Boxoffice Pro - Centennial Issue

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Centennial
CONTENTS
142
Cinematic Enchantment
Disney Puts the Magic in
Magical Realism in the
Animated Musical Encanto
110
Parallel Histories
Parallel Mothers is Pedro
Almodóvar’s Most Explicitly
Political Film Yet. It’s Also
Among His Best.
130
Men Without Women
Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Avoids Getting Lost in
Translation in the Cinematic
Epic Drive My Car
118
California Dreaming
Director Sean Baker on
Red Rocket and the Challenges
Facing Specialty Distribution
136
A Love Story for Jordan
Michael B. Jordan Teams with
Denzel Washington on the True
Account of a Soldier, Husband,
and Devoted Father
05-06_Contents.indd 5 24/11/2021 14:03

CONTENTS
INDUSTRY
ON SCREEN
16
19
22
26
32
42
46
100 Years and Being Counted
Celebrating a Century of
Boxoffice Pro
Voices from CinemaCon
Reflections from NATO’s Diversity &
Inclusion Scholarship Recipients
Charity Spotlight
A Recap of Industry-Wide Charity
Initiatives
Recovery Year
CinemaCon and CineEurope
Highlight Exhibition’s Post-
Pandemic Concerns and Anxieties
State of the Art House 2021
Leaders of Specialty and Art House
Exhibition on What the Future Holds
Industry Insiders
A Tribute to Boxoffice Pro
Executive Editor Kevin Lally in
His Final Issue
Remembering WOMPI
Celebrating the Legacy of Women of
the Motion Picture Industry
110
118
126
130
Parallel Histories
Parallel Mothers is Pedro Almodóvar’s
Most Explicitly Political Film Yet. It’s
Also Among His Best.
California Dreaming
Director Sean Baker on Red Rocket
and the Challenges Facing Specialty
Distribution
Escape from Afghanistan
Jonas Poher Rasmussen Animates a
Refugee’s Harrowing Journey in the
Acclaimed Documentary Flee
Men Without Women
Ryusuke Hamaguchi Avoids Getting
Lost in Translation in the Cinematic
Epic Drive My Car
136
142
148
151
A Love Story for Jordan
Michael B. Jordan Teams with Denzel
Washington on the True Account of a
Soldier, Husband, and Devoted Father
Cinematic Enchantment
Disney Puts the Magic in Magical
Realism in the Animated Musical
Encanto
Event Cinema Calendar
A Sampling of Event Cinema
Programming Hitting the Big
Screen in 2022
Booking Guide
“For me, back then, the cinema
was a parallel universe—the
type of universe I wanted to
live in. The type of universe
you’d only dream about,
one that seemed a lot more
appealing than the harsh
realities of the postwar era.”
Pedro Almodóvar, p. 116
CENTENNIAL
50
54
62
The Boxoffice Story!
A Reprint From our 50th Anniversary
Issue, Published in 1970, Looking Back
at the Founding of the Publication
The Boxoffice Story, Continued
An Institutional History of Boxoffice
Pro Since Ben Shlyen’s Sale of the
Company
A Century in Exhibition
Documenting 100 Years of Exhibition
History Through the Pages of
Boxoffice Pro
06 Centennial 2021
05-06_Contents.indd 6 24/11/2021 14:37

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BOXOFFICE MEDIA
CEO
Julien Marcel
SVP Content Strategy
Daniel Loría
Creative Direction
Chris Vickers & Craig Scott
at She Was Only
EVP Chief Administrative Officer
Susan Rich
VP Advertising
Susan Uhrlass
BOXOFFICE PRO
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
Daniel Loría
DEPUTY EDITOR
Rebecca Pahle
EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Kevin Lally
MANAGING EDITOR
Laura Silver
CHIEF ANALYST
Shawn Robbins
ANALYSTS
Chris Eggertsen
Jesse Rifkin
DATABASE
Diogo Hausen
CONTRIBUTORS
Patrick Corcoran
Charles Rivkin
Rolando Rodriguez
Erin Von Hoetzendorff
Vassiliki Malouchou
ADVERTISING
Susan Uhrlass
63 Copps Hill Road
Ridgefield, CT USA 06877
susan@boxoffice.com
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Boxoffice Pro
P.O. Box 215
Congers, NY 10920
833-435-8093 (Toll-Free)
845-450-5212 (Local)
boxoffice@cambeywest.com
CORPORATE
Box Office Media LLC
63 Copps Hill Road
Ridgefield, CT USA 06877
corporate@boxoffice.com
Boxoffice Pro has served as the
official publication of the National
Association of Theatre Owners
(NATO) since 2007. As part of this
partnership, Boxoffice Pro is proud to
feature exclusive columns from NATO
while retaining full editorial freedom
throughout its pages. As such, the
views expressed in Boxoffice Pro
reflect neither a stance nor an
endorsement from the National
Association of Theatre Owners.
Due to Covid-19, Boxoffice Pro
will be adjusting its publishing
schedule. For any further
questions or updates regarding
your subscription, please do not
hesitate to contact our customer
service department at boxoffice@
cambeywest.com.
HISTORICAL
MASTHEAD
PUBLISHERS
Ben Shlyen
(1920–1979)
William J. Vance
(1979–1980)
Robert L. Dietmier
(1980–2005)
Brian Pomerantz & Gidon
Cohen
(2005–2006)
Peter Cane
(2006–2014)
Julien Marcel
(2014–Present)
EDITORS IN CHIEF
Ben Shlyen
(1920–1979)
Charles F. Rouse III
(1979)
Alexander Auerbach
(1980–1984)
Harley W. Lond
(1984–1993)
Ray Greene
(1994–1997)
Kim Williamson
(1998–2006)
Annlee Ellingson
(2007–2008)
Chad Greene
(2008–2009)
Amy Nicholson
(2010–2013)
Daniel Loria
(2014–Present)
Boxoffice Pro (ISSN 0006-8527), Volume 157, Number 5, Centennial Edition 2021. Boxoffice Pro is
published by Box Office Media LLC, 63 Copps Hill Road, Ridgefield, CT USA 06877.
corporate@boxoffice.com. www.boxoffice.com. Basic annual subscription rate is $75.00. Periodicals
postage paid at Beverly Hills, CA, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send all UAA to
CFS. NON-POSTAL AND MILITARY FACILITIES: send address corrections to Boxoffice Pro, P.O. Box 215,
Congers, NY 10920. © Copyright 2021. Box Office Media LLC. All rights reserved. SUBSCRIPTIONS:
Boxoffice Pro, P.O. Box 215, Congers, NY 10920 / boxoffice@cambeywest.com. 833-435-8093 (Toll-
Free), 845-450-5212 (Local). Box Office Pro is a registered trademark of Box Office Media LLC.
(Jan–Dec 2021) 2,566 / Print - 2,101 / Digital - 465
08 Centennial 2021
08-10_Executive-Letter.indd 8 24/11/2021 17:37

EXECUTIVE LETTER
FORGING A
PATH FORWARD
Two years ago, when we began
preparing for our centennial issue,
we took up the task in the usual way. We
knew we had to be quick and efficient,
and we knew we had to plan everything
in advance in order to stay up to date (the
best one can in a monthly magazine) with
the latest developments in a business
that had just achieved its highest-ever
global earnings. There was enormous
momentum in the industry going into
the holiday season of 2019; it seemed like
the perfect time to celebrate our 100th
anniversary.
What unfolded instead was a series
of events that left a lasting scar on our
personal and professional lives. Here at
Boxoffice Pro, the hardships began
with the unfortunate passing of our
longtime creative director, Kenneth
Bacon, in December 2019. Ken was the
longest-serving member of our staff, and
he was, in many ways, the caretaker of this
publication’s history (our archives were
stored in his garage for a period). His wry,
nostalgic Timecode column, which he
compiled from his collection of back issues,
was a reader favorite. Though he is not
with us today, I am sure you will be able to
see his influence throughout this issue.
January 2020 presented another
difficult challenge, with news of a novel
coronavirus spreading in China. None
of us understood what the next months
would bring; even in hindsight, it is
difficult to find words to describe how the
Covid-19 crisis unfolded.
In short, the first quarter of 2020, a
period we had been anticipating as a cause
for celebration, devolved into one of the
most difficult periods in this publication’s
history. We reported as cinemas around
the world voluntarily closed their doors in
March 2020. We were forced, for the first
time in our history, to pause publication of
our monthly magazine.
By the end of the summer, cinemas
had finally reopened, and we were back in
publication. But the past 18 months have
In every crisis there are
opportunities, and revisiting
one’s history is an opportunity
to better prepare for the
future. That is the very spirit
we drew upon in putting
together this issue.
been defined by a prolonged recovery from
the crisis, full of twists, turns, and false
starts. Like the industry we support, we
are still working to get back on our feet.
But that doesn’t mean we aren’t making
progress. I am happy to announce that we
will be publishing a total of eight issues in
2022, three more than the number we ran
in 2021. We are confident that this industry
will show its trademark resiliency in 2022
so that we can print even more issues in
the near future.
What we learned from that incredibly
difficult first quarter of 2020 is the
importance of reacting and adapting to
the world around us. These events could
have destroyed our momentum, derailed
our 100-year legacy. But like the rest of
exhibition, we were committed to forging
a path forward.
The world was in a very different place
in 2020 than it is right now, which is why
we made the difficult decision last year
to postpone our centennial anniversary
issue to December 2021. It didn’t feel
like the right time to look back; we were
focused on the challenges that lay ahead.
Today, however, as we measure the slow
but steady progress we are making in
overcoming this crisis, looking back is
important and necessary—not out of a
sense of nostalgia, but as a way to inform
our understanding of the present. In
every crisis there are opportunities, and
revisiting one’s history is an opportunity
to better prepare for the future.
That is the very spirit we drew upon in
putting together this issue.
It took an extra year to get here, but
we are very proud to share with you the
centennial issue of our publication. We
hope you enjoy reading it as much as we
enjoyed creating it.
Julien Marcel
Chief Executive Officer, The Boxoffice Company
Publisher, Boxoffice Pro
Centennial 2021
09
08-10_Executive-Letter.indd 9 23/11/2021 17:31

EDITOR’S LETTER
PROGRESS IN
THE FACE OF
ADVERSITY
Like the industry we represent, Boxoffice Pro
is, I believe, emerging from the pandemic
stronger than ever before—with a renewed
commitment to providing this industry with
the in-depth, vital coverage it has come to
expect from us.
I’ve been both anticipating and
dreading putting this issue together
since I realized, years ago, that I would
be the editor to lead Boxoffice Pro’s
centennial celebration. The challenge
seemed daunting—100 years of history—
but my concern was assuaged by the fact
that I would be working on it alongside our
creative director, Kenneth Bacon.
As the publication’s longest-serving
employee at the time, Ken was the
unofficial gatekeeper of the magazine’s
history. Since I met him, he had
identified the centennial as his crowning
achievement—the culmination of all his
work at Boxoffice Pro. Ken’s passing, in
December 2019 after a brief illness, on the
day our first issue of 2020 was scheduled
to hit the printer, shook us in a very
deep way. Months later, the onset of the
Covid-19 pandemic further complicated
our approach to the centennial. For the
first time in their existence, movie theaters
around the world were forced to close en
masse, with no indication of when (or if)
they would open their doors once again.
Our staff at Boxoffice Pro has
been in crisis mode since those two
developments, the first an institutional
tragedy, the second an industry-wide
disruption. The pandemic forced us to
take a step back and refocus our attention
away from the centennial so we could
provide our exhibition colleagues with
the best and most extensive coverage
of the ongoing crisis. In April 2020, we
made the difficult decision to suspend the
publication of our magazine until cinemas
reopened at the end of the summer. Since
then, in accordance with the theatrical
market’s slow recovery, we’ve slowed
our publishing frequency to every other
month so we could pivot to breaking-news
coverage on our digital platforms.
Instead of a celebration, 2020 turned
into a year defined by the innovations we
pursued in the face of an existential crisis.
Like the industry we represent, Boxoffice
Pro is, I believe, emerging from the
pandemic stronger than ever before—with
a renewed commitment to providing this
industry with the in-depth, vital coverage
it has come to expect from us.
The centennial edition of this
magazine, published an entire year
later than we planned, is a testament to
exhibition’s resiliency. It also provided
us with the opportunity to look inward
at how we approach our job. As a trade
magazine, our primary task is to profile
the industry’s leading executives,
trends, concerns, and opportunities. As
journalists, we seek out these stories by
expanding our view of the business to be
as inclusive as possible—whether that
means covering the Netherlands’ microcinemas,
Nigeria’s largest circuits, or, of
course, the North American exhibition
market that is our specialty. We regularly
set our sights outward to enrich the
content in these pages.
Rarely do we have the luxury to
examine our own work and history. Maybe
that’s why, during research for this issue, I
was so charmed by a reprint that appeared
in our 75th anniversary edition: a twopage
spread with pictures of Boxoffice’s
entire 1947 roster—from the publisher’s
desk to the mailroom. The story of this
magazine is also the story of the people
who have dedicated their lives to it. A
large part of our focus in this issue is on
the stories of those people and their work
on our publication.
I’d like to thank Alex Auerbach, Peter
Cane, Phil Contrino, Francesca Dinglasan,
Annlee Ellingson, Chad Greene, Ray
Greene, Harley Lond, Julien Marcel, and
Dave Stonehill for spending time with
me to look back on their experiences at
this publication. Their interviews, and
the materials they provided, greatly
informed the institutional history piece
that appears in this issue. Their work is
also documented in Vassilki Malouchou’s
series of articles, “A Century in Exhibition,”
documenting Boxoffice Pro’s coverage
of the industry through the decades,
which we have republished (for the first
time) in its entirety.
This edition also marks the final issue
in which our colleague, Kevin Lally, will
be part of our masthead. I first became
acquainted with Kevin as a competitor:
He was the longtime editor in chief of
our then-rival Film Journal International.
Today, I feel privileged to know him
as a mentor who helped me navigate
the challenges of this role, and, more
importantly, as a personal friend. Kevin’s
35-year tenure at the helm of FJI is second
only to this magazine’s founder, Ben
Shlyen, as the longest-serving editor of
an exhibition trade magazine in North
America. We are proud to profile Kevin’s
contributions to our industry as part
of Boxoffice Pro’s own history in our
centennial issue.
Outside of our own story, we’ve put
much work into compiling the industry
coverage that we’re known for. In my
recap of this year’s major exhibition
conventions, you’ll find an assessment of
where exhibition finds itself today—and
where it may be headed in the future. Our
deputy editor, Rebecca Pahle, recaps our
recent webinar panel on the State of the
Art House, providing essential insights
into the specialty market and its potential
evolution. You’ll also find a robust On
Screen section, featuring interviews
with some of today’s most influential
filmmakers (from the multiplex to the art
house) and their upcoming movies.
On behalf of myself, our current staff,
and everyone who has contributed to this
magazine over the past century, thank you
once again for your support.
Daniel Loria
SVP Content Strategy & Editorial Director
BOXOFFICE PRO
10 Centennial 2021
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FOUNDER’S LETTER
THIS IS A
WONDERFUL
BUSINESS!
Nothing goes on for long with
tranquility and quietude. It is
ever a business that keeps one
on his toes and that, in turn, is
what keeps one in the running.
A note from our late founder,
Ben Shlyen, published in the July
20, 1970 issue of Boxoffice Pro
BY BEN SHLYEN
Not too far in the past, an industry
executive said to us, “Isn’t this a
wonderful business that can make so many
mistakes and still come out with a profit?”
That question and its obvious answer
have remained with us through the years,
recurring every now and then, especially
when there is occasion to take a doleful
look at happenings that, at the moment,
cast a cloud across the horizon. And,
thinking back over the years – all 50 of
them, to be specific – our mind’s eye
envisages some of the numerous cloudy
periods that the industry has passed
through, each time emerging stronger and
with the outlook brighter than ever before.
We remember a lot of things about
the early days of this industry as it
coursed through the years, from its small
beginnings as a peep-show curiosity to
its peaks of magnitude; from its infancy
to its maturity; from the limited sphere
of its operations to its globe-encircling
strides. None of these steps of progress
was attained or held onto easily, without
some faltering here and there, without
mistakes that were costly or temporary
setbacks. Successes were many, but often
fleeting. Always there was a new obstacle
to overcome. Always it was necessary to
blaze new trails to discover new means
for successful adventures. And always
the need was met with the effort that led
to a new turning point in the road – and
to new horizons.
That is one of the great compensating
factors of this business, in addition to the
profits it may bring. It is adventuresome,
stimulating, and inspiring. Nothing goes
on for long with tranquility and quietude.
It is ever a business that keeps one on his
toes and that, in turn, is what keeps one in
the running.
Not only those who have spent 50 or
more years in this business, but even those
who have been in it only a short time, are
held to it by fascination That is why so
many stick to it through thick and thin,
putting up with trials and tribulations
that they would not long countenance in
any other enterprise. And why so many,
who have found the going in recent times
very hard to bear, are desperately hanging
on. They want to remain a part of this
business as long as possible.
The past decades have been eventful, to
say the least. They serve as foundations to
build on. With some repairing they can be
strengthened, but new building, new ideas
are essential to future industry growth.
What about the future? What course
is there left to take? What new trends will
develop or be developed? Will present
trends, particularly those that have been
unsatisfying or considered inimical to the
industry’s well-being, continue? Will the
old orders and patterns of operations be
restored? Each of these questions has an
answer and, whether or not it is what each
individual or group wants it to be, the
collective industry will continue far into
the future with new marks of progress,
new avenues of profit. Some signs of what
is to come already are beginning to take
shape. Some plans, long in the blueprint
stage, are scheduled for early development
and implementation.
It was with an eye to the future that
the editorial content of this issue was
planned. Looking forward, except for a
glance at highlights of the past for their
interest and whatever guidance value
they might serve, we asked qualified inindustry
executives to tell us what they
could foresee for the industry’s future. All
branches of the business are covered –
production, distribution, exhibition, and
related phases of each. And, throughout
these views, it is significant that a note of
confidence prevails.
Confidence was the key to the success
of the industry’s pioneers and builders
that enabled the motion picture to
grow into the world’s greatest mass
entertainment form. To be sure, many
obstacles were encountered, including
new forms of competition. But, with
courage, foresight, imagination, initiative,
and a venturesome spirit, they built this
business from a handful of storeroom
nickelodeons to thousands of edifices of
beauty and magnitude.
After 50 years of publishing
BOXOFFICE, it is apparent that we
have had an abiding confidence in this
business. That same confidence continues
as we move into a new decade with a
feeling that there are no bounds for this
industry’s opportunities and progress,
especially if the various segments will
extend themselves in working together,
and through increasing evidences of
understanding cooperation.
On this occasion of marking our 50th
anniversary, we take pride in expressing
our appreciation for the congratulatory
messages and good wishes of the friends
the years and our life’s work have
brought us. We are grateful, too, for the
cooperation they have given us along the
way, which has been most heartening and
helpful to our progress.
This is, indeed, a wonderful business –
and it always will be!
12 Centennial 2021
12_Editors-Letter.indd 12 24/11/2021 14:08

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Congratulations 16 | Charity Spotlight 22 | 2021 in Review 26 | State of the Art House 32
INDUSTRY
“It’s about taking that step coming out of the pandemic in getting
to release models that work for everybody in the industry.”
Recovery Year, p. 26
Centennial 2021
15
15_Industry-Opener.indd 15 23/11/2021 17:34

Industry NATO
100 YEARS
AND BEING
COUNTED
Celebrating a Century
of Boxoffice Pro
BY ROLANDO RODRIGUEZ &
PATRICK CORCORAN
Congratulations to Boxoffice
Pro on achieving this significant
milestone! One hundred years of a
singular focus on the business and
art of motion picture exhibition. No
other publication in this space can
claim the longevity or achievements of
Boxoffice Pro. Yes, other long-running
entertainment trade publications cover
exhibition, and sometimes cover it well,
but there is nothing like Boxoffice Pro.
The magazine has been re-running
some wonderful pieces on the successes,
failures, and changes in the exhibition
business, and a picture has emerged.
Boxoffice Pro goes deep, and its
interest in and coverage of the business
as a business stand out. It tackles the
concerns and challenges that are unique
to exhibition. And just as interesting,
amid all the changes, it acknowledges that
nothing really changes: People want to go
out to the movies, new home technologies
present challenges and opportunities,
movies that are expected to succeed fail,
and movies that come out of nowhere
succeed beyond all expectation.
It was our pleasure and privilege, at
NATO’s Board Meeting in November,
to honor Sumner Redstone and his
formative and lasting impact on NATO
and the exhibition industry. It was
striking, as we dedicated an evening
to him and his legacy, in the presence
of his daughter, Shari Redstone, to see
how much the concerns and interests
of exhibition at NATO’s founding on
January 1, 1966, are the concerns and
interests of exhibition today.
In a memo to the Executive Committee
of the Theatre Owners of America,
proposing the bylaws and constitution of
the new organization to be formed by a
merger with Allied States Association of
Motion Picture Exhibitors (representing
mostly independent exhibitors), Redstone
wrote, “It is designed to attack the
principal problems—shortage of product
and talent. Further, we will spend as
much time as necessary looking for
solutions to the many irritating and
aggravating day-to-day problems facing
exhibition and the industry.”
It is all achingly familiar, and unlike
more general entertainment trades and
consumer publications, Boxoffice Pro
brings that perspective to its coverage.
Every technological or consumer
innovation is not the end of exhibition, nor
is the hot topic of the present necessarily a
road map to the future. A photo published
in Boxoffice Pro’s retrospective of
the 2000s (below, left) brought not just
an awkward photo of then-new NATO
president John Fithian, but a survey of
headlines that could run today.
Boxoffice Pro also provides a
unique history and ongoing chronicle
of how, despite the constancy of issues
and concerns, exhibition has evolved and
changed and met new challenges. Take
simultaneous release. Boxoffice Pro
covered, with respect and balance, the
2005 experiment of Steven Soderbergh’s
Bubble, in theaters and on VOD at the
same time. There was acrimony and
doomsaying, but Boxoffice Pro provided
space for cooler and more measured
takes from John Fithian, Magnolia and
Landmark Theatres’ Mark Cuban, and
Soderbergh himself. NATO has been able
to maintain a respectful, friendly, and
fruitful relationship with Soderbergh
throughout the years.
NATO, of course, used to publish
its own magazines—NATO News,
followed by In Focus, making for three
publications dedicated to the exhibition
space: Boxoffice Pro, Film Journal
International, and, in the 2000s, In Focus.
This was, from an editorial perspective,
a bounty, but from an advertising
perspective—the perspective of many of
exhibition’s vendors—a burden.
In 2007, following an agreement with
Boxoffice, NATO folded In Focus, and
Boxoffice Pro became the official
magazine of the association. NATO would
have dedicated space in the magazine (like
this column), and Boxoffice Pro would
be distributed free of charge to NATO
members, providing benefit to NATO
members and a solid circulation base for
Its interest in and coverage
of the business as a business
stand out. It tackles the
concerns and challenges that
are unique to exhibition.
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Our members will redefine
what the theatrical
experience means. Cinema
is much more than a passive
form of entertainment. It’s
immersive and life changing.
Boxoffice Pro. NATO freed financial and
staff resources from publishing a monthly
magazine, and Boxoffice Pro remained
editorially independent. Boxoffice Pro
eventually merged with Film Journal
and stands alone as a unique voice of
exhibition in the media.
Boxoffice Pro has continued its strong
internet and social media presence as well.
Its reporters are respected analysts of the
industry and are frequently relied upon
by the trades and consumer publications.
Their sane, historically minded takes
broaden Boxoffice Pro’s influence and
counter less-informed perspectives.
Throughout the pandemic, Boxoffice
Pro has innovated and provided tools
to exhibition. Its podcasts and webinars
provided a lifeline of information,
expertise, and an easy way to hear how
other exhibitors around the world have
coped with the crisis. And around the
world is key. As exhibition has expanded
and international theater companies have
become an important engine of world
box office—at least two-thirds in normal
times—Boxoffice Pro has expanded its
reach to meet that new reality.
For the first time this year, at a return to
CinemaCon already recognized as unique,
Boxoffice Pro recorded daily podcasts
from the convention to complement its
already extensive coverage. CinemaCon
already frequently calls on Boxoffice
Pro staffers and executives to moderate
panels, knowing they will be handled with
a firm understanding of the industry and
Boxoffice Pro’s hallmark fairness.
So here’s to another 100 years and
counting—and being counted—as a vital
asset to the industry. Our thanks and
appreciation for Boxoffice Pro and its
staff are boundless. Our partnership is one
we treasure, especially, as now, when we
miss our deadlines.
Rolando Rodriguez is NATO Chairman
and Chairman, President & CEO of Marcus
Theatres.
Patrick Corcoran is NATO Vice President &
Chief Communications Officer.
Centennial 2021
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Industry MPA
CHAIRMAN
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
18 Centennial 2021
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INDUSTRY NATO
WORKING TOWARD
A MORE INCLUSIVE
INDUSTRY
Reflections from NATO’s
2021 Diversity & Inclusion
Scholarship Recipients
BY ERIN VON HOETZENDORFF
Manager of Membership and Global Affairs, NATO
We all remember our first
CinemaCon (or ShoWest). Most
likely, it was dizzying and exhausting, but
it was also enlightening and exciting, a
reminder of why you got into this business
and an incentive to dig into the industry
even more. At CinemaCon 2021, NATO
created the 2021 CinemaCon Diversity
and Inclusion Scholarship to increase
the involvement of underrepresented
individuals and ensure that the industry’s
premier event included the breadth
of people working in exhibition. Five
scholarship recipients attended the event,
from seminars to screenings to meals.
We asked them to reflect on their biggest
takeaway from CinemaCon. Keep reading
to see their reflections, in their own words.
Kelly Allen
General Manager, AMC
Theatres, Austin, Texas
First, let me start by extending a huge
thank you to the D&I Committee and
everyone at NATO for offering the
Diversity and Inclusion Scholarships for
this year’s CinemaCon in Las Vegas. I
believe that CinemaCon is something
everyone in our industry should have the
opportunity to experience. NATO and the
CinemaCon team put on an amazing show,
even with all the challenges that our “new
normal” world has presented in order for
us to operate safely.
As a general manager in the field, I
can oftentimes get tunnel vision and get
wrapped up in the day-to-day insanity
that comes with the territory of operating
a movie theater. Personally, my biggest
takeaway from CinemaCon would be the
continuing importance of my involvement
and education in the industry as a
whole—rather than being solely focused
on the four walls of my building. During
CinemaCon, I was able to meet with
many industry leaders and participate in
valuable discussions about where we are
as an industry and how we can continue
our fight for theatrical exclusivity and
other pertinent issues that affect our
future stability.
My time in Vegas inspired me to
continue being the best leader I can be for
my team and for AMC, and to continue
finding ways to branch out and make
an impact on others. I look forward to
continuing this with my company, as well
as with NATO, as opportunities arise, such
as the Diversity and Inclusion Committee
and more.
Benjamin Smith
General Manager, Movie
Palace Inc., Casper,
Wyoming
I was lucky enough to be selected as a
recipient of the 2021 CinemaCon Diversity
and Inclusion Scholarship. This was my
first CinemaCon experience, and there
was so much to take in, it’s difficult to say
what my biggest takeaway was. One thing
that really resonated with me was all the
creative ideas that were discussed at the
Independent Theatre Owners Committee
meeting. It was great to see how helpful
everyone was and how willing they were
to share their ideas that they implemented
during the shutdowns. Everything from
additional revenue options to employee
happiness and retention was discussed
as a way to help your business succeed
during these difficult times. The great part
for me was that these were all from people
running similar-size operations as I do, so
I was really able to relate to the struggle
and implementation of the discussions.
I attended many other meetings
that really helped me see how the
industry works as a whole, not just
from the exhibition side. Having a deep
understanding of the things you are
immersed in is, I think, a critical part of
being efficient and making decisions. A
mechanic can’t make a decision about
what part to replace on a car without a
thorough understanding of how all the
parts work together. While that may be a
bit of an exaggerated example, it leads me
to my point: I learned how all different
parts of this wonderfully unique industry
work together, more or less, to benefit
each other. While I may not have one
specific implementation to offer, I gained
a much deeper understanding of the
industry, which has helped me become a
better leader and manager.
Centennial 2021
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INDUSTRY NATO
Constance Camat
Marketing Manager, Tango
Theatres, Dededo, Guam
Coming from an insular area, I found
CinemaCon 2021 to be an eye-opening
experience. I was surrounded by other
individuals who are as passionate, or
maybe even more passionate, as I am
about this industry. The pandemic has
hit every industry, but none as severely as
the movie industry. Yet from closures to
simultaneous on-demand and theatrical
release dates, movie theaters still stand
strong and move together as an industry
like never before. Being able to network
with others going through the same
struggles has helped our location find
ways to continue to survive.
Tango Theatres is the place on our
island for Filipino films. Since reopening,
it has been a struggle to reopen that
market. Thankfully, we were able to
broaden our foreign films by adding
Japanese anime and K-pop concert
films. We have been able to work with
our community to find other uses for our
auditoriums. From book signings to job
fairs, we are able to help the community
have a sense of normalcy. Our location
has begun to explore the possibilities
of offering our auditoriums for karaoke
and gaming, as it has done well for other
theater owners. I look forward to returning
to CinemaCon to see what our industry
has yet to offer our fellow moviegoers.
Logan Crow
Executive Director/
Founder, The Frida Cinema,
Santa Ana, California
Easily my biggest takeaway from
attending CinemaCon is a sense that,
big or small, we’re all in this together.
Prior to attending, I’d admittedly been
under the assumption that the problems
faced by community, nonprofit art
house cinemas like The Frida Cinema
wouldn’t be relevant to the operations
of larger commercial cinemas, and
therefore I’ve stuck to networking with
my community of fellow art houses for
perspectives and guidance. Throughout
the conference, I was fortunate to meet
and have great conversations with so
many representatives of cinemas, from
single-screen to multiplex, single-venue
to mega-chain, and the general gist of
every conversation centered on the same
themes: How do we best serve and reflect
the varying interests of our communities;
how do we reopen our doors and
continue to provide entertainment to our
communities while navigating the varying
perspectives on Covid-19 precautions
and restrictions; how do we maintain
staff morale during these difficult times;
and perhaps most universally, at a time
when streaming platforms are growing
exponentially in popularity, how do we
best advocate—to both our customers and
our distributors—for the time-honored
tradition of going out to the movies?
Those conversations have continued in
the months since CinemaCon, and these
new relationships, and the perspectives
we have shared, have been invaluable.
Movie theaters big and small, we truly are
in this together. Long live the cinematic
experience!
Richard Martin
Programming Manager,
Plaza Theatre, Atlanta
After a year of extreme speculation in
theatrical exhibition and the evolution
of distribution, CinemaCon 2021 was one
of the most reassuring experiences I’ve
had in the past year. Seeing our industry
endure and continue to weather the storm
of a global pandemic to continue our
long-cherished tradition of entertainment
inspired me deeply. To see the overall
positivity around our commitment to
the theatrical experience, and to also see
the continued response to customers
returning to the big screen, proves
that one of the main rallying cries of
CinemaCon is true: “The Big Screen Is
Back.” Getting the opportunity to truly
feel like part of the industry and to get a
glimpse of the future of our industry and
a personal introduction to the industry’s
warmth and interesting idiosyncrasies
was one of the greatest moments in
my career. The people, the parties, the
constant interaction and hearing many
differing opinions about how the industry
should go into the future—there was
nothing but a wealth of hope out there in
our industry. The landscape of theatrical
exhibition is still foggy, but in the end,
it will never truly die, and CinemaCon
was proof of that. Seeing the exhibition
industry move forward will be quite the
interesting adventure, but one thing is
certain, there will never be anything like
going to the movies, and we’re here to
make sure that that stays true.
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We want to thank the entire cast and crew who give our kids the chance to feel like stars.
To our donors, you make dreams come true. You change lives for the better. You help
overcome the stigma and isolation faced by children living with special needs.
Learn more or become a donor at varietytexas.org
21_AD-Variety.indd 21 23/11/2021 17:38

INDUSTRY CHARITY SPOTLIGHT
CHARITY
SPOTLIGHT
Know of a recent or upcoming event
that should be included in Charity
Spotlight? Send us the details at
numbers@boxoffice.com.
VARIETY – THE
CHILDREN’S CHARITY
RINGS IN THE HOLIDAYS
Variety of Detroit
On Friday, October 22, 2021, Variety of
Detroit hosted Hearts & Stars at the
Townsend Hotel, honoring Lois Shaevsky,
former president of Variety of Detroit.
Shaevsky (above, with Variety of Detroit
co-chairs Laurie Fischgrund and Rhonda
Sabatini and president David King) was
honored with the Variety Heart Award
for her dedication to Variety of Detroit for
35 years.
This year marks Variety of Detroit’s 14thannual
Holiday Adopt-a-Child. Donors
“adopt” one (or more!) children and receive
a wish list of ideas and sizes. Sponsors
shop at their convenience, then bring the
unwrapped gifts to Santa’s Workshop on
December 4—where they wrap gifts and
get into the holiday spirit. Variety of Detroit
provides the wrapping paper, food, and fun!
Variety of Wisconsin
Variety of Wisconsin families enjoyed a
beautiful day at the Haunted Mansion
Maze at FrankenStein’s Fest at Stein’s
Garden and Home. Stein’s is a great
partner to Variety and offers this inclusive,
fun trick-or-treat and fall experience,
complete with a pumpkin patch, at its
Brookfield, Wisconsin store.
Variety of Illinois
Variety of Illinois kids had a fangtastic
Halloween, stopping by a trunk-or-treat
monster mobile for candy, glow toys, and
a map of 30 Halloween yard displays in
Chicago’s suburbs. This drive-yourself
tour provided a fun and safe alternative
to traditional trick-or-treating for
immunocompromised children with
disabilities.
SANTIKOS GETS INTO THE
GIVING SPIRIT
Throughout the month of November,
Santikos Entertainment hosted their
annual toy drive, spreading the holiday
spirit across their community. Every
customer that donated a gift received
a 30-minute arcade game card and two
Santikos coupons, free of charge.
SMG CONNECTS WITH
THEIR COMMUNITIES
Studio Movie Grill’s Sunset Walk location
in Orlando-Kissimmee, Florida, donated
two theaters (a total of 250 seats) to
Sunset Walk’s inaugural Special Olympics
5K, which was run around the Sunset
Walk shopping center on October 30 and
raised over $92,000 for Special Olympics
Florida. Wristbands were given to those
who finished the race, allowing them to
come in and watch The Addams Family
as an extension of SMG’s Special Needs
Screenings program.
Studio Movie Grill’s Rocklin, California
location held a fundraising event for the
Firefighters Burn Institute, while the
CityCentre location in Houston, Texas,
hosted a premiere screening of the
documentary Delivering Hope to benefit
Snowdrop Foundation, which funds
childhood cancer research and college
scholarships for pediatric cancer patients.
22 Centennial 2021
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MEGAPLEX THEATRES
FULFILLS A CHARITABLE
LEGACY
Utah-based Larry H. Miller Megaplex
Theatres celebrates the season of giving
by supporting a variety of local charities
and community organizations. As part of
the Larry H. Miller Group of Companies,
Megaplex Theatres operates to benefit
and serve the community through Larry
H. Miller Charities—a program that is
funded through voluntary donations
made by Megaplex Theatres employees
and matched by the Miller family. Funds
are used to support people and programs
in the communities where Megaplex
employees live and work. A special focus
is placed on supporting organizations that
serve health and education goals. Recent
beneficiaries include Boys and Girls Clubs,
Primary Children’s Hospital, Sub for Santa,
United Way, Big Brothers and Big Sisters
of Utah, Toys for Tots, and many more. In
addition, Megaplex Theatres honors the
company’s late founder, Larry H. Miller,
with an annual Day of Service in which
Megaplex employees roll up their sleeves
to clean up parks, spruce up community
shelters, assemble hygiene kits, and host
food and clothing drives to help those
in need. Every day, Megaplex employees
are encouraged to embody the words of
company founder Larry H. Miller: “Go out
into the world and do good until there is
too much good in the world.”
“Go out into the world and do
good until there is too much
good in the world.”
CANADIAN PICTURE
PIONEERS RETURNS TO
IN-PERSON EVENTS
The Canadian Picture Pioneers were
determined to host in-person events
in the summer of 2021 to get industry
members together, as long as it was safe
to do so. In August, the CPP celebrated
the return of moviegoing by hosting a
night out at a Premier Theatres Drive-In
cinema in Toronto. Later that month,
CPP hosted their annual Summer Golf
Event (above). Although health and safety
protocols meant that they had to change
some elements of how they’ve hosted
the tournament in the past, they were
still able to get more than 100 golfers out
to spend some time together and play a
round. With the help of their members
and loyal corporate partners, CPP raised
over $15,000.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM
THE MOTION PICTURE
CLUB
The Motion Picture Club got into the spirit
of the season with their annual holiday
party, hosted on Thursday, December 16,
at Ruth’s Chris Steak House in Manhattan.
Events such as the holiday party help MPC
make substantial contributions to Variety
– the Children’s Charity, the Will Rogers
Memorial Fund, the Motion Picture
Pioneers, Rising Ground, and the Ronald
McDonald House.
Centennial 2021
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INDUSTRY CHARITY SPOTLIGHT
“The last two years have been
especially challenging for those in
our community struggling to feed
their families.”
CINERGY ENTERTAINMENT
GROUP HOSTS ANNUAL
THANKSGIVING FOOD
DRIVE
Dallas-based Cinergy Entertainment
Group once again hosted their annual
Thanksgiving food drive, benefiting
local food banks that serve the more
than 2 million households across Texas
and Oklahoma that are in severe need of
their next meal. Cinergy offered guests
their choice of a $5 game card or a free
popcorn in exchange for two canned food
items, dropped off at any Cinergy location
between November 4 and November 28.
Over the years, Cinergy has donated a total
of five tons of food to local food banks.
“The last two years have been especially
challenging for those in our community
struggling to feed their families. With
Cinergy, we will be able to provide
food to so many people in need,” said
James Marcum, commissioning pastor
of StoneWater Church, adding: “We
are excited to work together to make a
difference in our community.”
“We are grateful to have the opportunity
to help fight hunger in our communities
and make the holidays a little better for
the struggling families around us,” said
Cinergy’s V.P. of marketing Traci Hoey.
“This year, we hope to provide over 5,000
meals for people in need throughout Texas
and Oklahoma.”
WILL ROGERS RENEWS
ITS COMMITMENT TO
PULMONARY HEALTH IN
THE AGE OF COVID
While the significance of pulmonary
health and rehabilitation is not new to the
Will Rogers Institute, the global health
pandemic has solidified its importance in
the minds of people across the world. To
date, the Will Rogers Institute has funded
$48,740,177 in research grants, training
fellowships, and special projects in the
pulmonary sector.
What began as a training program for
medical research during the 1950s and ’60s
at the Will Rogers Hospital in upstate New
York lives on in the present day through
the work of the Will Rogers Institute.
Today, the Will Rogers Institute funds the
Will Rogers Institute Pulmonary Research
Center at Keck School of Medicine of USC,
as well as six fellowships across the United
States. The Institute is making strides
every day in understanding, treating, and
curing pulmonary diseases and disorders,
including Covid-19.
While rooted in pulmonary health
from the beginning, Will Rogers Institute
Fellowship hospitals have shifted their
focus over the last 18 months to research
the effects of Covid-19, particularly “longhaul”
Covid-19.
As of November 2, 2021, more than
46 million cases of Covid-19 had been
reported to the CDC, along with 745,000
deaths. Many Covid patients recover and
experience no lingering health problems
after the initial infection. However,
studies estimate that between 10 and 30
percent of Covid-19 patients experience
symptoms that persist six months after
the acute infection. Often referred to as
“long Covid,” these lingering symptoms
include fatigue, brain fog, shortness of
breath, and severe headaches. This means
that nearly 14 million people are likely
affected by long Covid.
According to Edward D. Crandall,
PhD, M.D., director, Will Rogers Institute
Pulmonary Research Center at USC, “The
idea to study and prepare informational
materials about long Covid is a worthwhile
undertaking that can fit within the WRI
educational mission. While it’s unclear
how large a problem it will turn out to
be as a sustained health threat, long
Covid needs to be studied and especially
managed as a public and population
health risk.”
Support of the Will Rogers Institute
during this time has the potential to
impact millions of people suffering from
debilitating effects of long Covid and other
pulmonary-related illnesses. Visit www.
wrinstitute.org/donate to make a donation.
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25_AD-Will-Rogers.indd 25 23/11/2021 17:39

Industry 2021: YEAR IN REVIEW
RECOVERY
YEAR
CinemaCon and CineEurope
Highlight Exhibition’s Post-
Pandemic Concerns and
Anxieties
BY DANIEL LORIA
There was an anxious anticipation
leading up to CinemaCon 2021, held
in August at its usual site, Caesars Palace
in Las Vegas. For one, Covid-19 cases were
surging due to the Delta variant. Other
large-scale conventions had rescheduled
or canceled their 2021 editions entirely.
Secondly, there were still concerns and
questions about the potential impact
of the Delta variant on the cinema
industry. After enduring 18 months of
closures, operational restrictions, staffing
challenges, and release delays, exhibitors
found themselves at a difficult crossroads.
CinemaCon 2021 had the potential to
represent the start of the moviegoing
recovery—it would no longer be the
victory lap many industry insiders had
hoped for—but the industry still faced
serious questions about the months ahead.
In addition to the general sense of
unease, CinemaCon 2021 was further
impacted by international travel
restrictions and the pandemic’s toll on
cinema vendors and suppliers. It was
clear from the start that CinemaCon 2021
was going to be a smaller affair than in
years past. Nevertheless, the National
Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) felt
it was crucial to mount the event despite
these challenges.
“There was never a doubt that we were
going to hold it,” said NATO’s John Fithian
during a live taping of Cinionic’s podcast,
The Insiders, at CinemaCon, after being
asked if the association considered bowing
to the pressure of canceling the event for a
second consecutive year. “We knew there
were going to be challenges. We knew
that some, for their individual reasons of
risk calculation, didn’t want to come. And
that’s fine. We knew that many people still
wanted to come and wanted to get back to
doing business together with their partners.”
This year’s CinemaCon, along with
its European counterpart, CineEurope,
which went ahead in October, reflected
the back-to-business resolve in Fithian’s
words. Yet the sector was still reeling from
the financial devastation of the pandemic.
Global box office revenue dropped by 72
percent in 2020 from 2019’s $42 billion
record-setting year. North America
suffered an 80 percent decline in annual
box office, breaking its yearslong streak
of $11 billion per year and relinquishing
its status as the world’s highest-earning
market to China.
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In Europe, where admissions had
reached their highest level since 2004—
growing by 34 percent since the year
2000—UNIC territories suffered a 68
percent drop in attendance over 2020.
“We had a small epidemic in 2009 with
the H1N1 flu in Mexico. The government
shut down everything for a week. It took
us five weeks to recover and we thought
it was devastating,” said Cinépolis
CEO Alejandro Ramírez Magaña at a
CinemaCon panel. “When this began,
that was our only reference point to an
epidemic. We thought this could be a oneweek
shutdown or a 10-week shutdown
followed by 12 weeks of recovery. We never
in our wildest dreams imagined that a
year and a half later we would still have
countries that were fully closed.”
The disruption caused by the pandemic
has been acutely felt by the multinational
circuits, which represent the highest
screen counts. Mooky Greidinger, CEO
of Cineworld, the world’s second-largest
exhibitor and parent company of Regal
Cinemas, spoke about those challenges
at a CinemaCon panel. “We operate in
10 countries and received different rules
from every government,” he said. “One
prime minister thinks the best thing is
for kids to not be allowed at the movies.
Another one thinks we need to keep five
seats between transactions. The third
one thinks we should not sell popcorn.
It’s crazy. And you’re dealing with these
changes across territories on a daily basis.
Now it’s quieted down a little bit, where
we are almost with no restrictions in most
countries, but at its peak it was a disaster
because there were changes every day.”
Regal remedied those challenges
by closing all its locations worldwide in
October 2020, citing varied operating
restrictions across territories and the
volatility of studios’ theatrical release
schedules. For Cinépolis, Ramirez Magaña
noted his circuit conducted a market-bymarket
analysis when deciding where to
keep theaters closed and when to reopen.
“We don’t call it a breakeven analysis, but a
loss-even analysis. How do you lose less:
open or closed? Because you’re going to lose
in both instances, it’s all about how you
minimize burning cash,” he said.
The pace of reopening cinemas
increased through Q3 2021, following the
wider access to vaccines and a peak of the
highly contagious Covid-19 Delta variant.
Another major factor was the stabilization
of the theatrical release schedule, with
studios’ increased confidence in releasing
major titles—albeit under significantly
different business terms. Theatrical
exclusivity windows were once again at
the forefront of discussions at CinemaCon
and CineEurope in 2021. The contentious
topic took on an increased importance
following the experimentations in studios’
release strategies during the pandemic.
Addressing the topic on Cinionic’s
podcast, The Insiders, Fithian distanced
himself and NATO from discussions
about the duration of windows while
expressing his general support for a
period of theatrical exclusivity. “People
talk about the window as if there’s only
one. There are multiple windows, and
each studio has a different perspective
on what is important in those multiple
windows,” he said. “Our members are
working through all those issues with the
studios now, and we’re encouraged by
it. Windows coming out of the pandemic
won’t be what they were before the
pandemic. They’re not going to be what
they were during the pandemic, either.
It’s about taking that step coming out of
the pandemic in getting to release models
that work for everybody in the industry.”
“I think decisions like day-and-date
have been made because of Covid, and
there have been adjustments to everyone’s
benefit. Going forward, I think the
long-term solution is a proper exclusive
theatrical window,” said Chris Aronson,
president of domestic distribution at
Paramount Pictures, during a CinemaCon
roundtable. “A lot of this experimentation
that has been going on with windows
was eventually going to happen. It’s been
accelerated because of the pandemic. But
I think [the notion of] a proper theatrical
window holds. It’s what gets people
talking about the movies. Finding the
“Once you get people
coming to see movies,
they’re exposed to trailers,
they’re exposed to marketing
materials, and they discover
it’s actually a lot of fun going
back to the movies.”
proper window—we may still be trying to
figure that out.”
For major circuits like Cinemark, the
third-largest chain in North America,
the length of that window appears to be
a 45-day exclusive run for major titles.
“Sometimes the windows will be a little
shorter than 45 days, if it’s a smaller or
modest-size movie. But for the big movies,
that’s really what we’re looking for,” said
Cinemark CEO Mark Zoradi. “We use the
term ‘dynamic window’ as another way
of saying ‘flexible window.’ Because with
the bigger blockbuster movies, content
providers want a longer window—it’s
going to be to their advantage to get as
much of that box office as possible. It
starts with theatrical; it helps create the
franchise and ‘eventizes’ the movie. You
get your highest per-cap anywhere in
the [distribution] chain with [exclusive]
theatrical distribution.”
Fithian says a dynamic exclusivity
window can help more independent and
midsize movies reach a wider number of
screens, particularly with the expiration
of the binding virtual print fee model.
Under that structure, smaller distributors
found themselves priced out of exhibitors’
agreements with the studios that helped
finance the transition to digital projection.
“With VPF deals coming to an end, the
barrier to entry for smaller films has gone
down tremendously. When you combine
more dynamic windowing capabilities
with the end of the VPFs, we expect a
resurgence of small art films and midbudget
films in cinemas,” he said.
A diverse slate of films will be crucial
for cinemas’ recovery from the pandemic.
The assumption that one film alone can
spur a comeback—as the industry learned
with the release of Christopher Nolan’s
Tenet during the pandemic—places undue
expectations on the film in question and
fails to address the frequency of attendance
necessary for the theatrical model to
work properly. Warner Bros. president of
international distribution Andrew Cripps
acknowledged as much in an executive
roundtable at CineEurope. “Success begets
success. It always has in this business,” he
said. “Once you get people coming to see
movies, they’re exposed to trailers, they’re
exposed to marketing materials, and they
discover it’s actually a lot of fun going back
to the movies.”
Paramount’s Aronson addressed the
topic by pointing at the top-performing
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Industry 2021: YEAR IN REVIEW
weekends ever recorded at the domestic
box office. “When you look at the highestgrossing
weekends in this business, it’s not
just one film. When this business is firing
on all cylinders, there is something for
everyone.”
The shorter windows and the studios’
increasing emphasis on blockbuster
spectacles have led several exhibitors
to seek out content with untraditional
partners. “We are not opposed to asking,
‘What does Amazon have coming that
would have real theatrical potential, or
Apple TV Plus, or Netflix?’ and doing
some unique deals with them,” said
Zoradi. “Had The Irishman been coming
out right now, as opposed to when it
did, we would have played it. We would
have made a deal with Netflix: a flexible
window, probably with some flexible
terms. Scorsese and audiences would
have been very happy to have had a 24-
or 31-day window on that title.”
Access to premium content from
streaming platforms emerged as an
untapped source of potential for the
industry at CineEurope. “Is a cinema
only reserved for films? These days, you
can see ballets, operas, [concerts], and
all sorts of events at a cinema. As a fan of
event cinema, there’s a lot left to be done
there. TV series today are in many cases
stretched out like long movies, and it’s
great to see the bridge between TV and
film creating an ecosystem where talent
can create across both mediums,” said
StudioCanal CEO Anna Marsh.
At the same roundtable, Tim Richards,
CEO of Vue International, a multinational
chain and one of the U.K.’s top circuits,
observed that tapping into streamers’
content library for eventized screenings
wouldn’t cannibalize the performance of
feature films. “Why wouldn’t you want to
put an episode of ‘Game of Thrones’ once
a week, over two months? Why wouldn’t
you show ‘Queen’s Gambit’ and other
high-quality series? I think we’re going to
do both high-quality movies and content
of all forms in the future.”
At present, however, it’s feature
films that were originally destined to
hit cinemas that are going exclusively
to streaming. Streamers like Netflix and
Amazon were active buyers of studio
titles shelved because of the pandemic,
sending movies like Paramount’s Coming
2 America and Sony’s Cinderella straight
to people’s living rooms, at times forgoing
a theatrical release entirely. Major studios
like Disney have moved blue-chip
titles like Pixar’s Soul and Luca off the
release schedule to instead launch them
exclusively on their streaming service,
Disney Plus.
“All I can say is that one
studio should plant the flag
and make a huge move to
the theatrical experience,
and the filmmakers will go
there as a result.”
While this trend has caused concern
among industry observers, Cinemark’s
Zoradi, who previously served as an
executive at Disney, sees it as business
as usual. “During all those years I was
at Disney, when we did sequels to The
Lion King or sequels to Aladdin, those
were direct to video. Those sequels were
going straight to the home,” he said.
“Now, much of that is going to Disney
Plus. That doesn’t mean that all of their
titles are only going to be spinoffs, but
a significant number of the shows that
are on Disney Plus came from theatrical
movies. [Theatrical and streaming] are
complementary in this way.”
Previously a point of contention
between exhibitors and distributors, the
debate around theatrical exclusivity is
now being played out among filmmakers
and Hollywood talent. Black Widow star
Scarlett Johansson sued Disney for its
decision to make the film available dayand-date
on premium video on demand
(PVOD) upon its theatrical release. When
former WarnerMedia executive Jason Kliar
announced Warner Bros. would be making
its entire 2021 slate available to theaters
and the home on the same day (through
its streaming service, HBO Max), highprofile
filmmakers Christopher Nolan and
Denis Villeneuve were quick to denounce
the decision and express their displeasure
with the studio’s parent company.
Warner Bros. had earned considerable
goodwill from the exhibition community
in 2020 for backing Nolan’s wishes to
release Tenet as soon as cinemas reopened.
Warner Bros. was voted studio of the year
and exhibitor relations department of
the year, and Tenet was recognized as the
most important film of 2020, by a panel
of over 50 exhibitors in this publication’s
Boxoffice Pro Blue Ribbon poll. That
sentiment soured considerably following
the studio’s binding decision to roll out its
entire slate day-and-date in 2021. While
the decision ensured that major titles
could keep their existing release dates,
something that cannot be overlooked
when looking at box office receipts
from Q1 2021, the gamble seems to have
delivered diminishing returns as the
pandemic began to subside in Q3 2021.
The first Warner Bros. tentpole to
premiere day-and-date in theaters and
on HBO Max was Patty Jenkins’s Wonder
Woman 1984. Released on Christmas Day
of 2020, in the middle of the highest surge
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in Covid-19 cases in the United States,
the movie provided respite for exhibitors
that had soldiered on for months with a
dearth of studio releases. “It was the best
choice out of a bunch of very bad choices
at the time,” said Jenkins at CinemaCon,
calling the decision to go day-and-date “a
heartbreaking experience.”
“I think it was hugely detrimental to the
movie, and I sort of knew it could happen.
We asked ourselves, ‘At this point, what
are we going to do? Wait for two more
years?’” she said. “I was happy to give
the film to the public. I don’t think that it
plays the same on streaming, ever. I’m OK
with films going to streaming eventually,
but I definitely think when you make a
film … it’s painful to see it not get the bigscreen
experience. I’m not a fan of dayand-date,
and I hope to avoid it forever.”
Similar attitudes regarding theatrical
exclusivity could have a major impact
on the talent pool studios have at their
disposal in the future. Jenkins, who
has a series development deal at Netflix,
doesn’t see a problem working with
different mediums on productions
that are optimized for their respective
platforms. “Films that streaming services
have recently put out, I’m sorry, they look
like fake movies to me. I don’t hear about
them, I don’t read about them, I don’t see
anything about them,” she said. Jenkins
rejected the idea of making a movie for a
streaming service outright, “I wouldn’t.
I just would not right now. Nor would
I accept a limited-window run. I love
working with Netflix for television, it’s
great for me, but I wouldn’t make a movie
for any streaming service. It’s very difficult
to market a movie if you’re only having
a limited run. Perhaps that’s why I don’t
think that that model works,” she said.
Fithian argued that audiences
value theatrical releases while he was
at CinemaCon. “There’s always been a
consumer perception of what a movie
made for theatrical release is and a movie
made for the home. They’re different.
That’s true through television, VCR, DVD,
and now through streaming,” he said. “If
you go down to the street and just ask a
movie fan, ‘Name the last 10 great movies
you saw that were made by and released
on Netflix,’ they can’t come up with 10.
Maybe they can come up with two. They
know Netflix for the great series and all
the streamers for their television product,
but people know movies because they play
in cinemas … it has a greater impact on
the cultural conversation.”
“I make movies for the big-screen
experience; that’s the sandbox I’m in
right now. If you want to watch it for
the third time later on, streaming it on
your phone, fine, but I’m not making
it for that experience,” said Jenkins at
a separate CinemaCon roundtable. “I
believe in the theatrical experience, and
I don’t understand why we’re talking
about throwing it away for 700 different
streaming services that there’s no room for
in the marketplace. For studios to throw
[theatrical] in the garbage so they can roll
the dice, it’s crazy to me,” she continued.
“All I can say is that one studio should plant
the flag and make a huge move to the
theatrical experience, and the filmmakers
will go there as a result.”
From a studio perspective, shorter
windows can also have an impact on the
bottom line. “In the past, a lot of piracy
started in the theater, people camcording.
They got crappy copies and we did
our best—night vision goggles, guards,
everything we could—to try and limit that.
When movies come out in a day-and-date
situation, or in too short of a window, to
the home environment, you’re putting a
pristine copy over a digital mechanism
that can [be pirated] like that,” said Zoradi,
snapping his fingers for effect.
Piracy was a major concern for
Universal’s international release of F9 over
the summer; the studio understood that a
shorter window in the United States could
eat into profits overseas. “We took a release
strategy that was tailored to each market,
depending on Covid recovery, that was
really important in terms of maximizing
box office grosses internationally,” said
Universal president of international
distribution Veronika Kwan Vandenberg at
CinemaCon when explaining the studio’s
“Reconnecting with
moviegoers is a burden both
sides of the industry share,
and there has never been
a more important time for
collaboration.”
early launch of F9 outside North America.
“Based on that, it was really important to
protect the movie against piracy as best
we could. We put additional measures
into place in each of those markets, to
make sure we were maximizing the film
theatrically and protecting it as much as
we could. At the end of the day, we were
really pleased to see that the piracy levels
were relatively low.”
International box office was also at the
heart of Warner Bros.’ decision to open
Dune in several top overseas markets
ahead of its U.S. release, which in turn
would have made the film immediately
accessible on HBO Max. The early
overseas rollout provided a cushion of
theatrical exclusivity for some foreign
markets and helped the film establish a
sizable international run (not to mention
positive word of mouth) by the time it
reached domestic audiences. Weeks earlier
at CinemaCon, Paramount president of
international distribution Mark Viane
remarked that he could see a future in
which every international market would
have its own theatrical exclusivity window.
“Every market plays very differently for
how long a movie normally stays in
theaters,” he said. “Whichever window
we set in the future, it will be a window
that’s going to be appropriate for that
marketplace.”
Tensions around content availability
and exclusivity aside, the biggest
challenge currently facing exhibition and
distribution isn’t about reconnecting with
one another, but with a global audience
that lost the moviegoing habit during the
pandemic. Reconnecting with moviegoers
is a burden both sides of the industry
share, and there has never been a more
important time for collaboration.
“Cinemas have had an extraordinarily
hard time during the pandemic. So have
the studios,” said Alamo Drafthouse
co-founder and executive chairman Tim
League at CinemaCon. “There’s been this
divisiveness between us, an ‘us versus
them’ mentality, that puts us in a really
unhealthy position. We look back on the
year—there’s a lot of experimentation that
happened, experimentation that we’re not
all that happy about—but I don’t begrudge
any of it. We have partners in this business
who make billions and billions of dollars
of investment, and they’re scared as well,
and they need to try to find a path towards
recouping that investment. It’s important
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Industry 2021: YEAR IN REVIEW
to cement our position as a partner to the
studios; they make those investments on
our behalf. It’s our job to have a seat at
the table and be a part of recouping that
investment for them.”
Reaching those estranged audiences
and marketing a return to the movies
has already emerged as one of the most
critical priorities for exhibition’s survival
through the pandemic. The first part of
that challenge is to address the risk factor
of visiting a cinema during the pandemic
head-on. “We need to better convey the
message that cinemas are one of the safest
places for out-of-home entertainment.
Safer than a restaurant, café, concert,
club, or sporting event,” said Cinépolis’s
Ramirez Magaña. “If you want to get out of
your home and be safe, cinema is probably
the safest option.”
National and citywide mandates
requiring proof of vaccination to enter a
cinema, instituted in places like France
and New York City, began to pop up in the
second half of the year. Despite initially
affecting box office earnings, the policies
have helped cinemas regain consumer
confidence—with box office earnings
returning to comparable levels despite
the social uproar. In locations with no
vaccine mandates in place, independent
exhibitors like New Hampshire’s
Peterborough Community Theatre and
Philadelphia’s Bryn Mawr Film Institute
have voluntarily implemented vaccineonly
showtimes and play dates to assuage
their audiences’ perception of risk in
going to the movies.
With the studio release schedule
(more) firmly in place following a string of
studio hits during the month of October,
like Sony’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage,
MGM/UA’s No Time to Die, and Warner
Bros.’ Dune, exhibitors are now looking
for ways to market moviegoing beyond
studio-driven promotions tied to specific
titles. “Market the experience, that’s what
it’s all about,” said Paramount’s Aronson.
“That’s the trade-off. We can work with
[exhibition] very closely to market our
movies … but the [exhibitor’s] job is to
market the experience; that’s how we get
people back to the cinemas.”
This has led to some innovation in how
the country’s largest exhibition circuits
communicate with their audience. In
September, AMC launched a $25 million
ad campaign starring Nicole Kidman
under the slogan “We Make Movies Better.”
Cinemark has also partnered with tech
manufacturer Cinionic to promote its
adoption of laser projection technology
across many of its locations.
Premium technology has emerged as
one of the biggest drivers for the return to
cinemas, particularly for blockbuster titles,
regardless of whether they are readily
available at home. In North America,
over half of the tickets sold for Dune on
its opening weekend were for premium
large-format (PLF) auditoriums. The
film was available day-and-date on HBO
Max, but cinemas in the U.S. and Canada
nevertheless sold $20 million worth of
tickets—above average price—to people
looking to get the best possible cinema
experience outside the home.
The pace of growth of PLF auditoriums
around the world has continued
unabated for the last decade, even in
a pandemic-stricken year like 2020,
according to research firm Omdia. In a
study published in the Q3 2021 issue of
Boxoffice Pro magazine (“Premium
Formats Come of Age”), Omdia analyst
Charlotte Jones noted that PLF screens
are most prevalent in regions like
Asia and the Middle East, where there
already exists a higher concentration of
development for new cinemas.
The trend is now reaching mature
markets as well. PLF was a recurring topic
at the inaugural edition of the Boxoffice
Forum, a live event hosted by Boxoffice
Pro in Paris immediately following
CineEurope, which featured panels
and roundtable discussions by leading
industry figures. The occasion provided a
glimpse of how a market known for, if not
defined by, its adherence to traditional
exhibition practices is gauging the
appeal of PLF as a way to introduce new
technologies to younger audiences. Days
earlier, ICE Theatres, an immersive screen
format created by French circuit CGR
“We’re competing with a ton
of content that people can
sit on their couch and get
on their own. Mediocre isn’t
good enough. We all have to
up our game.”
Cinémas, announced a deal with Spanish
exhibitor OCine that would add to its
existing footprint in the United States and
the Middle East.
Premiumization will continue to play
a role in the immediate recovery of the
exhibition business, just as all cinema
technology innovations have kept the
industry relevant for audiences. Warner
Bros.’ Cripps sees the effort as vital
for exhibition’s future. “We’ve got to
recognize as an industry that mediocre
is no longer good enough,” he said at
CineEurope. “We are competing with
people’s living rooms. We are competing
with seven or eight global streaming
services that are out there. We’re
competing with a ton of content that
people can sit on their couch and get on
their own. Mediocre isn’t good enough.
We all have to up our game.”
While Vue’s Richards sees the value
of PLF for tentpole titles on opening
weekend, the executive says the entire
cinema experience—not just a handful
of screens in each city—has to raise
its standards. “Our experience is that
premium screens are very effective for big
movies, very effective on the weekends,
but they’re not really a 365-day business,”
he said. “Our focus right now is on trying
to get recliner seats in every single
screen, make every screen special and not
differentiate as much.”
Richards calls recliner seating “one
of the game changers of the last 20 years
in exhibition.” It’s also part of a trend
that can be seen in new auditorium
designs around the world: optimizing
the capacity in each auditorium to better
reflect each screen’s occupancy rate. In
October 2021, Alamo Drafthouse opened
its first theater in Manhattan after six
long years in development. The site
exemplifies the latest trends in cinema
design: 14 auditoriums, each equipped
with laser projection and all of them
with a capacity under 60 seats; a full
kitchen for dine-in service; a retail area
in the lobby; and a stand-alone bar area
that can serve as a live-event space. By
forgoing high-capacity auditoriums and
making each screen feel just as special,
Alamo Drafthouse’s Lower Manhattan
location optimizes interactions with a
smaller customer base while offering them
additional purchase opportunities beyond
the box office and concessions stand.
“Now that we’ve had this downtime in
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the worst year and a half this industry has
ever experienced, our task is to focus on
the essentials,” said Alamo Drafthouse’s
League at CinemaCon. “We are an
experience economy. We need to make
sure every possible aspect, every touch
point of somebody leaving their home
and coming out to choose cinema for their
entertainment, is performing at its best.”
At CinemaCon, Zoradi announced
that two-thirds of Cinemark’s domestic
circuit has already been refurbished
with recliners. The chain is currently
installing laser projectors across all its
theaters in the United States. They’ve
already installed laser projectors in every
single screen of one of its most important
domestic markets, Dallas–Fort Worth, a
short drive from the circuit’s Plano, Texas,
headquarters.
“I think the industry as a whole is
changing from the exhibitor side,” he said
at CinemaCon. “We no longer think of
ourselves as a theater exhibition company;
we think of ourselves as an important
retailer. And as a retailer, how do you get
to the consumer? What is that consumer
experience? How do you put together
a subscription model that is easy to
implement? We’re spending more money
out of our own pockets for marketing
while also cooperating with the studios
like never before to put together joint
marketing campaigns … the exhibitor’s
responsibility is to create the immediacy
to get that ticket sold, to act and market
themselves like a retailer.”
In October, Cinemark introduced
upgrades to its website and mobile app to
make it easier for consumers to buy tickets
and concessions. During the pandemic,
many circuits continued to make
similar improvements to their online
presence—from social media marketing
to e-commerce—as part of the second
digital transition for movie theaters this
millennium. “We’ve seen a lot higher
uptake of online ticketing coming out of
the pandemic,” said Mark Way, president
of AMC Europe and managing director of
Odeon, one of the U.K.’s leading circuits.
“We are seeing 75 percent of tickets being
bought online in advance in the U.K.
Before the pandemic, we’d be sitting at
around 40 to 50 percent.”
During a press briefing at CinemaCon,
NATO’s John Fithian shared that at the
start of the pandemic, in March 2020, he
feared nearly half of the cinemas in the
“We are an experience
economy. We need to make
sure every possible aspect,
every touch point of somebody
leaving their home and coming
out to choose cinema for their
entertainment, is performing at
its best.”
United States could go out of business.
By August 2021, approximately 42,000
of the country’s 43,000 screens prior to
the pandemic were operational. Around
the world, and after more than a year
of closures, cinemas are reopening and
welcoming patrons back as they forge
ahead in a difficult and protracted recovery
effort. “When we came out of lockdown,
we weren’t bruised—we were beaten down
and bloodied, all of us. I think the next 12
months are going to be about rebuilding
and surviving,” said Vue’s Richards. “It’s
been really tough, and I think the fact that
most of us made it out of the pandemic
still in business is a testament to what
a great business we all have—and will
continue to have in the future.”
If 2020 is etched in history as the year
of the pandemic, 2021 will be remembered
as the year of the vaccine. And like the
vaccine, this year’s cinema recovery effort
did not provide an instant solution or
relief to the damage and disruption caused
by the pandemic. Cinema isn’t back just
yet, but it’s well on its way.
“There was a $42 billion business out
there before the pandemic came, and
it’s still out there,” said Paul Higginson,
Universal’s executive vice president of
EMEA, at CineEurope. “There are many
people who don’t believe that—people
that have a glass-half-empty approach to
life. I don’t think anyone in this room can
afford to have that approach. There’s never
been a time in the history of cinema when
there’s been more community about what
we seek to achieve … the name of the game
is to win that business back.”
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Industry INDIE FOCUS
THE STATE OF THE
ART HOUSE 2021
Brought to you by
In a November LIVE session webinar, Boxoffice Pro partnered
with Spotlight Cinema Networks to launch a discussion on the
current state of the art house market. A panel of experts from the
art house and specialty space provided candid insights into the
impact that Covid-19 has had on the way the indie sphere operates,
from shifting relationships with streamers to attempts to bring in
younger demographics. Below, we share a condensed version of
that very important conversation.
BY REBECCA PAHLE
C
There’s a narrative outside the
industry that the theatrical
experience is in danger of going away,
and that the art house / specialty
scene in particular is in a precarious
place. What do you have to say
to that? And what is some of the
programming that has performed
well recently for you?
Barak Epstein: I think art house theaters
are the ones that are being the most
innovative during this, because they’ve
done so many things to figure out how to
engage their audiences in these past couple
of years. At the Texas Theatre, we did a big
renovation while we were closed. We built
another theater, so we could show more
movies. Most of what we do at the Texas
Theater, we call it “event-based cinema.”
When we say event-based cinema, it’s not
just playing the Nick Cave movie—which
we like to play—but we have something
live happening. A live performance, a live
speech, somebody from the movie. What’s
been really popular for us recently is,
with a lot of these people who are coming
around touring with their films, often with
appearances at conventions and whatnot,
we get those people to come to the Texas
Theatre and show a movie. Just recently,
we had Malcolm McDowell here for a
50th-anniversary screening of A Clockwork
Orange. 700 people came to that. Just two
days ago, we showed Twin Peaks: Fire
Walk with Me. We had Sheryl Lee, Sherilyn
Fenn, and Harry Goaz. Sold-out crowd for
that. When we bring in people to see the
films that they want to see with people
[from the film] talking after them, that’s our
signature thing.
Now that we have the second screen,
we do that in conjunction with playing
mainstream films, which we used to not
be able to do because we couldn’t do runs
of them. The one that’s done the best for
us has been The Green Knight, as a regular
first-run movie. Filmmaker David Lowery
lives in Dallas, so even though it wasn’t
shot here, people wanted to see it around
here. People wanted to see it everywhere.
But [the local connection] did help us.
Paul Serwitz: I’ll second what Barak said.
We’ve tried to tap into Q&As and personal
appearances and introductions as much as
possible. That’s been a big driver to get a
lot of people back into theaters. It’s helped
smaller movies that otherwise didn’t
have a great theatrical life. Those kinds of
special events and personal appearances
really do help drive audiences back,
because it’s something out of the ordinary.
You can’t get it at home, and you can’t get
it in general at movie theaters. So that’s
been a big piece for us. We continue to
pursue that as much as we can to be part
of that restart of the business.
Paul Serwitz
President & COO,
Landmark Theatres
Tori Baker
President & CEO,
Salt Lake Film Society
Dylan Skolnick
Co-Director,
Cinema Arts Centre
Barbara Twist
Director of Partnerships,
Vidiots Foundation
Barak Epstein
President, Aviation
Cinemas / Texas Theatre
M
Y
CM
MY
CY
CMY
K
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Industry INDIE FOCUS
For us, [Landmark Theatres is] a hybrid
circuit, although we lean heavily to the
specialty side. It’s been sort of like two
windows: The commercial mainstream
side really started to bounce back in
April, and certainly with Memorial Day
and through the summer. [But it wasn’t]
the most fertile ground for specialty in
the summer quarter. It was a struggle on
that side, and the core art houses really
struggled for a while. Even though there
was volume of content, so much of it was
playing day-and-date. That certainly
undermined their theatrical runs. But
there’s been a slow, incremental increase.
Obviously, of late, The French Dispatch has
been the big breakthrough title. It’s exactly
what we needed and hoped it would be
to sort of break the ice for the specialty
side and those audiences, much the way
Godzilla vs. Kong did [for mainstream
moviegoers] seven months ago.
Some of the [highest-earning] titles
for us—admittedly, the bar has been low.
It’s taken a longer period of time for the
older adult, specialty audience to really
start coming back in any significant
numbers. But pictures like The Green
Knight, like Barak mentioned, [bring in
audiences]. Roadrunner: A Film About
Anthony Bourdain was certainly the high
point of the summer for us. That was the
indie release that had the most traction.
Pig was pretty good. We had titles like Zola,
Summer of Soul, that were better than most,
for sure, but not nearly what we’d hoped
they’d be. The Card Counter was one of
the better titles we’ve had. But all of them,
in comparison to The French Dispatch or
some of the other pictures coming out, now
that we see audiences starting to come
back and some momentum building, have
been pretty small. We’re certainly headed
in the right direction.
Tori Baker: We’re still in the early days of
telling [what films are bringing audiences
back], because we opened on October 22 at
the Broadway [Centre Cinemas], and we’re
still renovating the Tower [Theatre]. We
had hoped to open both, but renovations
and supply chain demands, which
everybody is dealing with right now, are
slowing things down. So we’re learning
right now. We made a conscious decision
to open later, rather than earlier. We
talked about it with the board early in the
year and chose the October date. It felt
very shocking to some of our patrons and
“It’s taken a longer period
of time for the older adult,
specialty audience to really
start coming back in any
significant numbers.”
people that are engaging with us. But we
knew we needed an on-ramp. We knew
we needed time. And the summer movies
were looking like the bigger studio films,
and less of the specialty films were coming
through. So we felt like we had the time
to build the on-ramp and especially take
care of the staff. Because when you’re doing
events at the cinema, the manpower that it
takes and the energy that it takes to pivot
back to that from doing our big @homeArts
[virtual cinema] project, that was a real
consideration for us as well.
Barbara Twist: [Regarding what you said
about] the narrative always being pushed
about art houses dying. I want to add to
that I think community spaces are often
positioned as dying or not doing well. And
that’s what art houses are. For me, I think
it’s more that we are, in some ways, fearful
of community spaces doing well, because
they’re out of the box, because they’re run
by the people. They’re not corporatized.
They don’t have clean lines around them.
There’s not an obvious profit motivator
center. And that’s something that’s really
brilliant about the art house space. And I
actually think that when art houses get too
boxed in, too clean, too easy to categorize
and identify—“Oh, this is who goes there,
this is what they show”—that’s when they
don’t do so well. For a long time, I got
really pissed off that everyone was like,
“Art houses are dying.” And now I’m like,
“Fine, whatever, man.” You think we’re
dead? We’re constantly being reborn. We
are a Phoenix every day.
There’s been a lot of discussion
surrounding day-and-date and
the shrinking of the theatrical
exhibition window—but most of that
conversation centers around how it
affects major chains. How does the
shortened theatrical window affect
specialty theaters? And how has
your relationship with streaming
outfits changed over the course of the
pandemic, as they move more films
into the theatrical space?
Paul Serwitz: I don’t think it would have
ever been any exhibitor’s choice, big or
small, to see windows getting shortened,
much less day-and-date availability. It
has compromised theatrical business,
there’s no question about it. However, the
reality is, it’s here to stay. Streaming is the
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“There’s too much good
[streaming] content not to
play [it] theatrically and try
to tap into that audience
that will still get out of the
home and go see a movie
in a theater instead of in
their living room.”
800-pound gorilla, and Covid just
amplified that exponentially. At-home
consumption has become a much bigger
thing, and even post-Covid it remains that
way. The volume and quality of the content
that’s available at home is a real challenge.
At Landmark, we felt like it had to be
embraced in order to meet that challenge
and work with it as best we could and
hope, really, that distributors—certainly
beyond the streamers themselves—see
that, ultimately, a theatrical window is the
most valuable pathway for a film’s lifeline.
We’ve seen examples of that over the
last six months, both on the mainstream
side and on the specialty side. Where it
goes from here, I don’t know. But we’ve
certainly embraced the streamers and
the day-and-date situation to an extent.
There’s too much good [streaming]
content not to play [it] theatrically and try
to tap into that audience that will still get
out of the home and go see a movie in a
theater instead of in their living room.
Dylan Skolnick: The same as what
Paul was saying: This has been going on
somewhat for a while. Art houses were
earlier [than mainstream theaters] in
booking films that were VOD or streaming,
taking some Netflix titles, long before
the pandemic. So this is something we’ve
been wrestling with and dealing with for
a while. Clearly, it is not good for us when
it’s day-and-date. It would be great if we
could have long windows back again. But
that’s gone. So it’s just a matter of picking
and choosing which [streaming titles]
work for us and which don’t, and being
really selective about that.
It’s important to remember that some
of these streaming releases are so minimal
that they barely qualify as an actual
theatrical release. I work with a number
of theaters around the country, including
several in Oklahoma, and [there were] a
number of titles where the streamers just
decided that Oklahoma was not part of
a theatrical release in the United States.
That’s because they’re trying to have a
theatrical release at the tiniest possible
level, probably just to say that they got
it [in theaters] and partly to assuage the
egos of whatever filmmaker was involved.
One of those films that didn’t play in
Oklahoma, for example, was CODA. [Apple
TV Plus acquired CODA at the 2021 edition
of the Sundance Film Festival for a recordbreaking
$25 million.] We certainly asked
for it. I forgot the exact term they used. It
wasn’t an “essential market” or something
like that.
Barak Epstein: I don’t think CODA played
in Dallas, either. Or if it did, it played in a
four-wall in the suburbs. It wasn’t really
released.
Paul Serwitz: Apple had a very limited
outlook on what they wanted to get done
theatrically on CODA. And they’ve been
less proactive, theatrically, than Amazon
and Netflix. The fact of the matter is,
you’ve got several titles over the next
couple of months that have lofty award
aspirations from those key streamers,
Netflix and Amazon. High-quality films
that will have a very short, truncated
window. They want to have some kind of
theatrical presence. It helps their publicity,
it helps press, it helps deals with the
filmmakers. But the fact of the matter
is, Netflix and Amazon, as examples, are
attracting top-shelf incredible filmmakers,
including notoriously strong specialty
filmmakers like Jane Campion, with Power
of the Dog from Netflix. Netflix also has
Don’t Look Up from Adam McKay, and
Amazon’s got Tender Bar from George
Clooney, and Aaron Sorkin with Being
the Ricardos. These are all major movies,
high-quality films that have big award
aspirations.
Tori Baker: When it comes to this topic,
I really think that what’s important, and
what’s definitely different about the
art houses, is that it’s about the value
proposition and what we’re providing as
an art house. I really find the vernacular
interesting, because “streaming” is such
a great visual to what is really happening
with what people like to say is “content”
out in the world. I really dislike using the
word “content” surrounding films and
movies. Content is anything from my
daughter’s five-second Tik Tok video, all
the way up through YouTube videos to a
movie, now. It’s really incumbent upon us
in the art house industry to differentiate
what is worthy of time. Why I think that’s
such an interesting visual is because it
really is this rapid stream. I’m from the
mountains. You see spring streams come
down, and they’re just rolling. You can dip
your hands in, and you may or may not get
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Industry INDIE FOCUS
something that’s worthy of your time. And
then there’s the rare things that maybe
rise to the top. But that’s happening less
and less. There’s not really a zeitgeist
happening around one particular film.
And that doesn’t mean the industry can’t
try and find their avenue for their award
or whatnot. But the reality is, Netflix, even
when they’re trying to get an award, they
still just want to promote the next [film]
and the next and the next and the next. It’s
about quantity, not quality.
Where art houses can differentiate
themselves in that universe in the
future, whether it’s a digital screen or a
bricks-and-mortar screen, is that we’re
the curators. We know what the artists
are making. We’re bringing the artists to
talk to you about this art form. About the
movies. About film. About storytelling
that happens within that two-hour time
frame, not some sort of extended thing
where I can turn it on, turn it off. I think
that that’s the real important value
proposition that we offer, regardless of
the title. The more that we curate, the
more people trust us. Everybody wants to
get off the couch at some point, right? So
at the point that they want to get off the
couch, you need to be a viable option for
them to see something that is worthy of
the quality to make that effort.
Like you say, streamers release
so many movies. And even if they
get good reviews, it feels like they
disappear in a few days. But if an
art house is screening it, that means
something to the audiences that are
a part of your community.
Tori Baker: Even if they watch it online.
That’s a value proposition, where they’ll
continue to be a donor, for example, but
they might still only go to 10 or 12 movies a
year on average, right? But if they see that
Melancholia is playing in your cinema,
you’re validating that in a way that gives
them that curation. It’s starting to tell
them the story about what, in cinema, is
worthy of my time. Because the stream is
just too rapid. It’s too big. There are too
many options.
Barbara Twist: Something that I’m sure
we’ll never be able to quantify, but I’m
quite certain has a significant impact, is
the inherent marketing that an art house
does for a title. We talk about the long tail
and the economic impact of shortening
a theatrical window. The amount of
marketing— newsletters, social media,
etc., etc.—that an arthouse cinema does
… As Tori was saying, even if that person
doesn’t end up buying the ticket to see
that film at [an art house], later on down
the road when it’s on Netflix, or when it’s
on Comcast, Spectrum, whatever, and they
buy it, part of the reason they’re doing it is
because of that art house. And that is both
the power of establishing a curatorial trust
with your community and the impact of a
movie theater.
There’s no question that the
marketing surrounding a theatrical
release is always going to surpass the
marketing surrounding a streaming
drop. It doesn’t matter how many
billboards you buy. The number of
people that the art house community is
connected to—like, my aunt is talking
to all of her friends about what they
should see. And maybe my aunt’s the
one person on the mailing list for the
cinema, but she’s telling everyone else. I
so desperately wish there was a way that
we could quantify that, because that is
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One of the advantages we have in
working with a Netflix or an Amazon,
because they, at a certain level, don’t
care, is that there are very few restrictions.
Sometimes you play a film for one week,
and they go, “Oh, thanks!” You take out a
show for a special event, and you don’t get
a temper tantrum. All these things have
made playing their films much, much
easier. A theater I work with is open only
four days a week at the moment. “Sure,
you can open our film right on the break,
no problem!” There is greater flexibility,
and I want to give credit for that.
Paul Serwitz: There is. The streamers
have an array of purpose around theatrical
releases, the least of which, really, is
generating box office revenue. It serves
a lot of other purposes: the relationships
with the filmmakers, attracting other
filmmakers, keeping filmmakers, using
the exposure as a marketing tool. It’s
not really about the box office. They’d
like to see box office, but they’re not
marketing their films in such a way—nor
are they providing enough of a window
for a theatrical release—to really generate
revenue. [Even when they put effort
into a theatrical release], it’s still not the
same as what Neon or Searchlight or A24
do with their theatrical releases. I think
there’s a cap on what they’re willing to
spend, which is ironic because they’ve got
resources that never end [when it comes to
acquiring the films].
what the studios are giving up. When
they trade for money next quarter for
their shareholders, they’re trading the
possibility of way more money down the
line, and more importantly, a stronger
relationship with an audience that is
going to return to see more of their films
because of the work being done by the
art house.
Do you get the impression that the
streamers are on that same page
about the positive role that an art
house can play in the life of their film?
Dylan Skolnick: The people working at
the streamers are very nice. We have great
relationships with almost all of them. But I
think they don’t think what we do is really
an important part of what they do. Which
is OK. What we do is so incredibly different.
[Tori] was likening streaming to like a
mountain stream, but it’s more like a fire
hose spewing out a torrent of water of mixed
quality. Some great stuff, some polluted
stuff. Whereas what we do, it’s more like a
mountain spring. It’s coming out, and it’s
not that much, but it’s really pure. We try to
make it the best we possibly can.
Barak Epstein: During the pandemic
we, like lots of people, moved to showing
movies in our parking lot or outdoors. We
ran a digital cinema in our parking lot on
an inflatable screen. We wheeled a small
Christie [projector] out there and ran
power. And what that let us do, because
we were doing DCP, was I started talking
to studios that I’d never talked to before,
like Universal and Focus. I’d never booked
a Universal or Focus movie, non-repertory,
before. Ever. And because they were
releasing movies—with windows, but
whatever, they had a lot of movies that
came out last year—I looked at them, and
I started talking to them. I pretty much
played all the Universal and Focus movies
in our parking lot. Dylan was talking about
flexibility on the break—we [booked]
Promising Young Woman for just one show.
They’re like, “Good!” And then we kept
playing it, because we kept selling out. So
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Industry INDIE FOCUS
we ended up making five grand on it on
just a handful of shows, which wasn’t bad
during the world ending. But then, once
we opened inside, we started playing more
Universal and Focus movies inside. So that
basically started a whole new relationship
for our theater with those kinds of
movies. We played Halloween, we played
Candyman, we played The Card Counter,
we played Last Night in Soho.
It’s like what Barbara was saying—an
art house doesn’t have to be just one
thing. There’s flexibility in what you
can program.
Tori Baker: I don’t think there’s even more
flexibility. I think it’s a demand from our
patrons for us to meet their needs in this
new technological environment where
they do have too many offerings, and they
don’t know what’s quality, and they don’t
know what to spend their time on.
Perhaps we need to start thinking
about the younger audiences and their
trust of this art form. Because how many
times have they shut off a really crappy
streamed title—10 minutes in is really
breaking the trust for the art form and that
experience. The eventizing of these films
can really help with that. You’ll always
get quality when you see something in
person. You’ll always get the extra, or that
vaudeville effect, whether it’s the people
talking or a pre-show that’s creative. And
that will engage audiences and keep
them coming back to an art house cinema,
whether they continue to go back to a
larger 20-plex or not.
To that point: The art house
demographic tends to be on the
older side, and we’ve seen that older
moviegoers are taking longer to
come back to the cinema. What’s
been your experience with trying to
get younger groups of people—and
more diverse groups of people—to
come to art houses?
Barbara Twist: Our core audience is
more of a Gen X crowd. Those are folks
who were going to [Vidiots’ original
location] in the ’90s, 2000s and sort of
evolved with us as we grew. In [L.A.’s]
Eagle Rock [where the new Vidiots is
opening], there’s a real mix. There are
families. We have a college. There’s a lot
of younger people, millennial-aged folks
moving farther east due to housing prices.
That’s something we’re really taking
into consideration as we build out our
curation team.
Something that’s very important for
us is to ensure that our curatorial team
and what we’re showing on screen is
reflective of the community that we’re
in, not just reflective of the community
that we’ve previously engaged with. That
is, I think, something that art houses
are constantly grappling with. It’s very
challenging to figure out how to retain
the audience that you have. How do you
develop new audiences? To Tori’s point
about how younger folks are watching
really terrible films on streaming, and
that may be the limit of their engagement
with long-form [content], anything
longer than an hour, if their experience
of the long form is not great, why would
they leave their house to come to a space
that, in their minds, is for people who
are over the age of 60 and mostly white?
What’s going to get them there?
Vidiots, especially as we open and as
we look to bring in younger audiences,
[is going to] show [older, nostalgic] titles
that younger people know that they like.
You bring them into the space, you work
with them that way. And then, similarly,
our programming team is going to be not
one person, but a rotating collection of
curators so that we are making sure we’re
not sticking with one thing all the time.
We’re trying to create some sort of synergy
between all the programming, curatorial
spaces that we occupy.
Tori Baker: This topic comes up a lot
right now, obviously. I think that art
houses, number one, have always had
diverse programs that invite different
communities. The challenge that we’ve
always had is that we might appear a
little too edified or unwelcoming as a
group, in that we are “the cinephiles.” We
know what film is, and we understand
film history. And that is not welcoming.
What we have done here at the Salt Lake
Film Society is, we have five cultural
tours. With those cultural tours, from the
Pacific Islands film tour to our Filméxico
tour, we did not demand the community
come. We did not say, “These are the best
of Mexican cinema happening right now.
These are the best Pacific Island films
being made.” But we created a task force
from those communities that tell us what
“Perhaps we need to start
thinking about the younger
audiences and their trust of
this art form. Because how
many times have they shut
off a really crappy streamed
title—10 minutes in is really
breaking the trust for the art
form and that experience.”
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their community needs are. The only way
that you’re really going to diversify your
audience is if you’re meeting the needs of
different communities. You can’t be the
one that’s curating and saying that you
know best, and you hope they show up
just because you market to them.
Every community in the United
States is even slightly different. We have
a Jewish film tour. Here in Salt Lake City,
our Jewish community says, “We are not
interested in exhibiting films from the
Holocaust. It’s something that we feel
like we’re boxed in about.” But there are
other communities where their Jewish
communities do want to see Holocaust
films. Every individual community
that you work with is also regional and
different, depending on where you live
and the experiences that they have. They
need their stories told in a particular way.
And it’s your job as an art house to find
those films. That’s, I think, the only way to
diversify your welcoming and inclusion in
your bricks-and-mortar space.
Paul Serwitz: Our group of theaters
really varies in their demographic draws.
Some areas and theaters really do skew
more mature and older. Others have a
younger draw. So it’s a mixed bag for us.
But we obviously want to try to find ways
to expand the younger audience, because
they are the ones that are the biggest
drivers right now in returning to theaters.
We knew from the beginning of Covid that
the older audience was going to have the
most trepidation of returning. I believe
that they are really starting to show up
now. But there’s still a great need to
diversify the audience.
It starts with the film. The film has its
inherent appeal: maybe younger, maybe
older, maybe a combination. Beyond
that, it’s marketing, it’s social media, it’s
alternative content programming. Some of
the best alternative content we’ve had in
recent months have skewed younger. Bo
Burnham: Inside was huge for us. Some of
the music alternative content: Tom Petty,
The Doors, Oasis. We’re getting back to
programming one-offs with Rocky Horror
Picture Show and The Room. Those are all
things that help drive a younger audience.
Barak Epstein: We have the opposite
problem. We have the younger people, we
don’t have the older people. Part of it is
just that we’re in a little bit of a younger,
“We knew from the
beginning of Covid that
the older audience was
going to have the most
trepidation of returning. I
believe that they are really
starting to show up now. ”
hipper, part of town. The only movie I’ve
shown this year that we did get old people
to come to was the Velvet Underground
doc. We tried showing the James Bond
movie, which wasn’t a super hit for us,
because I couldn’t find the older people
who wanted to come see it. But if we
show [Andrzej Zulawski’s 1981 horror
film] Possession, I’ll sell out in about five
minutes. There wasn’t anybody over
27 when we showed Possession. There’s
certain repertory movies that just bring in
the younger crowds. That’s what we really
excel with.
You all work with Spotlight Cinema
Network, which has presented this
panel. Can you say a few words
about your relationship with them,
and how in-cinema advertising has
played a role in your recovery?
Tori Baker: I can recall keenly when I
met Jerry Rakfeldt from Spotlight at Art
House Convergence. We would parry a bit
about pre-show advertising with them. I
was very resistant to the idea, as I had the
impression that pre-show advertising was
always those obnoxious soda commercials
with a 15-year-old skateboarding kid
who didn’t fit our brand or speak to our
demographics. Then I saw what Spotlight
had to offer: a curated, specialized service
to match our brand. Their approach is
classy, with an almost sponsor-like feeling
that fits well in our brand. Add to that the
creation of a new revenue stream for the
cinema, and we’ve been hooked and never
looked back. Our patrons and donors
continue to have a seamless, upscale,
and curated pre-show experience prior
to viewing their motion picture. The
underwriting revenues we receive support
our mission and cinema operations. It’s
a collaboration and true partnership. We
appreciate the team at Spotlight so much
and look forward to their creativity in the
future programs they offer.
Paul Serwitz: Now that business is
returning, Spotlight’s ad sales business
is picking up nicely, along the lines of
our theatrical business. The revenue
share from advertisers getting back on
screen plays an important role for us as
supplemental income.
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INDUSTRY INSIDERS KEVIN LALLY
CINEMA’S
CHAMPION
A Tribute to Boxoffice Pro
Executive Editor Kevin Lally
in His Final Issue
BY REBECCA PAHLE
The story of Boxoffice Pro isn’t
complete without mentioning
Film Journal International, the cinema
exhibition trade publication that was in
print for 84 years before merging with
Boxoffice Pro in 2019. And the story of
Film Journal International isn’t complete
without Kevin Lally, the man who served
as its executive editor for its last 35
years in existence. This issue marks the
last of Lally’s tenure at Boxoffice Pro,
where he served as executive editor for
three years following the Film Journal
International/Boxoffice Pro merger.
It’s only fitting, then, that we take this
opportunity to pay tribute to a man who
brought kindness, strength of character,
and—above all—a desire to champion
film to his nearly 40 years of covering the
exhibition industry.
Lally grew up in Dumont, New Jersey,
where he was a stone’s throw from
local movie palaces—the Claridge and
the Wellmont, both in Montclair, were
particular favorites—an assortment of
smaller cinemas, and all the brilliant
theaters to be found in New York City.
Trips to the movies were frequent; as
he grew, he graduated from Disney (“I’d
say like 50% of what I saw as a child was
Disney.”) to seeing the likes of Klute, The
Godfather, and Hitchcock’s Frenzy with
his father, whom he describes as his
“movie buddy.”
Going to college at Fordham University
in the Bronx brought Lally closer to the
city’s art house scene; he jokes that he
“minored in repertory cinema.” He would
go to Manhattan’s Elgin Theater, his
all-time favorite cinema (it now operates
as a dance theater, the Joyce), for special
summer screenings of Buster Keaton
movies. At Radio City Music Hall, he
caught Abel Gance’s Napoleon with a
live orchestra. “That was the heyday of
Carnegie Hall Cinema, Bleecker Street
Cinema, the Thalia, the New Yorker
[Theatre], all these great rep houses in
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Left: (l-r) Andrew Sunshine,
Rebecca Pahle, Kevin Lally,
Bob Sunshine
“If I liked a movie, I did a
piece on the director. Didn’t
matter what box office
potential it had. If it was a
worthwhile movie, I had the
freedom to cover it.”
New York,” he says. “They would program
all the classics—Fellini, Bergman. I was
going down to Manhattan like three
times a week to get my own personal
film education.” In a foreshadowing of
his later career, he was the arts editor
of the Fordham newspaper; through
Warner Bros., who at the time “was very
active in pursuing college press,” he was
further immersed in the local film critic
scene, going to screenings and talking to
directors (including Martin Scorsese, for
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore).
Then came “the best and worst decision
of my life”: entering the distribution game.
A fellow critic by the name of Ray Blanco
had started a company called Bauer
International, and Lally joined the team,
“which was a huge mistake because we had
no capitalization at all.” Their big star was
Wim Wenders, who distributed his first six
films through Bauer, a decision Lally still
can’t claim to understand.
At the ripe old age of 22, Lally found
himself at the Cannes Film Festival for
Wenders’s Kings of the Road, which—
though now widely considered one of
his best—was panned by the Times upon
opening in New York City. “We took such
a financial bath with that movie, and
we never recovered.” Bauer “limped
along” for a few more years and then
shuttered, leading Lally to move back
to film criticism, working for a small
newspaper in New Jersey. Not too long
after, a publicist friend let him know
about a job opening at Film Journal
International, then owned by the trade
show organization Film Expo Group. By
the age of 30, he was running one of the
two (along with Boxoffice Pro) premier
North American publications dedicated to
the theatrical exhibition industry.
There, he worked under Bob Sunshine
and his brother, Jimmy Sunshine, who let
Lally pursue the films and stories he was
interested in so long as the other half of
the publication—that relating to the nuts
and bolts of the cinema business—ran
smoothly. “I have to give credit to Bob
Sunshine,” says Lally. “He was trying to get
this show going—what’s now CineEurope
but started as ‘Cinema Expo International.’
I remember at the time, I thought, ‘Boy,
is that an ambitious idea, to bring an
American-style exhibition convention
to Europe. If they can really make this
work. …’ And they did. I think his priority
was growing that side of the business, and
he was just happy that he had somebody
competent who could get the magazine
done every month.”
Working under the Sunshines, Lally
had “incredible freedom” to champion
films both big and small. “If I liked a
movie, I did a piece on the director. Didn’t
matter what box office potential it had.
If it was a worthwhile movie, I had the
freedom to cover it.” Under Lally, Film
Journal International covered early films
from directors like Kathryn Bigelow and
Cary Joji Fukunaga. The partial list of
filmmakers Lally personally interviewed
extends into three single-spaced pages and
includes such names as Clint Eastwood,
Robert Altman, Saul Bass, and the great
Billy Wilder, whom Lally spoke to for his
1996 biography Wilder Times: The Life of
Billy Wilder. (Wilder, resistant to being
interviewed, had to be convinced by his
Centennial 2021
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INDUSTRY INSIDERS KEVIN LALLY
agent. “This was the time of the Mideast
peace talks,” Lally says. “According to [the
agent], Wilder said, ‘Well, if Arafat and
Rabin can shake hands, I guess I can meet
with Mr. Lally.”) His favorite interview was
with Liv Ullman, whom he spoke to in her
Upper West Side apartment. Giving the
excuse that she’d just had garlic for lunch,
she sat on the floor while Lally took the
sofa. “So Liv Ullmann sat at my feet.”
Through it all, Lally stayed—and
stays—an avid moviegoer, both writing
about and experiencing the transition
of cinemas from the days of sloped
floors and 35 mm to power recliners
and digital projectors. “The generation
now has no concept of what it was like
back then,” he says. “Sometimes if you
went to a repertory house, you’d go see a
classic film and the print had turned all
red.” He was at the helm of Film Journal
International through the days of digital
conversion and, earlier, the “digital sound
wars. You had Dolby, DTS, and Sony, all
with these three competing digital audio
systems, each one claiming it was better
than the other. It was very tricky as a
publication. How do we cover this and
stay objective?”
The technology changed, but Film
Journal International leadership—
Sunshine, Lally, and later Rex Roberts, the
magazine’s long-time designer—remained
consistent, joined by a rotating cast of
associate editors. His first associate editor,
Wendy Weinstein, “showed me what I
needed to do. We became great friends.
We’re friends to this day. She actually left a
year later—she got pregnant, decided she
wanted to raise a family. But she was just
the perfect person to show me how to do
film journalism.”
Since then, Lally hasn’t been stingy
about passing his knowledge on to
others. “I have a lot of protégés,” Lally
says. “I’m very proud.” Full disclosure: I
am one of those protégés, having served
as Film Journal International’s associate
editor in the last five years before its
merger with Boxoffice Pro, and can
thus add a personal note that Lally is
one of the kindest men this industry
has been lucky enough to employ. I
also personally benefited from Lally’s
decades of dedication to championing
independent and repertory cinema; many
is the film I never would have seen had I
not read a positive review in Film Journal
International, which many times was
“As I reflect on my career,
I’d like to single out three
people who were invaluable
partners in producing Film
Journal: the late Ed Kelleher,
associate editor for 16 years;
Rex Roberts, art director for
20 years; and Rebecca Pahle,
associate editor for the last
five years of the magazine.”
Kevin Lally
Executive Editor, Film Journal International,
Boxoffice Pro
Below: (l-r) Boxoffice Pro’s
Daniel Loria, Laura Silver,
Kevin Lally
one of a mere handful of publications to
review a particularly niche film.
It’s the films that require a bit more
work to find their audience—whether a
low-budget indie title or something non-
I.P.-based from one of the major studios—
that Lally remains concerned with; he’s a
big believer in the importance of offering
a diverse array of films to moviegoers and
thinks that, where that’s concerned, the
film industry has strayed from the path. “I
think it was a very sad day when Disney
swallowed up Fox,” he says. “Because Fox
was making a lot of mid-budget movies—
like Hidden Figures—that found an
audience and did well. That’s not a priority
for Disney.” One evolution that Lally can
100 percent get behind is the conversion
to recliner seating, “one of the smartest
things [cinemas] did in the last decade.”
You’ll find some of Lally’s writing in this
very issue, with his features on A Journal
for Jordan (page 136) and Flee (page 126).
What comes through in those pieces—and
in all Lally’s writing—is his love and
knowledge of the art of filmmaking. That’s
not coming to an end any time soon: There
may be another book in his future, about
character actresses. And it’s a legacy he
leaves behind him, both in this publication
and in a film community that was very
lucky to have him as a perpetual advocate.
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CELEBRATING
KEVIN LALLY
“He is one of the nicest,
most professional, and most
dedicated individuals I have
ever worked with, and our
industry has been justly served
throughout his career.”
Robert Sunshine
Chairman, Film Expo Group
I had the privilege of working with Kevin
Lally for more than 30 years at the Film
Expo Group. Kevin was the executive
editor of Film Journal International. In
effect I was his boss, overseeing most
aspects of the publication, but when it
came to editorial Kevin told me to step
aside. Certainly not in a malignant way,
but said by a person who was extremely
confident in his ways.
Kevin truly loved his job; loved the
movies and loved the industry. His life
was all about the movies—seeing them
and writing about them. When press
time rolled around every few weeks,
this unflappable man was all business—
nervous and stressed out until the book
was put to press.
Kevin loved to attend movie
conventions, and the Toronto Film Festival
was one of his favorites. If he could not
convince us to send him, he took off the
week and traveled on his own dime. We
learned not to turn him down often.
One of the highlights of his career
was the recognition he achieved with
the publication of his first book, in 1996,
Wilder Times: The Life of Billy Wilder. This
book has been recognized as the definitive
work on this great filmmaker. His lengthy
interviews were impeccably written, and
his wit and insightfulness were wellcommunicated
to his readers.
Thirty years is a long time, and I cannot
remember a fight or loud argument with
Kevin more than once during that time. I
miss seeing him in the morning, sitting
at his desk as he gets ready to tackle his
work for the day. Regardless of what it
was, it was always done professionally and
thoughtfully. I wish him good luck and
health in his years ahead and to enjoy life
and never forget the “Wilder side of life.”
Mitch Neuhauser
Managing Director, CinemaCon
I have known Kevin Lally for more
than 35 years and worked with him for
upwards of 25 years. He is one of the nicest,
most professional, and most dedicated
individuals I have ever worked with,
and our industry has been justly served
throughout his career. In addition to his
years in leading Film Journal International,
Kevin is also an accomplished author.
He loves movies. He loves going to the
movies. He loves everything about this
industry. Perhaps the only thing he doesn’t
like is my whistling, especially, when he’s
on deadline. All good thoughts and best
wishes to Kevin. We will always have a seat
waiting for Kevin at CinemaCon!
Cynthia Lucia
Cineaste magazine
Not only has Kevin Lally been an
extraordinary film critic, writer, and editor,
but he also has been an exceptionally
kind, compassionate colleague and friend.
When Ed Kelleher, Kevin’s colleague
at FJI for nearly two decades, suffered
from life-ending dementia, Kevin helped
care for him in remarkable ways—from
navigating the complicated health care and
disability waters to offering his unwavering
friendship and steadfast emotional support.
Kevin Lally truly is a splendid human being.
Rex Roberts
Art Director, Film Journal
International
Kevin and I worked together for more
than two decades, producing FJI under
various owners and locations. … A good
guess is that we published 265 magazines;
the show issues were Herculean efforts,
exceeding 200 pages [each]. Three of us,
Kevin overseeing editorial, me design and
production, plus one of the many talented
associate editors employed over the years,
oversaw every page. Was there a more
productive team in the annals of modern
publishing? Kevin accomplished it all with
his customary good humor and judgment,
somehow finding time to write the first
biography of his cinematic idol, Billy
Wilder. We had fun.
Centennial 2021
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Centennial WOMPI
WONDER
WOMEN
A Look Back at the Legacy
of Women of the Motion
Picture Industry
BY REBECCA PAHLE
“These historical board
members said to me, ‘Don’t
forget about the WOMPIs.
They’ve been great to Will
Rogers. Whatever they
need, make sure we’re there
to help them.’”
“[Those in the] entertainment
industry, as a whole, are not great
historians,” says Todd Vradenburg,
executive director of the Will Rogers
Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation.
“Everyone looks forward, and no one looks
back a little bit and says, ‘Hey, what was
this all about? Who were these people?’
and pays homage to those who built the
platform we’re standing on now.”
Flip through the 100 years of back issues
from Boxoffice Pro—or Boxoffice or The
Reel Journal, as we used to be called—and
you’ll see a name pop up consistently over
the decades: WOMPI. Not a person, but
a group: Women of the Motion Picture
Industry. WOMPI serves as an important
thread in the fabric of cinema industry
philanthropy that continues today in
the form of Will Rogers, Variety – the
Children’s Charity, The Motion Picture
Club, and countless other groups, circuits,
and individuals who donate their time and
money to help others, both within the film
industry and without.
WOMPI was the first group of its kind
to be covered in the pages of Boxoffice
Pro: a national (and, later, with the
introduction of a Toronto chapter,
international) group made up of women
in the film industry—mostly from
distribution, but some from the exhibition
side as well. More recently, Boxoffice
Pro has enjoyed a collaboration with
another nonprofit group with a similar
demographic: Women in Exhibition,
founded in 2018 to support and uplift
women in the global cinema industry,
including those who work for cinemas,
distributors, and vendors.
The group sprang from a luncheon
hosted by two industry executives in
Dallas in 1953; a group of secretaries at
the event enjoyed connecting with one
another so much that they decided to
make the gatherings regular. Thus, WOMPI
was born. Mary Pickford was in attendance
at the charter membership luncheon
in 1953, where she was presented with a
scroll naming her WOMPI’s first honorary
member. WOMPI’s Dallas chapter was
shortly joined by chapters in New Orleans,
Atlanta, and Memphis; the WOMPI “World
Premiere” Convention was held in Dallas,
Texas’s Baker Hotel on September 18 and
19, 1954. At its height, WOMPI boasted 800
members across chapters in 22 cities.
The story of WOMPI, from its founding
in 1953 until its disbanding in 2013, is one
of camaraderie, community, and charity:
values that continue to be an integral part
of the cinema industry today, and ones
that are even more appreciated after a
year-plus of virtual meetings and digital
trade shows, a period that now thankfully
appears to be coming to an end.
The keeper of the WOMPI legacy is
Dorothy “Dottie” Reeves. Born in Missouri,
Reeves moved to New York City in 1959
to work for United Artists, where she was
an assistant to legendary executive Salah
M. Hassanein. In 1960, Reeves went to
WOMPI’s Toronto convention and was
inspired to create a New York chapter. “I
met with a group of ladies in Toronto, and
they gave me some ideas on how to go about
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organizing the New York club,” Reeves tells
Boxoffice Pro. “When I got back to the city,
I started contacting a few of the ladies I had
been in touch with since I moved there that
worked in the film business.”
Reeves’s first unofficial WOMPI
gathering took place in a conference room
in the United Artists building. “I set up
a meeting, and the girls that came were
really interested. I think it was about 12
[people]. So we decided to have another
meeting, and they talked it up and went
back to their offices. We had girls from
Paramount and Universal and Warner
Bros. We set up another meeting, and we
decided that we were going to organize.”
Reeves would go on to become WOMPI’s
international president in 1967.
“Dottie and a couple of others would
reference themselves as ‘the office girls,’”
recalls Vradenburg, who began working
with WOMPI upon joining Will Rogers
in 1997. “There were women in the group
who did not like that reference. But Dottie
would whisper to me, ‘We’re just the office
girls.’ And they were proud of that.”
These “office girls” would use their
time, energy, and passion for the industry
to earn money for those in need. WOMPI
chapters were involved in charitable
causes of their choosing, but the group’s
main affiliation was with Will Rogers,
which in 1958 was adopted as WOMPI’s
primary philanthropic cause. That year,
the group introduced their “Dimes for
Dames” program, asking its members to
set aside 10 cents a week—the cost of a
price of coffee—to donate to Will Rogers.
What with inflation, in 1977 “Dimes for
Dames” became “Dollars for Dames,”
which rolls off the tongue just as well.
WOMPI sponsored room 308 at the Will
Rogers Hospital; they also purchased over
700 books and medical journals for the
hospital’s library, as well as a defibrillator,
a portable communication machine, and a
piano. After the hospital’s closure in 1975,
the WOMPI checks would go toward what
Vradenburg calls “short-term assistance:
accident, illness, injury, prescriptions, extra
physical therapy sessions, occupational
therapy sessions, glasses, hearing aids,
things of that nature.” Vradenburg
estimates that, over the 60 years of its
existence, WOMPI’s contributions to Will
Rogers total some $300,000.
“The checks were not huge, by any
means,” says Vradenburg. “But they were
consistent through the decades.” Adds
Reeves: “Our members, every month—I
still get notices that someone has sent a
memorial or a donation to Will Rogers, even
though we’re not an organization anymore.”
A large part of WOMPI was its annual
convention, held in a different city
each year and complete with banquets,
meetings, and even (on occasion) costume
parties. At the first WOMPI convention,
held in Dallas in 1954, visiting delegates
were escorted to the convention center by
fire engines, and authentic Edith Head
costumes were on display at the firstever
WOMPI “Champagne Hour.” Reeves
singles out the 1967 convention in New
Orleans as her favorite. “On Saturday night,
they had an authentic Mardi Gras ball,
with the king and the queen. Beautiful
costumes. … [The Mardi Gras page]
escorted me down and presented me to
the king and the queen. And I remember,
the convention chairman kept telling me,
‘Dottie, you have to learn how to curtsy!’”
When Vradenburg became Will
Rogers’s executive director, he remembers
exhibition icons Hassanein, Bud Stone,
and Jerry Forman telling him: “‘Don’t
forget about the WOMPIs!’ I was like,
‘What? What is a WOMPI?’... But these
historical board members said to me,
‘Don’t forget about the WOMPIs. They’ve
been great to Will Rogers. Whatever they
need, make sure we’re there to help them.’
I said, ‘No problem.’” Vradenburg was
“really impressed” by what he saw when
he went to his first WOMPI convention:
“They ran their conference pretty much
like a NATO-type meeting, or our annual
meeting. They had officers’ meetings,
closed-room sessions, bylaws sessions,
special committee meetings. … They’re
not just a group of people getting together
to have a few chuckles. They take this
work seriously.”
WOMPI’s 60th and final conference
took place in Grapevine, Texas, with
Reeves once again presiding as
international president. Membership
had dropped to below 100 women spread
across six chapters in Dallas, Charlotte,
Hollywood, Kansas City, Memphis, and
New Orleans. With that number of
people, says Reeves, “it’s hard to plan
a convention”—though, even with a
diminished membership roster, WOMPI
was still successfully able to reach
their 2013 Will Rogers fundraising goal
of $5,000. On November 11, 2013, the
remaining amount in WOMPI’s coffers was
sent to Will Rogers, marking the group’s
last official contribution: $43,224.18.
Reeves still keeps the WOMPI
flame burning, sending out a monthly
newsletter to former members. On a
personal level, she plays the piano at a
nursing and rehabilitation center in her
hometown, though she regrets that she’s
had to put that community service on
pause due to the pandemic. “People that
work in the film industry, they’re always
doing things to better the country,” says
Reeves. “And it’s all done out of their
hearts. It’s all done for free, mostly. The
people that work in the film business,
they’re very giving of themselves.”
“People that work in
the film industry, they’re
always doing things to
better the country.”
Centennial 2021
47
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Online Ticketing is
the new box office
Scan it with the camera on your phone or visit
company.boxoffice.com/boost to book a meeting with us.
48_AD-TBCo-3.indd 48 23/11/2021 17:49

centennial
100 YEARS OF BOXOFFICE PRO
50
the boxoffice story
A Reprint from Our 50th
Anniversary Issue, Published
in 1970, Looking Back at the
Founding of the Publication
54
the boxoffice story,
continued
An Institutional History of
Boxoffice Since Ben Shlyen’s
Sale of the Company
62
a century in exhibition
Documenting 100 Years
of Exhibition History
Through the Pages of
Boxoffice Pro
Centennial 2021
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CENTENNIAL THE BOXOFFICE STORY
THE BOXOFFICE
STORY!
From the 50th Anniversary Issue of
Boxoffice Pro, a Look Back at 18-Year-Old
Founder Ben Shlyen
BY JOAN BAER
This piece originally appeared in the July 20,
1970, 50th anniversary issue of Boxoffice Pro.
t was January 31, 1920, when
18-year-old Ben Shlyen,
fresh out of high school and
a motion picture “veteran”
since his grade school days,
published the first issue
of The Reel Journal, handdelivered
it to Kansas City’s
Filmrow and mailed almost
1,000 copies to exhibitors
in the trade territory. This
marked the beginning of a
career destined to make Ben
one of the industry’s most
respected spokesmen and his publication
the most widely read tradepaper in the
motion picture field.
Ben developed his love for motion
pictures when he first saw a flickering reel
in Boston at the age of five. Later during
his grade school years in Kansas City, he
worked in a folding chair theatre and
eagerly devoured the Universal Weekly,
delivered each Saturday to the Universal
exchange.
The day he got his grade school
diploma, Ben talked Lee Balsly, manager
of Standard Film Corp., into hiring him as
office boy. Here he made his first contact
with exhibitors and their problems.
Ambitious and eager, Ben took over poster
department duties, then the shipping
clerk job when the employees in those
positions quit. When the advertising
manager was called to World War I service,
Ben was recruited to write advertising
copy and promotional literature.
Quite an undertaking for a lad who
also had a 5 a.m. newspaper corner,
two grocery store windows to decorate
with bargains of the day, an evening
paper route for which he hired carriers,
and massive lineup of extracurricular
activities at Manual Training High School,
including glee club, orchestra, debate,
senior class president, business and
advertising manager for the school paper.
The latter, a consistent money loser, that
year under Ben’s direction, wound up
with a $2,000 surplus. He also wrote about
one-third of the news copy each week and
received a gold Honor Pin for journalism,
the first ever given by the school.
As he sorted mail, listened to exhibitor
complains, shipped posters and cans
of film, and wrote copy about Christie
Comedies, Four Square Productions,
and Art Dramas, young Ben became
increasingly aware of the need for
He outlined his plan, then
unrolled a map of the United
States, swept his hand across
it, and said, “Someday, I hope
there will be a Reel Journal
for each film exchange area
in the country.”
a medium of contact between the
exchanges and exhibitors which would
provide practical trade information to the
local or sectional industry. There were
several national tradepapers, but Ben
felt that, since most pictures were sold
and distributed through local franchise
holders, there was need for a medium to
provide the contact between exhibitors
and independent distributors. Thus, late
in 1919, he addressed a meeting of the
Kansas City Film Board of Trade.
Set Goal at Start of His Career
“Gentlemen,” he said, showing them a
hand-made blueprint dummy of The
Reel Journal, “I am prepared to publish a
tradepaper to serve your needs. May I have
your support?” He outlined his plan, then
unrolled a map of the United States, swept
his hand across it, and said, “Someday, I
hope there will be a Reel Journal for each
film exchange area in the country.”
A few weeks later, the first issue
appeared, a four-page, tabloid-size paper,
carrying the news that Will Rogers had
been signed by Goldwyn to play in Jubilee,
that Vitagraph would star Alice Joyce
in another social drama, that the Hall
Room Boys were appearing in a series of
comedies for C.B.C. Film Co., forerunner
of today’s Columbia Pictures Corp., and
other good trade stories. But the readers
best liked the long column of newsy items
about themselves. They felt this was their
own tradepaper with home interest and
home-ground sympathies.
The Reel Journal was an instantaneous
success. Subscriptions came from Kansas
and western Missouri. Exhibitors chugged
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into town in their Model T’s, strode to
the young publisher’s desk space in the
projection booth of the First National
exchange in the Film Building and
plunked down their dollar for a year’s
subscription. An Oklahoma exhibitor who
ran across a copy wrote that one item
saved him $20, enough to convince him he
needed The Reel Journal for the next two
decades, at least. He sent a check to cover
a 20-year subscription.
Soon the young publisher opened an
office in St. Louis, marking the first of
many expansions. Editorially, he began
his campaign urging exhibitors to assume
leading roles in their communities. In
those days, most theatremen thought of
themselves as medicine show men with
little or no tie to the business community,
but in one of his earliest editorials,
Ben asserted, “The exhibitor of any
community should rank his influence with
that of his newspaper editor.” He urged
exhibitors to use their screens to promote
good roads, improved city government,
to provide entertainment for children,
and to become active members of their
merchants associations or Chambers of
Commerce.
Operated Theatre for That Experience
His advice to theatremen was based on his
own solid experience. A short time earlier,
feeling that his publication’s service
could be enhanced by taking a personal
hand in theatre operation, he bought the
Maple Theatre, a 600-seat neighborhood
house, and learned firsthand the problems
of the exhibitor. He gained additional
background and knowledge when he
took on the job of advertising manager
for two de luxe first-run theatres – the
Liberty and the Doric – which added to
his background and knowledge of theatre
management, advertising, publicity,
and promotion, as well as how to secure
cooperation from merchants, civic and
other groups and newspapers. He also
published an elaborate weekly program
for these two theatres.
About a year after The Reel Journal was
started, Ben joined his printer in forming
The Keystone Press, extending service
to exhibitors via a special type weekly
program. After four years, Ben sold his
interest in Keystone to devote his full time
to publishing.
His dream of setting up a Reel Journal
in every exchange center suffered a
By now, Ben had decided
to acquire the other papers
himself and go it alone,
operating them as a single
group out of Kansas City, but
money was tight and loans
were refused repeatedly.
setback in the early ’20s when Ben
discovered that others had beaten him
to the punch. But those were the days of
mergers in the industry and the number
of distribution companies and franchise
holders dwindled rapidly as the big
companies joined – three companies
merged to form Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in
1924, Realart was sold to Famous Players-
Lasy, Selznick quit production, Schulberg
joined Paramount, and the advertising
potential for The Real Journal and other
regional papers diminished.
Sought to Solidify Regional
Publications
Ben called a meeting of tradepaper
publishers in Milwaukee in 1925 and
proposed setting up an Associated Presstype
association to cut operating costs,
expand services, and create a cushion to
soften the impact of industry mergers.
The other publishers said they preferred
to fight alone. But their dreams of a
return to the heyday did not materialize.
Advertising accounts continued to
shrink and regional publishers lost faith
in their ventures. They bombarded
The Reel Journal with offers to sell. The
Reel Journal was willing to buy, but the
publisher didn’t have the cash.
By now, Ben had decided to acquire
the other papers himself and go it alone,
operating them as a single group out of
Kansas City, but money was tight and
loans were refused repeatedly. He decided
to sell the idea to the motion picture
companies themselves, so he printed a
complete issue of one edition and made
his maiden trip to New York.
En route, in Chicago he picked up an
option to buy the Motion Picture Digest,
then the Ohio Showman in Cleveland and
the Michigan Film Review in Detroit. In
New York, he toured the film company
home offices and in five days had
enough advertising contracts to assure
sufficient income to operate for a year.
Six weeks later he lifted options to buy
six other regional papers and Associated
Publications became a corporate entity,
with the first issue of the Associated
Film Group off the press on August 13,
1927, and with New York, Chicago, and
Hollywood offices a reality. The six
regionals and The Reel Journal had a
circulation of 9,000, covering 17 states
across the heart of the country from
western Idaho to eastern Ohio.
Centennial 2021
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CENTENNIAL THE BOXOFFICE STORY
Realized Original ‘Dream’ in 1931
Then came sound, throwing the
industry into turmoil and causing the
film companies to hold the line on
advertising. Associated Publications had
taken on a printing plant to facilitate
publishing its seven regional papers,
and working capital had gone to pay
for press equipment. Loans on printing
equipment were hard to get and bankers
were not interested in film advertising
contracts. The outlook was black. Ben
borrowed on insurance, mortgaged his
home, sold a profitable textile magazine
to keep the ship afloat. By January 1929,
there was a counterpart of The Reel
Journal in every exchange city except
Philadelphia, New York, and Washington.
Despite strained resources, Associated
Publications continued to expand and,
in 1931, a regional paper was established
to cover the three remaining exchange
areas. It was named Boxoffice, and two
years later the name was adopted for all
11 regional publications, fusing them into
one national magazine, with local news
supplements for each trade territory.
Then the depression caught up
with the motion picture industry;
four producer-distributors went into
receivership, cash was at a premium, and
advertising for one eight-week stretch was
almost nonexistent.
“The going was really rough,” Ben
recalls. “However, with the cooperation of
a loyal staff, in the field, in our home office,
editorial and business department and
plant, paper, ink, and other suppliers, the
storm was weathered.”
Service to the reader had always been
Ben’s primary objective and through the
years he continued to expand them. From
its inception as The Reel Journal, the
magazine published a weekly release chart,
a projection and equipment department
on merchandising product. In 1928, the
Kinequipment section was established
as the forerunner of The Modern Theatre.
Two years before the adoption of the
production code, Ben recognized the need
for wholesome family pictures. Boxoffice
sponsored establishment of the National
Screen Council and created the Blue
Ribbon Award, for 38 years given to the best
picture of the month “for the whole family.”
In 1937 Boxoffice Barometer was
introduced to provide information
on an entire year’s product. The
Showmandiser section, designed to
By now, Ben had decided
to acquire the other papers
himself and go it alone,
operating them as a single
group out of Kansas City,
but money was tight
and loans were refused
repeatedly.
provide information on how to increase
ticket sales, was the most extensive in the
tradepress.
Within a short span of years, Boxoffice
moved into first place in circulation
leadership, a place it has now held for 30
years. In 1938, a Canadian edition was
established at the invitation of Canadian
industry interests.
Editorially, Boxoffice has championed
unity within the industry. It has called
for the highest type of citizenship in the
operation of community theatres. It has
urged the industry to settle disputes
through conciliation and arbitration
rather than the courts. It has called for
high morals in movie-making, but has
fought all efforts at censorship. In 1965, in
its efforts to help the industry withstand
the pressures for censorship and statutory
classification, Boxoffice, in cooperation
with the Motion Picture Association of
America, undertook the publishing and
distribution of the Exhibitor Edition
of The Green Sheet, to make available
to exhibitors the means of providing
information and ratings of new film
releases for dissemination to the general
public.
Today, Boxoffice is read in virtually
every country on the globe and its net paid
circulation of 16,840 is the greatest film
trade circulation in the world.
Certainly, the success of Boxoffice
stands as a tribute to its publisher, who
through many years of difficult times
constantly asserted, “Let’s take the
positive view. Let each man become his
own cheerleader – but, instead of yelling,
let him be doing. And keep doing. And
doing. And the momentum will take hold
and the action will be sustained.”
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IN MEMORIAM
BEN SHLYEN,
BOXOFFICE
FOUNDER
This obituary appeared in the
July 1985 issue of Boxoffice Pro.
When Ben Shlyen died at the age of 84 on
April 7, 1985, he left behind a legacy that few
men can lay claim to – he had founded and
steered towards success a unique motion
picture publication that, 65 years after its
inception, still fulfills its founder’s dreams.
Ben Shlyen was just 18 years old when,
on January 31, 1920, he published the
first issue of The Reel Journal, a fourpage
tabloid paper that carried news
and information of the movie industry
for members of Kansas City’s filmrow.
Starting out with an initial subscription
base of 1,000 exhibitors and independent
film distributors, Ben parlayed his
publishing ideas into what would later
become Boxoffice Magazine, the nation’s
largest motion picture trade publication.
Ben’s love for motion pictures and
the movie industry began at an early
age – he once told an interviewer that his
career in the film industry really began
when he saw his first “flickering reel” in
Boston at the age of five. During his grade
school years he worked in a “folding chair”
theatre and was an early devotee of the
Universal Weekly, a newsletter for the
Universal exchange in Kansas City.
His first job, fresh out of grade school,
was with the Standard Film Corp., where
he started as an office boy and worked
his way through the poster and shipping
departments and, during World War I,
ended up in the advertising department,
writing copy and promotional literature.
All this while he decorated grocery
store windows with bargains of the day,
held down a morning job as a corner
newsboy, ran an evening paper route, and
participated in a variety of extracurricular
activities at Kansas City’s Manual Training
High School – including the glee club,
orchestra, debate, senior class president,
and as business and advertising manager
for the school newspaper. He also wrote
much of the copy for the latter, eventually
becoming editor when he successfully
pulled the paper out of the red. (One of
his reporters, a young woman on his staff,
Clara Hermer, eventually went on to work
at The Reel Journal and became Ben’s wife.)
It was while working at Standard Film
Corp. that Ben first realized his calling. He
became increasingly aware of the need for
some form of communication between
exhibitors and the distribution chain, a way
of providing useful trade information to the
legion of small theatre owners not really
served by the national trade publications.
In 1919 he approached the Kansas City
Film Board of Trade with his idea: “I am
prepared to publish a tradepaper to serve
your needs,” he told the group’s members.
“May I have your support?” Flourishing a
mock-up copy of the first edition of The
Reel Journal, he added, “Someday I hope
there will be a Reel Journal for each film
exchange area in the country.”
It was only a short time later that the first
issue of The Reel Journal appeared, carrying
news and information on the latest movies
and movie stars. But the most popular
feature was a column of home-grown news
and gossip about the Kansas City film world,
giving the new publication’s readers a strong
sense of participation.
The Reel Journal was an immediate
success and it wasn’t too long before Ben
opened an office in St. Louis, the first of
many additions to the publication. Ben’s
expansion was stymied, however, by a host
of other regional newspapers that had
sprung up in the early 1920s.
By 1925 the fledgling motion picture
industry began to consolidate. One after
another, the major studios began merging
into larger entities, cutting down on the
number of independent distributors and
cutting down on available advertising
revenues for the many trade papers. Thus,
in 1925, Ben chaired a meeting of trade
publishers, calling for the formation of an
association of trade papers to consolidate
expenses, expand services, and cushion
the financial blow dealt by the recent
mergers. The other publishers would have
Ben parlayed his publishing
ideas into what would later
become Boxoffice Magazine,
the nation’s largest motion
picture trade publication.
nothing to do with Ben’s idea.
Within a short time, finances for the
trade papers got worse, and Ben was
deluged with offers to buy his competition.
Within a few years, Ben had acquired
nine regional papers: Movie Age, Motion
Picture Digest, Michigan Film Review,
Ohio Showman, Exhibitors Forum, New
England Film News, Motion Picture Times,
Exhibitors Tribune, and Film Trade Topics,
consolidating them under the banner
of Associated Publications. By 1931 only
three exchange areas lacked coverage
by an Associated publication: New York,
Philadelphia, and Washington. Ben started
Boxoffice to complete his empire. Two
years later he consolidated all 11 journals
into one national magazine, with regional
supplements for each exchange, and used
the name Boxoffice for the overall title.
Now, Ben had only to fine tune
the publication to make it the leader
in motion picture trade publication
influence and circulation. In 1928 a
Kinequipment section was added (the
forerunner to the Modern Theatre
section); a short time later Ben instituted
the Blue Ribbon Awards. In 1937 he
introduced the Boxoffice Barometer; by
1938 he had started the Showmandiser
department and added a Canadian section.
Throughout his years as the Publisher
and Editor-in-Chief of Boxoffice, Ben
was a strong advocate of community
involvement on the part of theatre owners.
He urged exhibitors to get involved in
their local communities by using their
screens to advocate improvements in city
governments and to provide wholesome
entertainment for children. He was a
staunch supporter of strong citizenship
and morality, yet was opposed to any form
of censorship. He urged theatre owners
to join community groups and Chambers
of Commerce. And he was against taking
exhibitor/distributor disagreements to the
courts, instead advocating conciliation
and arbitration. Through the pages of
Boxoffice, Ben was a strong force for unity
in the exhibition industry.
Ben retired from active duty at
Boxoffice in 1980, but remained a member
of the Foundation of Motion Picture
Pioneers and the National Association of
Theatre Owners. His death is a loss to this
publication and to the motion picture
industry, yet, uniquely, his memory
will continue on through the pages of
Boxoffice.
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Centennial THE BOXOFFICE STORY, CONTINUED
THE BOXOFFICE
STORY, CONTINUED
PART I. THE END OF AN ERA.
en Shlyen founded
The Reel Journal in his
hometown of Kansas
City during an era when
railroad tracks dictated
the locations of regional
film exchanges across
the United States. The
magazine survived the industry’s move
to Hollywood during the studio era by
keeping close ties to regional distribution
offices and independently owned movie
theaters throughout the United States. Its
central location in Kansas City was an
asset in a largely decentralized industry;
while production had a hub in Los Angeles,
distribution and exhibition were still very
much regional businesses. In the 1970s,
however, film distribution and exhibition
in the United States began to take on a
national dimension.
The late 1960s and early ’70s were a
time of radical transition for Hollywood.
The studio system and its Production
Code, relics of a bygone era, had been
supplanted by a new generation of
filmmakers, independent producers, and
corporate executives. Weekly circulation
of Boxoffice had risen to over 23,000 by
1950, a statistic that was prominently
featured on several covers of the magazine.
But by the publication’s 50th anniversary,
in 1970, it was down to 16,840, a victim of
that generational shift. The circulation
would only continue to decline in the
ensuing years.
The loss of subscribers can be seen
in the advertising of the era. In the 50th
anniversary issue of Boxoffice, published
in July of 1970, full-page ads by studio
and industry luminaries reflect the
publication’s standing with Hollywood’s
old guard. Yet on its back cover, a glimpse
of the magazine’s imminent future, is a
full-page ad for American International
Pictures’ Unchained Angels, with artwork
depicting a biker gang sexually assaulting
a woman.
Throughout the 1970s, Boxoffice
produced some of the strangest—and
on multiple occasions, sleaziest—covers
in the publication’s history. Genres like
sexploitation, blaxploitation, horror, and
martial arts were regularly featured on
Boxoffice covers throughout the decade.
The exploitation films of that era were
not only keeping the publication afloat,
they also provided a financial lifeline
for many of its subscribers, downtown
cinemas struggling after a large portion
of their audience flocked to the suburbs.
The magazine that had championed
the production of family-driven films
by launching the Boxoffice Blue Ribbon
Award in 1932, a monthly designation
given to the best family-friendly film
on the market, now rarely gave them
prominence on its cover page.
In January of 1979 Shlyen sold the
magazine he had founded 59 years earlier
(in the projection booth of a Kansas City
movie theater) to a trade-publishing
conglomerate in Chicago. What was
originally a four-page leaflet with an initial
printing of a thousand copies had grown to
become a reference guide for an industry
he documented through his life’s work.
By the time of the sale, the film
industry had changed considerably;
Boxoffice had not. To survive, Boxoffice
had to go through a major transformation
of its own.
This is the story of that reinvention.
By the time of the sale, the
film industry had changed
considerably; Boxoffice had
not. To survive, Boxoffice
had to go through a major
transformation of its own.
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PART II. GOODBYE, KANSAS CITY,
HELLO, HOLLYWOOD: BILL VANCE
BUYS BOXOFFICE.
ance Publishing Corp.,
Chicago Firm, Has
Acquired BOXOFFICE
Magazine,” reads
the headline on the
upper-right-hand
corner of page 3 of the
January 8, 1979, issue of
Boxoffice. Shlyen had sold the company
to a trade-publishing conglomerate that
specialized in niche businesses. Vance
owned publications like Packer (“The
national fresh fruit and vegetable industry
newspaper”), Logging Management (“From
seedling to sawmill”), Drover’s Journal
(covering the livestock industry), and
Modern Salon (focusing on the beauty
shop business).
Boxoffice was an awkward fit at Vance
Publishing. The magazine’s glossy look
and feel, including the cherry-red color
scheme of its cover, were abandoned
in favor of a more streamlined tabloidbroadsheet
look beginning in July of 1979.
Vance retired the iconic art deco logo that
had graced covers since 1939 with a bulky
film strip featuring the word “BOXOFFICE”
in bold type and capital letters. William
C. Vance became the second publisher
in the magazine’s history, with Charles F.
Rouse III succeeding Shlyen as editor for
a brief span. Consistency was achieved
through several key players who stayed on
at the publication’s Kansas City newsroom,
including Shlyen himself, now listed as
executive editor. After several months,
however, it was clear that further changes
were needed in order for the publication
to survive.
Those changes started with Alexander
Auerbach, a reporter for the business
section of the Los Angeles Times, who
received a cold call from Vance with
a curious request. “I was covering the
entertainment industry (among others)
and had completed my MBA while I was
at the Times, so I was getting a little bit
restless,” he remembers. “I got a call from
this publication called Boxoffice. They had
seen my work and hired me to do a basic
consulting project: What should we do
with this magazine?”
Auerbach flew to Kansas City to
interview the staff and get a bead on the
situation. His report to the publisher
suggested two crucial changes to ensure
the magazine’s future. “It couldn’t be in
Kansas City; it needed to be in New York
or California, and it couldn’t be a weekly
tabloid—it needed to be monthly,” he
says. “They came back about a month
later and asked me to run it. I accepted on
the condition they made me editor and
publisher. They said no.”
It didn’t take long for Vance to
reconsider. Auerbach was announced as
the third publisher and editor of Boxoffice
in January of 1980, tasked with moving
operations away from its longtime
headquarters at 825 Van Brunt Boulevard
in Kansas City and turning a 60-yearold
weekly broadsheet into a monthly
publication.
“I flew back and forth to Kansas
for a month or so, almost like I was
commuting—we still had to get the
broadsheets out while we were figuring
out how to reinvent the magazine,”
Auerbach says. “Finally, I met with the
entire staff, as I recall about 20 people,
many of them young and all of them
good at what they did. I explained it was
going to be a monthly and thanked them
Auerbach, not surprisingly
given his previous beat at the
L.A. Times, had made business
reporting the publication’s
primary editorial focus during
his tenure at Boxoffice.
for helping us save the magazine. Then I
told them, here’s the deal: We’ll move you
to California at our expense, get you set
up, your job is guaranteed. If after a year
you don’t like it, we will move you back to
Kansas. I gave them a couple of weeks to
think about it. When I returned, I asked
how many were interested in making the
move. The answer was zero.”
Auerbach wasn’t totally alone by the
time Boxoffice relaunched as a monthly
magazine. Morris Schlozman, who had
been with the publication for decades,
stayed on as the advertising director, as
did associate editor Jimmy Summers, both
working out of the Kansas City office. The
two men previously worked under Shlyen
and Vance. In every other sense, however,
Boxoffice was forced to start from scratch.
The new Los Angeles office at 1800
North Highland Avenue was steps
away from Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.
Auerbach outfitted the space with
used surplus furniture from the Los
Angeles Times’ city room and computers
purchased at the bankruptcy sale of a
chain of computer stores. Shortly after the
move, Vance Publishing sold the magazine
to another Chicago-based publisher,
Robert L. Dietmier, in 1980.
PART III. BOXOFFICE GOES MONTHLY:
THE BOB DIETMIER ERA.
obert L. Dietmier
owned Boxoffice for
more than 25 years, the
longest tenure after the
magazine’s founder,
and his stewardship is
largely responsible for
the magazine’s revival
following Shlyen’s departure.
Auerbach, not surprisingly given his
previous beat at the L.A. Times, had made
business reporting the publication’s
primary editorial focus during his tenure
at Boxoffice. Managing editor Harley Lond
continued on that same path when he
became the fourth editor in chief in the
publication’s history in October of 1984.
Lond’s time as editor coincided with
the rise of new cinema technologies,
particularly advancements in sound,
that helped drive both editorial and
advertising from the mid-1980s through
the early 1990s. That era was also marked
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Centennial THE BOXOFFICE STORY, CONTINUED
by the introduction of two potentially
disruptive new platforms: home video and
premium cable.
“When VHS and HBO arrived, everyone
was terrified. They thought it was going
to wipe out the industry,” Lond says. “Our
editorial position at the time was that it
could enhance moviegoing by whetting
people’s appetite to go to the theater and
see a movie on a big screen with popcorn,
candy, and soda. During that time, we
dedicated a lot of articles highlighting
new technology; we doubled down
on showmanship and helping theater
owners better promote movies in their
communities.”
As a reflection of home entertainment’s
growing role in the movie business,
Boxoffice began publishing a supplement
in the magazine, In Video, in May 1985.
The section ran in every issue for more
than a year, ending in August 1986. It
proved to be a misguided attempt to
expand the magazine’s reader and
advertising bases—video stores and
distributors were booming at the time,
creating a parallel distribution channel—
one that alienated the publication’s
existing readers without bringing the
additional readers or advertising it was
meant to attract. “Our subscribers didn’t
like it and we weren’t getting any ad
revenue from it,” says Lond. “The efforts
by theater owners to put video stores in
their lobbies didn’t work out. We decided
to dump the entire section.”
Boxoffice placed a renewed focus on
its editorial roots in the second half of the
1980s. It helped exhibitors navigate the
changing media landscape with articles
introducing new trends, technologies, and
marketing initiatives to better compete
with a new wave of home entertainment
products. “I felt really proud of those
sections; it was like a wilderness of new
formats out there—a confusing time for
the exhibitors—and we tried to guide them
through that as best we could,” says Lond.
In 1991 the publication moved to its
second Los Angeles headquarters, just a
few blocks’ walk, to 6640 Sunset Boulevard.
By that time, Boxoffice was among the first
publications in the country to publish
digitally. Each month, the magazine would
be uploaded onto floppy disks and shipped
overnight to the printers. Senior editor
Ray Greene succeeded Lond in April 1994,
becoming the fifth editor in chief in the
publication’s history.
Under Greene’s direction,
Boxoffice became an
interview destination for
Hollywood’s biggest stars
and filmmakers.
Greene focused more attention on the
movie side of the business. A new crop
of independent American filmmakers
and producers were once again changing
the way Hollywood did business. The
Sundance Film Festival had gone from a
sleepy conference in a ski resort to a highprofile
bidding ground for the industry’s
next breakout stars. Greene shifted the
emphasis of the magazine’s long-running
film criticism section to ensure that each
review was published ahead of the film’s
theatrical release and early enough for
readers to book titles they were intrigued
by. Under Greene’s direction, Boxoffice
became an interview destination for
Hollywood’s biggest stars and filmmakers.
“My background is in alternative press,
and I approached the job by asking myself
what type of magazines I liked to read,”
says Greene. “Looking at a model for a
trade magazine, I’d look at something like
Stereo Review. It was a magazine where
you could find business information but
got it in a way that made you feel excited
for being involved in that world. We could
do that with a movie magazine; that was
our ambition in every issue.”
Greene also played an important role
in establishing the publication’s presence
on the then-nascent internet. Boxoffice’s
first foray into the digital world dates
to Harley Lond’s tenure as editor with
Boxoffice OnLine. Announced in Lond’s
editorial in the December 1988 issue as
“the perfect electronic supplement to the
printed page,” Boxoffice OnLine asked
users to mail in a form in order to receive
credentials to access the online site
through their modem connections. The
service promised “information fresher
than any printed source can provide: news,
reviews, promotional notes, the business
news of the motion picture industry
updated daily!”
By the mid-90s, Greene had a plan
in place to ensure that Boxoffice would
be prepared to make its debut on the
internet as we know it today. In June 1994,
Boxoffice partnered with the University
of Southern California to bring a digital
edition of the magazine to the internet.
The site was updated monthly with every
new issue, and it quickly became clear that
the new technology would demand more
attention than a staff of volunteer students
could provide. Greene arranged to have
the webpage regularly updated by Marlin
Software, an early web tech company
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founded by CD-ROM developers Dell
Wolfensparger and Ken Partridge. After
Marlin folded, Partridge took on Boxoffice.
com’s web management responsibilities
for the next several years.
Boxoffice Online, the publication’s first
website, was launched in April 1996 with
web-exclusive content, updated with
increased frequency with movie reviews
that had been filed in advance of, or had
failed to meet, the magazine’s long-lead
editorial deadline. The principal domain
name during that time was boxoff.com
(even back then cyber squatters posed
headaches for companies looking to
establish their internet presence). Greene
recalls writing a check for $350 to pry
the Boxoffice.com domain away from
its previous owners, an expense that
Dietmier, his publisher, wasn’t thrilled
to discover. “I remember telling him,
‘When you sell this company, you won’t
be selling a magazine—you’ll be selling
Boxoffice.com,’” says Greene.
Greene announced his departure from
Boxoffice in the December 1997 issue,
though he would continue to contribute
in a freelance capacity for many years
after. Managing editor Kim Williamson
was named as the sixth editor in chief
in Boxoffice’s history in the January
1998 issue. During his time at Boxoffice,
Williamson set up an editorial staff of four
full-time editors and worked with the
same editorial team from the January 1999
issue until his departure in 2006.
Williamson’s time helming Boxoffice’s
editorial was marked by consistency in
the newsroom; he brought in two new
junior editors—Francesca Dinglasan and
Annlee Ellingson—in late 1998 just as the
magazine was moving into a new office
at 155 S. El Molino Avenue in Pasadena.
Williamson led editorial operations
while managing editor Christine James
coordinated coverage with freelancers;
Dinglasan and Ellingson were assigned
to cover the exhibition business and
cinema technology beats, respectively.
The four of them worked on every aspect
of the magazine together, including
its design and layout—there were no
professional designers on staff—over the
course of eight years.
“We had this giant scanner that was the
size of a Volkswagen Bug where we would
do all our own layouts with a template,”
says Ellingson. “It was a monthly cycle—
very different from journalism work
today—we were print-first, where you
spend the night in the office for a week
to get the issue out, but the week after
closing you could take a three-hour lunch.”
Movie reviews had always been part of
Boxoffice’s legacy, and in the late nineties
and early aughts they had grown to claim
a large part of the publication’s editorial
real estate. But while film criticism had
served as an invaluable reference for
exhibitors making booking decisions,
the internet had unleashed a spate of
new outlets that could publish their own
reviews online. Film criticism was no
longer the task of the few thought leaders
who had access to advance screenings and
the support of editors and publishers to
run their work. It became democratized—
and commodified—and soon claimed a
ubiquitous presence in digital culture.
Being one of the few outlets to publish
movie reviews on the internet in the
mid-90s lent Boxoffice prestige among
industry insiders. By the mid-2000s,
however, Boxoffice was one of countless
publications that made reviews widely
accessible online without a business
model to support the practice. Despite
being one of the first trade publications
on the internet, the absence of a digitalfirst
strategy set the publication behind
among its peers—a concern shared
by a multitude of other publications
undergoing the same transition to digital.
Even if there had been an editorial
strategy in place to address the problem,
Boxoffice.com was already showing its age
in the rapidly evolving—and increasingly
expensive—world of website design. The
publication once again found itself at a
crossroads, forced to adapt and evolve to
ensure its survival.
Movie reviews had always
been part of Boxoffice’s
legacy, and in the late
nineties and early aughts
they had grown to claim a
large part of the publication’s
editorial real estate.
PART IV. DIGITAL TRANSITION: THE
PETER CANE YEARS.
s Dietmier neared
retirement age, it
became clear that
Boxoffice would need
a new owner with
the time, energy, and
finances necessary
to establish a serious
digital presence. The April 2005 issue of
Boxoffice announced the news: Media
Enterprises was acquiring the magazine
from Dietmier and appointing Brian
Pomerantz as chief executive officer
and former ad sales representative Ben
Rosenstein as only the fourth publisher
in its 85-year history. By October,
Rosenstein was listed as the publisher,
president, and CEO until Gidon Cohen
succeeded him as publisher on the
masthead in March of 2006.
“[Kim Williamson] facilitated the
transition from Dietmier to a new owner,
who purchased it as an investment. I came
in a year later, buying the company from
Gidon Cohen,” says Peter Cane, who first
appeared as publisher in the April 2006
issue of the magazine.
A lawyer by trade with a background
as a reporter in radio news, Cane saw
potential in Boxoffice after launching
Broadway.com during the dot-com era.
Ray Greene’s words to Dietmier, his
prophecy from a decade earlier, had come
true: “When you sell this company, you
won’t be selling a magazine—you’ll be
selling Boxoffice.com.” The magazine
underwent its first major redesign in
nearly four decades during Cane’s first
year in charge. He hired Roger Black, the
graphic designer responsible for Rolling
Stone’s famous 1977 relaunch, to give
Boxoffice the fourth logo in its entire
history—and its first since 1980. The new
look debuted in November 2006, and
three weeks later the publisher signed a
landmark agreement that would secure the
magazine’s circulation for years to come.
Boxoffice became the official
publication of the National Association of
Theatre Owners on November 21, 2006. At
the time, there were two other competing
trade publications covering theatrical
exhibition published in the United
States: Film Expo Group’s Film Journal
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Centennial THE BOXOFFICE STORY, CONTINUED
International and NATO’s In Focus. In
Focus went out of circulation following
NATO’s deal with Boxoffice.
The changes had taken their toll on the
tightly knit editorial staff from Dietmier’s
days, creating a period of instability in the
masthead. Williamson stepped down at
the end of 2006. In January 2007, Annlee
Ellingson, the only one of the four editors
who remained on staff, became the first
ever female editor in chief in Boxoffice’s
history. Her tenure was brief—she stepped
down from the role by that year’s June
issue—though her contributions would
continue appearing in the magazine well
into the first half of the following decade.
Chad Greene served as editor through
the second half of 2008, followed by Amy
Nicholson in 2009.
Meanwhile, Boxoffice.com continued
to take shape. Two key hires of the
era originally came on to work for the
website. Cane hired Kenneth Bacon as
the publication’s first full-time creative
director in 2008. Bacon would be
responsible for the look of every Boxoffice
product through the next decade. His first
redesign of Boxoffice magazine came in
2009—he replaced Black’s bold-type logo
with a sleek red-and-white emblem—and
coincided with the magazine’s move to
new offices at 9107 Wilshire Boulevard in
Los Angeles. By that time, however, key
members of the staff were already working
remotely in different cities; the Los Angeles
office was a newsroom in name only.
Tasked with overseeing the relaunch of
Boxoffice.com, Bacon hired Phil Contrino,
a young writer straight out of college who
had pitched to write reviews of movie
trailers for the new website. Contrino
was eager to get involved, leading a drive
to launch a comprehensive database of
box office grosses for the website—and
later incorporating daily box office
analysis and forecasts. Contrino helped
establish Boxoffice.com as a data-driven
news resource for industry insiders and
aficionados alike, one that operated under
a web-first strategy outside the constraints
of the monthly magazine.
By the time of the long-awaited
website relaunch in the summer of
2010, the website and social media
accounts had been effectively split in
two: Boxoffice.com for data journalism,
and BoxofficeMagazine.com with longform
editorial that could appeal to
both film fans and professionals. The
Boxoffice became the
official publication of
the National Association
of Theatre Owners on
November 21, 2006.
magazine was to be more than a trade
publication; it would be a consumerfriendly
destination for movie lovers with
a lighter approach to its industry coverage
and increased focus on reviews and
celebrity interviews.
A seasoned film critic with incisive yet
accessible observations on everything
from art house films to blockbusters,
Amy Nicholson was the right editor
to attempt to widen the reach of the
magazine. In 2011 she worked alongside
Bacon to launch a weekly digital magazine
exclusively available on Apple’s iPad and
catering to a consumer audience. During
the same time, she collaborated with Cane
on a pilot project to release a free, fancentric
magazine distributed in cinema
lobbies across the country. This shift to
B2C led Cane to rebrand the monthly
exhibitor magazine as Boxoffice Pro
starting with the April 2011 issue, the
magazine’s third redesign in five years.
None of the consumer-oriented
editorial projects gained sufficient traction
to continue. Nicholson’s final issue as
editor of the magazine came in November
2012. BoxofficeMagazine.com was quietly
folded into Boxoffice.com and reviews were
discontinued entirely, across print and
web, in January 2013. The decision to stop
running movie reviews generated more
backlash among critics themselves, many
of them former freelancers, than with the
magazine’s longtime readers in exhibition.
Boxoffice (the media company, as
distinguished from Boxoffice the
magazine) had finally found its digital
identity under Peter Cane’s tenure as
publisher. The magazine’s future was
secured by the NATO partnership, and
it enjoyed a boost in ad revenue from
tech companies during exhibition’s
own transition to digital technology.
Nicholson’s sudden departure, however,
had left a leadership vacuum at the
93-year-old magazine. Now publishing as
Boxoffice Pro, the print magazine was
nearing its centennial anniversary, once
again in need of a new identity that could
better reflect the changing nature of the
cinema industry.
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PART V. MORE THAN A MAGAZINE:
JULIEN MARCEL AND THE BOXOFFICE
COMPANY.
ulien Marcel came from a
family of publishers but
never set out to become
one himself. His mother’s
family ran a daily
newspaper in Normandy,
France, for over 80
years—he remembers
staring at the large printing press in
astonishment as a child—and so running
a publication had always been something
in the back of his mind. Not necessarily a
goal, maybe not even a dream, but an idea
that always stayed with him.
His early career in business led
him to the role of CEO at Screenvision
Europe, then a joint venture among
different entities looking to expand
cinema advertising’s reach across the
continent. The global recession of 2008
led to an advertising crisis that eventually
precipitated the company’s dissolution
and left Marcel with time on his hands.
“I had developed a real passion for the
sector,” says Marcel. “Drawing on my
connections with a number of French and
European exhibitors, I decided to start my
own consulting business to help theater
owners build their own loyalty programs
and online ticketing solutions.”
In 2009 he crossed paths with
Patrick Farcy, another French executive
who had developed his own array of
services for exhibitors. They brought
their activities together in 2010 as Côté
Ciné Group, offering an array of digital
marketing solutions for exhibitors that
included digital signage, custom websites
for cinemas, and a small publishing
division that put out a trade magazine for
exhibitors and fan-centric publications
distributed at movie theaters.
The trade magazine, Côté Cinéma,
happened by accident. In the mid-2000s,
Farcy began distributing video content
(like trailers and commercials) on DVDs
to be played on special screens installed
in cinema lobbies—a natural extension
of the digital signage business. A new
DVD reached his network of exhibitors in
France every other weekend, spurring the
studios that provide the content to pay for
ads on the DVD covers promoting their
upcoming releases. There are only so many
ads these DVD covers can accommodate,
so Farcy began to publish an
accompanying leaflet with industry news,
which could accommodate more ads from
distributors. Slowly but surely, that leaflet
grew into a full-blown magazine—going on
to outlive the DVD delivery business it was
originally tied to and becoming its own
stand-alone product.
“For the first few years we were
completely focused on growing our
business in France,” says Marcel. “But I
would still attend CinemaCon every year,
which is where I realized the U.S. market
is not much more advanced in terms
of digital marketing than the French or
European markets. Finally, there was a
moment in 2013 when I made the decision
to expand our business to the U.S. so
we can play a role in the world’s biggest
market. By then we had a strong enough
position in France, so I started making trips
to the U.S. with the intention of relocating
by the end of the year, not yet clear on how
we’re going to enter the market. That’s
when someone suggested I should reach
out to the owner of Boxoffice, because he’s
in the process of selling the magazine.”
Marcel contacted Cane in July 2013.
Within a week of that initial call, they had
entered due diligence for the acquisition
of Boxoffice. The deal was closed in
November 2013, and Marcel relocated
his family from Paris to Los Angeles
in January 2014 as the sixth owner and
publisher of Boxoffice Pro magazine.
During that interim, the magazine had
been nominally edited by Kenneth Bacon,
though his editorial role was limited to
Contrino helped establish
Boxoffice.com as a datadriven
news resource
for industry insiders and
aficionados alike
assigning stories he would later design for
publication. Bacon drew upon the editorial
assistance of anyone willing to contribute
and in that process developed a close
working relationship with the website’s
newly hired overseas editor, Daniel
Loria. A native of Mexico, he arrived at
Boxoffice tasked to increase the website’s
international coverage—an element he
carried over to his editorial work.
By the time Marcel arrived at
Boxoffice, the magazine’s editorial was
being produced entirely by Bacon and
Loria, returning to its roots as a business
publication. Loria is listed as managing
editor during his first years at Boxoffice
Pro, despite acting as the publication’s
editorial lead for the print magazine.
“There was no formal announcement; no
one officially offered me the job and I never
asked for it,” he says. “I just put in the work
and assumed the role without making a big
deal about it.”
With Marcel (a French native) as
publisher and Loria (from Mexico)
as editor, and as large national
chains consolidated into even larger
multinational circuits, the magazine took
a deeper interest in covering the global
exhibition business. Bacon, meanwhile,
in his last five years with the magazine,
introduced two additional redesigns:
one in 2016, with an updated and elegant
lowercase logo; and another in 2019, when
the publication reverted to its original logo
under the Boxoffice banner from the 1930s.
Bacon, whose goal had always been to retire
after the magazine’s centennial edition,
passed away unexpectedly at his desk in
December 2019. Hours before, in what was
likely one of his final actions, he uploaded
a backup of the magazine’s January 2020
edition to the servers—the final issue he
worked on, and the first marking Boxoffice’s
100th year in publication.
In October 2018, Boxoffice Pro
became the last remaining exhibition
trade publication in North America after
acquiring longtime rival Film Journal
International from the Film Expo
Group. “Our business in France, like in
the U.S., has always been open to work
with everybody, including our direct
competitors,” explains Marcel. “Over
the years, I had gotten to know and
appreciate [Film Expo Group directors]
Bob and Andrew Sunshine. They realized
that, with Boxoffice’s current ownership,
we could develop smarter ways to work
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Centennial THE BOXOFFICE STORY, CONTINUED
together. Their core business is to
organize events and our core business
is to publish a magazine. We felt our
multinational presence could support
their events, not only in the U.S. but also
in Europe and Asia. We felt it was a good
moment to merge both magazines into
one publication that could act as the sole
industry reference. It was something we
felt was in the best interest of the industry
as opposed to some sort of financial coup.”
As Marcel sought to expand Boxoffice’s
U.S. activities beyond publishing, he and
Farcy decided to sell Côté Ciné Group to
French media conglomerate Webedia to
facilitate the group’s growth plans, staying
on as employees to oversee a series of
acquisitions. “We knew by October 2014
that we were going to do the deal,” says
Marcel. “What was exciting for me was
that—without even having signed the
contract—they were already talking about
ways to grow in the U.S.
“We had barely signed the acquisition
of Côté Ciné Group by Webedia in April
2015 when I immediately entered into
discussions to acquire Westworld Media,
a global showtime listings leader and
digital marketing company for exhibitors,”
he says. “Through Boxoffice Pro, we
expanded the media side of our business
to the U.S. With Westworld Media, we
would expand our digital services business
for exhibitors to more than 70 countries
around the world.”
With Westworld Media under its
corporate umbrella, Marcel decided
to rebrand all the group’s activities in
the cinema sector into The Boxoffice
Company. The entity is composed of four
divisions serving the global exhibition
community: Boost, providing e-commerce
solutions like websites, mobile apps, and
digital ticketing portals for exhibitors;
Pulse, business intelligence platforms
that aggregate real-time showtime and
release data for studios and exhibitors;
Source, aggregating movie data for every
theatrical release in the United States
and most overseas markets: and, finally,
Media, a collection of websites and
social channels that interact with over
74 million moviegoers in five different
languages each month. While the scope
of Boxoffice has changed, its roots remain
firmly planted in theatrical exhibition.
Today, as the magazine continues serving
as the industry’s reference publication,
The Boxoffice Company provides digital
Their actions have
sustained the publication
through downturns,
disruptions, and—in the
year of its centennial—a
global pandemic that shut
down the world’s cinemas
for the first time in the
industry’s history.
solutions for more than 700 cinema
clients around the world.
Boxoffice Pro, the magazine founded
by Ben Shlyen in 1920 as The Reel Journal,
is the only exhibition trade publication in
the group, alongside its sister publication,
Boxoffice Pro France. “It was quite a
milestone to rebrand our French magazine
to Boxoffice Pro France,” Marcel says.
“It made sense to expand our brand to
something bigger and international. In
the U.S., Boxoffice Pro is a domestic
publication with a global focus. In Europe,
Boxoffice Pro France is a global brand
with a domestic focus.”
In her 1970 article commemorating
the 50th anniversary of this magazine,
“The Boxoffice Story ,” (page 48) author
Joan Baer closes the piece by quoting
the magazine’s founder. “Let’s take
the positive view,” she cites Shlyen as
saying. “Let each man become his own
cheerleader—but, instead of yelling, let
him be DOING. And keep doing. And
doing. And the momentum will take hold
and the action will be sustained.”
That Boxoffice Pro is still in
publication today, over 100 years since
its first edition, is a testament to the
actions of the men and women who have
contributed to its pages in the intervening
years. Their actions have sustained
the publication through downturns,
disruptions, and—in the year of its
centennial—a global pandemic that shut
down the world’s cinemas for the first
time in the industry’s history. As long
as cinemas exist, Boxoffice Pro will
be there to document their history. It’s a
commitment that everyone on this staff
assumes, a legacy handed down from the
generations of writers, editors, admen,
designers, and publishers that precede us
—and a promise to those who will follow.
60 Centennial 2021
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FROM OUR BOX OFFICE TEAM TO YOURS,
CONGRATULATIONS ON 100 YEARS!
100 YEARS
Congratulations Boxoffice PRO
Luxury Cinema, Ultimate Movie-Going, Your Community Theater.
California • Nevada
mayacinemas.com
Centennial 2021
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CENTENNIAL A CENTURY IN EXHIBITION
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2020 marked 100 years since the founding
of Boxoffice Pro, a milestone that neatly
parallels the birth of talking pictures. 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
had just 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.
During our centennial year, the staff of Boxoffice
Pro couldn’t resist the excuse 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 shared our findings in the series “A
Century in Exhibition,” which ran in 10 installments,
from January 2020 through the third quarter of 2021.
As in the industry emerges from the worst period
in its history, we saw it fitting to share “A Century
in Exhibition” here in full—showcasing the many
struggles, uncertainties, threats, and disagreements
that have marked the cinema industry over the years,
all of which we have triumphed over together, as a
community. We are confident in exhibition’s ability
to emerge from this crisis, to innovate and thrive for
another century to come—and Boxoffice Pro, if we
have anything to say about it, will be right alongside
you the whole way.
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CENTENNIAL A CENTURY IN EXHIBITION
1920S
THE BEGINNING
e start the series
with the 1920s,
specifically 1926,
which is when
reporting on
this newfangled
thing called
“synchronized
sound” began to appear. Also affecting
the industry in the roaring ’20s—and
written about extensively in the pages
of The Reel Journal and its companion
regional publications—were a construction
boom with its new-fangled amenities and
consolidation. All three of these topics
reverberate through the years and continue
to affect our industry to this day.
Talking Pictures Are Here to Stay
No technological innovation has shaken
the industry like the introduction of
sound. When Western Electric and Warner
Bros. developed the Vitaphone, the first
successful sound-on-disc technology, in
1926, it forever changed the way movies
are made.
The first-ever mention of sound in the
pages of Boxoffice Pro, then called The
Reel Journal, was in August 1926, with the
world premiere of John Barrymore’s Don
Juan. The Warner Bros. drama became
the first publicly shown “talkie,” with
prerecorded sound effects replacing the
live music (orchestra or organ) that had
accompanied most major releases up to
that point. Nearly half the premiere was
devoted to explaining the intricacies of the
Vitaphone to the fascinated, if somewhat
skeptical, audience.
As similar technologies for synchronizing
sound and image, like Fox’s
Movietone, stormed the market, there was
a “talkie frenzy” that led to skyrocketing
film production and attendance.
The Boxoffice Pro archives provide an
interesting glimpse into how the transition
to sound was viewed as it was happening.
We see the optimism and enthusiasm of the
early days, as well as the uncertainty. Are
talkies here to stay or just a phase? Will the
production requirements of sound degrade
the quality of films? How will censorship
adapt to an increase in dialogue?
But no other debate captivated
exhibitors more than the one discussed
in owner/editor Ben Shlyen’s article on
November 10, 1928: How will smaller
exhibitors who can’t afford to install
sound equipment be impacted? Shlyen
understood that, in time, as costs
decreased, smaller exhibitors would also
reap the benefits of sound. Until then, he
believed that their success depended on
quality silent features and above all on the
“right kind of showmanship.”
As one of our writers observed, “The
motion picture was reborn again in 1928.
The infant industry learned to talk.” With
an announcement in November by the
Electrical Research Laboratories and
Western Electric allowing producers to
choose different companies to record and
project sound, the popularity of talkies
exploded further. Paramount became the
first studio to drop the production of silent
films entirely, followed by Fox in March
1929. Talkies were here to stay.
Amid the talkie boom, Joseph Schenck,
president of United Artists, warned
against a blind belief that talkies would
obliterate silent pictures. “It is important
to remember that the picture is still the
foundation of screen entertainment and
sound only an accessory,” he proclaimed.
He was also afraid that dialogue would
ruin the international appeal of American
pictures. History would prove him wrong
twice. But Schenck was not the only one
to raise questions about the durability
of talkies. Sam Sax, president of Gotham
Productions, wrote that “the picture made
the motion picture theater popular,” while
sound was transitory and an accessory
at best. In March 1929, a questionnaire
asked exhibitors if silent films were still
considered a good bet at the box office.
The results were an overwhelming yes.
The sheer cost of installing sound
equipment and buying prints of talkies
left most small exhibitors outside the
initial wave of sound hype. More and more
articles, especially after 1929, denounced
how the move to sound disproportionately
benefited either movie palaces or theaters
that were producer-owned or located in
major markets. Sometimes producers
offered two versions of their films,
one with sound and one without, but
exhibitors often complained about the bad
quality of the latter and preferred to only
buy original silent features. By August
1929, a Boxoffice Pro survey showed
that 25 percent of all theaters were wired
for sound and that those theaters captured
75 percent of all revenue. An estimated $1
million was invested in equipping theaters
with sound by the end of the decade.
The Theater Construction Boom
After World War I, feature films
consolidated their position as the most
popular form of mass entertainment,
eclipsing vaudeville houses and
nickelodeons. With this came an explosion
in movie theater construction. In 1925
alone, according to our archives, some
15,000 theaters were built, more than in
any other year up to that point.
This was a period of business
innovation. Powerful regional chains such
as Loew’s (later Loews), which started in
New York City as a vaudeville company;
the Pennsylvania-based Stanley Company
of America; and, biggest of all, Chicago’s
Balaban & Katz used innovations from the
retail world, copying the likes of Kroger
and A&P, to create a “scientific form of
management,” enabling them to capture
vast swaths of regional markets.
Throughout the 1920s, Associated
Publications, the corporate entity formed
by Shlyen in 1925 to group The Reel
Journal with other regional publications
that he had acquired, chronicled that
boom. Multiple issues of the various
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Associated Publications magazines
featured detailed profiles on the
construction of new movie houses and
movie palaces. A dedicated section, Kino
Equipment, provided exhibitors with tips
on all things equipment. Meanwhile, ads
presented exhibitors with their choice of
lighting fixtures, chairs, marquees and, of
course, projectors.
This decade was one of profound
architectural changes. It saw the birth
of what would later be regarded as a
moviegoing necessity: the air-conditioned
theater. The first of these was built in 1922.
Countless ads promoting the best A.C.
system followed.
The late ’20s also saw a peak in the
construction of movie palaces, hundreds
of which opened their doors during
this time. Meant to attract the upper
class, which scorned regular theaters in
favor of luxurious vaudeville houses and
traditional stage theaters, movie palaces
were designed to make their audiences
feel like royalty. Mostly built in city
centers, these “de luxe” theaters boasted
extravagant architecture, stage shows, and
orchestras, in addition to first-run films.
Shlyen, while not against
improvements in a general sense,
opposed this “theater orgy.” He saw
the construction boom as vanity that
did not serve a practical purpose. “One
is attempting to outdo the other, not
by clear reasoning, not by practical
purpose, but by seeing how much more
money he can spend than the other,” he
proclaimed. Once again, Shlyen had the
fate of the small exhibitor in mind. How
could independent exhibitors remain in
business when newer, bigger, and better
movie houses took over their towns?
Regional chains grew throughout
the first half of the decade, after which
studios began to engage in more
monopolistic behavior. In 1925, the
largest theater chain, Balaban & Katz, was
acquired by Hollywood’s largest studio,
Famous Players-Lasky. In April of that
same year, Carl Laemmle’s Universal
Pictures announced its acquisition of the
Hostettler Circuit, an important Kansas
City player. And so the race to acquire
movie theaters began.
Even in 1925, Associated Publications
foresaw the risks this posed for the
industry. In an article on that May’s
Motion Picture Theatres of America
convention, Shlyen proclaimed, “If this
industry is to grow and prosper, a safety
valve must be maintained. The cooperation
pledged by the exhibitors and
the independents for one another can
keep down the monopoly.”
Things didn’t happen quite that
smoothly. The “majors” kept buying
theaters, unabated. In 1928, Warner Bros.
purchased the Skouras Bros. operation—
which dominated the Kansas area with
four first-run Koplar theaters, the First
National franchise, the local Educational
Branch, and the St. Louis Film Exchange—
and theaters owned by the Stanley
Company in Pennsylvania. In 1929, Fox’s
acquisitions essentially eliminated
independents in the greater New York area.
The same year, RKO formed an alliance
with Famous Players Canadian while
ACADEMY
AWARDS FOR
BEST PICTURE
WINGS
(Outstanding Picture)
1927/28
SUNRISE
(Best Unique and
Artistic Picture)
1927/28
THE BROADWAY
MELODY
1928/29
ALL QUIET ON THE
WESTERN FRONT
1929/1930
Centennial 2021
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CENTENNIAL A CENTURY IN EXHIBITION
seeking to expand its theater ownership by
acquiring 14 Pantages houses.
Now small theaters weren’t just
suffering from the high cost of the
transition to sound and the pressure to
keep up with regional chains through
pricey architectural innovations; they also
had to face the prospect of being acquired
or put out of business because of the
monopolistic behavior of the film studios.
Another threat to exhibitors was the
practice of block booking, under which
studios would force theaters, especially
independents, to buy their films in
“blocks”; if they wanted that weekend’s big
earner, they would have to take several
other, less desirable, films as well.
The twin issues of consolidation and
block booking caught the attention of
the U.S. Department of Justice. The first
antitrust investigation was launched as
far back as 1921, when Famous Players-
Lasky was charged by the Federal Trade
Commission for block booking. In April
1928, the Department of Justice filed
two antitrust cases against 10 studios—
Paramount, Famous Players-Lasky, First
National, MGM, Universal Film Exchange,
Fox Film, Pathé Exchange, FBO, Vitagraph,
and Educational Film Exchanges—for
monopolizing more than 95 percent of
domestic distribution. A year later, nine
of those studios were also indicted for
violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Legal battles went on for more than two
decades before studios were ordered to
divest their theaters.
Needless to say, the issues of block
booking and consolidation were discussed
in practically every issue of the magazine
and continued to make headlines well
into the 1940s. Shlyen initially expressed
confidence that independent exhibitors
were going to be just fine. He believed
that studios would not acquire small,
independent theaters outside major
markets. His position soon changed,
and after 1926 he began denouncing the
behavior of the studios. At the same time,
he believed that exhibitors could stave
off obsolescence through innovation. In
December 1926, Shlyen wrote, “This socalled
menace may prove a boon to many
exhibitors who have failed to heed duty
by neglecting to build up their business,
improve their service, and otherwise cater
to public demands. But the awakening
is here. The future of the independent
exhibitor’s future lies in his own hands.”
1930S
THE CRASH, COLOR, AND THE “CODE”
n the ’30s, with sound well
established, color became the
technical innovation that drove
the conversation. Then, as now,
government involvement in the
movie industry—specifically
regarding censorship, taxation,
and labor laws—also animated
numerous conversations within our pages.
As the 1930s began, there was a strong
sense of optimism throughout the motion
picture industry. Buoyed by the success of
the “talkies,” the industry was confident
in its ability to weather an economic
downturn in the wake of the 1929 stock
market crash. As early as December 1929,
Al Lichtman, United Artists’ head of sales,
wrote that “all over the country, business
at the box offices of theaters is fine.
People turned to the economical form of
entertainment that the movies represent
for mental diversion.”
Studio leaders were equally optimistic.
In an August 1932 Boxoffice Pro
overview on the state of the industry,
Adolph Zukor, president of Paramount-
Publix, reassured that “there is nothing in
this depression that good pictures, hard
work and sound judgement cannot cure.”
Universal Pictures’ Carl Laemmle even
affirmed that “the depression has been a
good thing for the motion picture industry,
for it knocked out extravagant ideas and
brought costs down to a sane level.”
The reality wasn’t quite as rosy. While
after an initial slump in weekly attendance
between 1929 and 1932, attendance
levels were on the rise again, admission
prices were dropping. Many chains were
forced to cut prices. We reported that,
for example, the Boston Publix houses
slashed their prices by about 33 percent
in 1932. That same year, RKO theaters cut
overhead with economies of an estimated
$2.8 million.
Nor were studios immune to budget
cuts. In the late 1930s, Hollywood faced
waves of studio layoffs and production
halts. The second half of the decade saw
Hollywood in paralysis as major strikes
took place almost without interruption.
Union workers from the major guilds
picketed major studios and theaters
in metropolitan centers, requesting a
minimum wage, 42-hour weeks, and better
working conditions. In the eyes of writers,
the strikes were inefficient. In a 1937
editorial titled “A Lost Cause,” western
bureau manager Ivan Spear explained
that “theater patrons have only the option
of seeing pictures made in Hollywood—
mostly by the major companies affected
by the strike—or of seeing no pictures at
all.” In October 1939, Spear wrote that the
“labor situation [was] again No. 1 problem
of the film capital.” This conflict between
“All over the country,
business at the box offices
of theaters is fine. People
turned to the economical
form of entertainment that
the movies represent for
mental diversion.”
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studios and workers would persist well
into the 1940s.
Meanwhile, the Great Depression gave
new momentum to two debates about
the motion picture industry that would
define the decades to come: federal
regulation and questions about the social
responsibility of films.
The National Recovery Administration
in Washington proposed a 10 percent
tax on admissions in 1932, prompting a
surge of local tax legislation. This was
the beginning of a long battle against
government interference in the film
industry. According to owner/editor Ben
Shlyen, in 1935 there were more than 140
bills in one (unnamed) state alone that
targeted the movie business.
Boxoffice Pro was at the forefront
of the fight against that taxation. Its
contributors thought that government
regulation and heavy taxation were
the product of exaggerated reports of
box office revenues. In an article dated
February 23, 1935, Shlyen called the tax
legislation a “discriminatory nuisance.”
The magazine led letter-writing drives,
inviting exhibitors to press their
representatives to fight taxation bills. Just
as taxation issues were making headlines,
so were concerns about local minimum
wage bills, child labor laws, and other
economic measures that were seen as
potentially harmful for exhibition.
At the same time, there was ongoing
discussion among writers, exhibitors,
studio executives, religious groups, and
women’s clubs about the impact of
films on society. One of the issues was
the question of realism. The popular
successes of The Grapes of Wrath, The
Plow That Broke the Plains, and other
“Dust Bowl Pictures” proved that movies
were attractive to moviegoers not only
because of their escapism value but also
for depicting the reality of the Depression.
But were these pictures going too far?
Was it “propaganda with a message,” as
producer Jimmy Roosevelt—Franklin D.
Roosevelt’s son—thought of The Grapes
of Wrath?
No other regulation captured these
debates better than the Motion Picture
Code (1930–66), also called the Hays
Code, which established a set of voluntary
guidelines for producers. The Hays Code,
named after its creator Will H. Hays,
president of the Motion Picture Producers
and Distributors of America (now the
MPA), was enacted in March 1930 and
effectively introduced censorship. With
its series of “Don’ts” and “Be Carefuls,”
producers were called upon to obey
“moral standards,” not ridicule the law, and
avoid vulgarity, obscenity, profanity, and
sex. Self-censorship and state censorship
boards became the norm.
There were acts of resistance, however.
Howard Hughes fought hard to stop
the censorship of Scarface, accusing his
censors of “ulterior and political motives”
(May 5, 1932). While Hughes ultimately
succeeded, it was harder for other movies.
There was a lot of buzz in our pages
concerning the educational film Birth of a
Baby, which, in the end, censors deemed
only suitable for specialized medical
audiences.
ACADEMY
AWARDS FOR
BEST PICTURE
CIMARRON
1930/31
GRAND HOTEL
1931/32
CAVALCADE
1932/33
IT HAPPENED ONE
NIGHT
1934
MUTINY ON THE
BOUNTY
1935
THE GREAT ZIEGFELD
1936
THE LIFE OF EMILE
ZOLA
1937
YOU CAN’T TAKE IT
WITH YOU
1938
GONE WITH THE
WIND
1939
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CENTENNIAL A CENTURY IN EXHIBITION
In an April 8, 1930 editorial, written
right after the adoption of the Code,
Shlyen praised the maturity of the
industry, especially because he saw
the proliferation of films with sex and
violence as a threat. He wrote, “When an
industry sets out to clean its own house it
is a virtue that deserves to be applauded.
When it sets rules for itself to follow and
follows them, it merits lauding to the
skies.” In 1934, the Code had “its teeth
sharpened,” per editor-in-chief Maurice
Kann, when tighter regulations associated
with conservative Production Code
administrator Joe Breen were adopted.
The Code was to become one of our
most written-about topics throughout the
decade. As time passed and the Code’s
shortcomings became more apparent,
Shlyen did not retract his support but
instead advocated in favor of revisions.
In a 1935 story, he wrote, “The Code has
some good points few will deny. That it
has enabled the industry to regulate itself
and to restrain certain flagrant abuses
also will meet with little denial.” He
repeatedly called for more honest, fruitful
debates and for better cooperation among
producers, distributors, and exhibitors
as a means of avoiding government
censorship in favor of self-regulation.
According to a 1939 Boxoffice Pro
survey, that echoed the position of most
exhibitors. Sixty-seven percent declared
themselves to be in favor of the Hays
Code but wanted better cooperation, less
government intrusion, and more precise
guidelines for cancellations and clearance.
After endless back-and-forth between
attorneys and exhibitor groups, the
decade ended with a revised code—which
was nonetheless not accepted by the
Justice Department.
Despite the Depression and battles over
regulation, the 1930s was also a decade
of innovations, among them color. But
much like sound a decade earlier, early
uses of color were questioned by many in
the industry. In March 1930, Shlyen wrote
that he went into a color screening feeling
fine but “came out with a headache.” He
also criticized the lack of realism and the
“unreal effect” of the technology. Shlyen
believed that a more measured use of color
would be more effective. Not all features
should be color, he argued. In 1936, film
star Douglas Fairbanks also warned that
“the use of color in features is dangerous”
because of the lack of expertise in finding
proper color combinations.
The first 100 percent multicolor outdoor
drama, Tex Takes a Holiday, proved to be a
big box office draw in 1932. In 1935, Disney,
beginning with the Mickey Mouse short
The Band Concert, announced that all
its future short subjects would be filmed
in Technicolor. A year later, following
the success of Paramount’s Technicolor
picture The Trail of the Lonesome Pine,
Lehman Bros., Atlas Corp., and Joan
Hertz purchased Technicolor shares. In
1937, Samuel Goldwyn declared that he
would produce his upcoming films with
Technicolor, arguing that “color no longer
interferes with the telling of the story.”
Technicolor shares skyrocketed.
The years 1936–37 marked a turning
point in the use of color, with the
technology gaining more and more
support. The use of Technicolor, which
had improved its three-color method, had
increased nearly 70 percent between 1935
and 1936. A contributor even estimated a
300 percent increase in color features for
the last two years of the decade.
This innovation was a hit with
moviegoers. A survey published in the
magazine in April 1937 found that fans
were asking for more color features.
Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
(1937), the first animated feature to use
color and sound, grossed an estimated
$6.74 million by 1939, more than any other
film to date. An exhibitor reporting on The
Wizard of Oz (1939) stated that the novelty
of color was more important than the film
itself. Like sound in the 1920s, color came
to revolutionize the nature of motion
pictures forever.
“The Code has some good
points few will deny. That it
has enabled the industry to
regulate itself and to restrain
certain flagrant abuses also
will meet with little denial.”
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1940S
GLOBAL CONFLICT AND CONSENT DECREES
The exhibition industry
started the 1940s rocked
by the wars in Europe
and Asia. World War II
would impact where films
could be distributed, what
films would be made, and
even how theaters could
be run. By the end of the decade, the U.S.
government would turn its attention to
something that remains a hot-button issue
for our industry today: the Paramount
Consent Decrees.
Although the United States wouldn’t
enter the war until 1941, Boxoffice
Pro, and the industry as a whole, was
uninterested in neutrality. As early as
fall 1938, Boxoffice Pro spearheaded
the cause of “Americanism” to promote
American values, including patriotism
and democracy.
Cecil B. DeMille’s documentary Land of
Liberty and John Ford’s Young Mr. Lincoln
emphasized patriotic themes, while films
like Confessions of a Nazi Spy and Inside
Nazi Germany took direct aim at Hitler and
the Third Reich. Boxoffice Pro owner/
editor Ben Shlyen identified these films as
an important part of the war effort. There
were more coming; a July 1939 feature
identified at least 42 “Americanism” films
slated for release through the end of the
year. In that same piece, editor-in-chief
Maurice “Red” Kann wrote, “No one can
successfully argue that the screen should
not do everything in its considerable power
to maintain and perpetuate the good things
in the American scene.”
Americanism did not fall on sympathetic
ears in Washington, however. In
September 1941, a Senate subcommittee
launched an investigation into the
motion picture industry, accusing it of
warmongering and of violating neutrality
law. Boxoffice Pro fought back against
what it perceived as censorship. Red
Kann accused the committee members
of using the industry “as a springboard
for an isolationist support of the
administration’s foreign policy.” (And
in fact, four out of five subcommittee
members were isolationists.)
Both Shlyen and Kann feared that
if studios were labeled as peddlers of
propaganda, it would have catastrophic
consequences at the box office. Kann
warned that “one grave danger, perhaps
the gravest, confronting the industry
is the possibility [that the probe] may
succeed in establishing a link in the
public mind between the industry and
propaganda, thereby making suspect
whatever Hollywood may produce and
newsreels may report with feared effects
on the box office.” Kann also applauded
efforts by the Hays Office to stop the probe,
writing, “After years of taking it square on
the chin and folding up under the impact
of criticism [...] the industry now discovers
its backbone and returns the blows.”
The motion picture industry did
not stand alone in this battle. A survey
conducted by the Hays Office and
published in our pages in October 1941
found that 90 percent of editorials in
American publications were in support of
the motion picture industry rather than the
Senate subcommittee. Editorial support
from various outlets praised the industry’s
patriotism and attacked the Senators’
attempt to curtail freedom of expression.
Everything changed with the December
7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. As the
U.S. officially entered the war, the probe
was dropped. A few days later, Shlyen
urged the industry to unite, less for its
own benefit than for the nation’s welfare.
Soon after, the Motion Picture Committee
Cooperating for National Defense,
established in 1940, changed its name to
the War Activities Committee and began
the work of supporting the war effort.
Boxoffice Pro ran campaigns to
inform exhibitors about how they could
contribute as well. The magazine proved
a staunch supporter of many industrywide
drives to collect money to support
refugees and encourage the purchase
of war bonds. Throughout the war, the
magazine often ran pleas for theater
owners to conserve and recover precious
materials, like copper drippings and
aluminum (from projector arc lamps
and other equipment), and offered
instructions on how to do so. The pages
of Boxoffice Pro also documented—
and often applauded—various exhibitor
efforts to encourage patriotism among
their patrons, whether through the use of
lobby displays promoting the purchase
of war bonds, running “D for Democracy”
banners on marquees, or hosting training
for “airstrike wardens.”
The magazine also kept readers up to
date on the grim reality that faced theaters
as the war progressed. With rationing,
popcorn became increasingly scarce. Film
shortages caused frequent delays in film
delivery. Fuel shortages forced theaters
to modify their hours or shut down
temporarily. In 1942, the War Production
Board issued orders forbidding the
construction of new theaters for the
remainder of the war. There was a high
cost in terms of manpower as well, as
many in the industry—from exhibition
executives to lower-level staff—joined
the military, putting them alongside
Hollywood stars like Charlton Heston,
Jimmy Stewart, and Clark Gable.
The exhibition community also faced
a crumbling demand, both domestically
and abroad. Just two weeks after the
start of the conflict overseas, Boxoffice
Pro writers joined studio executives and
prominent exhibitors in calling for a selfsufficiency
strategy that would rely solely
on U.S. distribution. In 1940, 20th Century
Fox’s Darryl F. Zanuck stated, “We’ve got
a grave responsibility—to place ourselves
in a position where we are domestically
self-sufficient. When we have done that—
and we must do that—then and only then
we’ll last forever with the destiny of our
business in our hands.”
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CENTENNIAL A CENTURY IN EXHIBITION
By the first six months of 1940, film
exports to Europe were down by six
million feet compared to the same period
in 1939. A commentator jokingly wrote
that Hitler controlled the largest theater
chain in the world. With Europe in turmoil,
the industry turned to Latin American
markets for their exports. In May 1940,
Red Kann estimated that the loss of
foreign markets would amount to an
annual $50 million deficit during the war.
As the end of the war approached,
the film industry looked to the financial
potential of the liberated markets. In
1943, Boxoffice Pro reported that
French director Julien Duvivier believed
that the French, “being an emotional
people, [required] substantial food for
their minds,” which “must be supplied”
in the form of American films. That
same year, we reported that crowds in
Italian theaters were chanting, “We want
American films again.”
After 1945, there was a sharp increase
in exports, owing to both the postwar
economic boom and the presence abroad
of American troops, who were stationed
in such numbers as to offset the impact
of trade tariffs. By 1947, the vice president
of the Motion Picture Export Association
stated that “American pictures have
recaptured their prewar prestige and are
again the preferred entertainment in every
country I visited.” Foreign films were also
becoming popular in the U.S.; in 1947, 250
theaters showed pictures from overseas.
Boxoffice Pro expressed hope for the
industry’s prospects, publishing articles
on the postwar “theater of the future”
and praising the return of innovation.
Yet the return of business as usual also
meant the return of a legal battle that had
preoccupied the industry for decades: the
antitrust question.
It all started in 1921, when the Federal
Trade Commission declared block
booking anticompetitive and questioned
the studios’ monopolistic practices.
Nine years later, the major studios were
declared guilty of monopolization, but the
decision was nullified by the Roosevelt
administration during the Depression. In
1938, as studios became more powerful,
the Department of Justice filed another
antitrust suit against the Big Eight
(Paramount Pictures, Twentieth Century-
Fox Corporation, Loew’s, RKO, Warner
Brothers Pictures, Columbia Pictures
Corporation, Universal Corporation, and
United Artists Corporation), accusing
them of conspiring to control the
industry through the ownership of both
distribution and exhibition channels.
A 1940 article reported that between
1930 and 1940, exhibitors had filed 793
complaints with the Justice Department.
That same year, studios reached a deal
with the Justice Department: During a
three-year trial period, studios could
keep ownership of their theaters, but
block booking was limited to groups
of five and exhibitors were allowed to
watch movies before purchasing them.
An arbitration system was enacted a year
later. This consent decree ended in 1943,
when the Department of Justice filed yet
another lawsuit, which was put on pause
due to the war.
ACADEMY
AWARDS FOR
BEST PICTURE
REBECCA
1940
HOW GREEN WAS
MY VALLEY
1941
MRS. MINIVER
1942
CASABLANCA
1943
GOING MY WAY
1944
THE LOST WEEKEND
1945
THE BEST YEARS OF
OUR LIVES
1946
GENTLEMAN’S
AGREEMENT
1947
HAMLET
1948
ALL THE KING’S
MEN
1949
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The end of the war led the Justice
Department, with the support of the
Society of Independent Motion Picture
Producers (SIMPP), to renew the case. In
1948, after two decades of legal battles, the
Supreme Court handed down its order
abolishing block booking, circuit dealing,
and resale price maintenance. Studios
would also be forced to divest themselves
of their theater chains or spin them off
into discrete new corporate entities. RKO
was the first studio to sign the consent
decree in November 1948, followed by
Paramount in May of the following year,
and Loew’s, Fox, and Warner in July 1949.
The series of consent decrees that were
formalized during that period came to
be collectively known as the Paramount
Consent Decrees.
The exhibition industry was far from
united in how it viewed the consent
decrees. The Motion Picture Theater
Owners of America (MPTOA), predecessor
of NATO, was in favor of self-regulation
over federal regulation. Its president,
E.L. Kuykendall, declared in April 1940
that “we know [the independent theater
owner] has reached the stage of favoring
any regulation, or law, whether he would
benefit by it or not since he has little to
lose anyway. But, in any instance, he has
allowed a temporary cloud to blind his
vision and he will eventually learn he will
suffer most if such legislation is enacted.”
In reaction to the decrees, Shlyen wrote,
“The industry has its greatest opportunity
to date to come through with a trade
practice plan designed for elimination of
inter-factional troubles.”
But, like Kuykendall, Shlyen thought
the decrees wouldn’t solve the industry’s
problems. Exhibitors and distributors, he
believed, “must sit down and agree on
terms that will best serve their mutual
interests.” In 1946, Shlyen wrote that “the
government’s failure to win its ‘main issue’
of divorcement”—which it would go on
to “win” two years later—“[was] actually
a victory for the independent exhibitor.”
Going back to the self-regulation
argument, he wrote in 1949 that the long
legal battle “has drained the industry
of millions of dollars and the time and
thought which otherwise would have been
devoted to production improvement and
merchandising.” Ultimately, for Shlyen, it
was hard to assess the real impact of the
decrees. That wouldn’t reveal itself until
future years.
1950S
TURMOIL, TV, AND TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION
In the 1950s, the theatrical
industry saw studios, vendors,
and exhibitors all reveling in
a new wave of technological
innovations. This time, the focus
was on making the theatrical
experience bigger and more
spectacular—the better to
compete with a little thing called TV.
The motion picture industry faced
its first existential threat in the 1950s.
Following the introduction of the
Paramount decrees and the weakening
of the studio system, exhibitors faced
a shortage of product and declining
admissions, and the industry met its most
daunting competitor yet: television.
The pages of Boxoffice Pro reflected
this turmoil. Despite a fast-growing U.S.
population and exploding consumer
economy, attendance was not increasing—
or at least it wasn’t increasing fast
enough, especially in the second part of
the decade. In February 1955, editor Ben
Shlyen explained the conundrum: “While
the gross business is up, due to the partial
elimination of the excise tax and higher
admission prices, our attendance has not
been increased.” In May 1956, a survey by
Slindlinger & Co. found that American
theaters lost 16 million patrons in the
first week of the month because of an
insufficient variety of pictures, a lack of
effective advertisement, and TV.
Filling empty seats became a recurring
mission for Boxoffice Pro and its
contributors. Different solutions were
routinely proposed: more blockbusters,
higher ticket prices, discounts, extended
runs, family nights. Shlyen urged more
diversity in films as well as a different
release strategy. In May 1956, he argued
that fewer second-run theaters per
neighborhood had resulted in a situation
where most, if not all, theaters played
the same movie for multiple weeks
without sufficient alternatives for
patrons who had already seen it.
“Could it be that this—and not television,
much as it has been credited—is the
main cause of the wholesale closing of
neighborhood theaters?” he pondered.
Others called for a more social solution,
like instilling moviegoing as a habit for
younger generations and encouraging “the
women of America” to bring their families
to the movies.
Many contributors turned to the past
to calm the “industryites.” Abram F.
Myers, chairman of the board and general
counsel of Allied States Association of
Motion Picture Exhibitors, wrote that the
motion picture industry has “survived
the vicissitudes of the centuries because
it satisfies a deep-seated craving of the
gregarious human race for amusement
and relation, not alone but in the
company of others. So long as there are
men, there will be theaters—television
or no television.” In the same issue, a
veteran exhibitor sought to reassure
readers by harking back to how the
industry had overcome the threat of
radio: “It was a costly, discouraging and
prolonged process. Some thought it could
never be accomplished, but it was. New
“We can beat television—or
any other competition—if we
get on the ball!”
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CENTENNIAL A CENTURY IN EXHIBITION
and improved methods of presentation
turned the tide.”
The industry was facing crises
on multiple fronts. Starting in the
late 1940s, the House Un-American
Activities Committee (HUAC) had been
hunting down suspected Communists in
Hollywood. In addition to the bad publicity,
there were financial costs: A report by
Allied States Association of Motion Picture
Exhibitors, one of the two major exhibitor
groups, estimated that film companies
had spent more than $1 million in settling
contracts with ousted Communists. After
the second HUAC hearings, about 212
individuals were blacklisted, among them
prominent talents like Dalton Trumbo,
who was eventually reinstated in 1960.
Boxoffice Pro reported that director
Elia Kazan, who agreed to talk to HUAC to
avoid the blacklist, repudiated his youthful
ties to the Communist Party, explaining
that “the Communists automatically
violated the daily practices of democracy
and attempted to control thought and to
suppress personal opinion” (April 1952).
Boxoffice Pro deplored the
maltreatment of many industry players
and feared that the hearings “would
besmirch an entire industry for the acts
of a few who have a remote connection
to [Communism]” (March 1951). The
magazine subsequently ran multiple
reports on the lack of influence of “Reds”
on Hollywood films and emphasized the
cooperation of industry leaders. The Red
Scare started to subside in 1959 when the
Academy announced it would repeal the
rule on the ineligibility of Communists.
But the biggest crisis of the decade
was undoubtedly the rise of TV. Talks
about the medium dated back to the
1920s, but it wasn’t until the 1950s that TV
became a practical form of entertainment.
Indeed, the decade began with reports on
the unprecedented manufacture of TV
sets. In January, a record 7,463,800 sets
rolled off the assembly line. For theaters,
this meant competition for audiences—
especially after color TV was introduced—
and for product.
In January 1951, the first pay-per-view
system, dubbed “Phonovision,” was tested
in 300 Chicago households by the Zenith
Radio Corporation. Viewers could send
a phone signal to decode a movie for one
dollar. Fearing that first-run films would
go straight to TV, the exhibition industry
strongly protested this new system.
Exhibitors, sometimes backed by free
TV networks, fought to ban pay-TV by
pressuring the Department of Justice and
the FCC. The stakes were immense.
“It seems certain that the era
of widescreen has not only
begun; it is here to stay.”
In a March 1955 editorial, Shlyen called for
others to join the exhibitors’ “crucial fight
for existence.”
In October 1954, Disney—partnering
with ABC—became the first major
Hollywood studio to create TV
programming. Walt Disney believed it
to be an exciting development for both
industries. In 1955, studios opened their
libraries for TV rentals and sales of films
prior to 1948. RKO was the first, followed
by Columbia (which sold features
through its TV subsidiary Screen Gems),
Paramount, and Fox. Starting with RKO in
April 1956, some majors developed their
own TV divisions, expanding their lots
to handle the new activity. Studios also
began buying stakes in TV. One of those
was Paramount, which in 1951 acquired
interests in pay-TV player International
Telemeter Corp. Washington, D.C., took
notice. In 1958, the government filed a civil
antitrust suit against Universal Pictures,
Columbia, and Screen Gems for fixing
prices and eliminating competition.
Boxoffice Pro fervently warned
about the myriad dangers of TV and
urged studios to think of exhibitors.
Shlyen also cautioned readers of the
risks of complacency. In January 1957, he
proposed measures like cheaper parking,
babysitting services, and family nights.
“We can beat television—or any other
competition—if we get on the ball!”
But TV had a bright side. It offered
new marketing opportunities, for one.
In addition, some exhibitors were quick
to embrace the potential of “telecasting”
sports via cable TV. In 1950, Allied
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Association gave its full backing to the
National Exhibitors Theatre Television
Committee to continue the practice. That
same year, Fox announced it would test
the technology on a 20-theater network,
leading to an uptick in interest for other
major circuits. The first cable TV theater
opened in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, in 1956
to great success. Yet content providers did
not always approve this expansion, and
the cost of installation (estimated at more
than $274.5 million in 1957) proved too
expensive to make it a viable option.
Facing these crises, the industry
found ways to adapt to the increasingly
modernizing world. For Boxoffice
Pro, one last moviegoing bastion was
the drive-in. The “airers,” as these
theaters were called, were not always
welcomed by the rest of the industry. In
fact, many indoor exhibitors lobbied to
prevent future owners from obtaining
zoning and construction permits and
even managed to get a total construction
ban in some areas. The truth was that
drive-ins, entering their heyday in 1950,
were already getting one-eighth of the
industry’s total patronage. Boxoffice
Pro rejoiced over this boom and the
ingenuity of some drive-in exhibitors. For
example, one drive-in in Minneapolis
incentivized attendance by bringing
in non-auto owners on a big bus. The
magazine ran many ads for drive-inspecific
equipment, including screens,
speakers, and seats. Columns in our
Modern Theater section gave advice for
better drive-in showmanship.
But the real “savior” of the industry
was the introduction of 3-D, wide screens,
and stereophonic sound technologies.
Cinerama Corp. showed distribution
executives its innovative curved-screen
technology for the first time on May 6,
1950, after 13 years of development. It
featured a projection apparatus that could
show movies eight times the size of a
normal screen, four times the width, and
twice the height. Ben Shlyen praised its
“breathtaking” effect.
There were rapid technical
advancements on the 3-D front, as well.
In 1951, the Society of Motion Picture
and Television Engineers hailed the
technology as the “most promising
theater entertainment of the future.” A
year later, United Artists’ Bwana Devil
became the first 3-D feature film, with
great box office response.
The high-tech turning point took place
in 1953. As major companies equipped
more and more theaters with innovative
new technologies, Boxoffice Pro spoke
of a “third-dimension race.” Paramount
was using its own 3-D solution. MGM,
Columbia, and Warner Bros. turned to a
system called Natural Vision, while 20th
Century Fox used a French system with
stereophonic sound called Anamorphosis.
These enhancements to the traditional
theatrical experience popped up at an
unprecedented pace, with everyone trying
to bring something ever-more innovative
to the table. For example, the Ohio-based
company Tri-Dem claimed it had created a
3-D mechanism requiring neither a special
screen nor glasses. On the exhibitor
side, Chicago-based B&K announced the
introduction of its own “Magnascreen” in
January 1951. A Boxoffice Pro survey
published in December 1953 revealed that
more than 50 percent of indoor exhibitors
had installed or planned to install 3-D
and wide-screen equipment within the
year. More gimmicky were Smellorama,
introduced in 1953, and Smell-O-Vision,
introduced in 1959.
1953 was a landmark year due to the
introduction of widescreen shooting
format CinemaScope, first used with 20th
Century Fox’s The Robe. Shlyen called the
first public presentation of The Robe in
September 1953 an “epochal event.” The
premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theater
was “one of the more spectacular in recent
film colony annals.” Noting its immense
success with the public, he observed, “It
seems certain that the era of widescreen
has not only begun; it is here to stay.”
In the months to come, CinemaScope
was presented as a true “industry
revolution.” Many filmmakers also saw
its creative potential. Combining wide
screens with advancements in Technicolor
processes, filmmakers flooded the market
with historical epics like Quo Vadis, Ben-
Hur, Salome, and David and Bathsheba. In
February 1953, Cecil B. DeMille explained
that he had deferred filming the Ten
Commandments to study 3-D, noting, “I
am lucky that third-dimension appeared
when it did and that it didn’t find me in the
throes of production.” Other filmmakers
were more skeptical. In August 1953, we
reported that director John Huston was
worried “about properly framing his stories
on the horizontal screen and didn’t think
the sacrifice was worth the effort.”
ACADEMY
AWARDS FOR
BEST PICTURE
ALL ABOUT EVE
1950
AN AMERICAN IN
PARIS
1951
THE GREATEST
SHOW ON EARTH
1952
FROM HERE TO
ETERNITY
1953
ON THE
WATERFRONT
1954
MARTY
1955
AROUND THE
WORLD IN 80 DAYS
1956
THE BRIDGE ON
THE RIVER KWAI
1957
GIGI
1958
BEN-HUR
1959
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CENTENNIAL A CENTURY IN EXHIBITION
While Boxoffice Pro welcomed these
innovations as beneficial to the industry,
our writers also expressed caution,
showing concern for smaller theaters just
as they had following the advent of sound.
Siding with Allied States Association of
Motion Picture Exhibitors, Boxoffice
Pro favored standardization as well as
an industry-wide research program for
improvements. Indeed, many smaller
exhibitors failed to join the technological
revolution of the 1950s because of the
high costs of installation. In an attempt
to counter those costs, Spyros Skouras,
president of 20th Century-Fox, announced
in 1953 that his company would extend
credit to any theater that was unable to
buy the equipment.
These innovations did boost
attendance, but the recovery of the
exhibition industry was not as spectacular
as expected. As a result, industry
leaders began to look for overlooked
audiences. One segment was particularly
lucrative: teenagers. A study published
in December 1956 found that the teenage
market consisted of 16 million boys
and girls—potentially making them the
biggest moviegoer demographic—with
a combined $9 billion to spend per year.
Young people were also deemed less
likely than their older counterparts to stay
home and watch TV. A desire to attract
teenage patrons (despite exhibitors’ fears
of their rowdiness) brought new faces to
films. Movies like Rebel Without a Cause
and Teenage Rebel as well as films starring
Elvis Presley became hits. MPAA president
Eric Johnston expressed his optimism in
1957 about the power of young people to
save the industry: “There will always be
motion picture theaters because ‘young
people’ don’t want to sit at home and hold
hands in front of their parents.”
1960S
THE COLLAPSE OF THE STUDIO SYSTEM
The studio system
that thrived during
Hollywood’s Golden
Age died in the
1960s. Challenges in
the form of pay TV,
antitrust legislation,
low admissions, and
censorship had worn down the studios
in the previous decade. But the 1960s
brought a new challenge that proved too
difficult to overcome: a society in turmoil.
Classic westerns, patriotic war movies,
family musicals, and biblical epics were
receiving an increasingly tepid reception
at the box office. Unable to comprehend
the tastes of their young audience
during the time of the Vietnam War, the
civil rights movement, and the growing
counterculture, studios were ever more
disconnected from their patrons. There
was one question that veteran studio
executives were no longer able to answer:
What was an American film supposed
to be? As studio films floundered and
aging studio executives lost control of
the industry, foreign and art house films
filled the gap, influencing a generation of
American filmmakers who ushered in the
era of New Hollywood.
Until the 1960s, the industry had
never truly confronted its own racism. In
Boxoffice Pro, so-called Negro theaters
were rarely mentioned. From the 1920s
to the 1950s, the magazine published just
one advertisement for a Black-led movie.
One of the ways in which the exhibition
community was forced to come to terms
with the question of race in the 1960s was
the desegregation of movie theaters.
Until the middle of the decade, most
Southern cities practiced segregation in
their movie theaters, either by segregating
individual cinemas—with designated
balconies for Black audiences—or by
having separate cinemas for Black and
white audiences. Black-only theaters,
which were run by African American
managers but often owned by whites,
were less numerous than their white-only
counterparts and mostly ran second- or
third-run films. Some cities, like Charlotte
and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, had no
theaters for Black audiences at all.
As the civil rights movement
progressed, picketing campaigns, mostly
led by students in urban areas of the South,
paved the way for the desegregation of
movie theaters. Major circuits operated by
Loew’s (later Loews), RKO, and Warner—
although desegregated in the North—were
targeted by protestors for policies in
their Southern locations. Boxoffice Pro
documented one of the largest studentled
desegregation campaigns, which saw
approximately 1,500 students march in
Atlanta in February 1961. According to the
magazine, most of Atlanta’s downtown
movie houses began desegregating in
May 1962 by permitting a small number of
African Americans to attend each showing
for a trial period of a handful of weeks, a
strategy used by many Southern theaters
before integrating completely.
In May 1963, Attorney General Robert
Kennedy praised exhibitors for moving
forward with voluntary integration when
he invited influential exhibitors to the
White House, seeking to persuade them to
support President Johnson’s civil rights
legislation. The idea was that voluntary
desegregation of movie theaters, highly
visible hubs in both Black and white
communities, could spill over to other
businesses. Boxoffice Pro founder and
editor Ben Shlyen commented on the
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meeting: “From a humanistic, economic
and political viewpoint, it is seen that
the change called for must be made.” He
added, however, that it could not “be done
on a wholesale basis” due to the potential
for violent outbreaks. “The threat of
legislation to force integration is not the
way to bring about the change called for
by the times and conditions,” he argued.
Overall, the matter of desegregation
was not frequently discussed by the
magazine’s writers. But the publication
chose to publish a letter by a Southern
movie manager in 1963, who wrote:
“[The manager] hears it plenty when he
might play a movie appealing mainly to
children, such as a Walt Disney film. He
gets calls from mothers wanting to know
if his theater is integrated, and if it is, the
mother will not send her child.”
Contrary to what Shlyen thought,
legislation proved the only way to force
compliance. The end of legal segregation
came in July of 1964 with the Civil Rights
Act, and the Congress of Racial Equity
found that all theaters were abiding by the
law that same month.
The civil rights movement also
brought the (still ongoing) question of
minority representation to the attention
of Hollywood. The success of Sidney
Poitier personified the controversy over
the inclusion of African Americans both
on and behind the screen. In 1964, Poitier
became the first Black actor to win an
Academy Award for Best Actor for his role
in Lilies of the Field. Writes journalist and
author Mark Harris in his book Pictures at
a Revolution, Poitier was worried that his
win would only lead to complacency, as
the industry would busy itself with selfcongratulation
instead of working toward
additional progress. Poitier’s fears proved
correct: he did not get another offer for a
year after winning the Academy Award.
But the actor was also internally
conflicted over the kind of parts he was
playing. Was portraying one-dimensional
Black characters a necessary sacrifice to
open the way for more actors of color in
Hollywood? Some civil rights activists
were indeed condemning the portrayal
of African Americans on the silver screen.
The NAACP led discussions with major
studios to ensure progress on the issues of
job access and on-screen representation.
Other groups, including women and Latinx
communities, began protesting as well.
A 1962 Boxoffice Pro article reported
that leaders of Indigenous peoples in
New Mexico had been “long frustrated
over [their] treatment” in American film
and were planning to open their own
production companies. After the 1968
assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr., a coalition of industry stars including
Poitier, Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, and
Candice Bergen created a nonprofit group
to produce films on racial and social issues.
The proceeds were to go to the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference.
Poitier became the top box office draw of
1967 with the interracial romantic comedy
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (which
became Columbia’s biggest success to date),
To Sir, with Love, and the Oscar-winning In
the Heat of the Night. The success of these
films proved two things: Black moviegoers
could be a lucrative audience, and films
about and starring Black people could play
in the South. Exhibitors did not accept
these truths without resistance. Some
theaters edited moments, like Poitier and
Katharine Houghton’s kiss in Guess Who’s
Coming to Dinner, out of their prints. More
alarmingly, the KKK picketed, and even
considered planning attacks on, theaters
that played these films.
The new social context created
by the civil rights movement and the
counterculture revolution produced
an appetite among younger audiences
for films that spoke to the reality of
the decade. The catastrophic flops of
expensive films like Cleopatra (1963) and
Doctor Dolittle (1967) proved the desire
for something new. In 1952, the Supreme
Court had ruled that Roberto Rossellini’s
The Miracle, a controversial film that
drew criticism from the Catholic Church,
was an artistic work protected under the
First Amendment. With that decision,
the threat of government censorship
was eliminated, opening the gates for
a wave of foreign films that gave young
moviegoers what they were looking for.
These films defied taboos and censorship
and embraced an experimental approach
to filmmaking. Among them were movies
hailing from swinging London, which
exported the Bond franchise and Beatles
films—and stars like Sean Connery,
Michael Caine, and Vanessa Redgrave—to
North American audiences. The French
New Wave introduced young urban
intellectual audiences to Truffaut, Godard,
Brigitte Bardot, and Alain Delon. Italian
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CENTENNIAL A CENTURY IN EXHIBITION
films propelled Antonioni, Fellini, Sophia
Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, and Gina
Lollobrigida to fame.
The foreign craze was evident in the
pages of Boxoffice Pro. Coverage of
foreign film festivals boomed, as did
editorial by foreign correspondents
and columns like “Tokyo Report” and
“London Report.” In fact, one anonymous
writer reported in 1961 that 70 out of 176
pictures released by 10 companies in
the U.S. between November 1960 and
August 1961 were foreign. By February
1964, Twentieth-Century-Fox, MGM,
Columbia, and United Artists were leading
importers of foreign films. Smaller players
like Embassy and Janus Films, which
imported the work of Ingmar Bergman,
steadily became more prominent.
It was the first time in Hollywood’s
history that stars and films competed
with their international counterparts. And
Hollywood was scared. A writer summed
up the situation in August 1961: “The
foreign invasion appears to be creeping
up on the American production industry
and, in time, may equal it or surpass it.
And from all indications, U.S. companies
will increase their imports in the coming
years. While the top pictures still come out
of Hollywood, the quantity is diminishing.”
The artistic merit of foreign films was
often recognized in the magazine
with positive reviews and the honor of
Boxoffice Pro’s Blue Ribbon Award, but
Shlyen always encouraged Hollywood to
regain its dominant position.
Art house and specialty theaters
thrived thanks to the influx of foreign
films. Leonard Lightstone, executive vice
president at Embassy, said in 1963 that
specialty theaters were “mushrooming”
and becoming more profitable as foreign
films cut costs and became more flexible
in their release strategies than firstrun
product. In 1960, Irving M. Levin,
divisional director at San Francisco
Theatres, attributed the proliferation of
foreign films to their universal appeal
and to “the inevitable maturing of film
audiences as the country’s level of
education and appreciation broadens.”
Independent cinemas, like the Bleecker
Street Cinema in Greenwich Village, began
showcasing international films. In April
1967, Shlyen urged exhibitors to “drop the
notion that they must have ‘big box office
product or nothing’” and give smaller
films a chance. Shlyen’s plea came at a
time of declining attendance and frequent
closures of downtown movie houses as
white audiences fled to the suburbs. Some
also found, in foreign and art house films,
the only way to fight TV. Independent
filmmaker Leonard Hirschfield was
reported saying in 1967, “Today the
personal films are ‘most important’
“The foreign invasion
appears to be creeping up
on the American production
industry and, in time, may
equal it or surpass it.”
because people can see the factory stuff
on television.”
Foreign and art house films were
catalysts for the end of censorship and
the revision of the Production Code.
Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up, which
featured full-frontal female nudity, did
not receive the Production Code seal and
was condemned by the National Legion
of Decency. MGM distributed Blow-
Up anyway through its shell company,
Premier Productions. Grossing about
$20 million, the film dealt a huge blow to
puritanical attitudes. Foreign films had
effectively created a double standard. As
more theaters showed films without the
Production Code seal, nudity became
even more prevalent on-screen, raising
questions about whether children and
families were being driven away. But as
the negative effects of censorship on
creativity—not to mention the box office—
became increasingly apparent, calls for
an age-based classification system, which
would give parents control over what their
children could see, started to gain traction.
In 1960, New York became the first state
to establish the classification “Adult Only”
for moviegoers above 18, sparking similar
bills in other local legislatures.
Six years later, Jack Valenti became
the third president of the Motion Picture
Association of America (now MPA). Valenti
was preoccupied with censorship and the
rising insurrection of Code-challenging
filmmakers from the beginning of his
tenure. In his first few weeks in office,
he revised the Code to include the label
“Suggested for Mature Audiences” on
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advertising posters. Shlyen welcomed the
revision and praised Valenti’s “Herculean
feat” for “giving the industry and the public
a Code of Self-Regulation from which any
benefits can be derived, not the least of
which is the ‘better image that so much is
spoken of and which can be the means for
increasing attendance as well as to revive
the custom of multitudes of lost patrons.”
But foreign films were no longer the
only problem. A year before Valenti’s
hiring, Sidney Lumet’s The Pawnbroker
was approved by the Code despite its
nudity on the grounds of the “high
quality” of the film. The decision created
a loophole: Nudity was tolerable for
“good” films, but not for ordinary ones.
Mike Nichols’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia
Woolf?, which broke barriers with its
strong language, finished what The
Pawnbroker had started. The National
Legion of Decency, supposedly influenced
by Jacqueline Kennedy, gave the film an
endorsement of “acceptable for adults
with reservations.” Jack Warner released
it in 1966 with a warning that the film was
for adults only and provided individual
contracts for theaters to sign, pledging
that they would not admit any minors.
Valenti was forced to approve the film with
a “Suggested for Mature Audiences” label.
This became the first step toward
the establishment of the new MPAA
voluntary classification system, enacted
in 1968. Movies were rated G (Suggested
for general audiences), M (Suggested
for mature audiences), R (Persons under
16 not admitted unless accompanied
by an adult), or X (Persons under 16 not
admitted). Valenti declared in Boxoffice
Pro that “the creative filmmaker ought
to be free to make movies for a variety
of tastes and audiences, with a sensitive
concern for children. That’s what this
voluntary film rating plan does—assures
freedom of the screen and at the same
time gives full information to parents
so that children are restricted from
certain movies whose theme, content
and treatment might be beyond their
understanding.”
The MPAA and the International Film
Importers and Distributors of America
(IFIDA) were to monitor the ratings system
with the newly formed National Association
of Theatre Owners (NATO). After calling
for a united exhibitor front for decades,
Ben Shlyen’s wishes became reality with
the birth of NATO on January 1, 1966.
Boxoffice Pro followed its inception
closely. In April 1964, the Allied States
Association of Motion Picture Exhibitors
and the Theatre Owners of America had
agreed on a merger, talks for which had
begun over a decade before. The challenges
and changes of the 1960s brought an end to
the ideological differences that had divided
the two major exhibitor groups. In addition
to enforcing ratings, in its early days NATO
organized defenses against the industry’s
greatest threats. It campaigned against the
FCC for the regulation of pay TV, instituted
a “movie month” with discounted prices,
and pushed for more research on patron
behavior.
The final nail in the coffin of the
studio system came in 1967. That year,
the Academy Award nominees were four
films representing the new standard
of antiestablishment, more inclusive
filmmaking—Bonnie & Clyde, The
Graduate, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,
and In the Heat of the Night—as well as Fox
flop Doctor Dolittle, a film that epitomized
the studios’ disconnect from the current
culture. The success of these new types
of films was indisputable. Influenced
by European New Wave cinema, young
directors who had trained in theater
and TV like Sidney Lumet, Arthur Penn,
Mike Nichols, Sam Peckinpah, and John
Frankenheimer were not afraid to take on
taboo subjects and resist the status quo.
While indies like Easy Rider and The
Wild Angels were thriving, the Big Five
were collapsing. Walt Disney had died
suddenly at 55 in 1965, Paramount was
sold to Gulf and Western Industries in
1966, and Warner Bros. sold a third of its
shares to Seven Arts in 1967. MGM was
sold to a Nevada casino millionaire, Kirk
Kerkorian, in 1969. Even United Artists
and Columbia, which had been taking
more risks with independent films,
were shaken. United Artists became a
subsidiary of an insurance company,
Transamerica Corporation, and there were
rumors about a French bank taking over
Columbia. The only Old Hollywood mogul
left was Darryl Zanuck, who remained at
the head of Twentieth-Century-Fox. By
the close of the decade, the golden age of
studios had ended, and New Hollywood
was ascendant.
ACADEMY
AWARDS FOR
BEST PICTURE
THE APARTMENT
1960
WEST SIDE STORY
1961
LAWRENCE OF
ARABIA
1962
TOM JONES
1963
MY FAIR LADY
1964
THE SOUND OF
MUSIC
1965
A MAN FOR ALL
SEASONS
1966
IN THE HEAT OF THE
NIGHT
1967
OLIVER!
1968
MIDNIGHT COWBOY
1969
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CENTENNIAL A CENTURY IN EXHIBITION
1970S
A NEW HOPE
hen moviegoers
sank into their
seats in the dark
auditorium of
the Loew’s State
Theatre in New
York City on March
14, 1972, to watch
a drama about the Italian American
Mafia, little did they know they were
making movie history. The Godfather
became the best-selling title of the year
and the first American film to gross $100
million domestically in its initial release.
The Godfather was also making history
in a different way: It encapsulated the
contradictions of the decade. On the one
hand, director Francis Ford Coppola
represented the generation of “movie
brats,” young male directors fresh out
of film school like Martin Scorsese,
Brian De Palma, and George Lucas,
who represented New Hollywood at its
peak. On the other hand, The Godfather
was a precursor of the blockbuster
phenomenon that buried New Hollywood
in the second half of the decade. Like the
countercultural revolution that had been
embraced by so many young people in
the previous decade, The Godfather spoke
to the disillusionment of the Vietnam
and Watergate era. But in other ways it
was a nostalgic film about the waning of
white male patriarchal power amid the
ascendance of the women’s rights, gay
rights, and Black Power movements.
The 1970s were, in fact, a period of
rapid and contradictory transformations
for exhibition. At the beginning of the
decade, weekly admissions continued
their decline. Admissions in 1970 were 18
million, down from 30 million in 1960, in
part because of rising ticket costs, cable
TV, theaters playing the same film for an
extended period (a practice Boxoffice
Pro founder and editor Ben Shlyen
criticized), and a lack of both film variety
and advertising. Dwindling admissions
and the collapse of the studio system made
room for New Hollywood but also for cheap,
shocking exploitation films. The civil
rights movement and the realization that
African American audiences had box office
potential launched blaxploitation, while
the failures of the MPAA’s rating system
opened the door for raunchy sexploitation.
Though not without some success, these
films were not enough to prevent the
downtown houses and movie palaces
that showed them from going quiet as
(white) audiences and exhibitors rushed to
theaters in suburban malls. Movies became
another expression of consumerism,
epitomized by the rise of blockbusters—
with their wider releases and expensive
marketing strategies—ushering in an era of
new vitality for the industry.
Power to New Audiences
The early 1970s saw an industry in crisis.
And as many industries in crisis do, the
film industry sought to make money
cheaply and quickly. With exploitation
films, dabbling in on-trend subjects
like martial arts and eroticism, studios
were able to attract moviegoers without
investing in the sort of big-budget
spectacle that had flopped in the 1960s.
One of the most important exploitation
sub-genres was blaxploitation. The civil
rights movement had obliged exhibitors
to open their doors to Black audiences and
brought new ways of thinking about race
relations. For the first time since the birth
of cinema, the integration of theaters gave
African Americans a wider platform and
showed the importance of catering to a
diverse audience.
Melvin Van Peebles’s 1971 film Sweet
Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song is believed to
be the first blaxploitation film. The movie
features a male prostitute, Sweetback,
who evades the police and protests
white authority. It established one of the
genres core themes: A Black person fights
the system, and for the first time wins.
Despite its X rating (the movie tagline
was “X-rated by an all-white jury”), the
film grossed $15 million and pushed
Hollywood toward a new audience. That
same year, MGM’s Shaft became an
instant hit. Boxoffice Pro reported that
it played 24 hours a day for the first week
of its opening in some theaters, like the
DeMille Theatre in New York City’s Times
Square. Unlike many Hollywood films, the
genre also made room for women stars,
such as icon Pam Grier, “the “Queen of
Blaxploitation.”
Film historians still try to understand
the significance and impact of the
genre. Was it an expression of Black
empowerment, a manifestation of
their anger toward the system, or just
a new marketing angle for Hollywood?
Blaxploitation was indeed criticized
by some African Americans and by the
NAACP for perpetuating stereotypical
images of Black people as criminals.
Others criticized the lack of originality
of the genre, which by the middle of the
decade had resorted to horror, western,
and kung fu film remakes.
In the pages of Boxoffice Pro,
blaxploitation films were received with
“Competition may come and
go, but the movie theater
goes on forever.”
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mixed reviews. Steven Jacobson, head of
the independent production company
Xanadu Productions, acknowledged in
November 1975 that “Black films make
money.” But, criticizing their hyper-focus
on Black audiences, he continued that
“it’s in the best interest of the industry to
be sensitive to the needs of the [entire]
moviegoing public.” A semiretired trade
paper editor, Don Carle Gillette, criticized
their quality. “Too many exhibitors still
are more interested in making money
from sales of popcorn, cold drinks, and
hot dogs than from the sale of box office
tickets. … But tawdry exploitation pictures
can draw many munchers while quality
films attract a more discriminating
clientele that sits attentively all through
a performance. … So what’s best for
the industry—quality films or popcorn
pictures?” he asked.
Downtown Theaters Are Shuttered
Criticism aside, blaxploitation films
did invigorate Black filmmakers and
audiences, especially urban moviegoers.
But their success was not enough to
keep inner-city theaters from closing. In
the local news sections of Boxoffice
Pro, articles about theater closings
proliferated. In an article dated February
1976, Shlyen attributed this to “conditions
which [small theaters] have been unable
to control,” including product shortages,
excessive rental terms, and extended
runs in inner-city theaters that “did not
provide sufficient patrons to sustain
such extended needs.” Moreover, as
an anonymous contributor wrote in
1972, “The audience that once looked
to moviegoing big-city wise as a steady
habit, has moved increasingly to the
outlying sections and spilled over to the
fast-growing suburban towns.” Because
of the “frightening displays of violence
in the streets, choking traffic conditions,
[and] reduced parking availability,” they
continued, “it’s a matter of persuading
entertainment-seekers to ‘return’ to the
central-core city after dark.”
Suburbanization was taking a toll
on drive-ins too, as more and more
were razed to the ground to make room
for parking lots and malls. Another
institution of American moviegoing was
particularly hard hit during that period:
movie palaces. Boxoffice Pro advocated
for the protection of these historically and
culturally significant theaters, but the
high costs of maintenance in the context
of a wider moviegoing crisis made the task
almost impossible.
Some movie palaces, like the
Hollywood Pantages or Radio City Music
Hall, were converted to performing arts
centers. Others were transformed into
churches. Drive-ins, meanwhile, hosted
swap meets to bring in additional revenue
during the day. NATO dedicated many
conferences and roundtables to the
problem, with debates on topics like
“Unconventional Uses for Conventional
Theaters” or “Daytime Dividends for
Drive-ins.” NATO’s 1972 Showmanship
Award winner, Joe Vleck, the advertising
director of National General Theaters
in Los Angeles, suggested making the
theaters available for beauty operators’
conventions, travel agencies, gardenequipment
dealers, sports-equipment
suppliers, and savings and loan shows.
In the end, it was grassroots activism
from local moviegoers that contributed
most to the preservation of movie
palaces. Historic theaters like the 4,000-
seat Chicago Theatre or the Bandbox in
Philadelphia were registered as historical
landmarks thanks to their efforts.
Movies Go to the Multiplex
Suburban theaters were popping up
just as fast as downtown houses were
disappearing. The magazine’s Modern
Theater section was continuously
dominated by news of the construction
of multiplexes, shopping center theaters,
and “multi-mini-theaters,” defined as
multiplexes with smaller auditoriums.
Suburban theaters had their roots in the
postwar years, but the 1970s truly became
the decade of the “complex theater type,”
as M.A. Lightman, president of Malco
Theatres, described it in 1970. Shopping
center theaters and multiplexes, where
exhibitors could show more movies
simultaneously to smaller audiences, were
now the norm. This coincided with the
phenomenon later known as the “malling
of America,” a period from 1960 to 1980 in
which an estimated 17,500 malls were built.
These malls catered to a suburban crowd
of largely white, middle class moviegoers—
still considered the backbone of the
exhibition industry. Far removed from the
harsh realities of city life, shopping center
theaters were also places where cinema’s
escapism could be literally felt.
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CENTENNIAL A CENTURY IN EXHIBITION
The multi-theater concept can be
attributed to Stanley Durwood, president
of Durwood Theatres, the Kansas City–
based circuit that eventually became
the exhibition giant AMC. After the
success of its Parkway Twin in 1962,
AMC pioneered the multiplex with the
first-ever quadruplex in its hometown
in 1966. In April 1971, Boxoffice Pro
reported from Kansas City that AMC
would open 70 new auditoriums and 17
multiplexes in 13 cities in “one of the most
intensive expansions in the history of
motion picture exhibition.” AMC’s growth
was such that it managed to become
a nationwide franchise in less than 10
years. Durwood described the company’s
“fresh and imaginative” approach in a
press release: “The patron-oriented
convenience, comfort, and choice add up
to a totally unique experience that has met
with immediate success everywhere it has
been introduced.” Durwood also touted
the free parking and the availability of “a
wide variety of entertainment for a variety
of patrons in a single complex.”
Accounts from exhibitors supported
Durwood’s argument. The genius of the
mall multiplex was that when families were
done with their shopping, they could all
go to the movies without being obliged to
watch the same film. They could go to the
theater “together but separately,” wrote one
mini-theater exhibitor in 1970. Multiple
exhibitors pointed out that the cost of
running a multiplex was now about the
same as running a single-screen theater
with 500 seats or more, thanks to advances
in automation, which allowed theaters to
serve multiple auditoriums from a single
projection booth as well as invest in only
one lobby, box office, and concession stand.
Ben Shlyen, still urging the protection
of smaller urban theaters, congratulated
“progressive theatermen for their capacity
to innovate and keep up with demographic
changes,” as he wrote in 1973. “Competition
may come and go, but the movie theater
goes on forever. This has been shown in
the upbuilding of new theater structures,
improvement, and modernization of the
existing ones that have kept apace of the
demands of the times, population, and
urban changes,” he argued.
The Blockbuster Phenomenon
With the “malling” of cinemas, movies
were now less a cultural form of
entertainment than a consumerist hobby.
That shift was accelerated and epitomized
by the advent of the blockbuster.
After a harsh admissions crisis at the
beginning of the decade, “lost” audiences
started returning en masse in 1974 when
hits like The Exorcist (which broke The
Godfather’s box office record) and The
Sting contributed to an increase of weekly
attendance from 16.6 million in 1973 to 20
million. But the history of the blockbuster
cannot be told without Jaws. In 1975, a
young director named Steven Spielberg
created one of the biggest cultural
phenomena in the history of the industry.
Jaws became the highest-grossing film
ever, as well as the most talked-about
movie of the year. The movie was a
landmark as well for its unprecedented
release: It opened simultaneously in 409
theaters nationwide, while most films
until that point would hit screens in a few
key locations before rolling into new ones.
Jaws was also the first film to understand
the power of the ancillary markets. It
launched the biggest TV campaign up
to then with a $700,000 spend for three
nights of nationwide prime time TV ads
on all networks. And then came Star Wars:
Episode IV – A New Hope. After opening on
May 25, 1977, George Lucas’s opus became
an instant hit. Its record-breaking success
was made evident by the endless lines
in front of theaters. “It broke records in
every house in which it opened and set
cumulative box office records in most of
the cities where it is showing,” Boxoffice
Pro breathlessly reported on the sixth day
of its opening.
Thus was the modern blockbuster
born. Bigger, high-concept movies that
generated “buzz” started flooding the
market. New practices in marketing,
wider releases in the summer, and longer
runs steadily became the norm. Ben
Shlyen pondered the social roots of the
phenomenon in January 1979. “Has the
public simply tired of the ‘deep think’ and
‘message films’? Some say that the type
of pictures America chooses to watch are
indicative of what we may be currently
experiencing as a people. That is, the
recent dramatic shift to the just-for-fun
brand of motion pictures is symbolic of
what the country is experiencing in the
late ’70s. … Today’s audiences are tired
of inflation, leery of politics, and are
turning to the movies again as a source
of entertainment.”
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ACADEMY
AWARDS FOR
BEST PICTURE
PATTON
1970
THE FRENCH
CONNECTION
1971
THE GODFATHER
1972
THE STING
1973
THE GODFATHER
PART II
1974
ONE FLEW OVER
THE CUCKOO’S NEST
1975
ROCKY
1976
ANNIE HALL
1977
THE DEER HUNTER
1978
KRAMER VS.
KRAMER
1979
What certainly amplified the escapism
and wow effect of blockbusters were their
special effects and sound innovations. True
to its capitalist foundations, Hollywood
seems to follow an economic cycle
of booms and busts, the latter often
accompanied by surges in technological
invention. Much like the gimmick frenzy
of the fifties meant to combat TV, the 1970s
witnessed a technological boom that was
supposed to attract the “lost” audiences
flocking to cable and video cassettes. While
advances in sound and special effects had
been happening for decades, they gained
an unprecedented popularity in the 1970s
thanks to the blockbuster.
One of those innovations was Imax,
which premiered at the Expo ’70 world’s
fair in Japan with the 17-minute-long
Tiger Child. Special effects also captivated
audiences in memorable sequences in
films like The Exorcist, Superman: The
Movie, and Alien. Star Wars perhaps did
more than any other movie to popularize
special effects with its first extensive use
of animated 3-D CGI, widely lauded in the
pages of Boxoffice Pro. The film’s VFX
editors, including several of George Lucas’s
Industrial Light and Magic co-founders,
went on to receive the Academy Award for
Best Achievement in Visual Effects.
Star Wars also cemented Dolby’s
dominance as surround sound made its
comeback. In 1971, A Clockwork Orange
had become the first film to use Dolby
technology for recording sound and noise
reduction. Dolby Stereo, an optical fourchannel
sound system technology, was
used in A Star Is Born five years later. But
to quote famed sound designer Walter
Murch, “Star Wars was the can opener that
made people realize not only the effect of
sound but the effect that good sound had
at the box office.” When Star Wars opened
in the summer of 1977, only three prints
out of the 40 screens where it played were
Dolby. Lucas, despite distributor 20th
Century Fox’s objections, had insisted
on using Dolby Stereo. As the Star Wars
phenomenon took off, so did the demand
for Dolby. In the first weeks after the
launch of the film, more and more space
in the magazine was dedicated to the
installation of the system in theaters all
over the country.
For many, Dolby Stereo was the way to
fight home entertainment. Dennis Udovic,
a Wisconsin projectionist writing to
Boxoffice Pro in September 1977, argued,
“The basic movie customers are young
people, and stereophonic sound is right up
their alley.” Two years later, writer John M.
Novak urged exhibitors to abandon the
view that stereo sound was “just another
fad” and advised them to invest in the
technology. “The average theater is 30
years behind the times in terms of sound
quality. … In competition with the quality
of today’s home stereo components, never
mind what’s in store for tomorrow; the
average theater sound system would lose
by forfeit,” he argued.
The blockbusters, in combination with
multiplexes and technological innovations,
gave new life to the industry and changed
it forever. Ben Shlyen wrote in March
1976 that good blockbusters have “caused
people, again, to talk enthusiastically
about motion pictures.” Nevertheless,
as waves of blockbusters overwhelmed
theaters, critics—including Shlyen—
pointed out that the lack of diversity,
embodied by the predictable stories
copying the Star Wars and Jaws formulas,
coupled with long runs could eventually
hurt the market. It was not enough to have
big films. They needed to be good as well.
Many articles in Boxoffice Pro warned
of the importance of protecting smaller,
high-quality films. One writer in Knoxville,
in a 1976 review of Stanley Kubrick’s Barry
Lyndon, declared, “It takes a lot of guts
to assemble a film of this magnitude to
compete with today’s made-for-money
movies.” The exhibition landscape was
indeed very different from what it was in
the early 1970s, with its independent New
Hollywood productions.
Sex, Censors, and Videotapes
The end of the 1970s was radically
different in another respect. The first half
of the decade did not only see the height
of New Hollywood and blaxploitation—it
was the heyday of sexploitation. MPAA
president Jack Valenti’s rating system had
failed to trademark the X rating, which
led to a boom of adult films in downtown
theaters. In particular, 1972 and 1973 were
the golden age of sexploitation. Deep
Throat was mainstream (even Jacqueline
Kennedy Onassis saw it, and Bob Hope
talked about it on TV), and adult film
exhibitors, now organized in their own
trade group, the Adult Film Association
of America, were preparing their own
ratings code. And while Boxoffice Pro
frequently wrote about the need for more
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CENTENNIAL A CENTURY IN EXHIBITION
general and family products, most of the
ads in the magazine during that period
were for X-rated films.
Sexploitation relaunched debates
about censorship and the precise meaning
of “obscenity” and “pornography,” which
lacked an official legal definition. Roth v.
United States had established in 1957 that
sex and obscenity were not synonymous
but did not define what obscenity actually
was. A few years later, an exhibitor from
Georgia, Billy Jenkins, was arrested
for showing Mike Nichols’s Carnal
Knowledge. His case was taken to the
Supreme Court, which ruled the movie
was not obscene. But in 1973, the Supreme
Court found that obscenity should be
defined “by contemporary community
standards,” leading many local courts
to ban erotic films. Adult theaters were
subject to crackdowns by the police and
picketed by citizens. Some cities even
developed zoned areas specifically for
adult theaters, as many people feared
their effects on children. In fact, another
debate frequently animating the magazine
was the impact of these movies on the
behavior of audiences. Most of the studies
presented concluded that pornography
had no impact on “moral character and
sexual orientation.”
James H. Nicholson, president of
American International Pictures, said in a
keynote speech at a NATO convention in
1970: “I cannot believe we are all voyeurs,
and I know this present ‘flash’ of box
office gold is mostly the result of fleeting
curiosity.” Looking at the example of
Europe, he warned, “The audience who
liked the almost pornographic films got
tired of them, and the audiences they had
alienated no longer cared about going to
the movies.” Letters from exhibitors in the
magazine certainly show that there was
indeed sexploitation fatigue by the mid-
1970s. However, it was not the end of that
“fleeting curiosity” that killed adult film
exhibition. Adult exhibition was an early
victim of the industry’s newest threat,
video cassettes, which were to become so
contentious in the eighties.
1980S
MEGABUCKS, MTV, AND MEGAPLEXES
he experimental
revolution that swept the
1960s and 1970s was all
but dead and buried in
the ’80s. Summarizing
the new decade, author
Peter Biskind, in his book
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 supplyside
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 the popularity 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, with 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, who
were forced to raise their ticket prices
sometimes to as high as $6 or $7, doubling
the 1970s prices. Between 1979 and 1980,
when the average ticket price was $2.69, the
MPAA reported a 6.9 percent increase in
the average ticket price. Exhibitors found
themselves squeezed between higher print
costs, larger margins for studios, and the
fear of losing their patrons. Boxoffice
Pro editor Alexander Auerbach, who
took over from magazine founder Ben
Shlyen as editor in 1979, urged the industry
to control its costs and pointed out the
studios’ hypocrisy in an editorial published
in June 1982. “If the major studios cannot
turn out a steady flow of films for less than
$10 million each, how do they propose to
make them for cable-only distribution for
$3 million or less?” he wondered.
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Big Business Entertainment
The financial changes of the 1980s made
it harder and harder for small studios and
exhibitors to survive. Instead, vertically
integrated media conglomerates, well
equipped to finance and distribute these
movies, ushered in the era of big-business
entertainment. Acquisitions of studios
by nonmedia conglomerates had started
in the 1960s, but the 1980s was a time of
unprecedented media cross-ownership,
vertical integration, and the increasing
importance of financial instruments
like equity, shareholder value, and
other financial assets during a period of
unprecedented deregulation.
In 1982, Coca-Cola, a longtime
partner of theaters, entered the industry
aggressively when it bought Columbia
Pictures for a reported $750 million. It
marked the first takeover of a major
Hollywood studio by a conglomerate
since Kinney National Services acquired
Warner Bros.-Seven Arts, Gulf & Western
bought Paramount, and Transamerica
took control of UA in the late 1960s. In
1983, Columbia, HBO, and CBS joined
forces to create Tri-Star (later TriStar), a
new studio that would produce films for
theatrical exhibition and cable TV. A year
later, Tri-Star bought the Loews theater
chain, raising antitrust concerns in regard
to a potential violation of the Paramount
Decrees. In 1987, Japanese electronics
giant Sony moved into theatrical
distribution to enhance its video sales
with the creation of AIP Distribution.
Two years later, in September 1989, Sony
Corporation of America purchased
Columbia Pictures and Tri-Star from Coca-
Cola and renamed itself Sony Pictures
Entertainment.
Sony’s acquisitions opened the way for
foreign ownership of studios, amplifying
American anxieties about a “foreign
invasion.” The Qintex Group of Australia
had bought MGM/UA earlier in 1989,
topping the bid of Australian publisher
Rupert Murdoch, who had acquired 50
percent of 20th Century Fox in 1985. But
what the Sony acquisition ultimately
showed was the advantages it gave to
Sony, which was now the sole company
controlling its films’ content, distribution
channels, and the hardware with which
people could watch movies at home (VCR,
laser discs, etc.).
Exhibition did not escape the M&A
trend, despite the Paramount Decrees.
Sony held the historic chain Loews, which
was briefly renamed Sony Cinemas
before switching back to its original
name. Warner Communications and Gulf
& Western formed Cineamerica Theaters,
a corporate entity that took over Gulf
& Western’s Mann Theaters, Festival
Enterprises, and Trans-Lux circuits.
Finally, MCA, the parent company of
Universal, purchased a 49 percent stake in
Cineplex Odeon in 1986.
While most acquisitions were not the
subject of commentary by the editorial
team, Boxoffice Pro’s new editor, Harley
W. Lond (who took over in 1984 and
implemented a significant overhaul that
put more editorial emphasis on “vital
analysis and interpretation” rather than
straight news), deplored the trend. In
an August 1989 editorial, he wrote, “The
conglomeration fever in our industry
has now moved from the acquisition of
exhibition outlets to the acquisition of
production outlets, and this does not
augur well for us. Just recently, George
Lucas bemoaned the rash corporate
takeover by stating that such actions
‘damage the creative energies of the
entertainment industry’ by creating
companies with enormous debts, thus
tying up resources that should be made
available instead for risk-taking on new
films, filmmakers, and new ideas.”
The survival of smaller and
independent theaters who struggled to
stay afloat was at stake. Boxoffice Pro
dedicated a lot of space to independent
distribution and exhibitors, publishing
regular strategy columns and profiles of
distributors and cinemas. A few indies
managed to thrive, most notably New
Line Cinema with the hit A Nightmare
on Elm Street and Miramax with Sex, Lies,
and Videotape, as well as exhibitors like
Carmike Cinemas, Pacific Theaters, and
the Laemmle chain. But as Dan Harkins,
president of Arizona’s Harkins Theaters,
put it in December 1987, independents
were still “facing extinction” because
of conglomerate buy ups. Independent
exhibitors were at the forefront of the
fight against integration, often pushing
for resolutions through NATO. In
fact, Boxoffice Pro reported that in
August 1987, Dan Harkins, as well as
other exhibitors from Texas and Indiana,
appeared in front of New York’s District
Court to prevent Tri-Star from having
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CENTENNIAL A CENTURY IN EXHIBITION
the right to book its films into its Loews
cinemas. Despite their efforts, the court
granted Tri-Star its request.
Home Entertainment, VCR Wars,
and MTV
Vertical concentration was not the only
challenge facing the exhibition industry
in the 1980s. Editor Alexander Auerbach
had summed up the threat of home
entertainment in a March 1981 editorial.
“Exhibition and the studios, which once
feared the advent of television, now
ponder on the impact of cable TV, pay-
TV, the videodisc, and videotape, direct
broadcast from satellite to home and
other technological advances. All of this
new gadgetry can be regarded as either
an opportunity or a threat, but in either
case, it cannot be ignored,” he argued.
As had happened with the advent of TV
in the ’50s, theaters were competing for
the scarce time, attention, and cash of
a moviegoing audience that now had a
seemingly never-ending bounty of home
alternatives.
One significant threat in home
entertainment was the rapid quality
improvements in TV screens and
surround systems at home. Echoing the
race to large formats in the ’50s, Tony
Francis, president of Theater Products
International and regular Boxoffice Pro
contributor, lamented in May 1981 that
“the picture only offers size.” He feared
that although the quality of TV pictures
was inferior to film, it would soon surpass
it. Francis urged exhibitors to get ready
for the competition and reminded readers
that only 15 percent of American theaters
offered stereophonic sound in 1981, while
consumers were getting more and more
accustomed to it—and therefore expecting
it—at home via their radios, tape players,
and headphones. In September of that
year, Ioan Allen, Dolby’s vice president
of marketing, warned in Boxoffice
Pro that as much as 90 percent of
theaters were subpar in sound and/or
projection compared to home equipment.
Innovations in HDTV technologies made
the threat even more imminent. It is
interesting to note that Francis Ford
Coppola’s Zoetrope Studios was involved
in HDTV demos, as he believed that the
next logical step would be to distribute
films made on tape via satellite to theaters.
The videotape craze was an additional
challenge to exhibitors, especially
after the mid-1980s. Introduced in the
American market in the ’70s, Sony’s
Betamax and JVC’s VHS were fiercely
competing to dominate the videocassette
and videocassette-recorder industry.
“Home video is actually
a blessing to exhibitors,
because it’s tapped into
the people who are not
contributing to Hollywood
film production.”
ACADEMY
AWARDS FOR
BEST PICTURE
ORDINARY PEOPLE
1980
CHARIOTS OF FIRE
1981
GANDHI
1982
TERMS OF
ENDEARMENT
1983
AMADEUS
1984
OUT OF AFRICA
1985
PLATOON
1986
THE LAST EMPEROR
1987
RAIN MAN
1988
DRIVING MISS
DAISY
1989
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Boxoffice Pro published a study by
the Electronic Industries Association’s
Consumer Electronics Group in 1985
showing that sales of VCRs had jumped
over 72 percent year-over-year. The jump
was preceded by the Supreme Court’s Sony
Betamax Decision in March 1984, which
ruled that home-videotaping practices
were not in violation of copyright laws.
In an unprecedented move, Boxoffice
Pro extended its coverage to video
with its “Boxoffice Video Supplement,”
starting in 1985, in an effort to inform
exhibitors of the trends and potential
uses of this new format. Soon, cassette
and VCR sales outpaced domestic box
office grosses. According to a report in
the Video Supplement in 1987, income
from videocassette sales rose 30 percent
compared to 1986 and, at $7.46 billion,
nearly doubled the $4.2 billion total box
office take for that same year.
On top of home-entertainment quality
improvements and the VCR menace, the
’80s saw the explosion of cable TV. It was
no coincidence that all major media and
exhibitor conglomerates rushed to acquire
premium channels. For instance, in 1983
MCA, Paramount, and Warner agreed
to become partners to buy the Movie
Channel, a satellite-delivered motion
picture pay-TV service with over 2 million
subscribers at that time. Four years later,
the late Sumner Redstone, owner of
National Amusements—which operated
400 movie centers—bought a controlling
interest in Viacom, which owned MTV
and Showtime. For exhibitors, the danger
was not just a relentless competition for
audiences. As Perry Lowe, chairman of
the board of the National Association of
Concessionaires, explained in a 1981 piece,
because of inflation and the different cost
structures of the industry, “theater owners
would have to raise prices faster than
cable operators, and the result will be a
further widening gap between the value of
seeing a movie at home on cable TV versus
going out to a movie theater.”
Overall, however, the response of
exhibitors toward these new threats
was not quite as anxiety ridden as it had
been in previous decades. Exhibition
had survived despite countless doomand-gloom
predictions in the past. This
time around, many Boxoffice Pro
writers and contributors were quick to
point out how ancillary markets could
incentivize filmmaking and present new
opportunities for returns. Jack Valenti
noted in 1982 that while some 40 percent
of television homes were equipped with
cable, 18 million subscribed to pay TV or
cable movie channels, and 4 million video
recorders were in the nation’s living rooms,
the year had still recorded an all-timehigh
box office record. The reason behind
this, he argued, was simple: People who
love movies love them in every medium.
Industry experts reassured exhibitors
by stressing the opportunity for an
aggressive promotion provided by pay
TV and cable. One such example was
“Movieweek,” a half-hour program on
MSN Information Channel that used an
MTV-like model to put movie marketing
(including trailers and interviews)
into thousands of homes. Video was
also presented as a medium to attract
audiences who did not go to the movies
at all. “Home video is actually a blessing
to exhibitors, because it’s tapped into
the people who are not contributing to
Hollywood film production,” explained
Dan Harkins in October 1985. A
businessman in the videocassette field
went even further in a 1981 article:
“[Exhibitors] possess a knowledge that no
other group of businessmen have in this
country. They know motion pictures and
how to sell them. It follows that they are
the best-prepared group to become video
cassette and disc retailers.” Auerbach
agreed in a 1984 editorial, stating that “the
rental business is a bit different from the
usual snack bar activity, but hardly an
overwhelming challenge to the theater
employee.” Indeed, a few small theaters
presented in the magazine, like Fred
Kaysbier’s theater in Ogallala, Nebraska,
or the Village Theater in Knoxville, Iowa,
turned to video sales.
The Window Issue
What also concerned exhibitors was the
matter of theatrical exclusivity windows.
Talks about windows went back to the
birth of TV, but the ’80s was the decade
that saw the issue become much more
prevalent in the magazine’s coverage. The
editorial line was clear. “Exhibition must
battle to preserve its place as the first-run
outlet for product from Hollywood,” wrote
Auerbach in November 1980, following
an unofficial NATO convention in New
Orleans dedicated to the topic. Auerbach
was especially concerned by the evershrinking
window between theatrical
releases and cassette releases, noting that
some videocassettes were released while
films were still in theaters. That was not
only true for smaller films but for bigger
box office successes like Purple Rain,
which became available on tape only six
months after its initial theatrical release.
“What became of the unwritten rule
of a one-year window (now ostensibly
six months but, in reality, four-or-less
months) on film to videotape transfers?”
asked editor Harley W. Lond in December
1984. He noted that distributors,
benefiting from word of mouth from
theatrical releases, were eager to shorten
the windows further. Subsequent-run
theaters were hit the hardest. Auerbach
wrote, in May 1984, that “a reasonable
‘window’ between theatrical and cassette
release would at least help the firstrun
houses, although sub-run theaters
would still have a tougher row to hoe.”
The observation was echoed by George
Kerasotes, president of Kerasotes Theaters,
who in 1981 declared, “I don’t think
there’ll be subsequent-run theaters—
neighborhood houses that run pictures
for a long time—because that market is
rapidly being absorbed by cable TV people,
cassettes, disks, whatever is coming out.”
Movie Palaces and Megaplexes
In the aforementioned editorial, Harley W.
Lond urged exhibitors to unite and put
pressure on their suppliers while also
increasing their investments in stateof-the-art
technology to provide “a
form of entertainment that can’t be
matched anywhere else.” He underlined
a widespread criticism of the exhibition
industry. Despite all the novel technological
threats to be found in the home video
market, the biggest threat for some
exhibitors was exhibitors themselves.
“Badly maintained theaters with poor
acoustics, dim screens, scruffy decor, and
butchered prints will do more to keep
potential ticket buyers away than any of
the electronic marvels now on the market,”
reported Boxoffice Pro after a 1981 NATO
convention in Las Vegas. The shopping
center multiplex model was already starting
to feel lackluster and antiquated. “The
multiplex has become the Japanese car of
the movie theaters—compact, efficient, and
often lacking in individual style,” wrote
Tom Matthews, managing editor, in 1989.
The movies needed to bring their
magic back. Jack Valenti put it simply in
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CENTENNIAL A CENTURY IN EXHIBITION
1986: “Theater box office and the magic
of the movies in the marketplace are
irretrievably linked together. One goes
down as the other diminishes. One goes up
as the other shines.” A new type of theater
was to bring back the magic: the megaplex.
Giant modern theater complexes began
overtaking smaller multiplexes after the
mid-’80s, with Kinepolis Brussels opening
the world’s first megaplex with 25 screens
in Belgium in 1988.
The path toward the megaplex era
is well documented in Boxoffice Pro.
That history cannot be told without the
Canadian Cineplex Odeon Group and its
president and founder, Garth Drabinsky.
Drabinsky and Nathan A. Taylor founded
Cineplex Odeon in 1979. By the end of
the decade, according to the magazine’s
new Giants of Exhibition list, it had
become North America’s fourth-largest
circuit, with more than 1,500 screens in
the U.S. and Canada. Megaplexes were
often located in malls—epitomized by
the 1,000-seat Cineplex Beverly Center in
Los Angeles—but a new trend of standalone
buildings with multiple amenities
was becoming more and more prevalent.
For example, Cineplex Odeon’s flagship
location in Universal City, located next
to Universal Studios and its theme
park, was built in 1987 with 18 screens
and 6,000 seats for $16.5 million. In a
speech at a NATO convention in 1988,
Drabinksy highlighted the rationale
behind the megaplex. He stressed “the
urgent necessity of formulating the
most felicitous motion picture viewing
ambiance that the present technology and
the most creative architectural designs
will permit.”
The megaplexes were meant to offer
a luxurious experience to moviegoers.
They were often inspired by the movie
palaces of yore, and those classic theaters’
visionary architects—like Samuel “Roxy”
Rothafel, Thomas Lamb, and the Rapps—
were often referenced in megaplex profiles.
“Lobbies and auditoriums are leaning more
towards palatial furnishings rather than
the shopping centers crackerbox floor
plans of yesteryear,” wrote Dan Harkins in
1987. This state of mind perhaps explains
why so many pages of Boxoffice Pro
in the ’80s were dedicated to profiles of
restored movie palaces. The megaplexes
were also designed to optimize the
patron’s viewing and comfort, which
meant that Dolby Stereo surround systems
and the Lucasfilm THX sound system
were a must. To help exhibitors navigate
the countless innovations and new terms,
the magazine’s Modern Theater section
“Badly maintained theaters
with poor acoustics, dim
screens, scruffy decor, and
butchered prints will do
more to keep potential ticket
buyers away than any of the
electronic marvels now on
the market.”
ramped up its coverage on sound, at a rate
comparable to the 1920s when sound was
first introduced.
The whole idea behind megaplexes
and the fight against home entertainment
was to make moviegoing an “experience.”
Concessions became an integral part
of that strategy, as many theaters
expanded their menus to offer more
specialty concessions, like beer and
wine, larger sizes (32-oz. sodas were
dwarfed by 45 and 60-oz. cups), and
combos. Merchandising tie-ins started
booming. The Star Wars licensing and
merchandising success made exhibitors
jump on the bandwagon, and many
started selling licensed T-shirts, posters,
records, videocassettes, toys, and other
paraphernalia at the concessions stand.
Exhibitors hoped to increase their profits
and translate the “buzz” of satisfied
moviegoers into impulse buys once the
movie was over. This was especially
the case with children’s movies. As one
exhibitor put it in 1988, “We’ve sold a lot
of Roger Rabbit pins at our theaters. But
we tried to merchandise Rambo and just
didn’t have any luck.” Inspired by the
fast-food industry, Coca-Cola, which had
bought Columbia Pictures in 1982, was a
pioneer in that strategy and put in place
multiple promotional tie-ins on reusable
cups and popcorn buckets. “The more hot
properties developed for the screen, the
better. All the promotion and all the hype
on only one hot picture a year will cause
the theater industry to go painfully soft,”
explained Herbert Arnold, V.P. of Coca-
Cola USA in a 1980 interview.
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Pioneering the Computer Age
In 1989, Coca-Cola introduced its self-serve,
walk-through concession stand, which
was manufactured by Cretors, the inventor
of the popcorn machine. Coca-Cola was
bringing to concessions one of the most
important developments in the exhibition
industry: automation. While articles on
automation had occasionally been featured
in Boxoffice Pro since the 1950s, modern
automation as we know it today took off
in the ’80s. “There’s nothing romantic
about a ticket machine. [...] But automation
has hit the box office, and theaters that
don’t modernize their operations will
suffer,” warned Auerbach in June 1981.
To help exhibitors understand the new
technological tools at their disposal, a
Computers special section was introduced
in the Modern Theater section in the 1980s,
discussing benefits, usage, costs, and
products associated with computers.
Automated ticketing systems, such as
Omniterm, Dataticket, and Movie/Master,
were often advertised and explained in
the magazine. The ability to print tickets
faster and provide all the information
necessary to the moviegoer on the ticket
while also keeping track of sales was a
tremendous innovation for exhibitors.
These systems also allowed customers to
reserve tickets earlier by phone and to pay
with major credit cards. More and more
software products, such as Theatron All in
One, became integrated with concession
sales, programming, bookkeeping, and
even booth and auditorium management.
The ’80s also saw the development
of online databases meant to manage
releases and marketing material. Two
of the database services profiled in
Boxoffice Pro were Baseline, which
gave access to weekend box office reports
and information on upcoming movies,
and Cinemascore, which provided
demographic data on opening-night
audiences. In December 1988, the
magazine decided to extend its services
to the digital space with Boxoffice OnLine,
a computer service meant to provide
exhibitors with vital information—like
teasers, trailers, and changing release
dates—more quickly than it could be
delivered in print.
Computers also became an integral
part of an effort to systematically use
data to understand consumer behavior
and tastes. One contributor summed
up the need for more research on the
moviegoer’s motivations to watch a
movie within such a fragmented media
landscape. “Today’s film patrons don’t
go to the movies, they go to a movie,”
he wrote, arguing that predictions and
data were more necessary than ever.
Software like Entertainment Data and
Market Relay Systems was developed to
predict which films would be hits, thus
helping exhibitors guide scheduling. To
quote Tom Matthews, managing editor
in September 1989, with more money at
stake than ever before for both studios
and exhibitors, “the motion picture
industry [had] become a numbers game.”
By the end of the decade, the industry
was optimistic. At the NATO/ShoWest
1989 Convention, NATO president William
Kartozian cited a 20-year upward trend in
both screens and revenues—the former
increasing from 13,000 to 24,000 venues,
an 80 percent increase, and the latter
rising from $1.2 billion in annual grosses to
$4.4 billion, a 27 percent increase. In this
context, the trends adopted in the ’80s—
from IP-based event films to moviegoing
as an experience, vertical integration, and
automation—were to become the bedrock
of the industry for subsequent decades.
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CENTENNIAL A CENTURY IN EXHIBITION
1990S
GLOBALIZATION AND CYBERSPACE
As the exhibition
industry entered the
last decade of the 20th
century, the outlook
was gloomy. Even the
record year of 1990—
with a domestic total of
$5.02B—was not enough
to assuage the fears of industry pundits
who warned that a recession was looming.
They cautioned exhibitors that several
factors, including high ticket prices, home
video, aging Baby Boomers and the ascent
of a new generation who had grown up
with home entertainment, as well as an
oversaturation of screens, painted a bleak
picture for the exhibition industry.
The economy plunged into a recession
in July 1990, taking the box office with
it. There was, however, still reason for
optimism. The end of the Cold War
ushered in the era of the American
superpower, bringing the promise of a
liberal world order to the cinema industry.
This new geopolitical context accelerated
globalization and offered unprecedented
opportunities for the expansion of
American theater circuits abroad at a time
when the domestic market was tapped
out. The enthusiasm for international
expansion was matched by the excitement
generated by an entirely new kind
of frontier: cyberspace. The surge in
telecommunication innovation and new
technologies in the 1990s would be a
boon for some—yet an existential threat
for others. In any case, it prompted the
industry to innovate and reinvent itself for
the digital age of the new millennium.
‘The World Is Watching’
“When pundits and cultural historians
look back on the 1990s, the globalization
of the world economy will likely be the
defining story of the decade,” wrote
Boxoffice Pro editor Ray Greene in
July 1996. Greene was right. Not only
has globalization shaped the world as
we know it today, but this new global
interconnectedness—documented by
Boxoffice Pro and Greene himself—
pushed American exhibition abroad
while raising new questions about
American cinema’s financial and cultural
role in the world.
By 1991, Hollywood was already
experiencing the impact of globalization
at home. Four out of the seven majors
had fallen into foreign hands: MGM/
UA was now owned by the French Pathé
Communications, Columbia TriStar by
the Japanese giant Sony, 20th Century
Fox by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp
Australia, and Matsushita Electric had
just clinched a deal worth $6.59 billion to
acquire MCA/Universal. But this sense of
“foreign invasion” began to abate after the
collapse of the USSR, and the proliferation
of free-trade agreements brought new
opportunities in previously impenetrable
markets. Soon, Boxoffice Pro developed
its coverage of foreign markets with an
International Reports section, countryspecific
columns, and special issues on
CinemaExpo in Europe, the Australian
Movie Convention, and CineAsia. Greene,
welcoming the launch of the first CineAsia
in January 1995, lauded these global trade
shows for revealing “that we all share a
human face by celebrating what we share
and providing an interpersonal conduit
for educating each other about the things
we do not.”
Trade shows were significant spaces
for global intercultural exchanges. NATO/
ShoWest, the amalgam of the annual
conventions of NATO and ShoWest
since 1988, emerged both as a forum to
debate how exhibitors would adapt to a
globalized world and as a driving force for
international expansion. The slogan for
the 1991 NATO/ShoWest trade show, “The
World is Watching,” encapsulated the
industry’s new preoccupations. William
Kartozian, NATO’s president, introduced
international audiences to the convention
with “A Global Welcome,” while NATO
executive director Mary Ann Grasso wrote,
“Wilkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome!” It
was the first convention chiefly focused
on the international economy, featuring
numerous presentations and seminars
on international exhibition, distribution,
and marketing. A few months earlier, in
November 1990, NATO had launched
an International Exhibition Committee
to help facilitate American investments
abroad. Soon, North American exhibitors
were popping up all over Europe, South
America, and Southeast Asia, while the
African and Middle Eastern markets
remained sidelined. Cineplex, for instance,
expanded to Eastern Europe and South
America, while UA expanded to Singapore
in 1994 following the 1985 introduction of
its first Asian multiplex in Hong Kong.
The signing of the North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994
and the 1993 deregulation of the Mexican
film market, which lifted caps on ticket
prices and dropped quota requirements
for Mexican films from 50 percent to
just 10 percent by 1997, put Mexico at the
center of the American expansion strategy.
According to a Boxoffice Pro report
“You can expect to meet
resistance in almost every
market you go to, and in
some places, it’s just flat-out
against the law for anyone
from outside the country to
be involved in exhibition.”
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from February 1994, AMC had “retained
a real estate agent in Mexico to hunt up
potential AMC sites there.” The Mexican
market seemed particularly favorable, as
Mexican cinemas, all previously owned
and/or regulated by the government, were
not in the way “of modern competition”
for American firms. Cinemark de Mexico
president Ken Higgins echoed the
argument, claiming that “Mexico is where
the U.S. was 30 years ago, with little single
theaters and twins,” and that it boasted
the second most avid moviegoers in the
world after China. While local players
like Cinemex began to rise, American
exhibitors were quick to rival them.
Cinemark, which had opened its first
Latin American theater in the Chilean
capital of Santiago in 1993, opened four
theaters in Mexico right after NAFTA was
signed. By 1997, Cinemark was on track
to become the second-largest circuit
in the world, with locations in the U.S.,
Canada, Mexico, Central America, Peru,
Chile, Argentina, and Brazil, where the
first multiplex with Cinemark’s signature
stadium seating opened in July 1997.
Cinemark International also announced
a partnership with the second-largest
Japanese circuit, Shochiku Co., to build
100 screens in Japan by the year 2000.
This expansion was driven by one
mission: to bring innovative multiplexes
to underscreened markets. Tim Warner,
president of Cinemark International,
summarized this in a May 1997 interview:
“The thing we’re going to primarily bring
is the state-of-the-art multiplex theater to
Japan. Right now, they have something
like one screen for every hundred and
some thousand people—as compared
to the U.S. which is about one screen for
every 10,000 people—and yet it’s still one
of the primary markets outside of the U.S.
for U.S. films from a dollar standpoint.”
But, he continued, “The potential of the
marketplace, or the risk versus rewards,
are very high because most of the markets
that we are going in are very, very much
underscreened.”
Building global multiplex empires
was not devoid of challenges. Exhibitors
needed to change their corporate culture
to fit into global companies as well as
navigate local laws, economic regulations,
and cultural attitudes toward cinema.
Although the megaplex boom was taking
off in Europe, particularly in the U.K. and
Scandinavian countries, the Old Continent
emerged as a particularly abstruse market.
“You can expect to meet resistance in
almost every market you go to, and in
some places, it’s just flat-out against the
law for anyone from outside the country
to be involved in exhibition,” decried AMC
International president David Seal in an
interview in July 1994. Seal proposed
circumventing working with local theater
operators altogether, favoring instead
partnerships with financial institutions
and investors.
The last-minute failure in 1993 to
incorporate films and other intellectual
properties in the General Agreement
on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the most
sweeping free-trade agreement until that
point, further hampered the expansion
of American audiovisual firms in Europe.
There was a pervasive fear that these trade
barriers in conjunction with the cultural
policies of the European Economic
Community, which was gearing up for
a deepened integration and expansion
after the reunification of Germany, would
crowd U.S. product off European screens.
Jack Valenti, the MPAA (now MPA) chief
who spearheaded the GATT talks on the
cinema industry and, in the words of
Greene, “emerged as perhaps the U.S.’s
most eloquent spokesman for open global
markets,” spoke to Boxoffice Pro in
February 1994. “It was absurd—it was
a joke. At 3 o’clock in the morning, it
occurred to me like an epiphany that these
people never wanted to negotiate. … I’m
sad and disappointed that after seven
years we couldn’t come to some sane
conclusions.”
Indeed, the lowering of trade barriers
for cinema was a contentious topic for
many Europeans, particularly the French,
who wished to protect their cultural
identity from a perceived American
imperialism. Reporting from Amsterdam
at the CinemaExpo convention in August
1999, senior editor Francesca Dinglasan
noted that “it was apparent that the
continent’s individual countries remain
fiercely proud of their own national and
cultural identities.” Greene weighed in on
the debate frequently, offering a qualified
view on American cultural imperialism
and arguing that the U.S. had a lot to
learn from foreign markets. “It might
be interesting to speculate about the
invigorating effects of a sort of inverse
cultural imperialism—in which the often
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CENTENNIAL A CENTURY IN EXHIBITION
more humane and humanistic messages
celebrated in foreign product begin to
influence American movies—might have
on Hollywood,” he wrote in July 1995.
In 1996, he added: “To Americans the
notion that U.S. movies could be perceived
a threat to the intellectual life of other
societies seems inexplicable since so
few U.S. movies aspire to do more than
entertain (…) but there is a certain truth
to the ‘cultural imperialism’ arguments
in the sense that even the most seemingly
mindless American action film often
deals in attitudes (about violence as a
rite of passage, about the heroism of the
common individual), which are American
preoccupations, if only at the level of
cliché. American cultural hegemony is
rapidly becoming obsolete because of
the commercial importance of foreign
attitudes on the bottom line.” The
imperative to please a foreign audience
was inevitable for Greene, because, just a
year earlier, American movies had grossed
more in foreign lands than in the U.S for
the first time in the history of Hollywood.
Megacircuits Rising
The international momentum was not
only a consequence of a propitious global
context. It was also a response to a very
real domestic problem. The overscreening
of America, due to the megaplex fever that
started in the 1980s, led to an unrelenting
hunt for foreign moviegoers. It was also
a catalyst for the consolidation of the
exhibition industry at home. The case
of Ontario, California, where two major
megaplexes were built across from one
another and 54 screens existed within
700 square feet, served as a reminder of
the nonviability of the current situation.
“Thou Shalt not Ontario one another,”
proclaimed NATO’s Kartozian.
“‘Grow or die’ still seems to be the
philosophy of the megaplex exhibitors;
with new construction destined to
become an increasingly less viable option
for expansion in the years ahead, the
acquisition of already existing circuits
has emerged as exhibition’s next big
thing,” explained Greene in the Giants of
Exhibition issue of January 1998. Cineplex
Odeon and Cinemark had announced a
merger in 1995. Had the deal materialized,
the new company would have formed the
largest North American circuit, with 2,839
screens. The announcement became a
starting pistol for a trend of mergers and
consolidations. 1997 was undoubtedly the
year of the mergers: Carmike purchased
the 195-screen First International
Theatres. Regal proceeded to buy out
the 95-screen Magic Cinemas chain and
acquired the massive 643-screen Cobb
Theatres, pushing Regal’s screen count
past the 2,000 mark. Sony-owned Loews,
meanwhile, merged with Cineplex Odeon
to create the largest exhibition chain in
history. In 1998, Regal was sold for $1.5
billion to two investment companies—
Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst, and Kohlberg
Kravis Roberts & Co.—which combined
it with the UA Theatre Group and Act III
Theatres, creating another exhibition
behemoth.
The studios were also moving forward
with megamergers. In 1994, Sumner
Redstone’s Viacom bought Paramount
Communications for $9.85 billion. In
1995, the Walt Disney Co. announced
plans to buy Capital Cities/ABC for
$19 billion, making Disney the largest
entertainment company in the world. The
following year, Time Warner and Turner
Broadcasting System merged in a $7.3
billion deal, creating the world’s largest
communication company. The decade
ended with the creation of the secondlargest
media company with Viacom’s
acquisition of the CBS Corporation for
$37.3 billion.
Ray Greene warned against the dangers
of this anticompetitive consolidation.
He feared that an ever-smaller number
of megacircuits would exercise an
unprecedented amount of control over
what American audiences would watch. In
January 1998, the editor wrote, “There is
as yet no reason to view this development
as anything other than virtue rewarded,
the upside for a handful of visionaries who
are reinventing the history of exhibition
in our time. But big companies can also
represent big targets, as Microsoft’s
ongoing antitrust difficulties clearly
demonstrate. The bad old days of the
consent decree will almost surely never
return but that doesn’t mean exhibition
can’t learn from its history in a time where
megacircuits for which there has been
no pre-existing precedent start to define
themselves and take shape.” Greene’s
fears were surely justified. Yet the 1990s
also saw growth for independent circuits
like Landmark Theatres and Laemmle
Theatres, coinciding with the boom
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of independent films. Companies like
Miramax, bought by Disney in 1993 for $80
million, New Line, and October Films—
plus Sundance directors like Quentin
Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh—
reinvigorated independent films and their
theatrical consumption. “Independents,”
wrote Greene in August 1994, “continue
to survive and even thrive by doing what
they’ve always done—offering alternatives
to mainstream sensibilities in which the
majors specialize.”
Interactivity and the ‘Information
Superhighway’
The hypercompetitive landscape of the
American market pushed theaters to
innovate. American companies began
creating immense urban screening
environments capable of handling a wide
range of films in release at any given
moment under a single roof. But the
megaplex of the 1990s was not merely
a movie theater: It strived to be a total
entertainment complex. Special formats
were sought after for their impressive
effects and potential to explore new
narratives. After Sony Theatres’ giant
flagship in Manhattan’s Lincoln Square
became the first major circuit in North
America to house an Imax venue, Imax
rapidly moved into conventional
exhibition. More and more exhibitors
capitalized on the convergence between
film and new entertainment technologies
to create “family entertainment centers”
aimed at providing innovative, interactive,
multimedia experiences to their patrons.
United Artists had its “Starports,”
Regal its “Funscapes,” Carmike its
“Hollywood Connection,” and Cineplex its
“Cinescapes.”
One such multimedia product
appeared in the winter of 1992 in select
Loews locations in Los Angeles and
New York. The “interfilm” I’m Your Man,
which ran for 20 minutes, gave audiences
the capability to select plot twists and
pick the characters’ next moves. In 1994,
AMC installed the interactive Interfilm
technology exhibition system in some of
its auditoriums. Loews partnered with ITT
Systems Corp. to exhibit games in 10 of its
multiplexes, and Cineplex teamed with
Sega, DreamWorks, and MCA for its own
entertainment center in 1996. Studios, too,
got in on the action. By 1995, Time Warner,
Sony, and Viacom/Paramount boasted
interactive divisions, with Disney jumping
on the bandwagon that same year.
The studios capitalized on their I.P.s
with film-based video games or CD-ROMs
that complemented individual movies.
That strategy paired especially well with
the exponential growth of animation
prompted by Disney, Pixar, and the
undeniable amelioration of computer
graphics. In 1993, Disney’s Aladdin
became the first animated feature in
history to earn more than $200 million
at the U.S. box office. The successes of
The Lion King and later Pixar’s Toy Story
validated the studios’ investments in
interactive I.P.s. For instance, Disney’s
animated storybook of The Lion King,
which compressed the story of the film
and offered additional material, animated
characters, narration, and search options,
sold successfully for $39.95 apiece. Yet,
Boxoffice Pro was rather skeptical about
the marriage of CD-ROMs and moviegoing,
pointing to the flops of game-based
movies like Mortal Kombat and Super
Mario Bros.
Lobbies, seen as perfect locations
for cross-marketing due to their heavy
foot traffic, also underwent significant
revamps. The theater lobby needed
to expand far beyond its old identity
as a place for concession stands with
menu boards that just displayed pricing
information. “We propose entertainment
be brought out of the theater and into
the lobby,” argued Cineplex Odeon’s
manager of design and construction,
Dana Kalczak, who supported showing
trailers and other marketing material on
HDTVs in theater lobbies. One critical
“The bad old days of the
consent decree will almost
surely never return but that
doesn’t mean exhibition
can’t learn from its history in
a time where megacircuits
for which there has been no
pre-existing precedent start
to define themselves and
take shape.”
ACADEMY
AWARDS FOR
BEST PICTURE
DANCES WITH
WOLVES
1990
THE SILENCE OF THE
LAMBS
1991
UNFORGIVEN
1992
SCHINDLER’S LIST
1993
FORREST GUMP
1994
BRAVEHEART
1995
THE ENGLISH
PATIENT
1996
TITANIC
1997
SHAKESPEARE IN
LOVE
1998
AMERICAN BEAUTY
1999
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CENTENNIAL A CENTURY IN EXHIBITION
innovation, developed by companies
such as EIMS, ETM, Vast, and RDS Data
Group, was the introduction of interactive
POS kiosks that displayed information
about current and upcoming films and
discounts and allowed ticket sales to take
place outside the typical box office stand.
One example written about in Boxoffice
Pro with great enthusiasm, despite its
numerous glitches, was the installation
of the first Cinetouch kiosks in Cineplex
Odeon theaters in Toronto in March 1995.
“It’s called Cinetouch, and it’s going to
revolutionize the way moviegoers choose
movies,” wrote the magazine’s Canadian
correspondent, Shlomo Schwartzberg.
Throughout the decade, no other
technological development garnered
as much curiosity as the internet. In
November 1994, a Boxoffice Pro writer
defined this elusive new technology. “The
internet comprises more than 20,000
computer networks in 150 countries and
has over 25 million users worldwide. The
internet provides information in both
an exclusively text-based format and
in a multimedia format,” he wrote. As
it became increasingly clear that the
trend was here to stay, understanding
the internet became a central mission for
the magazine. In an editorial in October
1995, Greene elaborated: “We’ve made
informing you about developments on the
‘information superhighway’ a part of our
mandate, not because we’re particularly
obsessed with this stuff (like many of our
readers, we view the ‘brave new world’ of
‘cyberspace’ with what we consider to be a
certain healthy skepticism) but because—
whatever their current status—many
of the new ‘leading-edge’ information
transmission technologies may eventually
have a direct effect on the way exhibition
conducts business.” One of these effects
was the emergence of e-commerce. A
growing number of profiles of and ads
for companies like Moviefone showed
that virtual teleticketing and the ability
to book tickets online 24/7 was beginning
to intrigue exhibitors. “Patrons like
it because there’s no fuss—just a site
and a few keystrokes. Exhibitors like it
because it extends their box office into
the multi-ticketing arena, affording
greater coverage and helping translate a
cinemagoing impulse into a final ticketsales
transaction,” noted one writer in
November 1999.
Exhibitors also realized the importance
of the internet in finding information
about movies and theaters before
one’s visit. Several theater owners and
managers reported that they received
incessant requests from patrons that they
set up websites. Contributor Christine
James wrote in February 1997, “More
and more, modern-day moviegoers are
turning on their computers and seeking
out that ubiquitous https:// prefix to find
the information that they need to decide
where and when they’re going to see the
latest Hollywood blockbusters.” In 1997,
NATO initiated an ambitious plan to
take all of exhibition into the Digital Age.
Through an alliance with Times Mirror
Company, NATO set up “Hollywood
Online,” a website providing information
on films and individual theater locations,
including what was playing on which
screen, cinema maps, and details on
sound systems and accessibility. The
“Like many of our readers, we
view the ‘brave new world’
of ‘cyberspace’ with what
we consider to be a certain
healthy skepticism.”
startling success of 1999’s The Blair Witch
Project, whose marketing was virtually
limited to its website, crystallized the
need to employ internet-based marketing.
It also foreshadowed the democratization
of video production and distribution
as we know it today, while launching
rudimentary “netcasters” (the ancestors
of streaming) like Broadcast.com,
Entertainer.com, and CinemaNow.
Shrinking Windows in a Fast-Paced
World
The internet caused a wider cultural shift,
one that Boxoffice Pro readers will
surely relate to today. Already in the 1990s,
the internet began to accelerate the pace
of an increasingly fast, interconnected
world and instilled, as some writers
noted, a sense of disconnection from the
“real world.” This changed the way many
exhibitors thought about the societal
role of cinema. Rusty Gordon, a theater
operator in Tennessee, wrote an opinion
piece in July 1996 in which he stated that
“it’s a fast-paced world we live in—instant
this, overnight that. But movies are
special. People leave their homes, faxes,
and phones to forget their troubles for a
couple of hours at the movies. And that’s
something you can’t do on television.”
Director James Cameron delivered an
impassioned plea to “keep showmanship
alive in our hearts” as he accepted his
1995 NATO/ShoWest Producer of the
Year Award. He implored exhibitors to
“embrace the future, while remembering
the real source of our energy: the images
flickering on those screens, those big
screens, in dark rooms, across the planet”
at a time when “the world is speeding up
logarithmically, and we are bombarded by
a million shiny new ideas [... while] surfing
fast and wobbly across a liquid landscape
of new media, new delivery systems,
whole new forms of entertainment made
possible by the digital revolution.”
In a fast-paced world, cinemas offered
a short, magical, breathing spell. The
advent of new technologies and a societal
view of theaters contributed to reframing
the debate on theatrical exclusivity.
William Kartozian insisted in April 1997
that a minimum six-month window
would be necessary if exhibition were
to remain healthy. The Boxoffice Pro
team suggested a two-month extension
for the bigger titles to ensure second-run
theaters would have a fair chance. The
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internet, online piracy, HDTV, cassettes,
and DVDs, Boxoffice Pro argued, were
not just threatening the livelihood of
theater owners by shortening the length of
exclusive windows. As the pleas of theater
owners like Rusty Gordon made clear, they
were also assailing the sanctity of movie
theaters as guards against the alienation
and rush of the interconnected age. The
issue of windows also became linked to
the preservation of film as an art form and
a technology. In April 1997, Greene was
calling filmmaker/producers like Steven
Spielberg and George Lucas to support
the idea of six-month windows even if it
hurt their bottom line. “The shortening
of video release window doesn’t just
cheat exhibitors. It cheats moviegoers,
filmmakers, and everyone involved with
every step in the process. It seems like a
no-brainer to expect that the same leading
figures on the film production side who
stand against the panning and scanning
of widescreen film prints […] would
get behind the concept of a six-month
exhibition window,” he argued.
It seemed that for Greene, the issue
of windows was tied to the preservation
of film against a new threat: digital
projection. By the mid-1990s, digital
sound was already advancing fast, thanks
to the work of pioneering companies like
Dolby, Optical Radiation Corporation,
and Eastman Kodak. The rapidity of
innovation was such that the death of
the analog soundtrack (even if rejected
by Boxoffice Pro and its contributing
specialists) was speculated as early as
1996. As analog sound was increasingly
questioned, so was film. Many alternatives
to 35 mm film were beginning to
rival traditional formats. MaxiVision
48, touted for being far brighter, less
wasteful, and more inexpensive, or CDP,
a format eliminating the separations
between frames without compromising
the size or integrity of the image, were
such examples. These ideas, however,
never received the attention that the
most controversial alternative, digital
projection, would get. As would become
clear in the first decade of the new
millennium, no technology since the
introduction of sound in the 1920s would
engender as much controversy as digital
projection.
2000S
FROM BANKRUPTCIES TO A DOUBLE REVOLUTION
he new millennium
marked nothing short of a
historic turning point for
the exhibition business.
Even though exhibition
survived Y2K unscathed,
its own reckless spending
on megaplexes and
overbuilding in the 1990s resulted in a
series of bankruptcies that cast serious
doubts on the industry’s future.
But perseverance and resilience, even
during the Great Recession of 2008,
proved doomsayers wrong. Exhibitors
rebounded and confronted the biggest
technological revolution since the advent
of sound: digital cinema. The revolution
was long and full of turmoil, as technical
standards and fair financing for this
costly investment became the object of
intense debates between exhibitors and
studios. During this journey, theater
owners ventured into alternative forms
of content and devised new revenue
channels afforded by digital technologies,
with a special interest in preshow digital
advertising.
The 2000s were also marked by a
strong uptick of interest in another
revolutionary tool: the internet. Yet as
online ticketing began to reach its full
potential and exhibitors slowly discovered
the power of social media, new digital
platforms and the threats of online piracy
created unprecedented challenges that
continue to rock the industry today.
From Boom to Bust to Boom
The megaplex rush of the 1990s proved
to be a costly mistake for most of the
exhibition industry, driving many theaters
to the verge of extinction. As a result of
overbuilding, a wave of bankruptcies
began in the early 2000s. The fate of
United Artists Theatres, one of the
biggest circuits in the country, was a
scary harbinger: even the exhibition
giants, it was feared, were not immune
to the bankruptcy trend. In February
2000, the circuit reported a net loss of
$25.6 million. By May, the rating agency
Moody’s downgraded its public debt while
considering doing so for Regal Cinemas,
Loews Cineplex, and Carmike Cinemas.
Soon after, in September 2000, United
Artists sought Chapter 11 protection from
its creditors. Silver Cinemas, the parent
company of the art house chain Landmark
Theatres, preceded it in May of that year,
while Carmike Cinemas, which faced
$65 million in total debt, and Edward
Theatres filed for bankruptcy in August.
In October, General Cinema did so as well,
abandoning its plans for an art house
venture with Sundance Film Centers.
The shadow of bankruptcy loomed over
even bigger circuits, with many pundits
correctly predicting that Regal Cinemas—
which would file for Chapter 11 in 2001—
was next.
How could an industry that had been
so confident in its megaplex strategy
just a few years before find itself in such
a situation? The problem was simple:
exhibitors had cannibalized themselves.
In the 1990s, theater chains added
screens at a much more rapid pace
than their audiences grew. What small
gains were made came at the expense
of existing theaters, ultimately driving
many smaller operators out of business.
At the same time, the premiumization of
the moviegoing experience associated
with the expensive megaplexes drove
up the expectations of moviegoers, who
then demanded better services. “The
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CENTENNIAL A CENTURY IN EXHIBITION
thinking was that bigger was better. Huge
multiplexes were built in areas that could
not support the large number of theaters
being built, and smaller mom-and-pops
didn’t close down as expected, leaving too
many screens open,” explained analyst
Wade Holden in April 2003.
Kurt Hall, president and CEO of United
Artists Theatre Company, explained in
January 2002 that the industry “created
a new theatre design called the megaplex
that turned out to be a profit eating
machine that put existing healthy theatres
out of business and changed film release
patterns and customer moviegoing habits
before an appropriate change in [the] film
cost structure was developed.” Indeed, the
advent of the megaplex coincided with
the practice of “glut booking,” where an
extraordinary amount of prints was sent
out to theaters, often paired with a rapid
playoff—films cycling out of theaters
quicker—thus depriving operators of
the larger share of box office revenues
they would typically get later in a film’s
run—that was detrimental to the cinema
business model. Hall concluded that
the megaplex altered the perception of
moviegoing itself: “We, our suppliers,
and even our customers began to treat
moviegoing as a commodity, rather than
a special out-of-home entertainment
experience.”
Exhibitors faced other challenges that
compounded the overbuilding problem.
Activists and Washington brought
exhibitors to court over their alleged lack
of compliance with the Americans With
Disabilities Act (ADA). In a landmark
ruling, Cinemark’s stadium seating
was found to be ADA compliant by the
Supreme Court. Litigation in District
Court between AMC and the Justice
Department over stadium seating ADA
compliance, meanwhile, resulted in a
settlement, with AMC agreeing to spend
millions to retrofit the theaters cited in
the case.
Yet the biggest blow came on
September 11, 2001. Immediately after
the tragedy, some movie theaters in New
York City volunteered to help those in
need. The United Artists’ Union Square
theater, for instance, “opened its doors
to all needing a place to rest, something
cool to drink or even an abode for the
night, and in those initial days, the theatre
provided comfort to more than 16,000
people,” explained editor Kim Williamson
in November 2001.
The terrorist attacks raised new
questions about the security of movie
theaters. Following 9/11, several theaters
had to be checked for anthrax or reported
bomb threats. Williamson sought to
assuage the anxieties of exhibitors and
moviegoers by reminding them that “it’s
not that we’re not safe; it’s that we’re
unsettled, and the situation seems worse
because we are accustomed to calm and
comfort.” Regardless, many circuits
ramped up their security procedures as
part of special anti-terrorist measures.
New York City–based Loews Cineplex
Entertainment introduced restrictions
like a ban on backpacks and packages, as
well as searches upon entry. Boxoffice
Pro began a series of special articles on
managing crisis situations and increased
its coverage of international terrorism,
reporting, for example, the bombing
of four Bangladeshi movie theaters in
2003 that resulted in multiple deaths. In
November 2001, NATO launched a safety
and security training tape series on how to
prevent and handle emergencies. Despite
the heated conversation about security
at the time, the debate faded until it was
reignited with more urgency after July
20, 2012, when 12 people lost their lives
in a tragic mass shooting at Cinemark’s
Century 16 in Aurora, Colorado.
2002 was a very different story.
Despite a weak economy and a dismal
stock market, exhibition was on its
way to recovery. “The year 2002 was an
extraordinary one for exhibitors,” wrote
Wade Holden, looking back from April
2003. Box office returns set a new record
of $9.2 million, and admissions grew 7.4
percent to nearly 1.6 billion, recovering
from the dip they took in 2000 that
landed them at 1.4 billion. The recovery
was boosted in part by a good slate of
“Digital cinema could
revolutionize the business
by transforming the nature
of production, delivery, and
exhibition.”
superhero films and sequels/prequels,
including Spider-Man, Star Wars: Episode
II – Attack of the Clones, and The Lord of
the Rings: The Two Towers.
While most exhibitors continued to
close screens, the cash of billionaires
like Philip Anschutz—who led a group
that acquired majority investments
in Regal Cinemas, United Artists
Theatres, and Edwards Cinemas and in
2002 consolidated them to form Regal
Entertainment Group—contributed to
a renaissance. AMC, which managed to
avoid the industry’s bankruptcy trend
partly thanks to a $250 million cash
infusion from Leon Black and his Apollo
Management, acquired both General
Cinema and Gulf States Theatres in early
2002 and issued an IPO of $100 million.
Regal Entertainment Group also pulled
off an IPO by putting up 18 million shares
of Class A common stock for $19 per share,
raising $345 million. As Kim Williamson
noted in May 2003, “the clearest sign of
how well things are going is who wants
to play too—not just how well you know
things are going, but how much people
elsewhere see how well things are going,
and want to be part of the scene. As I write
this, Microsoft has pacted with Landmark
to make the biggest digital cinema circuit
to date; names like NBC and Turner are
part of the preshow, and giants like Boeing
and TI are parts of the corps; Krispy Kreme
even wants to sell donuts at Famous
Players.”
The Long Road to Digital
The interest of outside players was not
a coincidence. It was linked to what
had seemed like a pipe dream during
the bankruptcy boom but was slowly
becoming a reality: the digital revolution.
In the first years of the decade, the idea of
spending upward of $100,000 to retrofit
just one screen was nothing more than a
fantasy. The beginning of the industry’s
financial recovery made that dream just
a little more reachable. Meanwhile, the
major studios had been moving full
steam ahead toward digital since 1999. On
June 18, 1999, Texas Instruments’ DLP
Cinema projector technology was publicly
demonstrated in two screens in Los
Angeles and New York City for the release
of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom
Menace. Disney also led the way with Toy
Story 2 and Dinosaur. Filmmakers like
Mike Figgis enthusiastically embraced the
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technology. In 2002, Star Wars: Episode II
– Attack of the Clones was released digitally
in 17 markets across 94 venues.
On June 6, 2000, digital history was
made. For the first time, a feature film was
transmitted via the internet from a studio
lot in Hollywood to the SuperComm
2000 telecommunications trade show in
Atlanta, Georgia. Cisco Systems, Qwest
Communications, Sigma Design Group,
Barco Digital Projection Systems, and 20th
Century Fox partnered to project Fox’s
Titan A.E. “The audience loved it,” said
digital cinema market manager for Barco
Wendy Bosley in Boxoffice Pro. “It’s a
great atmosphere, and people were just
stunned by the image [and] the quality
that the TI projector was able to screen.”
Similar partnerships between studios and
digital manufacturers, such as America
Online and Time Warner and Miramax
and Boeing, flourished.
It was in this context that the Digital
Cinema Initiatives (DCI) was formed in
March 2002. A joint endeavor of Disney,
Fox, MGM, Universal, Paramount, Sony,
and Warner Bros. aimed at developing
a system specification for digital
cinemas, it was to become one of the key
battlegrounds in the digital revolution,
pitting studios against theaters and their
representative, NATO.
In 2000, the fan site TheForce.net
launched a petition encouraging fans to
contact their local cinema managers about
the lack of digital system installations
in most theaters. The petition named
NATO’s new president, John Fithian, as
a “major stumbling block” who wasn’t
“convinced that digital is worth it.” The
petitioners were unaware of the general
state of the exhibition industry, which
explained the small number of digital
screens (just 15 in December 2000) at
the time of the petition’s release. They
also ignored the many challenges that
needed to be resolved before exhibitors
could transition to this new technology.
“Digital cinema could revolutionize the
business by transforming the nature of
production, delivery, and exhibition; by
saving distributors hundreds of millions of
dollars annually; and by making it easier
for exhibitors to offer alternative content.
None of this will come easy, however.
Significant issues and challenges confront
the potential transition, not the least of
which is the issue of costs. No one knows
for sure which technology will prevail,
when the transition will occur, nor how it
is going to be financed. Nonetheless, the
transition will come. …” Fithian said at
the National Institute of Standards and
Technology in April 2001.
The digital transition was inevitable.
Already in January 2000, a Boxoffice
Pro survey on the state of the industry
revealed that for all the exhibitors
surveyed, including Bruce J. Olson
of Marcus Theatres, Dan Harkins of
Harkins Theatres, Bob Babgy of B&B
Theatres, and Sheri Redstone of National
Amusements, digital cinema was the
biggest change facing exhibition in the
coming decade. However, the questions
of quality, release strategies, security and
piracy, standards, and most importantly
who would pay for it were far from being
resolved. Boxoffice Pro became a
forum for these often-heated debates, as
theater owners, managers, projectionists,
and technology specialists used the
publication as a tribune. In April 2000, an
exhibitor from Texas wrote a passionate
letter to Boxoffice Pro noting the top
five reasons not to go digital. Another
exhibitor from California responded,
concluding that he would “miss the days
of holding 35 mm in his hand, splicing it
and threading it through projectors, but
the advantages of digital projection make
the moviegoer in [him] very happy.”
Image quality was a top concern for
exhibitors. By the beginning of the decade,
it had become almost routine for trade
shows to display side-by-side screen
presentations that juxtaposed images of
digital and 35mm movies. A Boxoffice
Pro contributor noted that at one such
screening at Cine Expo in September 2000,
“a suspicious eye may have noted that in
some cases … a particularly poor print
of the 35 mm half was screened to the
audience, with jump and scratch in the
film markedly notable.”
“Personally, I feel like there is no
technology available today that can beat
the quality of a properly projected film
print,” wrote a former theater manager
and projectionist in a letter to Boxoffice
Pro in July 2001, echoing a widespread
viewpoint. As the technology progressed,
however, the quality of digital projection
became increasingly equal to or surpassed
that of 35 mm film. Another projectionist
shared his experience in February 2002,
when he watched a digital trailer for
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CENTENNIAL A CENTURY IN EXHIBITION
Unbreakable: “As soon as I saw Bruce Willis’
flesh tones, I knew that film was dead as
a projection medium. … George Lucas
was right when he said, ‘I love film but
it’s a 19th-century invention.’” Exhibitors
were also dreading projection failures
and changing release strategies. “Having
every theatre in the world playing the
exact same titles at the exact same time
takes away from the excitement of going to
the movies and is more akin to television
programming,” complained an exhibitor.
NATO was on the front lines of
the digital battle between exhibitors,
distributors, and technology companies.
At the end of 2001, NATO and 20 of its
international counterparts, including
UNIC and the Motion Picture Theatre
Associations of Canada (MPTAC), sent out
a letter addressed to several organizations
working on the standardization of digital
cinema. The goal was to encourage
the development of interoperable yet
competitive products while maintaining
the relatively low cost of existing film
projection systems. The nightmarish
transition to digital sound just a few years
prior, which led to many incompatible
systems competing in the market, could
be even more disastrous because of
the multitude of different components
(encryption, de-encryption, compression,
decompression, servers, projectors, etc.)
necessary for digital projection. To
avoid a monopolized market, standards
needed to be set up for all components to
properly interact with each other.
In February 2004, DCI’s long-awaited
technical specifications draft drew
criticism from exhibitors in the U.S. and
Europe. In a strongly worded letter, NATO
criticized the studio consortium for
wanting to weaken security standards
to remove exhibitor control over their
equipment. A widespread fear, for
instance, was that a studio could tamper
with the placement of a film in the
program and darken the auditorium.
NATO issued a resolution in January
2005 that highlighted the demands
of exhibitors: “The exhibitors want a
branded digital cinema experience that
exceeds the quality of 35mm film and
home-entertainment systems. They
also require open and global technical
standards that promote competition
and ensure interoperability. They seek
a system that secures the content yet
maintains the same operational control
that movie theaters yield today. And they
have called for a universal financing plan
that is funded by the Hollywood studios
and allows all exhibitors and studios to
participate.”
“George Lucas was right
when he said, ‘I love film but
it’s a 19th-century invention.’”
Later in 2005, three long years
after its creation and following
interminable negotiations among the
various stockholders, the DCI gathered
representatives of studios, NATO, and the
American Society of Cinematographers
to announce the completion of the digital
cinema specifications. NATO was strongly
supportive, cautioning, however, that
the list was not perfect but that “digital
cinema will happen very soon.”
The last obstacle was financing. Studios
argued that exhibitors would maximize
their revenues by rapidly rotating feature
films and finding alternative sources of
revenue. Exhibitors, meanwhile, argued
that studios would financially benefit
the most thanks to the dwindling cost of
digital distribution. For exhibitors, the
transition still seemed too expensive. A
projection booth with a new 35 mm film
projection unit could cost about $30,000
and last for decades. One digital screen
could be billed at about $100,000, with
no one yet knowing how long it would
be before upgrades became necessary.
“It’s very simple math,” said Fithian in
2001. “Digital cinema could never drive
enough extra traffic through our box
office and to our concession stands to
make up the difference.” By the time the
DCI issued its specifications, various
third-party integrators had proposed
financing and installation plans to North
American exhibitors. Third parties would
raise the capital to buy and install the
equipment. Over time studios would pay
“virtual print fees,” a cost paid per title
per screen, to the third parties for the
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ACADEMY
AWARDS FOR
BEST PICTURE
GLADIATOR
2000
A BEAUTIFUL MIND
2001
CHICAGO
2002
THE LORD OF THE
RINGS: THE RETURN
OF THE KING
2003
MILLION DOLLAR
BABY
2004
CRASH
2005
THE DEPARTED
2006
NO COUNTRY FOR
OLD MEN
2007
SLUMDOG
MILLIONAIRE
2008
THE HURT LOCKER
2009
use of their equipment. Exhibitors would
make a smaller contribution that was
associated with the cost of installation and
maintenance.
2005 marked the turning point that
launched the digital rollout in the U.S.
and abroad. By the end of 2006, AcessIT
and Christie had installed digital cinema
systems in 1,000 commercial cinemas. By
June 2007, more than 4,000 screens were
equipped worldwide. Though difficulties
remained, the industry was already
looking forward to the opportunities
granted by digital. At the 2005 ShoWest
conference, 3-D eclipsed digital as the hot
topic. As James Cameron stated at the
event: “3-D is absolutely the future.”
Long before the digital rollout was
completed in the following decade, the
industry felt another effect of the digital
revolution. The exorbitant costs of the
digital transition triggered a quest for
new channels of revenue for exhibitors.
Alternative content, especially digital
advertising in the preshow, became
another buzzword of the decade. “It has
become clear over the past couple of years
that the digital cinema revolution is going
to be more gradual than first predicted
and find its footing through cinema
advertising rather than feature films,”
wrote Boxoffice Pro in February 2003.
At the time, about 20 percent of U.S.
screens had digital technology capable
of projecting the preshow. According to a
Marketing Experts International article
published in Boxoffice Pro, advertisers
spent $800 million on global cinema
advertising in 2003, with expected growth
to $1 billion in 2004 and $1.5 billion in
2005. Nascent digital cinema offered a
more efficient, cost-effective, entertaining,
and flexible avenue for advertisers to
target their consumer demographics while
boosting the revenue of exhibitors.
Digital advertising, like digital
cinema, skyrocketed in 2005. In March
of that year, Regal CineMedia and AMC
combined to form National CineMedia,
with Cinemark joining as a founding
member in July. Screenvision launched
a digital ad network and released studies
that confirmed the effectiveness of cinema
advertising among consumers. Although
preshow advertising companies touted
their innovation, Boxoffice Pro pointed
out the fears of some exhibitors who were
wary of displaying a feature film after
commercial promotions. “Exhibition
representatives take issue with the
perception that preshow programming
is unpopular … the majority of patrons
much prefer seeing a preshow rather
than a blank screen when they arrive at
theaters early,” said Kurt Hall, president
and CEO of National CineMedia in March
2006. For exhibitors, the key was to adapt
advertising to the cinematic medium in
creative, engaging ways. “What we don’t
have in our content set is … overt sales
messaging,” explained Screenvision’s
Adam Stewart in June 2006. “We’re
encouraging our partners to … respect the
audience.” New companies, like TimePlay
or Gold Pocket Wireless, ventured into
interactive preshows to provide more
entertaining content while also acquiring
information about moviegoers. The era of
big data was just beginning.
Wired World
The first revolution of the new millennium
was the digital transition. The second
was happening virtually, with rapid
developments in online ticketing,
marketing, and distribution. In June 2000,
when the magazine asked Cineplex Odeon
chairman and CEO Allen Karp about
the future of online ticketing, he was
unapologetically optimistic. “Ultimately,
explosive,” he responded. “It will take
time for consumers’ habits (last-minute,
cash-on-the-line impulse buying) to
come around, but the convenience,
guaranteed fulfillment, and the evolution
of e-commerce as part of our daily lives
should assure success.”
The e-commerce landscape
was undergoing an unprecedented
competitive surge. In April 2000, in the
wake of United Artists’ alliance with AOL
MovieFone, AMC joined with Hollywood.
com to create MovieTickets.com, an online
ticketing hub that included additional
editorial content from Hollywood.com’s
library. Later that year, Canada’s Famous
Players and National Amusements joined
the endeavor as well. In 2000, just a
month after the debut of MovieTickets.
com at ShoWest, Regal, Loews Cineplex,
Cinemark, General Cinema, Edwards,
and Century—representing a combined
12,000-plus screens across North
America—announced that they had
joined forces to cofound their own movie
ticketing website, Fandango. “Remote
ticketing has really become an extension
of our business, and it is critical for our
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CENTENNIAL A CENTURY IN EXHIBITION
business that we ensure the quality of
service to all our patrons,” argued Loews
Cineplex president and CEO Lawrence
Ruisi. The announcement came within
days of CBS’s 5 percent investment in
MovieTickets.com.
Europe was also picking up on the
digital ticketing trend. In Germany, for
instance, Cinemaxx, UFA Theater, and
Kieft & Kieft Filmtheater jointly launched
a nationwide ticketing service in 2000.
Back in the States, to curb the increasing
power of Fandango, AOL MovieFone
and MovieTickets.com partnered to
create a co-branded alliance in June
2001, representing 80 percent of North
American screens, that offered internet
ticketing capability. AOL MovieFone
transferred all its ticketing services to
MovieTickets.com in 2004.
While Fandango still serviced more
screens, MovieTickets.com gained
exclusive rights to 32 circuits, twice that
of Fandango. The e-commerce battle
forced the pioneers of online ticketing
to continuously innovate. “Still buying
tickets online? That’s so 20th century,”
wrote a Boxoffice Pro contributor
in May 2006. At a time when around
6 percent of movie tickets were sold
online, the next frontier was mobile.
Both Fandango and MovieTickets.
com expanded their services to mobile
devices in the middle of the decade
with an emphasis on reserved seating,
concessions, and partnerships with search
engines. Boxoffice Pro dedicated many
pages to what was often called “DIY” or
“self-serve” ticketing. In a 2001 article,
Rukshan Mistry delved into the perils
and possibilities of e-ticketing. “The
question is not whether, but how,” he
stated. The challenges, he explained,
were mostly related to driving traffic
to the ticketing website, especially for
smaller theaters without a strong brand
or the capital to operate a proper website.
Customer service was also problematic
because of the patron’s inability to speak
directly to a person. But these concerns
were overpowered by the benefits: With
a clear, simple, transparent experience,
e-ticketing could revolutionize the box
office, cut expenses, and help theaters
attract a younger, more tech-savvy
generation.
Online ticketing, like interactive
preshows, represented a landmark for
data collection. “Typically, cinemas have
known very little about their customers in
the past,” said Vista’s Murray Holdaway in
October 2005. “Self-service technologies
in conjunction with member cards have
created the ability to start to get more data
on the consumer in terms of frequency,
purchase patterns, etc. …” Another way to
collect precious data and court younger
moviegoers was through online movie
marketing. Already in 2003, a TNS Media
Intelligence/CMR report presented in
Boxoffice Pro found that internet ad
spending had surged 71.2 percent over
the previous year. Marketing through
exhibitors’ websites skyrocketed, while
social media was beginning to pique
the interest of the industry. In 2009,
Boxoffice Pro wrote extensively
about Facebook for the first time in the
publication’s history, with Phil Contrino
suggesting that the platform could help
independent exhibitors build a direct
relationship with their fans thanks to the
possibility of online grassroots campaigns,
direct messages, reviews, friend
invitations, and more. Contrino wrote,
somewhat prophetically: “Facebook is the
next step in film marketing, and exhibitors
should plug into its potential.”
The advent of the internet, however,
also instilled new fears and created
unique threats. Piracy was facilitated
by the transmission of digital films via
satellite as well as the proliferation of new
platforms for online downloading. Piracy
was costing the industry billions of dollars
every year. NATO, the MPAA (now the
MPA), and studios fought hard for legal
action, as the movie industry feared that
it would follow the somber example of
the music industry’s battle with pirates.
In an effort to prevent themselves from
being “Napster-ized,” MGM, Paramount,
Sony, Universal, and Warner Bros. joined
forces in October 2001 to launch their
“Self-service technologies
in conjunction with member
cards have created the
ability to start to get more
data on the consumer in
terms of frequency, purchase
patterns, etc.”
own broadband service, tentatively called
MovieFly, which provided consumers
on-demand access to theatrically released
movies. Disney and Fox responded with
their model, Movies.com. In March 2007, a
Boxoffice Pro writer—who had himself
briefly become a pirate for the sake of
journalism—concluded that “the movie
industry does have to compete against
piracy, but as with the music business, if it
gave people what they wanted for a nicer
price, it wouldn’t have to.”
This was exactly the concept that new
VOD platforms capitalized on. With their
emergence, the decades-old debate on
windows became more urgent than ever,
and sparked again in 2005—a particularly
bad year at the box office—when
Disney’s chairman, Bob Iger, suggested
that consumers had a preference for
simultaneous theatrical and DVD release.
That same year, Mark Cuban—co-owner
of 2929 Entertainment, which controlled
Landmark Theatres—defended day-anddate
releases after Steven Soderbergh’s
Bubble was released in such a manner.
In a November 2006 article, Cuban even
argued for more studio ownership of
movie theaters to eliminate the exclusivity
problem altogether. NATO’s Fithian
called the high-profile debate “salutary,”
as it had generated media attention
and precipitated discussions between
exhibitors and studios.
“Thoughtful industry leaders like
Howard Stringer of Sony, Sumner
Redstone of Viacom, Ron Meyer of
Universal, and Jim Gianopulos of Fox
have all articulated publicly their support
for the theatrical release window because
they know the tiered release model
best serves their companies and their
consumers,” Fithian declared in April
2006. Filmmakers like Jonathan Demme
and Tim Burton also expressed their
support for longer windows. In a tribute
to the cinematic art at ShowEast in 2005,
M. Night Shyamalan movingly defended
longer windows: “When I sit down next
to you in a movie theatre, we get to share
each other’s point of view. We become part
of a collective soul. That’s the magic in the
movies. If [simultaneous release] happens,
you know the majority of theaters are
closing.”
By 2007, the theatrical-to-DVD
window had stabilized to four months
and 16 days. But the questions raised by
VOD platforms were far from resolved.
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“Suddenly, the talked-about place to see
a movie isn’t the mall plex or old-town
indie cinema. It’s on your computer—or
in your hand,” lamented Boxoffice
Pro’s Annlee Ellingson in November
2006. A year later, the trend had gathered
more steam: “In an era in which Google
has entered the lexicon as a verb,
MySpace is a popular social destination,
and YouTube acts as an egalitarian
showcase for budding filmmakers, it
should come as little surprise that
the internet has emerged as the nextgeneration
film distribution platform
with most potential—if yet, unrealized,”
she remarked. iTunes, Xbox Live
Marketplace, and Amazon Unbox were all
considered to have this kind of potential.
A particular production company,
Red Envelope Entertainment, and its
distribution arm, Netflix, caught the
interest of Boxoffice Pro. Anticipating
one of the most important debates of the
next decade, Chad Greene noted in April
2007: “If alternative distributors like Red
Envelope have their way, more and more
film fans will realize they do, indeed, live
in a distribution democracy—one in
which they can cast their votes either at
home or at the box office.”
2010S
THE GREAT DISRUPTION
he 2010s were a dramatic
decade for the exhibition
industry, full of rapid,
profound transformations,
innovation, and
ingenuity, most notably
the digitalization of the
economy. Thanks to new
platforms, social media, and big data,
exhibitors and studios harnessed the power
of information to better communicate with
and understand their audiences.
But with new opportunities also came
new threats, as third parties and streaming
platforms “disrupted” the cinema industry,
largely from the comfort of the audience’s
home. The disruption, however, pushed
exhibitors to innovate and offer unique
cinematic experiences in their theaters. A
key element of that innovation had been
under way since the previous decade in
the form of digital projection. In 2009, only
15 percent of screens worldwide had been
digitally converted. Ten years later, the
digital transition was nearly complete, as
97 percent of the world’s 200,000 screens
were digitized. Digitalization established a
new standard for cinema technology and
raised the bar for premium offerings like
3-D, premium large-format screens, and
immersive seating.
The digital transition was a global
endeavor, and exhibition gained a
distinctly multinational identity through
increased technological exchanges and
innovations and an expansion of global
markets, which in turn transformed
Hollywood films and the studio system.
The Digital Road Map: Reaching the
Connected Moviegoer
The switch to digital tools, especially the
smartphone, ushered in a second digital
revolution for the movie theater industry.
The adoption of new technologies
expanded the reach of exhibitors, who
were now able to communicate directly
with their customers anytime and
anywhere, giving them, perhaps for the
first time in the history of the industry, the
power to better know their audiences.
The push to innovate initially came
from outside players, as third-party digital
companies rushed to fulfill market needs
that had been neglected by exhibition.
Digital ticketing was such a market. In
2010, Fandango and MovieTickets.com,
the biggest online ticketing companies in
the U.S., celebrated their 10th birthdays.
Their first decade had been marked by
growth and innovation. In the 2010s,
Fandango’s expansion was particularly
aggressive: it acquired Ingresso and
Cinepapaya to ground itself in Latin
America, established a presence in the U.K.
and Canada, and diversified its content
with the acquisition of leading YouTube
channel MovieClips, streaming platform
M-Go, and review aggregator Rotten
Tomatoes. By the end of the decade,
Fandango had created a comprehensive,
international film hub with a strong,
identifiable brand meant to accompany
the movie fan on every step of their
moviegoing journey. In November 2017, it
acquired its longtime rival, MovieTickets.
com, becoming the indisputable leader in
digital ticketing.
Fandango, like MovieTickets.com, was
an early adopter of one of the biggest
trends of the decade: mobile ticketing. The
results of mobile ticketing were promising
as early as 2010. In an April 2010 article,
West World Media CEO and founder Brett
West shared encouraging figures: “In
January, our daily average of all mobile
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CENTENNIAL A CENTURY IN EXHIBITION
users served was 13,846. In February,
our daily average was up to 42,957.” The
interest in mobile ticketing not only
coincided with the popularization of
smartphones but also with a new, mobilecentric,
start-up culture. Companies
such as Atom Tickets, which understood
e-commerce primarily through mobile
platforms, experimented with mobile apps,
group ticketing, and dynamic pricing.
But Silicon Valley was not the only
influence for this shift to mobile; China
was leading the way. Per a December
2016 article, in 2015, 57.9 percent of movie
tickets were bought online (as opposed
to 20% in North America), and 9 out of 10
of those tickets were purchased using a
mobile phone. “Mobile will be the key to
the next stage of the cinema evolution,”
said Will Palmer, CEO of Movio, in an
interview in May 2016. “I was just in China,
and there’s been a huge step forward
in mobile ticketing there, and that will
continue to gain importance for a number
of reasons. One, it’s convenient, customers
can transact quicker. And two, it enables
you to capture all the data information
you need to capture a consumer’s
purchase behavior.”
In the 2010s, digital ticketing became
more than a way to avoid long box office
lines; it was all about reaching and
understanding the “connected moviegoer.”
A 2019 Boxoffice Pro white paper found
that the entire journey of the moviegoer,
from the discovery of the film to the
purchase of tickets, increasingly took
place online. From third-party ticketing
companies to the growing trend of
exhibitor apps and websites, one of the
essential attributes of the mobile-first
strategy was its overall convenience
for the tech-savvy moviegoer. That
meant a seamless, enjoyable, interactive,
personalized platform that was always
available.
In addition to reserved seating,
exhibitors (like AMC in May 2019) and
third parties, such as Atom Tickets
for select theaters, introduced mobile
concession ordering. In the latter half of
the decade, it became clear that the next
frontier was about finding the moviegoer
at the source, on any platform where their
cinematic research started, including
search engines and voice-activated
assistants like Amazon’s Alexa. According
to Marine Suttle, SVP chief product officer
at The Boxoffice Company (Boxoffice
Pro’s parent company), in 2019, Google
was the third most common source of
showtime information for moviegoers,
behind exhibitor websites and Fandango.
In a September 2019 article, she summed
up what that meant for the future of
digital ticketing: “[It will become] easier
for consumers to find showtimes and buy
their tickets through a number of digital
platforms, none of them necessarily
exclusive to the cinema sector. The entry
of digital publishers into the cinema
e-commerce ecosystem signals this shift,
as tech titans like Amazon, Facebook, and
Google have begun to dip their toes into
the business with unique offerings.”
Websites, mobile apps, third-party
platforms, search engines, virtual
assistants—the days of the unique
sales channel for exhibitors were long
gone. With a rapid multiplication of
platforms throughout the decade, it
became imperative to target moviegoers
on as many of them as possible. Social
media became an essential part of this
strategy. In April 2011, the magazine’s
publisher, Peter Cane, noted, “everybody
knows that social networking is changing
the landscape, but nobody can tell you
definitively how important it really is, how
much of a change it’s really made, and
how far the change will go.”
The impact of social media on the
entire cinema industry was nothing short
of revolutionary. Social media changed
marketing, programming, and even
content itself. Boxoffice Pro documented
this trend closely. To help exhibitors
navigate these new tools, Boxoffice Pro
started integrating Facebook and Twitter
analysis into box office predictions in
September 2009, presented the “Giants of
Social Media,” with data and insights from
exhibition’s most active social networkers,
and launched the “Boxoffice Social Club”
series in August 2014, with profiles of
individuals and companies that made a
difference in the way they harnessed the
power of social media. Boxoffice Pro
also gauged the interest of early “social
networkers.” In a November 2010 article,
an exhibitor from Alabama explained his
enthusiasm: “Do it! At this moment, there
is no better way to communicate with your
customers—if for nothing else, think about
how valuable it would be to have your
customers read your name daily. Just think
about that!”
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The advent of social media allowed
exhibitors to establish a direct line
of communication with their fans,
empowering them to enhance their
brands and launch grassroots marketing
campaigns. As audiences in North
America and Europe became older, social
media was a way to attract younger
moviegoers. Social media metrics also
became key to predicting box office
performance. Facebook, Twitter, and
later Instagram allowed exhibitors and
studios to quantify “word of mouth.” The
platforms gave moviegoers the power to
make or break a film: Their ability, or lack
thereof, to generate “buzz” could strongly
impact a film at any point of its release,
especially on the opening weekend.
“Engaging with audiences on social
media has to be done on the consumer’s
terms, through the networks they use and
sites they visit,” wrote editorial director
Daniel Loria in June 2015. Similarly, “The
internet is a place where users have a
great deal of control,” said Jake Zin, V.P.
of digital marketing for 20th Century Fox
in July 2010. “That’s a good thing, but it’s
also a challenging thing as a marketer—we
have to be very strategic.”
Fortunately for marketing specialists,
studios, and exhibitors, the tools that gave
audiences more control were also the ones
that granted the industry the power to be
strategic. The key behind this was big data.
Though cinemas often served as cultural
centers for their communities, exhibitors
had historically little information about
their customers. With social media,
mobile ticketing, and other digital tools, it
became possible to use analytics to gather
information about patrons and decipher
their behavior, habits, and preferences. In
October 2014, Marcus Theatres’ president
and CEO Rolando Rodriguez highlighted
the importance of data. “We should
know our customers, including how they
prefer to purchase tickets, and we should
customize our conversations to them.”
Never had decision making in the
industry been driven by data as much
as in the 2010s. Reflecting the closer ties
between exhibition and data, Boxoffice
Pro was acquired by Webedia Movies Pro
(later The Boxoffice Company), the world’s
second-largest publisher of web and
mobile movie platforms, in 2015. Naturally,
the focus on data was already evident
throughout the magazine, but it boosted
its coverage of box office grosses, started
using data for its predictions in 2010, and
regularly profiled the main data players in
the field.
Data greatly contributed to the
development of loyalty programs and
an experimentation with different price
points. Using the data, however, required
access to the data first. “The key word
here is control,” said Malcolm MacMillan,
at the time chief marketing officer of
Webedia Movies Pro. While data was
a potential gold mine for the industry,
exclusive proprietary data and “data
silos” were sometimes impediments
to effective strategies and growth. In
particular, the collaboration between
distribution and exhibition was crucial for
better programming, marketing, and the
development of content. Julien Marcel,
CEO of Webedia Movies Pro, stressed
the importance of sharing in a panel on
Big Data at 2017’s CineEurope, noting
that “this data only is valuable when
we can share it; digital is an economy of
collaboration.”
The Digital ‘Disruptors’
The question of data and its control
was central to the development of
subscription services. In 2011, San
Francisco–based MoviePass launched
a subscription service that allowed
audiences to attend up to one screening
a day for a fee of $50, a price point later
to be adjusted downward, depending
on the market. Five years later, former
Netflix and Redbox executive Mitch
Lowe took over as CEO. MoviePass truly
took off after the summer of 2017, when
“Engaging with audiences on
social media has to be done
on the consumer’s terms,
through the networks they
use and sites they visit.”
it was acquired by the data firm Helios
and Matheson, which leveraged data
from their subscribers for the purpose
of targeted advertising and providing
analytics to studios. The program was
revamped, and membership prices were
slashed to $9.99 per month. By January
of 2018, MoviePass had gained more than
one million subscribers, passing that
milestone faster than Spotify, Hulu, and
Netflix. The trade press quickly labeled
MoviePass a “disruptor.” In February 2018,
at the height of MoviePass’s popularity,
Julien Marcel noted that “‘Disruption’
is an often-repeated buzzword in any
business publication. […] MoviePass
isn’t new to the industry, and neither are
subscription models, but its influence is
stronger now than it has even been.” As
proof that anything that sounds too good
to be true usually is, in June 2021, the
operators of MoviePass agreed to settle
Federal Trade Commission allegations
that they developed tactics to deny service
to subscribers and failed to secure users’
personal data.
Subscription models, which were
starting to pop up in every sector of the
economy, were already well established
on the other side of the Atlantic. In
France, UGC launched its UGC Illimité,
an unlimited subscription plan, in the
1990s as a response to the popularity of
the cable channel CanalPlus. Cineworld,
Odeon, and Gaumont Pathé also enjoyed
success in implementing the concept.
MoviePass brought the trend to the United
States. Its early success revealed what
could happen when the price factor was
taken out of the equation and moviegoers
were able to choose the theaters and films
they truly enjoyed. As Boxoffice Pro’s
editorial director Daniel Loria wrote in an
interview with Mitch Lowe in February
2018, “The MoviePass effect sheds light
on one of the biggest challenges facing
American exhibitors after a 2017 marked
by a downturn in attendance. After years
of upgrades to the moviegoing experience,
what can the industry do to drive more
people to the cinema? And what can be
done to have them come back more often?”
Subscription services skyrocketed in
2018. Following the rapid rise of thirdparty
providers, North American theaters
introduced their own in-house offerings,
often as expansions of their loyalty
programs. In December 2017, Cinemark
became the first major U.S. circuit to
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CENTENNIAL A CENTURY IN EXHIBITION
launch its own unlimited subscription
service with Cinemark Movie Club, which
experimented with concession discounts,
shareability, and rolling credits. Just a
few months later, AMC launched its own
service with AMC Stubs A-List, a premier
tier of its loyalty program. Studio Movie
Grill, Studio C, Showcase Cinemas, Regal,
and Alamo Drafthouse also introduced
their own subscription services.
The idea behind in-house subscription
services was to boost the attendance of
frequent moviegoers. Jean-Marie Dura,
who was part of the UGC team when they
first launched their subscription service,
explained in April 2019 that to increase
the frequency of attendance, you need to
appeal to the audiences who support you
the most. “The airline industry perfected
this: If you’re a frequent flyer, you get a
first-class experience all around. Similarly,
we need to take care of our most frequent
moviegoers. Our best customers are our
greatest allies.” Ultimately, while in-house
solutions remained, MoviePass, after
internal power struggles and a reckoning
with the reality of an unsustainable
business model, interrupted its
service on September 13, 2019. Cash
shortages, emergency loans, and a
plummeting stock price led to a series
of decisions by MoviePass executives
to secretly limit customers’ use of the
service, irreparably damaging its brand
reputation and ultimately leading to the
above-mentioned FTC ruling. Despite
its short-lived success, MoviePass was a
catalyst in the introduction of exhibitor
solutions. But MoviePass’s experiment
also underscored the resilience of the
exhibition industry against the big threat
of the 21st century: “disruptors.”
At the January 2017 Art House
Convergence, producer/screenwriter
James Schamus detailed the “latest”
headlines from the trade press
emphasizing the imminent demise of
theatrical exhibition. The catch was that
the entire presentation used clippings
from 1916. “The alarmist, doom-andgloom
storyline has been around for
over a century, renewed by today’s
increasingly tired tropes of tech stories
vying to break the latest ‘disruption du
jour,’” commented Boxoffice Pro’s
editor in the May issue. In his State of
the Industry address at CinemaCon in
2018, NATO’s John Fithian reassured
the audience: “The word ‘disruption’ is
thrown around way too much. Nothing
needs to be disrupted when it comes to the
basic goal of our industry: bringing people
together to share a communal experience,”
he proclaimed. His comments were also
pointed toward streaming and exclusivity
windows.
The debate began with premium
video on demand (PVOD), an experiment
proposed by a handful of studio
executives in the early 2010s to counter
the declining sales of their cash cow,
DVDs, affected by piracy and the low
cost of streaming outfits. The idea was
to make films available via video on
demand or streaming following a much
shorter theatrical window, just 30 to
60 days after a film opened in theaters.
While “exhibitors and the creative
community responded aggressively, and
the experiment failed,” as summarized
by Fithian in May 2012, the threat of
streaming was just beginning.
In August of that year, Patrick Corcoran,
vice president and chief communications
officer at NATO, wrote, “The world has
fundamentally changed, we are told. The
internet—and now the myriad of devices
that connect to it—has altered forever the
relationship between content creators and
the people that consume it.” Streaming
platforms had surely changed the way
films were consumed at home. But their
challenge to exhibition began in 2014,
when Netflix announced a deal with Imax
and The Weinstein Company to release
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword
of Destiny simultaneously in theaters
and on the streaming platform. Netflix’s
chief content officer, Ted Sarandos,
provoked the ire of the industry when
he announced that “movie distribution
is pretty stuck in old models. We need
to stop distinguishing the experience by
access. Many movies are just as good, if
not better, at home.” Corcoran critiqued
Sarandos’s position in a December 2014
article stating that “the entire argument
for simultaneous release is founded on
bad faith, shoddy data, and mysterious
bookkeeping.” Fithian also rebutted
the economic argument put forward by
Netflix, saying that “it makes absolutely
no business sense to accelerate the release
of the lowest value in the chain.” In May
2016, in his takeaways from that year’s
CinemaCon, Fithian argued that “third
parties will not decide movie distribution
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models. … To be sure, more sophisticated
window modeling may be needed for
the growing success of a modern movie
industry,” he wrote. “But those models
will be developed by distributors and
exhibitors in company-to-company
discussions, not by third parties.”
At that CinemaCon, another unlikely
“disruptor,” Amazon Studios, made a
point in front of exhibitors with the
presentation of its upcoming films,
including Manchester by the Sea and The
Neon Demon. “Amazon simply gets it,”
wrote Fithian in March 2019. “Though
Apple [which entered streaming in 2019]
does not have an established record of
release patterns yet, the company has
begun to entertain theatrical windows as
it enters into movie deals. … The one clear
exception to all of this, of course, is Netflix.”
In a strategic shift, in 2018 Netflix
announced a limited theatrical run
prior to a streaming release to boost the
chances of Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, the
Coen Brothers’ The Ballad of Buster
Scruggs, and Susanne Bier’s Bird Box.
While the plan allowed a small period of
theatrical exclusivity and gave Netflix its
first Academy Award for a feature film,
exhibitors condemned the move because
of the shortness of the window, as well as
Netflix’s refusal to divulge its data.
Despite the tension between
exhibitors and SVOD players, toward the
end of the decade the conversation on
streaming moved from pure antagonism
to complementarity—if the rules of the
game were respected. In fact, an Ernst
and Young survey commissioned by
“The world has fundamentally
changed, we are told. The
internet—and now the myriad
of devices that connect to
it—has altered forever the
relationship between content
creators and the people that
consume it.”
NATO in 2018 revealed that the more
time people spend streaming at home,
the more times they go to the cinema. At
2019’s CinemaCon, Fithian also noted that
streaming platforms could help audiences
get exposed to more content that would in
turn boost theatrical attendance. That was
the case with the documentary renaissance
of 2018, when 14 documentaries grossed
over $1 million each.
Then came November 12, 2019. In
a watershed moment for the industry,
Disney launched its own streaming
platform, Disney Plus. As explained by a
Boxoffice Pro writer, Disney’s capacity
to leverage millions of fans due to its I.P.s
“will not only drive subscriptions but help
drive interest in further theatrical films.”
He concluded, “Disney Plus might be
the first streaming service to show how
the two can coexist and thrive together.”
Other studios quickly announced their
plans to launch their own platforms in
2020, altering the dynamic with exhibitors.
On the exhibition front, exhibitors also
understood the value in building a
platform that not only allowed them to
adapt to the streaming and data era, but
also to enhance their own brands and
build a stronger, more direct relationship
with their fans. Already in the late 2010s,
circuits like Canada’s Cineplex, Mexico’s
Cinépolis, and, since November 2019,
AMC, had launched their own streaming
services for the members of their loyalty
programs.
Toward a Premium-Experience
Economy
Just as it came to pass with the advent
of radio, TV, Betamax, VHS, and DVDs,
streaming revealed that the resilience
of theaters lies, at least partly, in the
unique, communal experience they
provide. The experiential value of
exhibition was frequently defended by
exhibitors and filmmakers, including
Christopher Nolan, Steven Spielberg,
Aaron Sorkin, Sean Baker, Greta Gerwig,
and Jordan Peele. With this new context
of heightened competition with home
entertainment and a better knowledge of
the expectations and habits of their loyal
customers, exhibitors fully embraced
the “experience economy.” To provide a
moment that could not be replicated at
home, it became necessary for exhibitors
to create a unique and memorable
experience at a premium price point.
Jay Baer, a digital marketing and online
customer service expert, highlighted
this at the 2018 CinemaCon. “It’s not
about providing a better experience than
another theater chain or the cinema
across town,” he said, “but about how your
experience compares to everything else.”
Just as exhibitors were improving the
moviegoing journey with digital ticketing
and mobile apps, they were improving
the moviegoing experience at the theater
with large-format screens, luxury and
immersive seating, and premium food and
drink options.
The digital transition introduced the
concept of premium ticket prices with 3-D.
The industry had James Cameron’s Avatar
to thank for their new moneymaker. “Any
remaining doubt about the power of 3-D
exhibition evaporated with the runaway
success of Jim Cameron’s Avatar, a name
applauded so often in Vegas, it would have
made Elvis jealous,” wrote Fithian after the
first-ever CinemaCon in May 2010. Opening
in 2009, Avatar became the top-grossing
film of all time with $2.7 billion in global
ticket sales, more than 80 percent of which
came from 3-D screenings. Critics within
the industry like Roger Ebert and Walter
Murch took the view that 3-D was nothing
more than an overpriced gimmick. Yet its
effect on the box office was astounding.
In 2010, according to NATO, 8 percent
of box office revenues came from the
3-D/2-D ticket price differential. In March
2014, MasterImage 3D estimated that the
surcharge for 3-D added $1.5 billion to box
office sales worldwide in 2013, increasing
profits as much as 30 percent in some
markets. In that year, more than a third
of U.S. screens were equipped to display
the format. Nevertheless, the 3-D hype
did not last long in the U.S. Disappointing
performances of films like Star Wars:
Episode I – The Phantom Menace and
Titanic compelled studios to scale down
their investments. But 3-D had already
left its mark on the premiumization of
the industry. “The proliferation of [PLF]
formats in the last half-decade has to be
considered alongside the decline of 3-D
box office revenue in recent years,” wrote
Daniel Loria in May 2019. The rise of
PLF and immersive seating in the last
part of the decade showed that premium
pricing at cinemas wasn’t eradicated—it
merely diversified.
Data from IHS Markit showed that the
number of PLF auditoriums worldwide
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nearly doubled between 2014 and 2017,
jumping from 1,667 to 3,202. Imax, a
pioneer of PLF, solidified its presence
throughout the North American market
and abroad in the 2010s. In 2015, Dolby
ventured into the market with the
launch of its branded premium cinema
offering, Dolby Cinema, in Barcelona and
Eindhoven, Netherlands. Dolby Cinema
coupled Dolby’s immersive sound
system—Dolby Atmos, introduced in
2012—with its high dynamic range (HDR)
projection system, Dolby Vision. More
PLF solutions, including RealD, ScreenX,
CGS, and Samsung’s Onyx LED cinema
screen, proliferated, employing the latest
developments in projection technology,
including laser, HDR, and RGB. Though
these global PLF brands accounted
for 57.4 percent of total PLF screens in
2018, exhibitor-branded screens such as
CinemarkXD rose 16.8 percent, creating
a more cluttered space. The rise of inhouse
PLF solutions was often motivated
by a desire for greater control by
exhibitors. A case in point is CGR’s ICE
technology, which adds ambient light
effects and peripheral video to a largeformat
screen and allows exhibitors to
keep control of their ticketing revenues,
as it is based on a zero third-party
royalty business model. The concept
was introduced in 2018 in France before
expanding to the Middle East and North
Africa in 2019 and finally reaching Los
Angeles in early 2020 at Regal’s L.A.
Live flagship.
The PLF trend was preceded by a boom
in luxury seating. “For years now the
home-theater market has been trying to
bring the movie theater experience into
the home,” said Gaylord Stanton, V.P. of
sales at First Class Seating in December
2014. “Now, exhibitors are bringing the
comfort of home to the theaters.” The
concept of luxury seating was already
present in premium theaters like iPic and
Cinépolis, but it was truly popularized
after 2014. For instance, luxury seating,
mostly comprising an array of premium
recliners, was a key component of Marcus
Theatres’ $50 million investment in
premium features in 2014–2015. The
investment was aimed at boosting
attendance and adding revenue. In a
December 2014 article, AMC credited
recliners as a catalyst for enhancing the
productivity of its existing assets after
the average attendance in theaters with
premium seating went up by 76 percent
despite a seat loss of 62 percent.
Luxury seating coincided with the
rising trend of high-end cinemas. In
“Since synchronized sound
in the 1920s, we’ve been only
using hearing and our vision;
we haven’t been using the
other senses.”
the middle of the decade, boutique
cinemas—a new take on art house and
luxury theaters—offering premium
amenities for a more general audience
emerged in North America. Chains such
as iPic Theatres, Alamo Drafthouse,
Movie Tavern, and Landmark Theatres
differentiated themselves with premium
amenities and expanded and elevated
their menus. The trend had originated
a few years earlier in Asia, just like
immersive seating, which after its
success in the APAC region and Latin
America began to pique the interest
of North American exhibitors. “Since
synchronized sound in the 1920s, we’ve
been only using hearing and our vision;
we haven’t been using the other senses,”
said Mervi Heinaro, CEO of the Finnish
immersive seating company Flexound
in September 2019. Immersive seating
became a way to expand the moviegoing
experience by adding another amenity
that could not be replicated at home.
According to European cinema trade
body UNIC, immersive seating grew 39
percent worldwide in 2018. All major 4-D
companies expanded their footprint in
the 2018–2019 period. CJ 4DPLEX, with
its 4DX immersive seating concept,
announced a major deal with Cineworld
in 2019 to increase its presence at Regal
locations in the U.S., grew in Saudi Arabia,
and entered the Latin American market
with Cinépolis. Canadian immersive
seating provider D-Box, which celebrated
its 10th birthday in 2019, clinched
high-profile deals with major players
like Cineplex and Hoyts, extending its
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footprint in Canada and in Australia.
MediaMation’s MX4D did so in five
continents with deals with B&B Theatres,
Cine Colombia, and Nigeria’s Filmhouse
Cinemas. Emerging markets, where the
construction of new theaters was still on
the rise, witnessed the largest growth,
while Western Europe and its mostly
saturated market lagged.
A Global Industry: Between Uniformity
and Diversity
The digitalization and the premiumization
of the industry in the 2010s shared a
common strategy: optimizing individual
admissions instead of trying to maximize
mass admissions. They shared another
commonality: they both had global roots
and a global reach. Mobile ticketing
started in China, subscription services
in France, immersive seating in Asia and
Latin America. The 2010s made clear that
exhibition was now a globalized industry.
“Exhibition is itself becoming a global
business,” proclaimed John Fithian in
March 2017. “U.S.-based AMC is going into
Europe with the acquisitions of Odeon
and Nordic. Chinese company Wanda
has invested in AMC and has acquired
Hoyts in Australia. Korean-based CJ
CGV has acquired Mars in Turkey and is
opening cinemas in the U.S. Mexico-based
Cinépolis operates now in four continents,
with cinemas across Latin America, India,
Spain, and the U.S.” Mexico’s secondlargest
circuit, Cinemex, opened its
CMX upscale dine-in theater in Miami
and acquired Cobb Theaters in 2017, the
same year that Kinepolis Group acquired
Canada’s Landmark Cinemas. Cineworld,
the U.K.’s leading cinema circuit, acquired
Regal in 2018.
The globalization of the industry led
to the birth in June 2017 of the Global
Cinema Federation (GCF), a volunteerbased
organization meant to represent
the global cinema exhibition community
and to advocate for global stakeholders.
Its creation, however, came at a moment
when the future of globalization was
under fire by politicians everywhere. “In
many territories in the world, including
Europe and the United States, nationalism
is on the rise,” Fithian wrote in March
2017. “Voters in many countries are
supporting candidates who seek to
reduce immigration, to pull back on
international alliances, and to impose
barriers on free trade. In this author’s
opinion, those trends are bad for the
exhibition industry.” NATO, GCF, UNIC,
and other multinational trade bodies
vowed to protect free trade and the global
movement of people and goods in order
to sustain the competitiveness of global
markets. The interconnectedness of the
industry also created unprecedented
vulnerabilities, exemplified by the
2014 Sony Pictures hack. In November
of that year, the studio was attacked
by a hacker group, allegedly linked to
the North Korean government, who
leaked confidential data and demanded
the withdrawal of The Interview, the
controversial film about a plot to
assassinate North Korea’s leader.
Regardless, emerging markets, such
as Russia, Nigeria, the newly opened
Saudi Arabia (where cinemas were
legalized in 2018 for the first time in four
decades), and APAC countries, created
an international moviegoing audience
of billions of moviegoers, often younger
than North America’s graying audiences.
But no other market intrigued American
exhibitors and studios as much as China
and its 1.44 billion inhabitants. An
Ernst & Young report published in the
magazine in 2013 predicted that China
would overtake the North American box
office by 2020. Tapping into that market,
however, meant that U.S. studios and
exhibitors needed to overcome strict
regulations, quotas, and censorship.
According to the MPA, the global box
office increased by a whopping 15 percent
in the first five years of the decade. In
a December 2012 article entitled “Our
Future Is Linked to Asia,” a Boxoffice
Pro writer stated that “success at home
will feel empty to Hollywood studios if
they haven’t also hit the bullseye in key
international markets. […] The number of
films that appeal only to Americans will
shrink very rapidly,” he predicted.
The writer was right. Overseas
appetite for foreign films changed
Hollywood. It was the era of megafranchises,
of superhero movies and
blockbuster I.P.s that championed
universal ideas and themes. Conversely,
midbudget films were increasingly
struggling to compete, frequently finding
homes on streaming platforms. As the
studio system adapted its stories to cater
to vast global audiences, the global box
office responded accordingly. With fewer
movies accounting for larger percentages
ACADEMY
AWARDS FOR
BEST PICTURE
THE KING’S SPEECH
2010
THE ARTIST
2011
ARGO
2012
12 YEARS A SLAVE
2013
BIRDMAN OR (THE
UNEXPECTED VIRTUE
OF IGNORANCE)
2014
SPOTLIGHT
2015
MOONLIGHT
2016
THE SHAPE OF
WATER
2017
GREEN BOOK
2018
PARASITE
2019
NOMADLAND
2020
Centennial 2021
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CENTENNIAL A CENTURY IN EXHIBITION
of annual revenues, the international
marketplace brought profitability to
domestic flops. It also contributed to the
trend of unprecedented, massive opening
weekends. Marvel’s The Avengers and
its record-breaking opening weekend
started this phenomenon in 2012. “We are
now living in a new era for blockbusters,”
commented one writer in June 2012. “An
opening of $150 million is no longer the
ultimate goal—and that’s kind of insane.”
The Avengers records were soon dwarfed
by those of many other films in the
Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Star
Wars saga.
Hollywood’s international strategy
required studios to be more sensitive
to foreign cultural values. But studios
also began to look inward, realizing the
potential of their overlooked audiences at
home. “Our rapidly globalizing industry
has helped bring about a welcome
wave of inclusion and diversity, just as
Hollywood studios begin to capitalize
on the rewards of inclusiveness when
it comes to their tentpole productions,”
wrote Julien Marcel in April 2018.
Although much remains to be done,
and the “newfound” interest in diverse
audiences has periodically manifested
itself in other periods of exhibition history,
the industry ramped up its efforts to
appeal to its underserved audiences in
an unprecedented manner in the 2010s.
Trade events increased their panels
on diversity and inclusion. Boxoffice
Pro, too, increased its coverage of such
issues significantly, offering studies on
underserved moviegoers, interviews with
more diverse filmmakers, and launching
a series showcasing the most influential
women in the industry. Vendors like Dolby
“Our rapidly globalizing
industry has helped bring
about a welcome wave of
inclusion and diversity, just as
Hollywood studios begin to
capitalize on the rewards of
inclusiveness when it comes to
their tentpole productions.”
and QSC began offering accessibility
products such as descriptive audio and
captioning for patrons with disabilities.
More independent films, such as
Moonlight and Get Out, were centered
on the African American experience
to great commercial and critical
success. Exhibition also increased its
targeting of America’s biggest movie
fans: Hispanic audiences, who are
consistently overrepresented among
frequent moviegoers. Just a few examples
of this effort include the launching of
TheaterEars, an app providing dubbed
content in Spanish for non-Englishspeaking
moviegoers; the partnership
of ticketing company Ticketón with
Atom Tickets in 2019 to serve Hispanic
audiences; and Marcus Theatres’
introduction of the Cine Latino Hispanic
Film Festival in 2017. Finally, the massive
successes of Coco, Crazy Rich Asians, and
Black Panther shattered the myth that
films led by persons of color couldn’t
draw in diverse audiences. There were no
more doubts that diversity was paying off,
domestically, and globally.
The industry’s diversity strategy
occurred, however, against the backdrop
of increased consolidation. The trend
was evident in exhibition, but more
so in distribution. At CinemaCon 2019,
for instance, Annapurna and MGM
announced their merger to revamp United
Artists. Nothing could compare to the
shock produced by Disney’s presentation
at CinemaCon, where the studio touted
its own slate as well as that of 20th
Century Fox. After more than a decade
of stunning acquisitions, including the
purchase of Marvel Entertainment in 2009,
Lucasfilm in 2012, and 20th Century Fox
in 2019, Disney had total dominance. In
2019, Disney claimed the top five highestgrossing
movies in North America with
Avengers: Endgame, The Lion King, Toy
Story 4, Frozen II, and Captain Marvel.
Owning the most lucrative I.P.s with the
Star Wars universe, Marvel, and Pixar,
Disney controlled nearly 40 percent of the
domestic market by the end of the decade.
The decade came to a close with
the announcement of the end of the
Paramount Decrees, in place since the late
1940s. Seventy years after the landmark
ruling that prohibited it, vertical
integration was once again on the table.
Despite an uncertain landscape full
of “disruption” and consolidation, in
the 2010s the industry learned to use
the digital revolution to its advantage,
reinvented its premium strategy, and
expanded across the globe. In 2019, global
box office receipts surpassed $42 billion
for the first time ever. The domestic
box office clocked in at $11.4 billion, the
second highest-grossing year of all time,
and international revenues passed the
$30 billion mark. The sky did not fall, and
exhibition not only survived but thrived.
The 2010s were another testament to
the power of the cinematic experience.
Just like the nine decades of Boxoffice
Pro’s existence before that, the 2010s
proved that the larger-than-life theatrical
experience was still an essential part of
moviegoers’ lives everywhere in the world.
That fundamental truth would be
called into doubt by naysayers yet
again at the beginning of this decade;
Covid-19 and its aftermath continue to
spark conversations about the theatrical
exclusivity window, competition from
at-home viewing, the shifting balance
between domestic and international
markets, and the expansion and
contraction of the industry through
mergers and acquisitions. The challenges
brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic are
significant but not unsurmountable; as
we’ve shown in this 10-part series, they’re
not even new. The story of exhibition is
a story of resiliency, of an industry that’s
jumped every hurdle put in its path, from
radio and TV to a global pandemic. It’s a
story that Boxoffice Pro has been proud
to tell for 100 years and looks forward to
telling for 100 more.
106 Centennial 2021
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Hats Off to Boxoffice Pro Magazine
for 100 Years of Publishing
and Supporting Cinema Exhibition.
www.usvariety.org
Centennial 2021
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Representing Authentic Drive-In Theatres & Celebrating 88 Years of the Outdoor Venue
We Congratulate Boxoffice on
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Red Rocket 118 | Flee 126 | A Journal for Jordan 136 | Encanto 142
ON SCREEN
“The truth is that my country holds a very strange and
uncomfortable relationship with its own past. That’s why I’ve
always felt so strongly about exploring this subject in a film.”
Pedro Almodóvar, Parallel Mothers, p. 110
Centennial 2021
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On Screen PARALLEL MOTHERS
PARALLEL
110 Centennial 2021
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Parallel Mothers is Pedro
Almodóvar’s Most Explicitly
Political Film Yet. It’s Also
Among His Best.
BY DANIEL LORIA
HISTORIES
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On Screen PARALLEL MOTHERS
Penélope Cruz is moments
away from giving birth the
first time she appears in a
Pedro Almodóvar film, 1997’s
Live Flesh. It’s a cold January
night in Madrid—Christmas
lights still dot the streets—at the dawn
of an ambiguous decade for Spain, the
1970s. Social tensions abound as Francisco
Franco’s dictatorship is tested. A title
card informs the audience that the
country has entered a state of emergency:
Constitutional rights are suspended until
further notice. This is a Spain in transition,
even if its people aren’t fully aware of it. By
the end of the decade, the country would
abandon its dictatorship and tentatively
enter into a new and untested democracy.
Cruz’s appearance in Live Flesh is
limited to this brief opening sequence
in which she is cast as a single mother
who gives birth on a city bus en route to
the hospital. The birth is covered by the
local press as a miracle and the child a
representation of a new, modern Spain.
In Almodóvar’s films, childbirth, and
motherhood in particular, is often treated
as symbolic of the nation’s post-Franco
cultural renewal. While Spain has been a
“The essence of Almodóvar’s
aesthetics has always been
there: the desire to make logic
out of chaos, and to rebuild the
family and the nation out of
its own fragmentation and the
trauma of its past.”
democracy for slightly over 40 years, the
scars left by its devastating Civil War, and
the fascist dictatorship that followed,
feature prominently in Almodóvar’s films.
His protagonists are often those who lived
on the margins of Spanish society until the
dawn of democracy, each of them exploring
their own identity in the context of a
country working to define its future while
simultaneously grappling with its past.
At the heart of Almodóvar’s interest
in motherhood is the idea of redefining—
and reconstituting—the nuclear family
away from the Catholic ideal championed
during Franco’s regime. His families
are inclusive, in the fullest meaning
of the word. If Almodóvar’s films fit
uncomfortably into the popular notion of
“Spain,” it’s only because of their insistence
on challenging the notion of what, or more
appropriately who, Spanish culture means
to include.
More generally, Almodóvar is grouped
into the category of Queer cinema, a
label so wide-reaching and vague that
it is ultimately reductive. But there is
no mistaking his work as anything but
Spanish, even if his films can be found
in cinemas around the world. Pedro
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Almodóvar is considered Spain’s most
recognizable filmmaker of all time,
alongside Luis Buñuel, an enemy of
Franco’s regime and likewise an iconoclast.
Almodóvar’s work engages with the
social, cultural, and historical traumas
of post–Civil War Spain. It addresses the
repressed desires seeping through the
cracks of Spanish Catholicism. His status
as one of today’s most celebrated auteurs
owes as much to this worldview as it does
to his distinctive visual style, its Douglas
Sirk–inspired, expressive mise-en-scène
bursting with color.
All his films, in one way or another,
return to the same themes. In the
introduction to his book on the filmmaker,
Ernesto Acevedo-Muñoz observes how
Almodóvar explores Spain’s “questions of
cultural anxiety” through characters often
found on the margins of society (women
and queer and transgender people) and
their “obsessive attempts to rebuild or
reconstitute the family.” Acevedo-Muñoz
writes, “The essence of Almodóvar’s
aesthetics has always been there: the
desire to make logic out of chaos, and to
rebuild the family and the nation out of
its own fragmentation and the trauma of
its past.”
In this context, Almodóvar’s latest film,
Parallel Mothers, is a synthesis of some
of the director’s best works. It marks his
eighth collaboration with actress Penélope
Cruz, who once again—as was the case
in Live Flesh, All About My Mother (1999),
and Volver (2006)—plays a maternal role.
As Janis, Cruz’s protagonist is leading
an inquiry into finding the remains of
her great-grandfather, who disappeared
during the Civil War, when she finds
herself with an unexpected pregnancy,
the result of an affair with a married
man. She decides to raise the child alone.
In the hospital, she crosses paths with
the young Ana (Milena Smit), pregnant
herself as a result of a rape by a classmate,
who similarly decides to forge ahead
alone with her child. Their lives as single
mothers intertwine as Janis continues to
press for answers regarding the remains
of her grandfather. Parallel Mothers
succeeds in balancing the domestic drama
with the political film at its heart, this
fluidity between different genres now one
of the director’s trademarks.
“It’s always been something that
concerns me, something I’m very sensitive
to but could never come up with a story for
“I work on my scripts in various
stages, and during the stayat-home
orders, which was
when I last revisited this story,
I discovered I could connect
this theme through one of the
character’s grandparents.”
or a way to work it into one of my existing
stories,” Almodóvar tells Boxoffice
Pro following the film’s closing-night
screening at the New York Film Festival.
“I work on my scripts in various stages,
and during the stay-at-home orders,
which was when I last revisited this
story, I discovered I could connect this
theme through one of the character’s
grandparents. That connection through
the generations closed the gap between
the past and the present. Keep in mind
that 75 years have already passed since
that era; it was a long time ago. We spoke
with some U.N. representatives who were
in Spain to look at the mass grave sites.
They told us they found it curious that
in Spain it was the great-grandchildren’s
generations that were the ones asking to
unearth the sites. In all the places they
had been—like Chile or Argentina—it had
been the generations that immediately
followed making those demands. In Spain,
that effort has been led by the generations
who were already born into democracy.
The truth is that my country holds a very
strange and uncomfortable relationship
with its own past. That’s why I’ve always
felt so strongly about exploring this
subject in a film.
“In July 2021 they passed a new law,
which wasn’t in place when we were
filming, that addresses multiple issues.
Namely, it puts the state in charge of
the excavations and holds it fiscally
responsible for doing so. The state will
cover the costs and they’re expected
to open all the mass grave sites they
can find, which could number in the
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On Screen PARALLEL MOTHERS
hundreds. According to some statistics,
approximately 140,000 people remain
unaccounted for. This law will finally pay
that debt Spanish society has with its
own people, the victims and their family
members.”
Dating back to his earliest films,
Almodóvar’s protagonists enter their
respective stories with some level of
trauma from their past. When it comes
to female characters, Almodóvar can be
criticized for over-relying on rape as a
symbolic shorthand for a trauma caused
by a patriarchal figure. Father figures
are largely absent in Almodóvar’s films,
and on the rare occasion they do appear,
they tend to hinder rather than help the
characters’ progression. These patriarchal
concerns are expressed in films like All
About My Mother and Volver, movies
that reconfigure the nuclear family in
homes and communities dominated by
a multigenerational group of women—
without any involvement whatsoever
from men.
These themes are all present in the
domestic melodrama of Parallel Mothers.
“I tend to tell stories about mothers looking
for a family,” admits Almodóvar. “With
Parallel Mothers, the two women at the
heart of the film are both orphans and
single mothers. What I propose in these
movies is that the family structure has
changed enormously over the last 20
years. In Spain, the concept of family was
inextricably linked to the Catholic ideal
of the family; it always had that religious
undertone. That’s far from being the
reality of today. Families no longer need to
“I tend to tell stories about
mothers looking for a family.
With Parallel Mothers, the
two women at the heart of
the film are both orphans
and single mothers. What I
propose in these movies is
that the family structure has
changed enormously over
the last 20 years.”
have a religious dimension. They are
structured through the love and care for
their children rather than any sort of duty
to the Church. In these movies I advocate
for very inclusive families motivated by
love. Families made up of single mothers,
two fathers, or two mothers. The concept
of family has progressed a lot in recent
years. In this movie, the family I bring
together is initially made up of two single
mothers, and it expands to include a
[straight] man and another child. It is an
open family where genders still exist but
don’t serve the same function they had in
the traditional Catholic sense.”
Almodóvar claims to be drawn to family
narratives because of his own upbringing.
“I was born to a humble family during a
very difficult time, the 1950s, during the
postwar period,” he says. “My parents’
obsession was for me to find a stable job
that could provide a secure future, the
type of life they couldn’t achieve on
their own because of the war. Suffice to
say, I was never interested in that sort of
stability,” he says, laughing, “I was looking
for something totally different. But I’ve
always had those parental concerns in
the back of my mind, that drive from
parents to provide a better future for their
children. Although I never followed the
path my parents wanted me to, I still have
those feelings in my mind.”
It is a provincial perspective, in the
geographical sense of the word. Pedro
Almodóvar was born in a rural town in the
province of Castile-La Mancha, where he
spent the first eight years of his life before
leaving for boarding school. Despite his
rustic roots, he is more closely associated
with Madrid, where he shot to stardom
as part of the city’s vibrant art scene in
the 1980s. The protagonists of his films
occasionally share similar backgrounds,
a contemporary urban identity with a
longing for the simplicity of their rural
childhoods. That longing for a return to the
village is the titular theme of Volver and
has played a prominent role in several of
his films, including 2019’s Pain and Glory.
“My characters, including Janis in
Parallel Mothers, tend to come from a
rural background before establishing
themselves in a city in search of a better
life. That is something that has deeply
marked my life, belonging to these two
cultures: the urban and the rural,” he says.
“I am a very urban person, but I have a lot
of memories of living in the town, even
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if I only lived there for eight years. That
nostalgia was always present for older folks
like my mother. She moved to Madrid to
live with my sisters during the last years
of her life, but people from her generation
were never able to adapt to city life. The
village was a sort of Eden for them, even
though it was an incredibly difficult place
for them when they were younger. I have
fond memories of that enormous nostalgia
she always felt for her roots. I share those
roots. I also feel like someone from La
Mancha—even if I don’t share that same
level of yearning to return.”
The generational divide in Spain has
been a recurring theme since Almodóvar’s
earliest films. Titles like his 1980 debut
feature, Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del
montón, exude a youthful, transgressive
energy in their defiance of Franco’s
Spain during its transition to democracy.
The portrayal of that generation gap in
his films evolved as Spain’s democracy
continued to develop over the years. By
1999’s All About My Mother, Almodóvar’s
work embraced a more reconciliatory tone
when exploring Spanish identity across
generations. His films have never ceased
to shock, but they have become notably
less interested in provoking viewers for
provocation’s sake. Films like 2006’s
Volver explicitly sought to link several
generations of Spanish women through
their shared trauma as survivors of sexual
violence. In Parallel Mothers that motif
of cross-generational motherhood and
family returns, this time willing to ask
pointed questions about each generation’s
responsibility to understand its past.
In this film, Ana’s character “is the
product of a very conservative education,”
says the director. “Spain has always been
a very divided country, and it remains
one to this day. The younger generations
have their own set of problems, but what
I try to explore in Parallel Mothers is that
young people have a responsibility to look
back and understand their past. We had to
make a lot of concessions in our transition
to democracy, concessions that led to the
Pact of Forgetting [an amnesty gesture by
Spain’s political parties in the immediate
aftermath of Franco’s death]. That is why
the exhumation of these mass grave sites
has been forgotten for so long. It was such
a sensitive topic in those days because you
still had a lot of people in government who
were franquistas [Francoists].”
As we near the end of our conversation,
Pedro Almodóvar pauses to collect his
thoughts, as if he’s trying to succinctly
express what he’s been trying to say.
Finally, he sums it up through his film:
“The best way to explain it, there is a line in
Parallel Mothers, in a tense scene between
Janis and Ana, where Janis tells her in a
somewhat pedagogic manner, ‘You need
to know what type of country you live in,
and what type of country your parents and
grandparents lived in.’”
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On Screen PARALLEL MOTHERS
ALMODÓVAR ON CINEMA:
THE GREAT DIRECTOR
ON WHAT PANDEMIC
RECOVERY MEANS TO HIM
Spanish cinemas are still not out
of the crisis, but it looks like we’ve
turned a corner with the release of Dune
and the James Bond movie [No Time
to Die]. The situation should improve
now that cinemas are reopening at full
capacity. To be perfectly honest, it’s not
like there were a lot of very interesting
movies being released until recently, but
more are coming out now. We opened
Parallel Mothers in Spain in October and
finished well, under the circumstances, in
third place behind James Bond and The
Addams Family 2. The film is doing well,
but we are naturally very concerned since
things are not back to the way they were
before the pandemic.
For me, cinema’s recovery is extremely
important, because I’m practically
exclusively dedicated to this line of work. I
was especially busy during the pandemic
because the situation was so dramatic
that I didn’t want to let it get to me. I shot
The Human Voice, a short film with Tilda
[Swinton], in English over the summer
of 2020, and we took it to Venice. It got a
theatrical release—which I wasn’t even
expecting, I thought we’d have to launch it
on some sort of streaming platform—and
came out around the fall of 2021. Then I
immediately turned around and started
preproduction on this movie, Parallel
Mothers, which I finished writing during
the stay-at-home orders. Honestly, I’ve
been really busy over the last year and
a half, so the idea of having one of my
movies back in theaters means a lot to me.
There is this great uncertainty out
there. Sometimes you get the feeling
of being in a business that has already
peaked and is being totally overshadowed.
But other times … for example, I went
to this year’s two most important film
festivals, Cannes and Venice. We were
in competition in Venice [with Parallel
Mothers], and I went to Cannes to give
an award to Jodie Foster. And it was
so inspiring to see the public’s need to
watch movies on the big screen. I’m not
talking about mainstream movies; I’m
talking about auteur cinema. There was
a real hunger from those audiences to
see specialty films. I regained a lot of
confidence at those two festivals. It gave
me hope that the type of movies we
make—art house movies—are still very
much in demand.
Coming to New York for the New York
Film Festival, for me, there is nothing like
seeing an auditorium like Alice Tully Hall
in Lincoln Center at full capacity. I don’t
know how many people it seats—it felt
like 2,000 just judging by the reception of
our film. That was a marvelous experience.
It was such a warm reception, and it
dispelled a lot of concerns I had about
Parallel Mothers being too Spanish for
international audiences because of the
issues I tackle in the film. Having screened
the film in New York and Venice, I feel
confident international audiences won’t
have a problem connecting with it.
I remember I started to go to the
movies at a very early age, in the late 1950s.
During that time, Spain was a country that
would take many years to become a place
a person like me could comfortably live in.
Years from being a place a person like me
would want to live in. For me, back then,
the cinema was a parallel universe—the
type of universe I wanted to live in. The
type of universe you’d only dream about,
one that seemed a lot more appealing
than the harsh realities of the postwar
era. During that difficult time, the cinema
represented for me and for the people of
my country a much better place to live,
visit, and dream than the reality we all
lived in.
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Centennial 2021
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On Screen RED ROCKET
CALI-
FORNIA
DREAMING
Director Sean Baker on Red Rocket
and the Current Challenges Facing
Specialty Distribution
BY DANIEL LORIA
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On Screen RED ROCKET
Red Rocket opens inside a cramped crosscountry
bus, as Mikey Sable (Simon Rex),
a down-and-out adult-film actor, awakens
upon reaching his destination. After years
of middling success in the porn industry’s
production capital of L.A.’s San Fernando
Valley, Mikey is back home, and no one
wants him there—himself included. His
return to Texas City, an industrial town
on Texas’s Gulf Coast, unfolds to the
soundtrack of ‘N Sync’s “Bye Bye Bye,”
jolting the audience’s attention within the
film’s first few minutes.
Like the male protagonists in Martin
Scorsese’s early movies set in Little Italy,
Mikey is the archetypal American hustler
working on the margins of society and the
formal economy. He has deep roots in his
hometown, but an ambition better suited
to greener pastures. His entire life feels
like a long con, success something he can
talk himself into instead of working for.
Broke and back in Texas City, Mikey asks
his former partner Lexi (Bree Elrod) if he
can stay with her for a few days, maybe
months, while he gets back on his feet.
But after starting to date Strawberry, a
precocious teenager he meets at a local
doughnut shop (Suzanna Son), Mikey sees
his new relationship as his ticket out of
Texas and back to L.A.’s glittering adultentertainment
industry.
Writer-director Sean Baker never
intended Red Rocket to be the follow-up
to his 2017 breakthrough film, The Florida
Project, the movie that solidified his status
as a contemporary American auteur. He
was at work on a more personal project, a
drama to be shot in Vancouver, until the
Covid-19 pandemic scrapped those plans.
As the world shut down in March 2020,
Baker decided to move forward with Red
Rocket instead, a film he could shoot with
his trademark resourcefulness: on a tight
budget with an even tighter crew. The
finished result premiered in competition
at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival and will
hit screens this December. Boxoffice
Pro spoke to the filmmaker about the
movie’s careful approach to controversial
themes—and his belief that independent
films deserve just as much of a theatrical
window as major studio tentpoles.
Consistent themes in your work
are underground and alternative
economies, how people on the
margins get by. This film tackles that
“I was always baffled by
why the industry didn’t
give him more meaty roles,
more dramatic roles. He
was somebody I had always
considered for this role,
simple as that.”
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y looking at the falling arc of a
career in the adult-film industry. How
did you come to this story?
This came about through research that I
was doing with my co-screenwriter, Chris
Bergoch, in the adult-film world almost 10
years ago. It was for a film I made before
Tangerine, called Starlet. We got to know
people within the adult-film world—there
were lots of cameos in Starlet of adult-film
performers, both male and female. It was
through meeting them that we met this
archetype—that I didn’t even know was
a real thing until I met a handful of these
guys—of these “suitcase pimps,” and
realizing there was even a slang term that
applied to them. Of course, this doesn’t
apply to all male talent in the adult-film
world, but there are these dudes who live
off the women in the adult-film world
and take advantage of them. That’s how
they survive in that world. I was intrigued
because I saw similar characteristics in
all these guys. They basically thought the
same way. Their thought process, I found
to be extremely complex, problematic,
disturbing. Something I couldn’t wrap
my head around. I guess it was a desire
to tackle a character like this and put the
audience in the same mindset that I was in
while hanging out with them. To describe it
to you very quickly: I was entertained, I was
laughing, I was having a fun time hanging
out with these guys. Because on the surface
level, they’re entertaining, appealing, and
funny. But after a while, what they were
saying would sink in and I would be very
torn, and just not knowing how to handle
what I just heard and questioning myself.
Why am I laughing at this stuff? Why am
I finding this so entertaining? I wanted to
apply that to the audience and have them
feel the same in this film.
And of course, there is a Lolita
element to this story, in having this
suitcase pimp pursue a high schooler.
For Lolita to work, you don’t have to
like or condone its protagonist—but
you have to like spending time with
him. The book does a lot of work to
get there. In a film, that work comes
down to the performance of your
lead actor. On paper, Mikey Sable
is a terrible person, but Simon Rex’s
magnetic performance is what drives
this movie. How did you know he was
the right person for the role?
I knew it would have to be somebody
who has that charming appeal and is also
funny, because that’s what these guys
are on the surface level. That’s how they
draw people in, how they connect with
people. That’s how they get what they
want. They’re low-level pimps—they
have to have that persona. Simon being a
comedian and an actor, I knew he had the
comedic chops. I’ve been watching him for
so long, we’re approximately the same age,
I know about all the peaks and valleys of
his career. Every time he came back into
the spotlight, I felt proud of him. Because
he was a survivor. This guy is going to
keep doing it until the industry truly pays
attention to him. I was always baffled by
why the industry didn’t give him more
meaty roles, more dramatic roles. He was
somebody I had always considered for this
role, simple as that. I think it was the Vine
days; if he could make me entertained
in six seconds, I knew he was able to
entertain me for two hours.
You’ve explored sex work before.
Here you take a look at themes of
exploitation and coercion in sex
work, although the sex between
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On Screen RED ROCKET
characters is presented as entirely
consensual. You never judge your
characters’ sexuality. That’s another
aspect that makes Lolita work:
You don’t have to agree with the
love story, but you have to believe
it. In movies, whenever you have a
messed-up romance, like in Vertigo or
Badlands, it only works if you buy into
the love story. You achieve that in
Red Rocket, but getting there means
you, as a director, have to be morally
detached from Mikey’s manipulation
and instead focus on the chemistry
between characters. How did you go
about balancing that tone?
I didn’t want to paint a black-and-white,
Big Bad Wolf and Innocent Little Lamb
story. That would be so easy to do, and it’s
been done a million times. We all know
that life is more complex than that. I
worked with consultants on this film, too,
from the sex-work and adult-film worlds.
One of their big notes for me was that I
should have the Strawberry character
have agency, be intelligent and present in
making her own decisions and enjoying
the consensual sex they were having. Now,
she happens to be unknowingly being
semi-recruited for the porn industry;
that makes the situation more complex.
But on a surface level, I wanted to make
her character a realistic teenager who
is intrigued by this world. That balance
starts in the screenplay, but it really
solidifies in the edit. I’m also the editor.
I consider that half of my directing work.
Finding that balance in the edit is the
most important thing. It’s also elements
like finding Simon and Suzy, who had
a great chemistry and who are two
professionals and are able to really give
multidimensional performances that
aren’t just black and white.
Settings play such a big role in
your films—the motel in The Florida
Project comes to mind—and in this
film you introduce a historical setting.
Red Rocket is set during the 2016
presidential election, which felt
like an ensemble of hustlers willing
to say anything to gain power and
advance their own careers. The film
never hits you over the head with this
comparison, but like that election, in
Red Rocket it feels like Mikey’s con is
about to collapse at any second—but
he will say and do anything to keep
it going. How did you come about
setting the film at that particular time?
It wasn’t there when we initially broke it.
We initially broke Red Rocket right after
The Florida Project. It wasn’t introduced
[into the screenplay] until later, when I was
able to see that election in hindsight. It
was applied when we decided to pivot and
make Red Rocket in that March–April 2020
period. I was tackling the theme of division.
I see our country as extremely divided
right now. I look back at that election as the
election that sort of started it. We’ve been
divided for a while, obviously, but there
was something that made it very public,
in which everything became politicized.
That election was so much like a reality
television show in which everyday people
who normally wouldn’t get involved with
politics are suddenly glued to the coverage
of that election because, guess what? One
of the candidates was a reality television
star. It really drew the public in and then
suddenly everything became politicized. I
can’t even talk about Covid right now with
friends, because we might have a slight
difference of opinion on something, and
suddenly they see you as “somebody on
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“I’ve always been a fan of the
longest window possible before
home entertainment—and this
is where people slam me for
being elitist or whatever—but
I’m not saying they can’t see
it. I’m just saying that home
entertainment, for me, is an
afterthought. As the creator
of this film, I would like people
to [experience] it, first and
foremost, on the big screen.”
the other side.” I hate that; I really don’t
like where our country has gone. But I
didn’t want to preach to the choir either. I
obviously lean left, you can see that with
all my films, but the last thing I wanted
to do is make this an even more divisive
vehicle out there. I was tackling this theme,
but I wanted to do it in a way where it
was ambiguous enough where both sides
could discuss this film. Both sides could
perhaps even apply their own politics to
the film. That was important to me, too.
I’ve had people come up to me and say, is
Simon supposed to be Trump or Clinton?
I’m not sure. And I love that. That means
I am riding that line in a way that is not
alienating.
This movie talks about the porn
industry, which has been at the
forefront of every disruption. Porn
kept cinemas alive after the
suburban flight, before the multiplex
had caught up to those audiences
in the suburbs, and it kept cinemas
in cities alive for decades. It kept
this magazine in business for at
least a decade, our most important
advertiser during the sexploitation
era. They led the charge to home
video, premium cable—
—they swung the pendulum to VHS over
Beta!
—and they played a similar role with
DVDs before transitioning to PVOD
and SVOD. Right now, that business
model in the adult industry seems
to be broken by two things that
theatrical distribution and exhibition
are currently debating: ubiquity in
streaming platforms and disrupting
the price-value relationship. If
content is everywhere, and free and
easy to find, that changes its value.
When I was 12 years old, finding a
Playboy behind the dumpster was like
finding the Magna Carta. Twelveyear-olds
today have no problem
finding adult content, and its value to
the consumer is totally different. Do
you see any parallels between the
adult industry and where we are with
theatrical distribution?
We saw this happen with music, we saw it
happen with the porn industry: If you give
something to the public for free, suddenly
it changes their entire relationship with
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On Screen RED ROCKET
that product. It’s like they expect it to be
free from that point on. Which is really
sad. It’s setting up the wrong precedent. I
believe that day-and-date led to that. The
streaming services are just continuing to
perpetuate that. I want art to be available
to everybody, but there are ways of rolling
out a film, by exposing it in stages to
the public, that can elevate the film’s
importance. That’s the point of marketing,
to elevate something, to heighten its
perception among the audience.
I’ve always been a fan of the
longest window possible before home
entertainment—and this is where people
slam me for being elitist or whatever—but
I’m not saying they can’t see it. I’m just
saying that home entertainment, for me, is
an afterthought. As the creator of this film,
I would like people to [experience] it, first
and foremost, on the big screen. That’s the
way we shot it; we want it to be seen in a
theater. Then you have those people who
say, “Oh, but I have my home theater that
has a big screen and good sound.” So it’s
not just that aspect to it, it’s about making
it an event and being in a room with
strangers in this communal experience of
experiencing the same piece of art with
other people. That does change the way
that you absorb it, the way that you think
about it, the way that you react to it.
Slowly rolling it out to audiences also has
an effect on that reaction. If you’re paying
for that premium experience of going to
the theater, you pay a little bit more. If you
want to wait a month buying it on PVOD,
maybe pay a little bit less. And if you wait a
few more months, you’re eventually getting
it for free down the line with your Netflix
subscription. That was always a model that
worked. Now what’s happening is that films
are becoming more like series, series are
becoming more like films, and they’re all
becoming throwaway products.
Not that I’m looking for recognition,
but it’s definitely throwing the auteur
right out the window, because we’re seeing
and talking about things just as “Netflix
movies.” We don’t hear who the directors
are. We don’t know who the actors are. It’s
just a Netflix film, and there’s a new one
each week. For me, it’s stripping away the
significance of this art form.
When we look at the release model
right now for most specialty and
art house movies like yours, it’s as
“We don’t hear who the
directors are. We don’t know
who the actors are. It’s just a
Netflix film, and there’s a new
one each week. For me, it’s
stripping away the significance
of this art form.”
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if you guys are being given a threeweek
window to try to make as much
money as possible, instead of slowly
finding and developing that audience
in a model that had previously
worked for decades. Does that new
paradigm of “three weeks and out”
place undue pressure on you for the
types of films you get to make?
I think so. If you make a genre film, it’s
different. If you make an A24 genre film,
art house horror like Midsommar, It Comes
at Night, or Lamb that falls into genre,
that stuff you can throw out there because
you know the audiences will come to the
multiplexes for that. For a film like mine,
which is not fully genre, it’s that oldschool
dramedy thing. It’s an old-school
classic character-study thing, the thing
that we used to see all the time and now
we don’t see as much of. That is why I’m
very happy that A24 is giving Red Rocket a
platform release, which I think is the best
way to roll out a film like this. It allows
word of mouth to gain traction. Who
knows if there are still sleepers out there
or if sleepers can actually still exist. You
would know better than me. Is that still
happening?
I think we’re learning that. But I don’t
have to look that far to see titles like
Room, from your distributor, A24, with
a very difficult subject matter, grow
to Academy Award status. What
Neon did with Parasite, a Koreanlanguage
title, allowing a film to
find its audience in movie theaters,
maybe not everyone in every city
at once, but eventually. Of course, I
have a bias, but I agree with you that
theatrical exhibition makes sense for
specialty and art house films as much
as it does for the big popcorn movies.
I totally agree with that, 100 percent.
As we’re coming out of a devastating
pandemic for movie theaters, what
does it mean for you, as a filmmaker,
to have a film that will play a part in
the movie theater recovery effort?
I’m just incredibly grateful. I’m grateful
that there are still theaters, I’m glad there
are still people working in theaters, and
I’m glad there are still audiences wanting
to see films in theaters. I’ve been going
since day one, the day they opened back
up. I went all the way out to Thousand
Oaks to see a matinee. I’ve been back for
a while, but I know some audiences that
haven’t. Sometimes I get messages saying,
“I saw your film at a film festival the other
day, and it was my first time back in the
theater for a year and a half.” I’m always so
grateful because I’m sure they had to battle
their comfort level to get back out to a
theater, and the very fact that they’re doing
that for my film means so much to me.
The people who are back at theaters right
now, they’re loving film. There’s that vibe
that I get in the auditoriums when I’m there.
People are truly celebrating something that
we almost lost. It’s that cliché, you don’t
know what you got until it’s gone. That
certainly kicked in for me, because now I’m
going to the theater for everything. I see
things that I normally would not have seen
in the past. I’m talking about some of the big
franchise stuff that perhaps isn’t my thing. I
can still of course appreciate it, but now I’m
all in because I want to support the industry
and every aspect of the industry. I want to
support the art houses, I want to support
the chains and studio films, because,
ultimately, we have to give them their due.
Those big franchise films are the films that
are keeping the theatrical business moving
forward, alive and thriving.
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On Screen FLEE
Jonas Poher Rasmussen Animates
a Refugee’s Harrowing Journey in
the Acclaimed Documentary Flee.
BY KEVIN LALLY
ESCAPE
FROM
AFGHANISTAN
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One of the most tragic news stories
of this turbulent year has been the
plight of thousands of Afghans, now that
the United States has withdrawn its forces
after a 20-year presence in the quagmire
known as Afghanistan. Those headlines
have lent an unexpected timeliness to Flee,
Neon’s acclaimed animated documentary
about the odyssey of an Afghan boy in the
1980s and ’90s.
Filmmaker Jonas Poher Rasmussen
first met Amin (a pseudonym) when
both were teenagers. Amin had recently
arrived in Rasmussen’s small town in
Denmark, a shy refugee with a mysterious
backstory. The two boys became lifelong
friends; Amin went on to a distinguished
career as an academic, while Rasmussen
began his creative career in radio
documentaries. For years, they talked
about the possibility of exploring Amin’s
refugee past in a film project.
Then, in 2013, Rasmussen attended
the first Anidox, an annual workshop in
Denmark that brings together animators
and documentarians from across Europe.
As the filmmaker recalls, “I saw quite
immediately that this was a way I could
tell Amin’s story, because he wanted to
be anonymous, and with the animation
he could be. But also, because the story
takes place mostly in the past, and you
could revive what his childhood home
looked like and what Afghanistan in the
’80s looked like. But especially because
it’s very much a story about memories
of trauma, and the animation enabled
us to be more expressive. It felt like we
could be somewhat more honest to the
story—when he starts talking about things
that he can’t remember or has a hard time
talking about, you can show the emotion
more so than trying to be realistic. That
was a wonderful tool to have.”
Rasmussen used a technique common
in Danish radio documentaries, having
the subject lie back as if in a therapist’s
office and recount their story. His sessions
with Amin are replicated in the film using
both of their voices, and what they reveal
is a harrowing tale of escape to Russia,
years spent hiding in a tiny apartment, his
betrayal by ruthless and amoral human
smugglers, and finally the painful decision
to have Amin separate from his family
and make the trip to Denmark alone. The
movie also explores Amin’s journey as a
gay youth in an intolerant world, and his
adult relationship with a loving partner.
Rasmussen met with Boxoffice Pro
a few days after Flee received a standing
ovation at the New York Film Festival.
I assume this is your first animated
piece. What was the learning curve
like for you?
It was quite steep. But I’ve been very
lucky to have a wonderful team. Sun
Creature Studio, the animation studio
producing the animation, was wonderful
about bringing me in. It was a long
conversation—we spent a long time
developing the visual style. I had two
different art directors I worked with very
closely in trying to find the right style for
the film, finding visual artists, finding
different types of animated short films,
just trying to find out, OK, what’s the right
way to do this. We did a small teaser quite
early in the process when we got the first
funding. The characters had big eyes and
it was very clean. And we thought, this
doesn’t work; it needs to feel authentic. We
need the characters to feel real. So we did
a new pass on it, new character designs
where the characters are more flawed and
the line isn’t always a straight line. It was a
very long process.
And that helps integrate it with the
more abstract portions of the film.
Yes, both the more abstract portions,
but also the archive [footage], because
you have the archive intertwine with the
animation. We wanted to bring things
from the archive into the animation style,
so it felt like they came from the same
world. The archive is used to remind
people that this is a real story, the reason
why he is forced to flee is because of
historical events that took place, and the
things that happened to him throughout
are real things. I thought all the way
through that I wanted to use archive as
well, and then we should be able to go
pretty seamlessly from the archive to the
animation.
Did you do any rotoscoping of the live
footage you shot?
No, no rotoscoping. But I filmed almost
everything. And when I didn’t film, I
always made sure to take photos with
my phone, so we had visual references
all the time. The animation director had
all the footage. So he could always go
back if he just needed something, a little
facial expression, or how he would kind
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On Screen FLEE
of scratch his arm and stuff like that, just
to give authenticity to the animation. He
had access to all the shots, and then he
could pass on information to his team of
animators if he wanted a little personal
touch.
I imagine this is probably the most
collaborative project you’ve ever
been involved with. Did it transcend
your initial vision of what it was
going to be?
It did, big time. In the beginning, I
thought it would be a short, animated
documentary. Then when he started
telling me the story, I could tell this is not
a short. I transcribed the interviews I did
and tried to organize the material like a
script, and pretty soon I had a 100-page
script. And then we had to figure out
how can we do this, because animation
is quite expensive to do. The project grew
bigger and bigger. I have a background
in documentary, and I’m used to doing
most things by myself. Maybe I have a D.P.,
maybe I have an editor, but here all of a
sudden I had a 50-person crew working
on the film. Which was truly an amazing
experience, because these wonderful
artists have so many creative ideas. It was
very different, but it was a very rewarding
experience.
One of the assets of the film is that
Amin himself has a real sense of
humor, which helps lighten the mood.
Otherwise, it could have been a real
slog to follow his story.
I totally agree. And I think a lot of that
also comes from our friendship. You sense
the way we talk to each other. I’ve known
him for 25 years, so we have a certain way
of talking. Even though things of course
are serious, we are also just friends, so
we also say silly things. I really wanted to
have that in there as well, because, yes,
he’s a refugee, but he’s also a lot more. I
wanted to show the human aspect—being
a refugee is something that was forced on
him at a certain time in his life. Of course,
it has affected him greatly, and still does.
But he’s also a lot of other things. He’s
also a friend, a husband, a young brother,
a house owner and a cat owner, and all
these things—I thought it was important
to show that spectrum. And while he was
on the run, while he was fleeing, because
it was so long, it wasn’t all horrible. It was
also tender moments, and exploring the
“I wanted to show the human
aspect—being a refugee is
something that was forced on
him at a certain time in his life.
Of course, it has affected him
greatly, and still does. But he’s
also a lot of other things.”
sexuality growing inside of him, falling
in love with a young boy in the back of a
truck, all these things. There were also
some beautiful things happening.
Obviously, you knew that there was
a lot to reveal about him in going
into this project. Did you have an
inkling that you were going to
uncover so much?
No, I knew very little about his story.
And it really grew. There were so many
different kinds of journeys within the
bigger journey from Afghanistan to
Denmark, so many things going on.
And of course, there’s a lot more than
there is in the film, because the film takes
place over more than 30 years. So I had to
pick and choose which parts should be in
the film.
Were there things in your script that
he insisted be changed?
There was one thing, but it was
something I had taken out of the script.
He said, “This was the worst thing
I experienced on the journey from
Afghanistan to Denmark, and to really
understand my story it needs to be in
there.” That was the six months he was
in prison in Estonia. At some point, I had
taken that out because there were so many
different stories. And he said, but that was
the worst. Being in a prison where you
didn’t know if you were going to stay for
the rest of your life or what was going to
happen. He said, I wouldn’t feel it was my
story if that wasn’t there. So we had a long
conversation about it, and then I decided
to put it back in. Throughout the process,
he read the scripts, just to make sure that
everything was factually correct. But that
was the only thing where he said this is
crucial to understanding my story.
Have you spoken to him this week
during the New York Film Festival?
Yes. I had a friend who was in the
audience at Alice Tully Hall who took
some photos of me and the audience
applauding. She sent those photos to me,
and I forwarded them to him. He was very
touched by it.
I assume he wasn’t at Sundance
[where the film won the World
Cinema Grand Jury Prize] …
No, he’s not going to go to any festivals.
He wants to keep his anonymity. But he
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snuck into a screening in Denmark with a
friend and saw it with an audience, so he
has had the experience of seeing it in
a cinema.
What does it mean to you that
people are able to see Flee in movie
theaters?
It’s just amazing to have the
opportunity to share Amin’s story with
people in a way where they really spend
time and sit down and try to understand
the human side of a refugee story. At a
screening here yesterday, two young men
from the Dominican Republic came up
and said they were very touched by it.
They told me, “This is also our story—we
also had to move away from our own
country.” So I think a lot of people can
relate to it. Even though maybe they’re
not refugees or not gay, this thing about
trying to find a place in the world where
you can be who you are, with everything
that entails, I think is pretty common for
most people at some point in their lives.
That people will spend the 84 minutes, put
away their phones and just sit down and
look at the story in the darkness, I really
appreciate.
It’s sad to have to say this, but the
film is timelier than ever because
Afghanistan is on everybody’s mind.
Obviously, you didn’t know that when
you commenced this project.
No, not at all. It’s just heartbreaking. It’s
heartbreaking to me, because I’ve been
working on shots for the film for weeks and
months from when he fled Afghanistan.
And now, a couple of weeks ago, I saw the
same shots in the news. It was exactly the
same things going on. Which saddened
me, but to Amin it’s really a tragedy. It’s
been tough for him—it reminds him about
everything that happened back then, and
he now sees a whole new generation of
young Afghans being pushed out of a
country and who are going to be in the
same limbo he was in for years and not
having the opportunity to choose what to
do with their lives. It’s just heartbreaking to
see that it’s all starting over.
Two of your executive producers are
well-known actors, Riz Ahmed and
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. What is their
role in all this?
They came on quite late in the
process, just before we had our premiere
in Sundance. And it was really our sales
agent who came up with the idea to do an
English-language version of the film. I was
in doubt at the beginning, because I think
the fact that it’s the real voice behind the
animation is kind of key to the story. But
what she said, and which I agree on, is
that if we have some big-name actors on
the English-language version, it will make
sure that it reaches a broader audience—
people who don’t necessarily want to see
films with subtitles, and people who go
to films with big-name actors in them.
[Neon will release the original-language
version in the United States.] This story
is so important, so if we can have an even
broader audience, we should do that. Riz
was our top priority from the beginning
to have as the voice of Amin. It took a
while, but when we reached him and he
saw the film, he was keen on doing it. Also,
representation is a big deal for him—he
fights for that, and having this kind of
story out there is important to him.
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On Screen DRIVE MY CAR
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MEN
WITHOUT
WOMEN
Ryusuke Hamaguchi Avoids Getting
Lost in Translation in Drive My Car,
a Cinematic Epic Based on a Haruki
Murakami Short Story
BY DANIEL LORIA
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On Screen DRIVE MY CAR
Exploring the weight of its themes—
sex and art, infidelity, grief—across
a three-hour runtime, Ryusukue
Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car is nothing
less than a cinematic epic, adapted
from a Haruki Murakami short story
that encompasses a single conversation
between two characters. Murakami’s
story (which shares the same title) is one
among several entries in the author’s 2014
collection Men Without Women, a series of
stories interlinked by the theme of its title.
Given their disparity in length, it
is somewhat surprising just how
much Hamaguchi’s film retains the
essence of Murakami’s original story.
Even more surprising is the male
protagonist—audiences outside Japan
know Hamaguchi as a filmmaker of
female-driven movies. His international
breakthrough, Happy Hour (2015), a
trilogy of films focusing on the lives
of a group of women in contemporary
Japan, is hardly concerned with the
perspectives of its male characters; the
men remain marginal throughout its
combined 317-minute running time. His
follow-up, Asako I & II, based on a novel
about a woman who falls in love with a
man who is a doppelgänger for a former
flame, is similarly grounded in a female
perspective.
Hamaguchi’s other most recent
picture, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
(2021), is an omnibus film featuring a
triptych of short narratives—all from a
female point of view—loosely connected
by the themes of urban loneliness and
romantic nostalgia. The film’s structure—
and its melancholic atmosphere—is not
dissimilar to the experience of reading a
short story collection by Murakami. In
that regard, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
recalls Kelly Reichardt’s 2016 Certain
Women (itself based on a series of short
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stories by Maile Meloy); they are both
structurally linked to a literary style not
often explored in cinema.
Hamaguchi’s approach in Drive My
Car is much like that of Pedro Almodóvar’s
with Julieta (2016), his adaptation of Alice
Munro’s short story collection Runaway.
They both undertake an adaptation of an
individual short story by infusing it with
elements from adjoining stories in their
respective collections. This allows thematic
links between the stories in the book.
It’s easy to see how Murakami’s
original story appealed to Hamaguchi. It
unfolds entirely through conversations
between an aging male actor, Yusuke
Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and his
young female chauffeur, Misaki (Tôko
Miura), while she ferries him in his Saab.
Hamaguchi’s cinema is dialogue-driven,
with lengthy conversations that tend to
reveal their true meaning slowly. The
dialogue meanders, diverges into tangents,
and just when you think a scene has lost
focus does its purpose in the narrative
emerge. Like Ingmar Bergman’s cinema,
it demands patience of viewers and is
therefore rarely imitated. Hamaguchi
regularly sets his conversations inside cars,
an intimate and private setting, where
real-life conversations frequently occur
but are rarely depicted.
Hamaguchi says that Murakami’s story
on its own was not robust enough for a
feature film, but he knew it could serve as
a launching point for the film he wanted to
make. He drew from other short stories in
Men Without Women to inform and expand
his film adaptation. “It is, after all, a very
short story—in Japanese it’s only 50 pages
long—and I knew from the beginning that
it was not going to be enough material,”
he says. “When I was thinking about
how I could expand it, I remembered
Murakami wrote a preface in the short
story collection, which is unusual for him,
where he says that the short stories within
the collection share similar themes. I knew,
because I was working with Murakami’s
work, that I couldn’t just selfishly expand it
in ways that I wanted; I needed some kind
of reason behind it. That’s how I started
to use some things in the other short
stories within the collection. That is how
I came upon other stories in his book, like
‘Scheherazade’ and ‘Kino.’”
The film’s lengthy prologue occupies
its first 45 minutes and precedes
the opening credits. It provides the
backstory to Murakami’s source story and
culminates when the film’s protagonist,
Yusuke, discovers that his wife, Oto (Reika
Kirishima), is having an affair with a
younger actor, Kôji Takatsuki (Masaki
Okada). Before Yusuke can confront
her, she dies suddenly from a cerebral
hemorrhage.
The film then picks up years later, in
Hiroshima, where the actor-director
has traveled to produce a multilingual
adaptation of Anton Chekov’s Uncle Vanya.
Yusuke assembles an international cast,
asking them to perform their roles in their
respective languages. The rest of the film
revolves around this production, and the
characters begin to discover interior truths
about themselves and each other through
Chekov’s play.
“I knew, because I was
working with Murakami’s
work, that I couldn’t just
selfishly expand it in ways
that I wanted; I needed some
kind of reason behind it.”
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On Screen DRIVE MY CAR
“In ‘Scheherazade,’ there is a character
of a woman who starts storytelling after
having sex. I incorporated that into
Yusuke’s wife’s character,” Hamaguchi
says. “What I found to be interesting
about this point is that the act of sex
and storytelling are connected in that
story, which then becomes proof of
having had sex. I thought it would give
a very interesting effect to [Kôji and
Yusuke’s] conversations, because it would
reveal aspects of the infidelity in their
shared past.
“There is a bar in Drive My Car, which
is the same setting in ‘Kino,’ so there was
already a direct connection between the
two stories. It was natural for me to think
that these two stories would connect
very well. Emotionally, the place where
Yusuke finds himself at the end of my
film is similar to where ‘Kino’ ends up in
Murakami’s story,” says Hamaguchi. “The
other thing that I also incorporated from
‘Kino’ is the sense of violence. In that story
there is a big fight in a bar and a sense of
foreboding violence that was interesting
to bring into my version of Kôji’s character,
who is a much nicer character in
Murakami’s story.
“When I was writing the
script, I found myself writing
something that I usually
wouldn’t find myself writing—
and that really speaks to the
power of Murakami’s work.”
“I’m able to speak about incorporating
these elements only because you’re asking
about them,” admits Hamaguchi. “As I
reflect upon it, my process was to read
these stories many times over and over
before I started to write the screenplay.
Once I began writing, the elements that
I wound up incorporating appeared
naturally to me, likely because Murakami
has a world that is quite uniquely his and
very built-up. When I was writing the
script, I found myself writing something
that I usually wouldn’t find myself
writing—and that really speaks to the
power of Murakami’s work.”
Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car isn’t
merely interested in engaging with
Murakami; the film also has a running
dialogue with Anton Chekov’s Uncle
Vanya. In that regard, it is an example
of cinematic intertextuality, like Jean-
Luc Godard’s Contempt (1963), which
contains plot elements of Homer’s
Odyssey. Both films explore themes of
communication and miscommunication
between couples set amid a multilingual
adaptation of a classic work of fiction.
Godard’s Contempt sends its screenwriter
protagonist to Capri to rework the script
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for a film adaptation of The Odyssey.
There, he and his wife struggle with
mutual jealousy while navigating the
French, English, German, and Italian
spoken on the film set. The protagonists
of Contempt and Drive My Car grapple
with their partners’ infidelities and the
end of their marriages—they are men
without women.
Drive My Car parallels Uncle Vanya in
the way it draws comparisons between
the characters’ lives and the play they’re
producing. Hamaguchi had previously
referenced Chekov in a brief but
memorable scene in Asako I & II. “Asako I
& II engages with [Chekov’s] Three Sisters
within the story,” he says. “Around that
time, I’d started reading a lot of Chekov.
I’ve always been interested in his work;
I’ve found everything I’ve read of his
really interesting. When Drive My Car
came along, I saw that Uncle Vanya was
mentioned in the original story. To be
honest, I felt a calling and connection with
the story when I found that. It also gave
me the confidence to boldly use Uncle
Vanya in the adaptation.
“Once it was decided that we were
going to have Uncle Vanya in Drive my
Car, I went back to reread the play. I was
struck by what was being said in Uncle
Vanya and the connection it has to the
internal lives of the characters in the
film. A lot of the dialogue [in the play] has
people saying things that they usually
wouldn’t say in real life, that they might
be too embarrassed to say because it’s so
revealing about their inner selves.”
That element plays directly into
Hamaguchi’s thematic concerns, with
characters communicating with each other
by proxy through their production of Uncle
Vanya, even as they cannot understand
what the others are saying, with each role
being performed in a different language.
There, again, Drive My Car shares a close
bond with Godard’s Contempt.
“I really love Contempt,” Hamaguchi
says. “I watched it in my 20s and that film
is probably deep inside me. Having said
that, when I was making Drive My Car, I
wasn’t necessarily thinking of that film in
particular. Whenever I’m making a film
myself, I’m not necessarily thinking in
these abstract terms of communication
or miscommunication per se. Usually,
my films begin with me starting to
write about characters who are having
conversations, characters talking to each
other, and as I’m writing, I realize the
drama doesn’t move along sometimes
because these characters can or can’t
say certain things—and because of that
they’re unable to move forward.”
Drive My Car, which exists at the
intersection of literature, theater, and
cinema, is Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s most
ambitious film yet. Like the Murakami
and Chekov works that inspire it, it
is a complex and intricately layered
masterwork that will reward those willing
to devote their time to it.
AT THE
MOVIES WITH
RYUSUKE
HAMAGUCHI
“First and foremost, I am a film
fan myself, so personally I feel
like I understand the value of
the theatrical experience to
watch a movie in a cinema.
What I learned under this
pandemic is that this isn’t just
my own experience; others
understand this value as well.
I was part of this campaign
called Mini-Theater Aid, a
crowdfunding campaign
for small art house movie
theaters in Japan. It was
very successful in helping a
lot of the art house theaters
that were having financial
trouble under the pandemic.
With that crowdfunding
campaign, we were able to
raise about $30,000 for each
participating theater. That
was when I realized that a lot
of people, in fact, think that
the experience of a movie
theater is of superior quality;
it’s just a better way to
watch movies. I also learned
about how life-changing
theatrical experiences can
be, how much it supports
a lot of people’s lives. And
that really only comes out
of the theatrical experience.
Watching movies in a theater
allows for more concentration,
and there are movies where
you could only understand
their value if you’re watching
it in a theater. The pandemic
helped me realize how
integrally tied the audience
experience is with the
theatrical experience.”
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On Screen A JOURNAL FOR JORDAN
“It’s always been a dream
to work with Denzel, so the
fact that he was going to
be directing and that we
would develop this story
together really checked all
the boxes for me.”
A LOVE
STORY FOR
JORDAN
Michael B. Jordan Teams with Denzel
Washington on the True Account of a Soldier,
Husband, and Devoted Father
BY KEVIN LALLY
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On Screen A JOURNAL FOR JORDAN
Michael B. Jordan’s star
quality was obvious from
his first high-profile role,
as 15-year-old drug dealer
Wallace in the landmark
HBO series “The Wire.” Recurring TV roles
on “Friday Night Lights” and “Parenthood”
followed, but it was his alliance with
gifted writer-director Ryan Coogler that
propelled him to true stardom. Jordan
was compelling in Coogler’s first feature,
Fruitvale Station (2013), which followed
the last day in the life of Oscar Grant III, a
young Black man killed by Bay Area Rapid
Transit police in Oakland, California, in
2009. Jordan and Coogler re-teamed two
years later on the hit Rocky reboot Creed,
with Jordan playing the son of Rocky’s
onetime boxing opponent Apollo Creed.
The duo then reached the box office
stratosphere in 2018 with the Marvel
blockbuster Black Panther, in which
Jordan’s vengeful Erik Killmonger proved
a powerful nemesis for the formidable
Chadwick Boseman.
Jordan has continued to do exceptional
work in films like Creed II and Just
Mercy, and now he’s teamed with one of
“My dad’s a Marine, and I
have a lot of friends and
family members that served,
so I have a huge respect for
the military in general.”
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MICHAEL B.
JORDAN AT THE
BOX OFFICE
BLACK PANTHER
2018
$1.34B
CREED II
2018
$214.2M
the giants of modern cinema, Denzel
Washington, on Sony’s A Journal for
Jordan. Washington directs this true story
of First Sergeant Charles Monroe King
(Jordan), a soldier stationed in Iraq who
keeps a journal of advice for his infant
son, Jordan. The film also charts King’s
poignant relationship with his wife, New
York Times editor Dana Canedy, played by
Chanté Adams (Monsters and Men). Virgil
Williams adapted the screenplay from
Canedy’s book. The Columbia Pictures
release will hit theaters across the United
States on Christmas Day.
How did this project come to you?
Denzel and [producer] Todd Black
approached me with the story about four
or five years ago. I read the script and it
really moved me. Afterwards, I started
doing my own research on Charles King
and Dana Canedy and read the book.
It’s always been a dream to work with
Denzel, so the fact that he was going to
be directing and that we would develop
this story together really checked all the
boxes for me.
What was it about Charles Monroe
King’s story that made you want to
portray him?
It being a true story was a huge reason
why I wanted to do this. Their story is
a piece of art, and we all wanted to do
a great job in telling it. When you’re
portraying somebody, especially in
the armed services, you want to make
sure you nail it because there’s so many
different depictions and stories that tell
their story the wrong way. We wanted to
make sure that this was not one of them.
My dad’s a Marine, and I have a lot of
friends and family members that served,
so I have a huge respect for the military
in general. Whenever I get a chance to
throw on that uniform and step into
those shoes in front of the camera, I’m
making sure that I’m giving 110 percent,
because they fight for our freedoms and
it’s extremely important to represent
them the right way.
What does Denzel Washington’s life
and career personally mean to you?
Denzel is the GOAT, a huge mentor to me.
He’s on my Mount Rushmore of actors.
He has so many great qualities that
make him “that guy.” He’s lived the life
that people only dream to have. He’s old
school and super-wise. He’s funny, more
than I think people would expect.
Did you learn anything new about your
craft from working with him?
Working with Denzel was a lifetime masterclass
lesson on character development,
directing, and producing. It was a such
an informative process, seeing how he
ran his ship and production, and I really
grew during this project. I observed and
learned as much as I could, day in and
day out. He’s always got a lot of sayings
and little gems, so I really tried to be a
sponge and soak it all up along the way.
CREED
2015
$173.5M
FANTASTIC FOUR
2015
$167.8M
CHRONICLE
2012
$126.6M
*Numbers represent
worldwide grosses
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On Screen A JOURNAL FOR JORDAN
Denzel has directed himself a few
times, and you’re about to have that
experience [directing Creed III]. Did
he give you any advice about that
challenge?
Denzel told me to prep as much as I
can, because once you actually start
pre-production, time will go by really
fast. He gave me a lot of advice on really
developing the script to a T, starting to
draw up shots as you see it in your head
and getting the storyboard artist on
early. He compared prepping to grocery
shopping, and post is when you’re
actually cooking the meal. Everything
else is just picking all your ingredients. I
like to cook, so I appreciated the analogy.
Tell me about the process of casting
Chanté Adams.
We were so lucky to have her. Chanté is
such a giving actress and scene partner.
She worked really hard on this one.
She’s also a great listener. The way she
approaches her scenes and her process is
top notch. It’s very easy to get into a scene
with her and go back and forth.
“I’ve done a lot of physical
roles over the last couple of
years, because that’s been
my appetite. But I felt safe in
being vulnerable in that type
of way making this film.”
After the experience of making this
film, are you looking to do more
romantic roles?
Yeah, it was a really nice change of pace
for me. I’ve done a lot of physical roles
over the last couple of years, because
that’s been my appetite. But I felt safe
in being vulnerable in that type of way
making this film. Typically, I don’t do
romantic roles, but this felt like the right
time to do one.
The film is opening exclusively in
theaters in December. How important is
that to you?
It’s great. I love the movie theater
experience. Going to the movies has
always been an escape for me. I really
feel the audience will love the honest
connection with this film—it’s a real love
story. People will enjoy the levity, the
serious moments, the action, the art.
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Boost Ticketing is the
new concessions stand
Scan it with the camera on your phone or visit
company.boxoffice.com/boost to book a meeting with us.
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On Screen ENCANTO
CINEMATIC
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Disney Puts the Magic in
Magical Realism in the
Animated Musical Encanto
BY JESSE RIFKIN
ENCHANTMENT
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On Screen ENCANTO
The 60th feature film from Walt
Disney Animation Studios
opens with crickets chirping
quietly and the sound of
someone whispering, “Abre tus
ojos” (open your eyes). Right
from the opening moment of Encanto, the
audience is immersed in the sights and
sounds of Colombia.
The past few Walt Disney Animation
Studios films took place in fictional
lands—inspired by real places, but
fictional nonetheless. Raya and the Last
Dragon was set in Kumandra, a Southeast
Asian nation like Cambodia, Myanmar, or
Thailand. Moana took place in Motunui,
modeled on Polynesia and Hawaii. Frozen
and Frozen II unfolded in Arendelle, a
mythical Scandinavian land.
“From the beginning we knew we
wanted to set it in Latin America,”
Encanto producer Clark Spencer tells
Boxoffice Pro, “but do we do it ‘inspired
by’ or pick a real location? In our research,
we discovered that Colombia is really
the crossroads of Latin America. The
people are Spanish, they’re Black, they’re
Indigenous. The land has [diverse]
topography. Within this one country, you
can get everything you want and more
from Latin America.”
“When we finally got back
to the studio in-person after
more than a year, long-gone
iterations of characters and
storyboards were pinned up
on the walls.”
The location is real. What’s surreal is—
pretty much everything else.
The Setting
The opening sequence tells the Madrigal
family’s backstory: forced from their
longtime village almost a century earlier,
they settled into a house in the middle
of a forest. The family members, and
the house they reside in, gained magical
powers. Then the scene fast-forwards to
the present day, when a young woman in
that opening flashback is now the elderly
matriarch of a multigenerational family
unlike any other.
Fifteen-year-old protagonist, Mirabel,
voiced by Stephanie Beatriz of television’s
“Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” sings an opening
number introducing her family, including
shape-shifter Camilo; Pepa, who can
control the weather; Antonio, who
communicates with animals; and Luisa,
who boasts super strength. Throughout
the tune, teacups pour themselves, shoes
slide onto characters’ feet as they’re
walking, and a staircase instantly
transforms into a slide.
If the opening number—the way it sets
the scene and introduces every character
in the large ensemble cast—reminds you
of the opening number from Broadway’s
144 Centennial 2021
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Hamilton, there’s a reason for that: Lin-
Manuel Miranda wrote the film’s eight
original songs. “I was working from home
in my bedroom for most of this project, and
my 6-year-old daughter stays out of my
bedroom most of the day,” producer Yvett
Merino says. “But one time she came in,
saw our live Zoom meeting which included
Lin, and exclaimed, ‘That’s Hamilton!’”
The Process
Ah yes, the Zoom meetings. Which raises
the question: where exactly was the
production process on Wednesday, March
11, 2020, “the day everything changed”?
“That day, we had just screened [a very
early version of] the movie for the third
time,” director and writer Jared Bush
says, noting they ultimately screened it
eight times over the course of production.
“Clark came in and said, ‘We’re going to
do something called social distancing.
Everyone go home. It will probably be about
two weeks.’” Bush laughs at the memory.
“When we finally got back to the
studio in-person after more than a year,
long-gone iterations of characters and
storyboards were pinned up on the walls,”
Bush remembers. “The office was a time
capsule of how the movie used to be.”
So how exactly did the movie used to be?
“We thought it was a funny idea to have
Mirabel playing with dolls and talking to
herself at the beginning of the movie,” codirector
and writer Charise Castro Smith
admits, though they ultimately nixed
the idea as slightly too juvenile for the
teenage character.
“At one point, Pepa’s power was being
indestructible,” director Byron Howard
adds. “In order to retrieve a soccer ball
on the other side of a cliff, they’d load her
into the cannon and shoot her across the
canyon.” They dropped the concept for
several reasons—namely, if one of the
characters were literally indestructible,
that would presumably eliminate the need
for Mirabel to embark on her heroic quest.
The Design
That quest, to save her family’s house
from a threat to its magic, is made all the
more challenging by a small problem:
Mirabel is the only member of the family
without any powers.
Her outward appearance reflects her
all-around ordinariness. After so many
unrealistically beautiful Disney heroines
throughout the decades, from Snow White,
Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), and Cinderella
to the more recent Elsa (Frozen), Moana,
and Rapunzel, Mirabel is the first Disney
female animated protagonist with glasses—
and oversize ones, at that. While three
male Disney animated protagonists have
worn glasses—in Atlantis: The Lost Empire,
Chicken Little, and Meet the Robinsons—
Disney seemed to be loath to take that leap
with a female character, until now.
That design also extended to her
clothing. “Mirabel’s embroidery in her
costume was intentionally imperfect,”
associate production designer Lorelay
Bové says, “like what a teenager might
draw in their diary.” That’s in deliberate
contrast to other characters, such as
Mirabel’s father, Augustín, who wears a
three-piece suit, or her older sister, Isabela,
who wears a Cattleya trianae orchid, the
national flower of Colombia, in her hair.
The lead filmmakers, accompanied
by Lin-Manuel Miranda and his father,
Luis, were inspired to include these
geographically specific details after a 2018
preproduction trip to Colombia, where
they immersed themselves in the nation’s
culture, history, music, architecture, and
more. They were largely coming in as
novices: Miranda’s ancestry is Puerto
Rican, while Howard and Bush landed the
job after co-directing 2013’s hit Zootopia
and had no connections to Colombia.
To ensure the nation was represented
accurately, the filmmakers set up what
they nicknamed the Colombian Cultural
Trust, a group of 10 people who were either
from the nation or experts on it, including
Centennial 2021
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On Screen ENCANTO
journalists and anthropologists. They
contributed in various ways, including by
reviewing various versions of the script.
What’s an example of a way the Trust
influenced the movie? “Colombian
families are very close-knit, often
touching each other, hugging each
other,” head of animation Kira Lehtomaki
explains. “So, we didn’t shy away from
having them constantly touching each
other’s hair or holding each other’s arms.”
The Music
Disney screened three musical sequences
at a recent press junket. The opening
number clearly contains Colombian and
other Latin American influences in a
fun upbeat style. So does “We Don’t Talk
About Bruno,” which tells the tale of the
black sheep member of the family in a
slinky mid-tempo salsa.
Then the movie breaks with those
influences completely on the third song,
in which Jessica Darrow’s Luisa laments
that her physical superstrength masks a
fragile ego. With no detectable Colombian
influence at all, the song clearly owes a debt
to the ubiquitous female-empowerment pop
anthems of the 2010s. Then again, perhaps it
will end up the soundtrack’s biggest hit, just
as “How Far I’ll Go” became the biggest hit
from Moana, despite possessing arguably
the least detectable Polynesian musical or
lyrical influence on the soundtrack.
“We would meet with Lin every Friday
night, 6 p.m. our time, 9 p.m. his time,
because he’s on the East Coast. That’s a
big ask for somebody, to always meet on
“When we were making
the movie in quarantine,
we could only see it on
computers. We could only
see it on the big screen when
we went back to the studio
[around May]. Seeing it huge
for the first time, I literally
had tears down my face.”
146 Centennial 2021
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AT THE MOVIES
What’s your favorite snack
at the movie theater
concession stand?
Clark Spencer, Producer and
President of Walt Disney
Animation Studios: Peanut
M&M’s and Diet Coke. The
reason I don’t go to the
popcorn is because I literally
cannot stop. My parents
owned a single-screen theater
when I was a kid. When I
was young, I would sit on my
grandmother’s lap while she
sold tickets. My older sisters
would work at the concession
stand. I was jealous. At the
end of the night, I could pick
one thing each night. I would
pick Necco wafers.
Byron Howard, Director:
Popcorn, Junior Mints, and
Twizzlers.
Jared Bush, Director and
Writer: Popcorn. Come on! I
will go through a bucket, and
if I can get my free refill, I will
make myself sick.
Charise Castro Smith,
Co-Director and Screenwriter:
Popcorn. And if I’m feeling a
little different, nachos.
Yvett Merino, Producer:
Red Vines and Diet Coke. But
not together! I’ve tried it—it’s
too much!
Friday night,” acknowledges Spencer, who
in addition to his producer role also serves
as president of Walt Disney Animation
Studios. “We’d be updating him on the
story, he’s in a room with instruments
around him, would immediately be
inspired by something, grab an instrument
and start playing. The great Lin-Manuel
Miranda is performing just for you!”
The Release
With the film approaching its announced
November 24 release date, theatrical
exclusivity was hardly guaranteed.
Following September’s massive debut
of Disney and Marvel Studios’ Shang-Chi
and the Legend of the Ten Rings, those
fears were eliminated. Due in large part to
its theatrical exclusivity, the film opened
above even the most optimistic projections
and currently ranks as the highest-grossing
release of 2021 domestically. Later that
same week, Disney announced that all
its remaining 2021 movies would receive
theatrical exclusivity, albeit for varying
lengths of time. For Encanto, that’s 30 days,
after which it will premiere on Disney Plus
on Christmas Eve.
But truly, this film begs to be seen at
the cinema. “When we were making the
movie in quarantine, we could only see it
on computers,” Bush says. “We could only
see it on the big screen when we went back
to the studio [around May]. Seeing it huge
for the first time, I literally had tears down
my face.”
Centennial 2021
147
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ON SCREEN EVENT CINEMA CALENDAR
EVENT CINEMA
CALENDAR
Updated through November 22, 2021.
Contact distributors for latest listings.
CINELIFE
cinelife.com
NEW WORLDS: THE CRADLE OF
CIVILIZATION
From Feb. 2
Genre: Music
FATHOM EVENTS
fathomevents.com
855-473-4612
THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: THE
MAGIC FLUTE HOLIDAY ENCORE
(2021)
Dec. 11
Genre: Opera
TCM BIG SCREEN CLASSICS:
ON GOLDEN POND (40TH
ANNIVERSARY)
Dec. 12, Dec. 15
Genre: Classics
MACROSS PLUS: MOVIE EDITION
Dec. 14
Genre: Anime
BOLSHOI BALLET: THE
NUTCRACKER (2021 ENCORE)
Dec. 19, Dec. 20
Genre: Ballet
THE METROPOLITAN OPERA LIVE IN
HD: CINDERELLA
Jan. 1 (live), Jan. 5 (encore)
Genre: Opera
BOLSHOI BALLET: JEWELS (2022)
Jan. 23
Genre: Ballet
THE METROPOLITAN OPERA LIVE IN
HD: RIGOLETTO
Jan. 29 (live), Feb. 2 (encore)
Genre: Opera
BOLSHOI BALLET: SWAN LAKE
(2022 ENCORE)
Mar. 6
Genre: Ballet
THE METROPOLITAN OPERA LIVE IN
HD: ARIADNE AUF NAXOS
Mar. 12 (live), Mar. 16 (encore)
Genre: Opera
THE METROPOLITN OPERA LIVE IN
HD: DON CARLOS
Mar. 26 (live), Mar. 30 (encore)
Genre: Opera
BOLSHOI BALLET: THE PHARAOH’S
DAUGHTER (2022)
May 1
Genre: Ballet
THE METROPOLITAN OPERA LIVE IN
HD: TURANDOT (2021)
May 7 (live), May 11 (encore)
Genre: Opera
THE METROPOLITAN OPERA LIVE IN
HD: LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR
May 21 (live), May 25 (encore)
Genre: Opera
THE METROPOLITAN OPERA LIVE IN
HD: HAMLET
June 4 (live), June 8 (encore)
Genre: Opera
ROYAL OPERA HOUSE
roh.org.uk/cinemas
cinema@roh.org.uk
TOSCA
Dec. 15 (live), Jan. 19 (encore)
Genre: Opera
ROMEO AND JULIET
Feb. 14 (live), Feb. 20 (encore)
Genre: Opera
RIGOLETTO
Mar. 10 (live), Mar. 13 (encore)
Genre: Opera
LA TRAVIATA
Apr. 13 (live), Apr. 17 (encore)
Genre: Opera
SWAN LAKE
May 19 (live), May 22 (encore)
Genre: Opera
TRAFALGAR RELEASING
trafalgar-releasing.com
GORILLAZ: SONG MACHINE LIVE
FROM KONG
Dec. 8
Genre: Music
MONSTA X: THE DREAMING
Dec. 9, Dec. 11
Genre: Music
Monsta X: The Dreaming
Dec. 9, Dec. 11
148 Centennial 2021
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JOIN US...
ICTA 2022
LOS ANGELES
SEMINAR SERIES
JANUARY 17-19
Come
Celebrate
The 50th
Anniversary of
the ICTA
January 17-19, 2022
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:
A Conversation with NATO’s
John Fithian
Private Cinema
Cinema as an Entertainment Center
Release Window Patterns and
Potential Impact on Exhibition
Exhibitor Roundtable – How Has
Pandemic Affected Your Business
Distortion, The Elephant in the Room
Seventy Years of Movie Attendance
Networking and Control for the New
Cinema Entertainment Center
Gaming Events at Your Cinema
Presentation of Intersociety Ken
Mason Award
Update on Direct View Screens
Innovations in Exhibition
Dealers Roundtable: How Pandemic
Affected Your Business
ISDCF Update
Manufacturers’ Presentations
SPECIAL EVENTS:
ICTA 50TH
ANNIVERSARY
CELEBRATION DINNER
& SPECIAL AWARDS
AND A VISIT TO
THE NEW ACADEMY
MUSEUM
REGISTER TODAY
ICTA-WEB.COM
ICTA 149_AD-ICTA.indd LASS 22_PRINTAD_BOXOFFICE.indd 149 1
23/11/2021 11/5/21 1:56 18:09
PM

150_AD-Bengies-UDITOA.indd 150 23/11/2021 18:09

BOOKING
GUIDE
Release calendar for theatrical
distribution in North America
Release dates are updated through November 10, 2021..
Please consult distributors to confirm latest listings.
UNTITLED 20TH CENTURY 2023 2
Fri, 10/23/23 WIDE
ABRAMORAMA
914-741-1818
TO WHAT REMAINS
Fri, 12/10/21 LTD
Director: Chris Woods
Rating: NR
Genre: Doc
AMAZON STUDIOS
BEING THE RICARDOS
Fri, 12/10/21 LTD
Stars: Nicole Kidman,
Javier Bardem
Director: Aaron Sorkin
Rating: R
Genre: Dra/Bio
West Side Story
Fri, 12/22/21 WIDE
20TH CENTURY STUDIOS
310-369-1000
212-556-2400
WEST SIDE STORY
Fri, 12/10/21 WIDE
Stars: Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler
Director: Steven Spielberg
Rating: NR
Genre: Mus
THE KING’S MAN
Fri, 12/22/21 WIDE
Stars: Ralph Fiennes,
Gemma Arterton
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Rating: R
Genre: Act
DEEP WATER
Fri, 1/14/22 WIDE
Stars: Ana de Armas, Ben Affleck
Director: Adrian Lyne
Rating: R
Genre: Thr
DEATH ON THE NILE
Fri, 2/11/22 WIDE
Stars: Tom Bateman,
Annette Bening
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Rating: NR
Genre: Cri/Dra/Mys
THE BOB’S BURGERS MOVIE
Fri, 5/27/22 WIDE
Stars: H. Jon Benjamin,
Kristen Schaal
Rating: NR
Genre: Ani
UNTITLED 20TH CENTURY 2022 1
Fri, 9/23/22 WIDE
Rating: NR
UNTITLED DAVID O. RUSSELL
Fri, 11/4/22 WIDE
Rating: NR
AVATAR 2
Fri, 12/16/22 WIDE
Stars: Zoe Saldana,
Sam Worthington
Director: James Cameron
Rating: NR
Genre: Act/Fan/SF
UNTITLED 20TH CENTURY 2022 2
Fri, 12/23/22 WIDE
Rating: R
UNTITLED 20TH CENTURY 2023 1
Fri, 9/15/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
A HERO
Fri, 1/7/22 LTD
Stars: Amir Jadidi,
Mohsen Tanabandeh
Director: Asghar Farhadi
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Dra
A24
646-568-6015
RED ROCKET
Fri, 12/10/21 LTD
Stars: Simon Rex, Suzanna Son
Director: Sean Baker
Rating: R
Genre: Com
THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH
Fri, 12/25/21 LTD
Stars: Denzel Washington,
Frances McDormand
Director: Joel Coen
Rating: R
Genre: Dra
Centennial 2021
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ON SCREEN BOOKING GUIDE
BLUE FOX ENTERTAINMENT
William Gruenberg
william@bluefoxentertainment.com
BUTTER
Fri, 2/25/22 WIDE
Stars: Alex Kersting, Mira Sorvino
Director: Paul A. Kaufman
Rating: NR
Genre: Com/Dra/Rom
DISNEY
818-560-1000
TURNING RED
Fri, 3/11/22 WIDE
Stars: Rosalie Chiang, Sandra Oh
Director: Domee Shi
Rating: NR
Genre: Ani
DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE
MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS
Fri, 5/6/22 WIDE
Stars: Benedict Cumberbatch
Director: Sam Raimi
Rating: NR
Genre: SF/Fan/Adv
LIGHTYEAR
Fri, 6/17/22 WIDE
Stars: Chris Evans
Director: Angus MacLane
Rating: NR
Genre: Ani
THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER
Fri, 7/8/22 WIDE
Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Tessa
Thompson
Director: Taika Waititi
Rating: NR
Genre: SF/Fan/Act
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3
Fri, 5/5/23 WIDE
Stars: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana
Director: James Gunn
Rating: NR
Genre: Act/Adv/SF
THE LITTLE MERMAID
Fri, 5/26/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
UNTITLED PIXAR 2023 1
Fri, 6/16/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
Genre: Ani
UNTITLED INDIANA JONES
Fri, 6/30/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
Genre: Act/Adv
ANT-MAN AND THE WASP:
QUANTUMANIA
Fri, 7/28/23 WIDE
Stars: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lily
Director: Peyton Reed
Rating: NR
Genre: Act/SF
UNTITLED DISNEY LIVE ACTION
2023 2
Fri, 8/11/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
UNTITLED MARVEL 2023
Fri, 11/3/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
ROGUE SQUADRON
Fri, 12/22/23 WIDE
Director: Patty Jenkins
Rating: NR
Genre: Act/SF/Fan
FOCUS FEATURES
THE OUTFIT
Fri, 2/25/22 WIDE
Stars: Mark Rylance, Dylan O’Brien
Director: Graham Moore
Rating: NR
Genre: Dra
MRS HARRIS GOES TO PARIS
Fri, 3/4/22 WIDE
Stars: Lesley Manville,
Isabelle Huppert
Director: Anthony Fabian
Rating: NR
Genre: Dra
DOWNTON ABBEY: A NEW ERA
Fri, 3/18/22 WIDE
Stars: Hugh Dancy, Laura Haddock
Director: Simon Curtis
Rating: NR
Genre: Dra
THE NORTHMAN
Fri, 4/22/22 WIDE
Director: Robert Eggers
Rating: NR
Genre: Act/Dra
GREENWICH ENTERTAINMENT
PRESIDENT
Fri, 12/17/21 LTD
Director: Camilla Nielsson
Rating: NR
Genre: Doc
IFC FILMS
THE NOVICE
Fri, 12/17/21 LTD
Stars: Isabelle Fuhrman,
Amy Forsyth
Director: Lauren Hadaway
Rating: R
Genre: Thr
SEE FOR ME
Fri, 1/7/22 LTD
Stars: Skyler Davenport,
Laura Vandervoort
Director: Randall Okita
Rating: NR
Genre: Thr
CLEAN
Fri, 1/28/22 LTD
Stars: Adrien Brody, Glenn Fleshler
Director: Paul Solet
Rating: NR
Genre: Act/Thr
CATCH THE FAIR ONE
Fri, 2/11/22 LTD
Stars: Kali Reis, Daniel Henshall
Director: Josef Kubota Wladyka
Rating: NR
Genre: Cri
BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA
FOREVER
Fri, 11/11/22 WIDE
Director: Ryan Coogler
Rating: NR
Genre: Act/SF/Fan
UNTITLED DISNEY ANIMATION 2022
Fri, 11/23/22 WIDE
Rating: NR
Genre: Ani
THE MARVELS
Fri, 2/17/23 WIDE
Stars: Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris
Director: Nia DaCosta
Rating: NR
Genre: Act/SF/Fan
UNTITLED DISNEY LIVE ACTION
2023 1
Fri, 3/10/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
Downton Abbey: A New Era
Fri, 3/18/22 WIDE
152 Centennial 2021
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A BANQUET
Fri, 2/11/22 LTD
Stars: Sienna Guillory,
Jessica Alexander
Director: Ruth Paxton
Rating: NR
Genre: Hor
LIONSGATE
310-309-8400
MAGNOLIA PICTURES
212-379-9704
Neal Block
nblock@magpictures.com
AGNES
Fri, 12/10/21 LTD
Stars: Molly C. Quinn, Jake Horowitz
Director: Mickey Reece
Rating: NR
Genre: Hor
AMERICAN UNDERDOG
Fri, 12/25/21 WIDE
Stars: Zachary Levi, Dennis Quaid
Directors: The Erwin Brothers
Rating: NR
Genre: Dra
MOONFALL
Fri, 2/4/22 WIDE
Stars: Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson
Director: Roland Emmerich
Rating: NR
Genre: Act/SF
THE DEVIL’S LIGHT
Fri, 2/25/22 WIDE
Stars: Virginia Madsen, Ben Cross
Director: Daniel Stamm
Rating: NR
Genre: Hor
NEON
hal@neonrated.com
MEMORIA
Fri, 12/26/21 LTD
Stars: Tilda Swinton
Director: Apichatpong
Weerasethakul
Rating: NR
Genre: Dra
THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD
Fri, 2/4/22 LTD
Stars: Renate Reinsve, Anders
Danielsen Lie
Director: Joachim Trier
Rating: R
Genre: Com/Dra
Jackass Forever
Fri, 2/4/22 WIDE
JACKASS FOREVER
Fri, 2/4/22 WIDE
Stars: Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O
Director: Jeff Tremaine
Rating: NR
Genre: Com
RUMBLE
Fri, 2/18/22 WIDE
Stars: Will Arnett, Terry Crews
Director: Hamish Grieve
Rating: NR
Genre: Ani
UNTITLED PARAMOUNT
Fri, 10/21/22 WIDE
UNTITLED BEE GEES
Fri, 11/4/22 WIDE
Rating: NR
Genre: Dra/Mus/Bio
BABYLON
Fri, 12/23/22 WIDE
Director: Damien Chazelle
Rating: NR
Genre: Dra
THE UNBREAKABLE BOY
Fri, 3/18/22 WIDE
Stars: Zachary Levi, Meghann Fahy
Director: Jon Gunn
Rating: NR
Genre: Dra/Fam
THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF
MASSIVE TALENT
Fri, 4/22/22 WIDE
Stars: Nicolas Cage, Pedro Pascal
Director: Tom Gormican
Rating: NR
Genre: Com/Act
JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4
Fri, 5/27/22 WIDE
Rating: NR
Genre: Act
SHOTGUN WEDDING
Wed, 6/29/22 WIDE
Stars: Jennifer Lopez, Josh Duhamel
Director: Jason Moore
Rating: NR
Genre: Act/Com
WHITE BIRD: A WONDER STORY
Fri, 9/16/22 WIDE
Stars: Bryce Gheisar, Ariella Glaser
Director: Marc Forster
Rating: NR
Genre: Dra/Fam
OPEN ROAD FILMS
BLACKLIGHT
Fri, 2/11/22 WIDE
Stars: Liam Neeson, Aidan Quinn
Director: Mark Williams
Rating: NR
Genre: Act/Thr
STUDIO 666
Fri, 2/25/22 WIDE
Stars: Foo Fighters,
Whitney Cummings
Director: BJ McDonnell
Rating: NR
Genre: Hor/Com
OSCILLOSCOPE
LABORATORIES
212-219-4029
THE VELVET QUEEN
Fri, 12/22/21 LTD
Director: Marie Amiguet
Rating: NR
Genre: Doc
PARAMOUNT
323-956-5000
SCREAM
Fri, 1/14/22 WIDE
Stars: Melissa Barrera, Kyle Gallner
Directors: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin,
Tyler Gillett
Rating: NR
Genre: Hor
THE LOST CITY
Fri, 3/25/22 WIDE
Stars: Sandra Bullock,
Channing Tatum
Directors: Adam and Aaron Nee
Rating: NR
Genre: Com
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 2
Fri, 4/8/22 WIDE
Stars: Ben Schwartz
Rating: NR
Genre: Adv/Fan
TOP GUN: MAVERICK
Fri, 5/27/22 WIDE
Stars: Tom Cruise, Miles Teller
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Act/Adv
UNDER THE BOARDWALK
Fri, 7/22/22 WIDE
Rating: NR
Genre: Ani
SECRET HEADQUARTERS
Fri, 8/12/22 WIDE
Stars: Owen Wilson
Rating: NR
Genre: Fam/Adv
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 7
Fri, 9/30/22 WIDE
Stars: Tom Cruise
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Rating: NR
Genre: Act
TIGER’S APPRENTICE
Fri, 2/10/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
Genre: Ani
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
Fri, 3/3/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
Genre: Fan
UNTITLED A QUIET PLACE SEQUEL
Fri, 3/31/23 WIDE
Director: Jeff Nichols
Rating: NR
Genre: Hor
TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE
BEASTS
Fri, 6/9/23 WIDE
Stars: Anthony Ramos,
Dominique Fishback
Director: Steven Caple Jr.
Rating: NR
Genre: Act/Adv/SF
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 8
Fri, 7/7/23 WIDE
Stars: Tom Cruise
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Rating: NR
Genre: Act
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES
Fri, 8/12/23 WIDE
Jeff Rowe
Rating: NR
Genre: Ani
Centennial 2021
153
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ON SCREEN BOOKING GUIDE
Nightmare Alley
Fri, 12/17/22 WIDE
PAW PATROL: THE MIGHTY MOVIE
Fri, 10/13/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
Genre: Ani
THE SHRINKING OF TREEHORN
Fri, 11/10/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
Genre: Ani
UNTITLED RYAN REYNOLDS/JOHN
KRASINSKI FILM
Fri, 11/17/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
Genre: Com/Fan
UNTITLED STAR TREK
Fri, 12/22/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
Genre: SF/Act
SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES
212-556-2400
NIGHTMARE ALLEY
Fri, 12/17/21 WIDE
Stars: Bradley Cooper,
Cate Blanchett
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Rating: R
Genre: Thr
UNTITLED SEARCHLIGHT 2022 1
Fri, 4/8/22 WIDE
Rating: NR
UNTITLED SEARCHLIGHT 2022 2
Fri, 6/10/22 WIDE
Rating: NR
UNTITLED SEARCHLIGHT 2022 3
Fri, 8/12/22 WIDE
Rating: NR
SONY
212-833-8500
SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME
Fri, 12/17/21 WIDE
Stars: Tom Holland, Zendaya
Director: Jon Watts
Rating: NR
Genre: Act
A JOURNAL FOR JORDAN
Fri, 12/25/21 WIDE
Stars: Michael B. Jordan
Director: Denzel Washington
Rating: NR
Genre: Dra
MORBIUS
Fri, 1/28/22 WIDE
Stars: Jared Leto, Matt Smith
Director: Daniel Espinosa
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Act/Thr/SF
Specs: Imax/Dolby Vis/Atmos
UNCHARTED
Fri, 2/18/22 WIDE
Stars: Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Rating: NR
Genre: Act/Adv
Specs: Imax
BULLET TRAIN
Fri, 4/8/22 WIDE
Stars: Brad Pitt, Joey King
Director: David Leitch
Rating: NR
Genre: Act
65
Fri, 4/29/22 WIDE
Stars: Adam Driver,
Ariana Greenblatt
Directors: Scott Beck,
Bryan Woods
Rating: NR
Genre: SF/Thr
OH HELL NO
Fri, 6/17/22 WIDE
Stars: Jack Black
Director: Kitao Sakurai
Rating: NR
Genre: Com
WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING
Fri, 6/24/22 WIDE
Rating: NR
Genre: Dra
MAN FROM TORONTO
Fri, 8/12/22 WIDE
Stars: Kevin Hart, Woody Harrelson
Director: Patrick Hughes
Rating: NR
Genre: Act/Com
THE WOMAN KING
Fri, 9/16/22 WIDE
Stars: Viola Davis, Thuso Mbedu
Director: Gina Prince-Bythewood
Rating: NR
Genre: His/Dra
SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE
SPIDERVERSE SEQUEL
Fri, 10/7/22 WIDE
Rating: NR
Genre: Ani
LYLE, LYLE, CROCODILE
Fri, 11/18/22 WIDE
Stars: Javier Bardem,
Winslow Fegley
Directors: Will Speck, Josh Gordon
Rating: NR
Genre: Fam
I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY
Wed, 12/23/22 WIDE
Stars: Naomi Acki
Director: Kasi Lemmons
Rating: NR
Genre: Dra/Bio/Mus
154 Centennial 2021
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KRAVEN THE HUNTER
Fri, 1/13/23 WIDE
Stars: Aaron Taylor-Johnson
Director: J.C. Chandor
Rating: NR
Genre: Act/Adv/SF
HAROLD AND THE PURPLE CRAYON
Fri, 1/27/23 WIDE
Stars: Zachary Levi
Rating: NR
UNTITLED GEORGE FOREMAN
BIOPIC
Fri, 3/24/23 WIDE
Director: George Tillman Jr.
Rating: NR
Genre: Dra/Bio
UNTITLED SONY/MARVEL
UNIVERSE 1
Fri, 6/23/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
UNTITLED SONY/MARVEL
UNIVERSE 2
Fri, 10/6/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
SONY PICTURES CLASSICS
Tom Prassis
212-833-4981
PARALLEL MOTHERS
Fri, 12/24/21 LTD
Stars: Penélope Cruz,
Aitana Sánchez-Gijón
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Rating: NR
Genre: Dra
JOCKEY
Wed, 12/29/21 LTD
Stars: Clifton Collins Jr., Molly Parker
Director: Clint Bentley
Rating: NR
Genre: Dra
WHO WE ARE: A CHRONICLE OF
RACISM IN AMERICA
Fri, 1/14/22 LTD
Directors: Emily Kunstler,
Sarah Kunstler
Rating: NR
Genre: Doc
MOTHERING SUNDAY
Fri, 2/25/21 LTD
Stars: Odessa Young, Josh O’Connor
Director: Eva Husson
Rating: R
Genre: Rom/Dra
STX ENTERTAINMENT
310-742-2300
OPERATION FORTUNE: RUSE DE
GUERRE
Fri, 1/21/22 WIDE
Stars: Jason Statham, Hugh Grant
Director: Guy Ritchie
Rating: NR
Genre: Act/Thr
THE CONTRACTOR
Fri, 3/18/22 WIDE
Stars: Chris Pine, Ben Foster
Director: Tarik Saleh
Rating: NR
Genre: Act/Thr
UNITED ARTISTS RELEASING
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CYRANO
Fri, 1/21/22 LTD
Stars: Peter Dinklage, Haley Bennett
Director: Joe Wright
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Dra/Mus
DOG
Fri, 2/18/22 WIDE
Stars: Channing Tatum
Directors: Reid Carolin,
Channing Tatum
Rating: NR
Genre: Com
THIRTEEN LIVE
Fri, 4/15/22 WIDE
Stars: Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell
Director: Ron Howard
Rating: NR
Genre: Dra
LEGALLY BLONDE 3
Fri, 5/20/22 WIDE
Stars: Reese Witherspoon
Rating: NR
Genre: Com
SAMARITAN
Fri, 8/26/22 WIDE
Stars: Sylvester Stallone
Director: Julius Avery
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Act/Thr
ON A WING AND A PRAYER
Fri, 8/31/22 WIDE
Stars: Dennis Quaid,
Heather Graham
Director: Sean McNamara
Rating: NR
Genre: Dra
DARK HARVEST
Fri, 9/23/22 WIDE
Stars: Casey Likes,
E’myri Crutchfield
Director: David Slade
Rating: NR
Genre: Hor
CREED III
Fri, 11/23/22 WIDE
Stars: Michael B. Jordan,
Tessa Thompson
Director: Michael B. Jordan
Rating: NR
Genre: Dra
UNTITLED RUSSO BROTHERS
FAMILY FILM
Fri, 1/13/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
Genre: Fam
UNIVERSAL
818-777-1000
SING 2
Fri, 12/22/21 WIDE
Stars: Matthew McConaughey,
Reese Witherspoon
Director: Garth Jennings
Rating: PG
Genre: Ani/Mus
Parallel Mothers
Fri, 12/24/22 LTD
THE 355
Fri, 1/7/22 WIDE
Stars: Jessica Chastain,
Lupita Nyong’o
Director: Simon Kinberg
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Thr
REDEEMING LOVE
Fri, 1/21/22 LTD
Stars: Abigail Cowen,
Logan Marshall Green
Director: D.J. Caruso
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Rom/Dra
THE BLACK PHONE
Fri, 2/4/22 WIDE
Stars: Ethan Hawke, Mason Thames
Director: Scott Derrickson
Rating: R
Genre: Hor
MARRY ME
Fri, 2/11/22 WIDE
Stars: Jennifer Lopez, Owen Wilson
Director: Kat Coiro
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Rom/Com
Centennial 2021
155
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ON SCREEN BOOKING GUIDE
AMBULANCE
Fri, 2/18/22 WIDE
Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal,
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II
Director: Michael Bay
Rating: R
Genre: Act/Thr
EASTER SUNDAY
Fri, 4/1/22 WIDE
Stars: Jo Koy, Jimmy O. Yang
Director: Jay Chandrasekhar
Rating: NR
Genre: Com
UNTITLED UNIVERSAL EVENT FILM
2022
Fri, 4/8/22 WIDE
Rating: NR
THE BAD GUYS
Fri, 4/22/22 WIDE
Stars: Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron
Director: Pierre Perifel
Rating: NR
Genre: Ani
UNTITLED BLUMHOUSE
PRODUCTIONS PROJECT
Fri, 5/13/22 WIDE
Rating: NR
Genre: Hor
JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION
Fri, 6/10/22 WIDE
Rating: NR
Genre: Act/Adv
MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU
Fri, 7/1/22 WIDE
Stars: Steve Carell, Taraji P. Henson
Director: Kyle Balda
Rating: PG
Genre: Ani
NOPE
Fri, 7/22/22 WIDE
Stars: Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer
Director: Jordan Peele
Rating: NR
Genre: Hor
BROS
Fri, 8/12/22 WIDE
Stars: Billy Eichner
Director: Nicholas Stoller
Rating: NR
Genre: Com/Rom
BEAST
Fri, 8/19/22 WIDE
Stars: Idris Elba
Director: Baltasar Kormákur
Rating: NR
Genre: Thr
Ambulance
Fri, 2/18/22 WIDE
DISTANT
Fri, 3/16/22 WIDE
Stars: Anthony Ramos,
Zachary Quinto
Directors: Josh Gordon, Will Speck
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Com/SF
PUSS AND BOOTS: THE LAST WISH
Fri, 9/23/22 WIDE
Stars: Antonio Banderas
Director: Joel Crawford
Rating: NR
Genre: Ani
HALLOWEEN ENDS
Fri, 10/14/22 WIDE
Rating: NR
Genre: Hor
TICKET TO PARADISE
Fri, 10/21/22 WIDE
Stars: George Clooney,
Julia Roberts
Director: Ol Parker
Rating: NR
Genre: Rom/Com
SHE SAID
Fri, 11/18/22 WIDE
Stars: Carey Mulligan, Zoe Kazan
Director: Maria Schrader
Rating: NR
Genre: Dra
MARIO
Wed, 12/21/22 WIDE
Stars: Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy
Rating: NR
Genre: Ani
UNTITLED UNIVERSAL EVENT FILM
2023 1
Fri, 1/13/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER
Fri, 1/27/23 WIDE
Stars: Corey Hawkins,
Aisling Franciosi
Director: André Øvredal
Rating: NR
Genre: Hor
KNOCK AT THE CABIN
Fri, 2/3/23 WIDE
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Rating: NR
Genre: Thr
UNTITLED DREAMWORKS
ANIMATION
Fri, 3/24/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
FAST & FURIOUS 10
Fri, 4/7/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
Genre: Act
UNTITLED UNIVERSAL EVENT FILM
2023 2
Fri, 5/26/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
UNTITLED UNIVERSAL EVENT FILM
2023 3
Fri, 6/9/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
UNTITLED ILLUMINATION ANIMATED
FILM 2023
Fri, 6/30/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
Genre: Ani
OPPENHEIMER
Fri, 7/21/23 WIDE
Stars: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt
Director: Christopher Nolan
Rating: NR
Genre: Dra/War
UNTITLED UNIVERSAL EVENT FILM
2023 4
Fri, 8/4/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
UNTITLED UNIVERSAL EVENT FILM
2023 5
Fri, 9/22/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
UNTITLED UNIVERSAL EVENT FILM
2023 6
Fri, 9/29/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
EXORCIST FRANCHISE IP
Fri, 10/13/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
Genre: Hor
UNTITLED UNIVERSAL EVENT FILM
2023 7
Fri, 11/17/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
156 Centennial 2021
151-157_Booking-Guide.indd 156 23/11/2021 18:11

VERTICAL ENTERTAINMENT
THE HATING GAME
Fri, 12/10/21 LTD
WARNER BROS.
818-977-1850
THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS
Fri, 12/22/21 WIDE
Stars: Keanu Reeves
Director: Lana Wachowski
Rating: R
Genre: SF
UNTITLED SESAME STREET
Fri, 1/14/22 WIDE
Rating: NR
Genre: Fam
THE BATMAN
Fri, 3/4/22 WIDE
Stars: Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz
Director: Matt Reeves
Rating: NR
Genre: Act
FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE SECRETS
OF DUMBLEDORE
Fri, 4/15/22 WIDE
Stars: Eddie Redmayne, Dan Fogler
Director: David Yates
Rating: NR
Genre: Fan/Act
DC LEAGUE OF SUPER PETS
Fri, 5/20/22 WIDE
Stars: Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart
Director: Sam Levine
Rating: NR
Genre: Ani
UNTITLED ELVIS FILM
Fri, 6/24/22 WIDE
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Rating: NR
Genre: Dra/Bio/Mus
BLACK ADAM
Fri, 7/29/22 WIDE
Stars: Dwayne Johnson, Aldis Hodge
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Rating: NR
Genre: Act/Fan
UNTITLED WB EVENT FILM 2022 1
Fri, 8/5/22 WIDE
Rating: NR
SALEM’S LOT
Fri, 9/9/22 WIDE
Rating: NR
Genre: Hor
THE FLASH
Fri, 11/4/22 WIDE
Stars: Ezra Miller, Kiersey Clemons
Director: Andy Muschietti
Rating: NR
Genre: Act/SF/Fan
UNTITLED WB EVENT FILM 2022 2
Fri, 11/18/22 WIDE
Rating: NR
AQUAMAN AND THE LOST
KINGDOM
Fri, 12/16/22 WIDE
Stars: Jason Momoa
Director: James Wan
Rating: NR
Genre: Act/SF/Fan
WONKA
Fri, 3/17/23 WIDE
Stars: Timothée Chalamet
Director: Paul King
Rating: NR
Genre: Fan
SHAZAM! FURY OF THE GODS
Fri, 6/2/23 WIDE
Stars: Zachary Levi, Asher Angel
Director: David F. Sandberg
Rating: NR
Genre: Act/Adv/Fan
COYOTE VS. ACME
Fri, 7/21/23 WIDE
Director: Dave Green
Rating: NR
Genre: Com/Ani
THE COLOR PURPLE
Fri, 12/20/23 WIDE
Rating: NR
Genre: Mus
FURIOSA
Fri, 5/24/24 WIDE
Stars: Anya Taylor-Joy,
Chris Hemsworth
Director: George Miller
Rating: NR
Genre: Act
WELL GO USA
ENTERTAINMENT
theatrical@wellgousa.com
UNWELCOME
Fri, 3/11/22 LTD
Stars: Hannah John-Kamen,
Douglas Booth
Director: Jon Wright
Rating: NR
Genre: Hor
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