com) 

myCinema 

Launched by NAGRA in 2018, my- 

Cinema is an innovative new solution, 

providing an online marketplace that 

brings together content creators, cinema 

owners and movie lovers. The myCinema 

team at NAGRA continues to assemble 

a large selection of content: live music, 

Broadway, e-sports events, opera, ballet, 

sporting events, as well as classic and independent 

films from a variety of genres. 

We are assembling a growing library of 

diverse and outstanding entertainment 

content that will appeal uniquely to local 

fandoms and diverse niche communities. 

Learn more about taking control of your 

cinema and programing your screens more 

proactively at www.mycinema.live, or visit 

NAGRA at the Boardroom meeting room. 

Omniterm Data Technology 

Omni Usher Point is a new mobile 

application designed to streamline the 

verification process of online 

ticket purchases. It’s the 

next step in providing your 

customers with a method of 

bypassing box-office lines 

and presenting their online 

purchases directly at the 

Usher Stand. The application 

utilizes standard Android 

devices and provides 

theatre personnel with visual and audio 

feedback during the retrieval and verification 

process. This solution provides the 

ideal environment for theatres wishing to 

reduce or eliminate the paper-ticket entry 

method. For customers who still want the 

tickets(s) printed, the app prints to a fullsize 

Bluetooth printer. See Usher Point at 

booth 307. (omniterm.com) 

POSitive Cinema 

POSitive Cinema 

is proud to introduce 

to you our brand new 

Cinema Assistant 

App. We designed 

this solution as a 

tool for optimizing 

work and improving 

productivity in your 

cinema circuit. 

Cinema Assistant 

App will help you 

in following areas: Ticketing, Ticket 

Control, Dine-In and Restaurant Ordering. 

Thanks to this app, your employees 

have a new way to sell and check tickets, 

concessions, restaurant products and all 

services available, all at the palm of their 

hand. Cinema Assistant App offers efficiency 

and customer-service improvement 

at every possible step. Learn more at booth 

404. (positivecinema.com) 

QSC 

The QSC CMS-5000 (below) is a 

next-generation cinema media server that 

features onboard, solid-state storage, exceptionally 

fast high-speed DCP ingest, 

dual HDMI 2.0 ports for alternate content, 

and native support for Q-SYS, QSC’s 

network platform for integrated sound, 

picture, and control. It is capable of JPEG 

2000 DCI content playback at 2k 2D up 

to 60 frames per second, and 4k 3D up to 

30 frames per second. The CMS-5000 also 

supports DTS:X (64 channels) and Atmos 

immersive sound formats. 

As part of the Q-SYS ecosystem, the 

CMS-5000 in Q-SYS Designer software 

appears as a component, providing 

full system interconnection, audio 

channel routing, status monitoring, and 

control. See the CMS-5000 at booth 311. 

(qsc.com/cinema) 

Ready Theatre Systems 

The most cost-effective hardware option 

yet, the SP 5514 (above) is designed 

to optimize workflow with a sleek, small 

footprint. The unit will arrive at your location 

with RTS installed and configured 

to your server. Contact our sales department 

for pricing and ordering information 

at (865) 212-9703 or visit ShowEast booth 

509. (rts-solutions.com) 

Severtson Corp. 

Severtson’s new SēVision 3D GX- 

WA projection coating technology can be 

folded like all Severtson high-performance 

and SAT-4K screens, even for silver-coated 

screens that previously would be difficult or 

impossible to fold without damage. This allows 

it to be transported in a smaller crate 

and at a fraction of the cost worldwide. The 

GX-WA coating provides the benefits of 

standard SēVision 3D GX coatings, but 

offers increased uniformity and brightness 

typically seen more often on 2D white 

screens. It is also engineered specifically to 

increase the viewing angle over standard 

silver screens while also reducing hotspotting. 

Learn more at booth 214. (severtsonscreens.com) 


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TFX Products 

TFX Clean Sweep is a key-switchactivated 

wireless controller solution 

offering the lowest-cost option for 

implementing “all open” and “all close” 

features in recliner chairs. TFX Clean 

Sweep can easily be retrofitted to any 

recliners via a five-pin motor connection 

and is very simple to operate. The TFX 

Clean Sweep functions on the reliable 

433 MHz signal and can be paired with 

over 1,000 chairs via one remote. Each 

unit comes paired, making installation 

quick and easy. See Clean Sweep at 

booth 402. (tfxproducts.com) 

ShowEast EXPO’s new two-day format has been developed to 

bring exhibitors face to face with clients at all social events throughout 

the week, not only on the EXPO floor. 

The ShowEast EXPO experience offers delegates a glance at the 

latest and most cutting-edge technologies, entertainment, services, 

comforts and conveniences to make their theatres a must-attend 

destination. 

Attract new business and highlight your brand with EXPO 

booths, meeting rooms, sponsorships, advertising and signage opportunities—you 

name it, we will work with you to make it happen! 

VIP Cinema Seating 

Intelligent design takes the next logical 

step in VIP’s newest innovations involving 

smart technology and modular design 

options. The company that pioneered the 

concept of luxury cinema seating now leads 

the way with new customization options, 

ensuring not only the utmost comfort and 

convenience for cinema-goers but also 

maximum exhibitor profitability. Three 

new series lines—the Avalon, Bravo and 

Matrix series—allow exhibitors to select 

their most strategic level of investment, 

while offering seating that innovates even 

beyond luxurious comfort. Come see us at 

ShowEast booth 501 or visit www.vipcinemaseating.com. 

SHOWEAST 

EXPO HOURS 

Monday, Oct. 22 : SET UP 

Tuesday, Oct 23: 10:30am–3:30pm 

Wednesday, Oct 24: 10:00am–4:00pm 


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INTERNATIONAL • SINCE 1934 • FOR THE LATEST REVIEWS WWW.FILMJOURNAL.COM 

BUYING & BOOKING GUIDE 

VOL. 121, NO.11 

THE FRONT RUNNER 

COLUMBIA/Color/1.85/113 Mins./Rated R 

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Vera Farmiga, J.K. Simmons, Alfred 

Molina, Mamoudou Athie, Josh Brener, Bill Burr, Oliver 

Cooper, Chris Coy, Kaitlyn Dever, Tommy Dewey, 

Molly Ephraim, Spencer Garrett, Ari Graynor, Toby 

Huss, Mike Judge, Alex Karpovsky, Jennifer Landon, 

John Bedford Lloyd, Mark O’Brien, Sara Paxton, Kevin 

Pollak, Steve Zissis. 

Directed by Jason Reitman. 

Screenplay: Matt Bai, Jay Cason, Jason Reitman, based on 

the book All the Truth Is Out by Matt Bai. 

Produced by Helen Estabrook, Aaron L. Gilbert, Jason 

Reitman. 

Executive producers: Matt Bai, Michael Beugg, Jason 

Blumenfeld, Edward Carpezzi, Jay Carson, Jason Cloth, 

Chris Conover, David Gendron, Ali Jazayeri, Steven 

Thibault. 

Director of photography: Eric Steelberg. 

Production designer: Steven Saklad. 

Editor: Stefan Grube. 

Music: Rob Simonsen. 

Visual effects supervisor: Chris LeDoux. 

A Columbia Pictures presentation of a Bron Studios and 

Creative Wealth Media Finance production, in association 

with Right of Way Films. 

Hugh Jackman stars as a Presidential 

candidate racing toward disaster. 

If you want to know why current politics are 

the way they are—with candidates’ characters 

discussed more than their policies, and 

political reporters competing with gossip 

columnists—director Jason Reitman asks you 

look back to 1988. 

That’s when Sen. Gary Hart was already 

The Front Runner in the soon-to-start Presidential 

campaign—and saw his easy path to 

the Democratic nomination, and probable 

Election Day win, derailed by endless gossip 

about extramarital escapades. 

Was that a good thing? Should a politician’s 

private life stay private? Or is the fact 

that a person may have lied in one thing proof 

that they’ll lie in another? Those are topics 

worth debating. You probably already have 

your opinions. Reitman has his. 

But The Front Runner works hard to accommodate 

all points of view. 

It doesn’t “prove” that Hart and Donna 

Rice slept together (although it’s clear Hart’s 

wife doesn’t doubt it). And while it certainly 

doesn’t applaud the journalists who chased 

after him, it wonders just what that old gentlemen’s 

agreement—whatever happens on the 

campaign trail, stays on the campaign trail— 

said about the way women were disrespected 

and dismissed. 

Whatever your views on all this, expect 

to see The Front Runner thoroughly respect 

and challenge them. 

Also expect to see a compelling, carefully 

detailed, thoughtfully constructed political 

drama that’s both a portrait of one individual, 

whose intellect and idealism sometimes seem 

thwarted by his own stubbornness and ego, 

and of a system that appears almost designed 

to bring out the worst in everyone. (Not 

surprisingly, Reitman has said his movie model 

for this was The Candidate.) 

His film focuses on three weeks in the 

Hart campaign with—an outside-the-box 

choice—Hugh Jackman as the candidate. It’s 

smart casting, actually, and sets up an interesting 

dynamic. Jackman’s been best known— 

whether onstage or in his various Wolverine 

appearances—as a man who’s bursting with 

honest emotion. Here he’s playing, except for 

a few telling scenes, someone who refuses to 

give anything away. It creates an intriguing, 

almost palpable tension. 

He’s well-partnered by a fiery J.K. Simmons 

as his loyal but frustrated campaign 

manager and a heartbreaking Vera Farmiga 

as his long-suffering wife. Sara Paxton gives 

Donna Rice more human consideration than 

anyone did back then, while Molly Ephraim 

plays a campaign staffer with some conflicted 

feelings about the very male lens all this is 

seen through. 

If the casting goes awry at all, it’s when 

Reitman brings in Alfred Molina as Ben Bradlee. 

Not that Molina isn’t a good actor, but 

casting him as the lean and elegant Bradlee is a 

bit like bringing in Oliver Platt to play William 

F. Buckley. 

And, even as audiences are taking a few 

minutes to figure out that that is, indeed, who 

Molina is supposed to be, other complications 

crowd the scene. Along with The Candidate, 

Reitman seems to have been inspired by Robert 

Altman, and many scenes are overstuffed 

with unidentified characters, all talking over 

one another and referring to people we still 

haven’t met. For the first ten minutes, it’s hard 

to find your feet. 

But then the story begins to unfold and 

deepen. 

Hart’s early disgust with even the regular 

requirements of a political campaign—attending 

a big barbecue, posing for a People cover— 

begins to betray a certain dangerous sense 

of self-importance. The rush to get the story 

(on the journalists’ end) and to suppress it (on 

the campaign’s) leaves broken friendships and 

ruined reputations in its wake. 

The film’s very narrow focus leaves some 

things off the screen. There’s no mention of 

the famous National Enquirer photo—which 

came out later—of Rice sitting on Hart’s lap 

while the yacht Monkey Business bobbed in the 

background. Or of Hart’s attempt, after withdrawing, 

to re-enter the campaign months 

later (before being roundly trounced). 

But there’s a lot here as it is. 

Certainly Hart’s ideas—on the environment, 

on the economy, on education—are 

powerful (and would be forward-thinking, 

even today). But if he was as arrogant, or 

simply as careless, as the newspaper stories 

suggested, wouldn’t that have made it difficult 

to turn those policies into law? And if the 

journalists hadn’t investigated his personal life, 

or had kept news back from their readers, 

would that have been more, or less, ethical 

than digging deep? 

The Front Runner, rightfully, doesn’t provide 

any answers to those questions. But it does 

ask them—and demands we do, too. 

—Stephen Whitty 

CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME? 

FOX SEARCHLIGHT/Color/2.35/106 Mins./Rated R 

Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant, Dolly Wells, 

Jane Curtin, Anna Deavere Smith, Stephen Spinella, 

Ben Falcone, Gregory Korostishevsky. 

Directed by Marielle Heller. 

Screenplay: Nicole Holofcener, Jeff Whitty, based on the 

book by Lee Israel. 

Produced by Anne Carey, Amy Nauiokas, David Yarnell. 

Executive producers: Jawal Nga, Pamela Hirsch, Bob 

Balaban. 

Director of photography: Brandon Trost. 

Production designer: Stephen Carter. 

Editor: Anne McCabe. 

Music: Nate Heller. 

Costume designer: Arjun Bhasin. 

A Fox Searchlight Pictures presentation, in association with 

TSG Entertainment, of an Archer Gray production. 

Terrific biopic about writer Lee Israel, a 

forger/thief and thoroughly unfashionable 

anti-heroine, brilliantly played by Melissa 

McCarthy. 

In Marielle Heller’s original—indeed, extraordinary—biopic 

Can You Ever Forgive Me?, 

writer Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy in a stunning 

performance) is a disheveled, middle-aged 


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alcoholic lesbian barely existing in an Upper 

West Side apartment overflowing with flies 

and reeking of cat excrement. Her days are 

frittered away drinking solo in empty bars. She 

is an unapologetic misanthrope, foul-mouthed, 

mean-spirited and totally alone, short of her 

aging cat, Jersey, whom she loves deeply. 

The formerly successful celebrity biographer 

(who penned best-sellers on Tallulah 

Bankhead and Dorothy Kilgallen) has fallen 

on hard times and discovers a way to make 

a living as a literary thief/forger. Intellectual 

larceny feels damn good. It’s her “Fuck 

you!” to the world, with an added third 

finger to all her detractors and naysayers. 

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (terrible title) is an 

unexpected, profound portrayal of a new 

woman onscreen. The dowdy, 50-plus, brainy 

anti-heroine has arrived. 

Loosely inspired by Israel’s readable memoir, 

the story is set in the early 1990s. AIDS 

is raging and self-marketing—admittedly in a 

pre-social-media environment—is the name 

of the game, though Israel, devoid of social 

fakery skills, refuses to, or perhaps can’t, play 

it and has thus become a pariah in media circles. 

Her last book was a critical/commercial 

disaster and her most recent pitch—penning 

a biography of vaudeville star Fanny Brice—is 

dated beyond redemption. 

Her agent Marjorie (a crisply efficient 

Jane Curtin, who’s aged well) does not return 

her calls; the only way Israel can get through 

to her is to mimic Nora Ephron’s voice, at 

which point Marjorie is immediately available. 

Ephron accused Israel of harassment and the 

court served her with a cease-and-desist 

order. The film offers a telling bird’s-eye view 

of the publishing world. Credit must go to 

screenwriters Nicole Holofcener and Jeff 

Whitty. 

Early on, we see Israel proofreading copy 

at a law firm on the graveyard shift while 

drinking alcohol at her desk. She is fired and in 

the next scene trudges her way home through 

desolate pre-dawn streets. Throughout, the 

urban landscape, with silhouettes of bridges 

and skyscrapers and garish lights of all-night 

bars (hokey though it may be), serves as an 

evocative visual motif. Cinematographer Brandon 

Trost nails it. 

In the wake of the job debacle, Israel 

crashes a party at Marjorie’s well-appointed 

Central Park West apartment, awash in smug 

literary types, where Israel loudly confronts 

her rep, pockets food and steals a guest’s 

pricey coat before leaving in a mood that combines 

high dungeon, fear at being caught, and 

triumph when she’s not. She writes that her 

life was defined by relentless anxiety. Heller, 

whose previous film was Diary of a Teenage 

Girl (a dark rite-of-passage story marking an 

impressive debut), forges a world that is closing 

in on our protagonist—even though her 

troubles are largely of her own making. 

The turning point comes as Israel, months 

behind on her rent, needs medical care for 

her beloved Jersey. The clinic refuses to treat 

the ailing animal unless Israel coughs up at 

least half the money she already owes for past 

medical services. And she just doesn’t have it. 

Failing to generate much money on the 

sale of her old books—contending with 

supercilious dealers is an exercise in humiliation 

and futility—Israel steals a Fanny Brice 

letter from some unnamed research center 

and offers it to a literary/autograph memorabilia 

broker. The broker is interested but says 

he’d pay even more if there were some juicy 

material in the correspondence. The seed has 

been planted. 

Well-versed in literary voices—from 

Dorothy Parker to Noel Coward to Lillian 

Hellman and beyond—Israel launches her 

new business, acquiring, forging and embellishing 

missives, adding commentary in various 

inimitable styles. She’s brilliant at it. In fact, 

“Can you ever forgive me?,” a phrase she 

attributed to Dorothy Parker (who never said 

it), embodies Parker’s ironic, slightly sarcastic 

tone. Israel creates respondents to whom 

the letters are addressed and gossips about 

various characters, some real, others not. She 

grows increasingly brazen with each sale and 

manages to successfully hawk more than 400 

pieces during her two-year crime spree. 

No spoiler here. But in life—and fiction— 

nothing lasts forever. Predictably enough, 

when her work finally fails to be authenticated, 

she is tracked down by the FBI and arrested. 

Israel avoids jail time by pleading guilty, 

landing a real job as an editor at Scholastic 

magazine, doing community service of some 

sort (not clear what) and agreeing to go to AA 

(which she never does). 

The movie is layered in its exploration of 

a solitary, at times anonymous life, and the 

empowerment that comes not with sharing 

but rather secrecy. Israel reaches out to a 

bookseller (Dolly Wells) and her ex-lover 

Elaine (Anna Deveare Smith, delivering, as 

always, a solid performance) appears briefly, 

but Israel is a one-woman show. Her only real 

companion (besides her cat) is Jack Hock (a 

brilliant performance by Richard E. Grant), a 

hustler, grifter and drinking buddy who has 

screwed his way through much of Manhattan’s 

gay community, unprotected and indiscriminate. 

Grant’s Jack (aka “Jacket”), a decaying 

fop, is charming yet abrasive, manipulative yet 

innocent, and always reckless. 

Their relationship presents a special 

camaraderie between a gay man and lesbian 

in an era that predates any loudly touted 

LGBTQ political bonding. “Woke” had not yet 

entered the vocabulary. The fact that neither 

protagonist is youthful is yet another of the 

film’s newsworthy facets. Jack died of AIDS in 

the ’90s, and Israel passed in 2014. 

McCarthy is, of course, best known for 

her coarsely comic turn in Bridesmaids (for 

which she received an Oscar nomination) and 

other broad-stroked comedies, from Spy to 

The Boss to Tammy, along with her TV stints 

on “Mike & Molly” and “Saturday Night Live,” 

where she perfected an uncanny Sean Spicer 

sendup. She showed her dramatic chops in 

St. Vincent, playing an introspective, sensitive 

single mother opposite Bill Murray. Still, that 

performance could not anticipate how fearlessly 

and credibly she inhabits Lee Israel. 

And McCarthy has found the right creative 

partner in Heller, who treads unchartered 

territory with a character like Israel: 

unfashionable, unfamiliar and unappealing 

to most viewers. Not to overstate the case, 

but the heavily distaff creative team—including 

many of its producers—has dared to 

celebrate a woman who in all likelihood never 

felt a rush of sisterhood in her life. 

—Simi Horwitz 

WILDLIFE 

IFC FILMS/Color/2.35/Dolby Digital/104 Mins./ 

Rated PG-13 

Cast: Carey Mulligan, Ed Oxenbould, Jake Gyllenhaal, 

Bill Camp, Darryl Cox. 

Directed by Paul Dano. 

Screenplay: Paul Dano. Zoe Kazan, based on the novel 

by Richard Ford. 

Produced by Alex Saks, Oren Moverman, Riva Marker, 

Ann Ruark, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano. 

Executive producers: Zoe Kazan, Ted Deiker, Eddie Deiker, 

Eddie Vaisman. 

Director of photography: Diego García. 

Production designer: Akin McKenzie. 

Editors: Matt Hannam, Louise Ford. 

Music supervisor: Susan Jacobs. 

Costume designer: Amanda Ford. 

A Magic Child/Sight Unseen/Ninestories production. 

Indie star Paul Dano makes an impressive 

directorial bow with this adaptation Richard 

Ford’s 1990 novel about a lower-middle-class 

family about to be torn apart. 

It’s not so surprising that Paul Dano, who has 

consistently impressed as a featured actor in 

acclaimed indies like Love & Mercy, 12 Years 

a Slave, There Will Be Blood and Little Miss 

Sunshine, would know how to handle matters 

behind the camera. But Wildlife, a slowsimmering 

but ultimately explosive work, still 

surprises. That Dano coaxes so much viewer 

attention to a seemingly unremarkable nuclear 

family in a bland, rural town where no tourist 

would venture is key. 

Much credit for this superb adaptation 

goes to Dano’s interest in details (the characters’ 

unease, the ‘60s design, the pacing) and 

the authenticity brought by his savvy casting 

of Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal as the 

husband and wife, Bill Camp as a gentle wild 

card and, in his breakthrough, Ed Oxenbould 

as the couple’s teenage son. Wildlife is a gem 

that, like the forest fire that sets the story in 

motion, should ignite good word of mouth. 

Jeanette and Jerry Brinson (Mulligan 

and Gyllenhaal) are a couple newly arrived 

in Great Falls, Montana, where Jerry takes 

a job as a maintenance worker at a golf 

course. Jeanette continues as the caring kind 

of housewife and mother that the placid 

1950s codified, while 15-year-old son Joe 

(Oxenbould) adjusts to his new school. But 

the family’s hopes for a place where they can 

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finally settle are shaken when mild-mannered, 

accommodating Jerry is fired because his boss 

(incorrectly) thought him too chatty with a 

club member. Jerry struggles to find work, 

as does Jeanette, who grows increasingly 

concerned about their security. 

Joe senses the growing unease building 

in his parents’ marriage. A keen and discrete 

observer, much unfolds from his point of view. 

Matters take a sharp turn when Jerry goes 

off to join a crew fighting a forest fire some 

distance way at the Canadian border and 

Jeanette, left alone, lands work as a swimming 

instructor at the local Y. While their marriage 

was never perfect, Jeanette grows restless 

without a mate. It’s also through Joe’s eyes 

that we watch a relationship blossom between 

Jeanette and Warren Miller (Bill Camp), a 

wealthy widower and her former student at 

the Y. Meanwhile, Joe lands a part-time job as 

assistant to the local photographer. Much ensues 

as the lives of all four make unexpected 

swerves. 

Nowhere as deep an examination of the 

institution of marriage as Ingmar Bergman’s 

dead-serious Scenes from a Marriage or as 

vicious and cringe-inducing as Danny DeVito’s 

darkly comic The War of the Roses, Dano’s 

take, by way of novelist Richard Ford (The 

Sportswriter, Independence Day), is to let matters 

build, driven on the undercurrents of 

human nature. 

Some minor gripes aside (e.g., rather 

abrupt shifts in both Jeanette’s and Jerry’s 

characters and an extreme action questionably 

addressed), Wildlife offers a fresh 

glimpse of lower-class anomie and the 

rhythms of life in a simpler time and place. 

—Doris Toumarkine 

SUSPIRIA 

AMAZON STUDIOS/Color/1.85/Dolby Atmos/ 

153 Mins./Rated R 

Cast: Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton, Mia Goth, Lutz 

Ebersdorf, Angela Winkler, Chloë Grace Moretz, Ingrid 

Caven, Elena Fokina, Sylvie Testud, Renée Soutendijk, 

Christine Leboutte, Malgosia Bela, Fabrzia Sacchi, 

Jessica Harper. 

Directed by Luca Guadagnino. 

Screenplay: David Kajganich, based on the original 

screenplay by Dario Argento, Daria Nicolodi. 

Produced by Gabriele Moratti, William Sherak, Silvia Venturini 

Fendi, Francesco Melzi d’Eril, Luca Guadagnino, 

David Kajganich, Marco Morabito, Bradley J. Fischer. 

Executive producers: Kimberly Steward, Lauren Beck, 

Josh Godfrey, Stella Savino, James Vanderbilt, Roberto 

Manni, Natalie Galazka, Massimiliano Violante, Carlo 

Antonelli. 

Director of photography: Sayombhu Mukdeeprom. 

Production designer: Inbal Weinberg. 

Editor: Walter Fasano. 

Music: Thom Yorke. 

Costume designer: Giulia Piersanti. 

Choreography: Damien Jalet. 

A Frenesy Film Company, Videa Spa, Mythology Entertainment, 

First Sun and Memo Films production, in 

association with Dario Argento and Claudio Argento. 

Luca Guadagnini’s remake of Suspiria puts 

a grim, gory spin on the story of a naive 

American dance student trapped in a world 

of witches. 

1977: Fresh-faced Iowan Susie Bannion 

(Dakota Johnson) was raised within a repressive, 

rural Mennonite community, where 

she found personal freedom in studying dance. 

Being invited to join the prestigious, Berlinbased 

Markos Dance Company is a dream 

come true, an opportunity to both expand 

her professional credentials and further her 

personal rebellion against a strict, religious 

upbringing. 

To be sure, divided Berlin is no Garden 

of Eden. News reports about Baader-Meinhof 

drone in the background, and the Berlin 

Wall lies no more than a few yards from 

the entrance to the school, presided over 

by icy Madame Blanc and the authoritarian 

faculty. Even Blanc’s renowned dance, “Volk,” 

choreographed three decades earlier amid 

the ruins of post-WWII Germany and now 

being revived, is a daily reminder that art and 

beauty are often born of chaos and pain. 

But Susie is excited to be surrounded 

by strong, passionate women in a vibrant 

city far from the home where girls dressed 

like 19th-century housemaids spent their 

days praying and doing farmwork. If only the 

circumstances weren’t so unsettling. Why 

did dancer Patricia (Chloë Grace Moretz, 

in a tiny role) disappear after hinting to her 

psychiatrist, Dr. Jozef Klemperer, about 

wicked goings-on? The police are still looking 

for her, despite rumors she may have joined a 

revolutionary faction. Why did Olga, another 

dancer, exit abruptly? And what are the 

teachers laughing about as they eat dinner 

together at the staff table, exchanging knowing 

glances and smug smiles? 

The reputation of Dario Argento’s Suspiria 

is such that anyone with even a passing 

interest in the horror genre either already 

knows or can make a pretty good guess as 

to the general nature of what’s wrong at the 

Markos Dance Academy. Guadagnino (of 

2017’s award-winning Call Me By Your Name) 

doesn’t mimic the unforgettable candycolored 

look of Argento’s original—widely 

considered one of his best films and certainly 

his most popular. In fact, he goes to the opposite 

extreme. This Suspiria is all sickly browns 

and greys, shadowed corridors that alternate 

with the brightly lit rehearsal rooms and their 

mirrored walls. 

It’s a smart reimagining, but not a particularly 

compelling one, which is the problem 

overall. It’s well cast—especially Tilda Swinton 

as both Madame Blanc and the elderly Dr. Klemperer 

(an open secret since the film began 

screening)—and contains at least one haven’tseen-that-before 

scene, which is no mean feat 

in 2018. It’s both thoughtful and suitably grisly 

and has its own aesthetic, though the score by 

Thom Yorke of Radiohead has nowhere near 

the impact of the Goblin original. 

Overall, it’s hard to imagine Guadagnino’s 

version having the staying power of Argento’s, 

which continues to find new admirers four 

decades after its initial release. That Suspiria is 

sui generis, utterly absorbing and aggressively 

ageless—it, too, is supposed to take place in 

Germany, but looks like a stained-glass fairytale 

come to life. This one is an intelligent, 

well-made film with some standout moments, 

like the bone-cracking end of one rebellious 

dancer in an empty, brilliantly lit studio. It’s 

one for the “most horrifying moments” montage, 

but not for the ages. 

—Maitland McDonagh 

THE HAPPY PRINCE 

SONY PICTURES CLASSICS/Color/2.35/Dolby 

Digital/104 Mins./Rated R 

Cast: Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Colin Morgan, Edwin 

Thomas, Emily Watson, Béatrice Dalle, Ronald Pickup, 

Tom Wilkinson, Benjamin Voisin, John Standing, Anna 

Chancellor. 

Written and directed by Rupert Everett. 

Produced by Sébastien Delloye, Philipp Kreuzer, Jörg 

Schulze. 

Director of photography: John Conroy. 

Production designer: Brian Morris. 

Editor: Nicolas Gaster. 

Music: Gabriel Yared. 

Costume designers: Maurizio Millenotti, Giovanni 

Casalnuovo. 

A Maze Pictures and A Entre Chien Et Loup production, 

in association with BBC Films and Lionsgate UK. 

In English, French and Italian. 

Lavishly produced yet intimate, this compelling 

portrait of wit Oscar Wilde during his 

final, tragic decade gives debuting director 

and writer/star Rupert Everett a trifecta 

career high. 

Late 19th-century Irish-British literary 

sensation and bon vivant Oscar Wilde was 

Victorian England’s most famous victim of 

anti-homosexual laws. The Happy Prince 

focuses not on his grand years, but on his 

terrible decade of decline, when his sentence 

for “gross indecency” meant two years of 

incarceration and hard labor. But as depicted 

here, it was Wilde’s own often-foolish selfindulgence 

and tendency to self-destruct that 

helped mightily in the story of his downfall. 

Rupert Everett (Dance with a Stranger, 

The Madness of King George, My Best Friend’s 

Wedding) brings all this alive to stunning, 

awards-worthy effect as auteur working both 

sides of the camera. In his hands, The Happy 

Prince, far from the depressing journey it 

could have been, becomes a visually stunning, 

riveting foray into a great mind, unforgettable 

personality and iconic victim of both 

shameful intolerance and his own nature. 

Art-house audiences ever hungry for beautifully 

packaged, authentic characters and wellobserved 

turn-of-the-century production 

design get it here. 

As a giant of literary history, Wilde is 

known for his poetry, children’s stories (including 

“The Happy Prince,” which Everett’s 

Wilde reads here at appropriate intervals), 

plays (The Importance of Being Earnest, An 

Ideal Husband), a classic novel (The Picture of 

Dorian Gray) and “De Profundis,” his famous 

long letter written while incarcerated. 

Before his French exile, he was also a 


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much-sought-after lecturer who even toured 

America (the lighter 1997 Wilde, starring 

Stephen Fry, includes this episode). At his 

peak, Wilde was the sensation of London 

and beyond, as brief flashbacks convey. Later, 

as scandal unfolds, we see an impoverished 

Wilde discreetly begging the elegant upperclass 

Mrs. Arbuthnott (Anna Chancellor) 

for money after a chance street encounter. 

Humiliation quickly follows, foreshadowing 

the harder times to come. 

The story’s chronology is somewhat 

scattershot, but the timeline is arranged poetically. 

It never confuses the pre-1890 good 

days with the years of growing hardship that 

follow. The late ’90s finds Wilde arriving in 

northern France under a pseudonym to begin 

a new life away from the scorn of his native 

country. He’s fluent in French (and Italian, as 

Everett himself is), loves the country and is 

optimistic about his future there. “I’m really 

ready to return to life,” he tells his devoted 

literary executor and former lover Robbie 

Ross (Edwin Thomas), on hand in France to 

greet and help settle him in. Ross still carries 

a torch for Wilde, and his rivals for Wilde’s 

favor are soon to arrive. 

Managing on a small allowance from 

estranged wife Constance (Oscar nominee 

Emily Watson), Wilde settles into a lovely 

seaside hotel in Normandy. Another dear but 

more cautious friend, Reggie Turner (Colin 

Firth), arrives, and all goes well until Wilde 

overspends with too many lavish meals and 

too much absinthe and champagne. But it’s 

a letter from his younger former lover Lord 

Alfred “Bosie” Douglas (a quite pretty Colin 

Morgan) that precipitates big problems. First 

Wilde impressively rips it up in front of his 

friends; they know how toxic the relationship 

was. Bosie’s aristocratic father, outraged at 

the relationship, slandered Wilde, who foolishly 

sued the man. It backfired, sending Wilde, 

with accusations of “indecent behavior,” 

to trial, conviction, two years’ imprisonment, 

near-poverty and total disgrace. Hence, his 

eventual flight to France. 

But Wilde secretly pieces Bo

Film Journal November 2018

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