the Disney-Fox merger and film/TV production/exhibition hegemony in general

So this is the rep rather than the smaller new releases, then.

It doesn't seem likely that he would have specified smaller mew releases if it didn't also mean smaller new releases.

Studios', but especially Disney's given their dominace of releases, first-run policies are also fucking independent theatres. A four-screen house in south Seattle had to abandon rep in toto last year, when they went from showing things like '50s Hitchcock and Le Roi de couer and Harold & Maude and Society to a summer program of '80s hits like Bill & Ted, and the prices got jacked on them. They've now closed their fourth screen altogether and are $250k behind in rent because Disney's new Aladdin sucked shit and ppl didn't want to see it:

We've gotten to a point where we can't keep up with the demands that the major studios want. If you want to open up a Marvel film and have that big, front-loaded movie, it's going to make all of its money in the weekend when it's first released. The studio is going to tell you, "This is our tentpole feature, you're going to have to cough up so much money as a guarantee so that we can get you a print…to play the film and we [also] want 65% of your gross."

So, what happened to us was we couldn't make the progression from playing first-run family film[s]. The last one that we could afford to get in an opening first run was Aladdin. Well, the audiences didn't show up for Aladdin, so Aladdin couldn't get us to a point where we could open Toy Story 4. So we had to open Toy Story 4 later, and Toy Story didn't help us get to a point where we could open Lion King because we couldn't come up with the guarantee that the studios have a right to demand.

The real heartbreaker was opening up Sony's Spiderman: Homecoming. It did okay but it didn't make enough money for us to guarantee what the studio demanded to open Once Upon A Time...in Hollywood. So we couldn't open OUATIH which would have probably made pretty good gross for us here… so we had to opt out of it.

I shouldn't count Fathom out just yet, as I've just seen an ad for a TCM-sponsored presentation of Alien happening in October (although that may have been OK'd prior to the latest upheavals).

The thread by the Revue programmer up there specifies that tonight is the last time they will be able to play Alien, because it was booked before this week.

(I do suspect the combo of Fathom and TCM will have more swing with the new Disney bookers than one guy in Toronto with 1,800 twitter followers, but it still might not be much swing.)

Our local Landmark theatre does regular weekend midnight screenings programmed like that Seattle house (plus The Room once a month and RHPS w/a shadow cast once every 2-3 weeks). I was just checking their schedule, which somewhat surprisingly was loaded with Fox stuff for the past few weeks and the next couple.

Some time back, I went to a midnight showing of Repo Man, which got started late. Those of us waiting got into a spirited discussion w/the theatre bartender, who mentioned that The Room and RHPS screenings, plus ringers like The Big Lebowski and Hitchcock/Kubrick revivals pretty much underwrote everything else.

Same for the main London rep - a lot of gimmicky stuff like a Studio Ghibli all-nighter, a 1999 Teen Movie all-nighter, Mean Girl quote-along, and "The Room w/ Tommy Wiseau Live on Stage" (7 times over 5 days, but it seems like it happens every month)

sic’s quoted post is heartbreaking because the films smaller theaters that try for mostly indie fair but aren’t exclusive coast on major releases and would make bank on a Tarantino pic and they’re getting fucked by the on-major, won’t boost smaller theater status

the fully international/repertory local theater is closing and I feel like the other is going to be british/french/a24 pics all the time now

yeah there's a lot of weird theater booking bs like that that hurts smaller theaters (smaller being any non-chain theater, but even the Alamos are included in this)

I'm wondering how this will end up hitting Alamo. They do big business here both with new features and older ones.

I suspect they're the ones most capable of weathering things out. I'm just four blocks away from the SF one but there's clearly enough of a base for them to do pretty reasonable/random one-offs. (That said A24 almost seems like their house label at this point.)

Alamo should be fine. They can manage the studio demands/requirements, and losing access to Fox/Disney rep titles isn't as big a loss (if they lose access at all?.

i would guess that "experience" theaters are best equipped to manage fuckups with film access; most people attending dinner theater aren't super picky about the play they're seeing

Didn't know anything about this until the Revue, a rep theatre I go to frequently, posted this on their bulletin board yesterday:

http://www.thestar.com/business/2019/08/28/indie-cinema-says-disney-cutting-off-access-to-20th-century-fox-film-archives.html

When they played a trailer for an upcoming screening of Phantom of the Paradise, they prefaced it with "Final screening ever."

I won't be in Toronto much longer, but the place where I'm headed has one rep theatre that'll have the same issues. Too bad. (Going to look into which of my favourite films are 20th Century Fox.)

Alamo's special for me, i mostly go see reps, several times a week. for the past few years my local location has been amazing, and the manager just quit due to some corporate attitude changes regarding rep programming. Sadly it sounds like they're going to become less a more profit-motivated, less unique chain

Whenever we couldn't get a screening because Disney owned it was bad enough, it's gonna be so much worse now

Treating every single vintage Fox title like a Disney Cash cow shouldn't/isn't be smart business, and the only reason repercussions won't be felt is company is insulted enough, money-wise, thanks to all the new cash cows they've recently acquired to exploit.

Yeah I mean...I don't really understand the angle, long-term. Even if you load Disney+ with every Fox title ever released, you're still only getting $6.99 per month per household.

They get to kill cinema

I think it boils down to them thinking any screen not showing a new Disney movie is bad. Plus if they put theaters out of business that wouldn't show Disney movies anyway, more the better

also: evil

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/kzH1iaKVsBM/hqdefault.jpg

Yeah I mean...I don't really understand the angle, long-term. Even if you load Disney+ with every Fox title ever released, you're still only getting $6.99 per month per household.

I assume that Disney's strategy will be to shunt everything that is not their idea of family-friendly over to Hulu, on the assumption that viewers will subscribe to a pricier package. But my initial response to Disney's dog-in-the-mangerishness is to go in even further on p|r@(y.

Noticed some heavy hitters gone from Netflix today, notably Mulan. :-(

counterpoint: streaming contracts are bad enough already, it would be catastrophic if Netflix were able to show things for 1000 years without paying for them again

Is this the first movie to be newly branded as “Disney” even though it was a Fox movie? https://t.co/aOa7NCVu7m

— Keith Calder except spooky because it's October (@keithcalder) October 14, 2019

pic.twitter.com/7fBg8dprtq

— Peter LabuzAAAHH! (@labuzamovies) October 14, 2019

the disney and the hound (1981)

lol bg

Disney's The Swamp Disney
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADesK3Wa_D0

I find it odd that they add the floating brand name to all their kid-friendly movies. It used to be Walt Disney's or Walt Disney (Pictures) Presents, now it's just Disney. can't wait for Disney Disney's The Kid.

woah snap, Shipwrecked is on there - might be a deal-maker for yours truly

"How dare Coppola say mean things about Marvel movies when he made [random bad movie]" is a weak sneer. Every filmmaker with a real body of work makes some bad movies. Stop whining, nobody's gonna take your precious two-and-a-half-star superhero films away.

— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) October 20, 2019

The problem with Coppola's career go a bit beyond 'made some bad movies', though. Some of the blame for why directors have less freedom these days has to go to the seventies directors and how they handled the trust they were given.

I'm fine with Scorsese being discussed here, as soon as he makes a film set this millennium.

how'd you miss all the flip phones in the depahhhhted? also alec baldwin woo-hooing the patriot act.

A compromise is possible

figured it out.... marvel fans can call their movies “cimena”
• it’s not “cinema” so martin will be happy
• still pretty close to “cinema”
• you sound like a widdle baby when you say it, which you are

— jos (@josiahhughes) October 21, 2019

It’s just very funny how insecure nerds are in their complete cultural supremacy. Like calm down, Disney will be fine, they will keep shitting these things out forever whether or not acclaimed directors say they’re good when asked by interviewers. Unfortunately.

these same directors loved the B-movie dross of their own childhood (as do I!), it definitely stinks of "old man yelling at cloud" shenanigans

There is much to love in ye olde B Movie dross that doesn't apply to the machine-tooled fan servicey precision of your modern comicbook movies

yeah, like humanity

this millennium is boring

yeah I think I meant to use "sterility" rather than "precision"

Dr Morbius will today be played by Mel Brooks.

The Superhero movies aren't B-movies by any definition of the term. Also, I hate everyone on every side of this debate. The mega-directors of Hollywood who despair because two old idiots don't like what they do, and the two old idiots who wants to define what is cinema and what is not.

i'm not sure if giving your opinion when your asked a question about something is the same as wanting to gatekeep cinema

The real villains here are the idiot interviewers who keep thinking the most interesting thing you can ask a grandee of American cinema is “no for real though what about avenger 4”

i'm not sure if giving your opinion when your asked a question about something is the same as wanting to gatekeep cinema

― Xia Nu del Vague (Noodle Vague), 21. oktober 2019 15:15 (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

When the opinion is 'that is not cinema!' then I don't see the confusion?

The implication of that is "to me", I'm pretty sure he's not going to tell aficionados of the genre that they can't use the word

Oh, come on

Well if you want a moratorium on ridiculous generalising opinions

I do! Of course I do! They're bad.

and the two old idiots who wants to define what is cinema and what is not

Scorsese is not trying to police anyone's taste. As for being an idiot...