Boxoffice Pro - Winter 2020

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INDUSTRY A CENTURY IN EXHIBITION ‘ 0 s 82020 marks the 100th anniversary of A CENTURY IN EXHIBITION The 1980s: Megabucks, MTV, and Megaplexes BY VASSILIKI MALOUCHOU the founding of Boxoffice Pro. Though the publication you hold in your hands has had different owners, headquarters, and even names—it was founded in Kansas City by 18-year-old Ben Shlyen as The Reel Journal, then called Boxoffice in 1933, and more recently Boxoffice Pro—it has always remained committed to theatrical exhibition. From the 1920s to the 2020s, Boxoffice Pro has always had one goal: to provide knowledge and insight to those who bring movies to the public. Radio, TV, home video, and streaming have all been perceived as threats to the theatrical exhibition industry over the years, but movie theaters are still here—and so are we. We at Boxoffice Pro are devotees of the exhibition industry, so we couldn’t resist the excuse of a centennial to explore our archives. What we found was not just the story of a magazine, but the story of an industry—the debates, the innovations, the concerns, and above all the beloved movies. We’ll share our findings in our year-long series, A Century in Exhibition. 28 Winter 2020
The experimental revolution that swept the 1960s and 1970s was all but dead and buried in the ’80s. Summarizing the new decade, Peter Biskind, author of Down and Dirty Pictures, writes, “When the Ronald Reagan tsunami swept everything before it, the market replaced Mao, The Wall Street Journal trumped The Little Red Book, and supply-side economics supplanted the power of the people.” The corporatization of Reagan’s America, as well as its return to conservatism, left Hollywood with little interest in small, realistic, auteur-driven films. Instead, it went all-in on megabuck movies produced by mega-corporations to be shown in megaplexes. The Return of the Studios Riding the blockbuster wave started by Jaws and Star Wars in the previous decade, Hollywood in the 1980s turned all its efforts to the production of expensive sci-fi, action, and horror blockbusters like Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. What Jaws had taught the industry was not only the power of pricey special effects but also that of huge marketing campaigns. Skyrocketing marketing budgets significantly inflated the price of films in the 1980s. The MPAA’s president, Jack Valenti, revealed in November 1980 that in that year the average film made by the major studios that made up the MPAA cost $10 million before advertising and prints, double the 1975 figure. Prints and advertising added another whopping $6 million. According to Valenti, box office grosses needed to reach about $40 million for the studio to simply break even. To guarantee maximum returns, Hollywood’s high-concept blockbusters became more and more homogenized. Unlike their embrace of little-known actors or even nonactors in the’60s and ’70s, the studios increasingly relied on a small number of very popular actors with a star factor strong enough to make people show up at the box office. Boxoffice Pro even began publishing “box office attraction” lists, ranking the most popular stars and the most promising new actors based on monthly surveys. Studios also invested heavily in sequels to minimize risks. Associate editor Jimmy Summers wrote somewhat ironically about the trend in the summer of 1983, when films like Return of the Jedi, Rocky III, Superman III, and Psycho II hit the screens. The “summer of sequels appears to be the season in which the actors do exactly what their public wants them to do,” he wrote. Higher production and marketing costs proved a problem for exhibitors, which were forced to raise their ticket prices sometimes to as high as $6 or $7, doubling 1970s prices. Between 1979 and 1980, when the average ticket price was Winter 2020 29
Page 1 and 2: $6.95 / Winter 2020 PROMISING YOUNG
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Page 7 and 8: Winter 2020 CONTENTS 90 Coming Attr
Page 9 and 10: XXXXX PREMIUM PROJECTION SCREENS FO
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Page 14 and 15: INDUSTRY NATO KEEPING IN TOUCH NATO
Page 16 and 17: INDUSTRY NATO were surveyed about t
Page 18 and 19: INDUSTRY NATO cash flow, staff rehi
Page 20 and 21: INDUSTRY CHARITY SPOTLIGHT CHARITY
Page 22 and 23: Theater BRIDGING THE GAP BRIDGING T
Page 24 and 25: Theater BRIDGING THE GAP There is s
Page 26 and 27: Industry INDUSTRY INSIDERS A FLAVOR
Page 28 and 29: Industry INDUSTRY INSIDERS Looking
Page 32 and 33: INDUSTRY A CENTURY IN EXHIBITION $2
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Page 42 and 43: THEATER ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE HOLDING DO
Page 44 and 45: THEATER ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE company’
Page 46: THEATER ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE “What do
Page 49 and 50: patrons in and out of the lobbies a
Page 51 and 52: THE FEATURES YOU NEED. THE OPTIONS
Page 53 and 54: As cinemas reopen, high-margin conc
Page 55 and 56: Marcus Theatres. “The cinema expe
Page 57 and 58: in New York during a huge growth of
Page 59 and 60: TASTING NOTES We asked sommelier Je
Page 63 and 64: Art Deco and Jugendstil design. Add
Page 65 and 66: “Based on a theme of urban downto
Page 67: efore March 14, when Cineplexx susp
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Promising Young Woman 80 | Nomadlan
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Carey Mulligan has an eye out for t
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It wasn’t inspired by [the last f
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O N T H E R O A D AGAIN Chloé Zhao
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didn’t really think about that wh
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“She’s being sympathetic. She k
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NOMADLAND December 4 / Searchlight
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MONSTER HUNTER December 30 / Sony B
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Big screen. Bigger cause. St. Jude
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On Screen BOOKING GUIDE BOOKING GUI
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BARB AND STAR GO TO VISTA DEL MAR F
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UNCHARTED Fri, 7/16/21 WIDE Stars:
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UNTITLED JORDAN PEELE HORROR EVENT
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now can go Today’s cinema complex
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