jdslater

I live in London, so forgive me if you get to do this in the states. I was thinking it would be great to see certain films at the cinema again. Look I saw Die hard 2 at the cinema but missed out on Die hard, and would love to see it on the big screen. Other films I would love to see would be Predator, Lethal weapon and Robocop. I know we have Alien re-released later on this year but thats for the DVD boxset. I cannot see why a cinema cannot pick their quietest night and just use one screen (I know it must be hard picking 1 out of 15) and show one of this sort of films once. I'm sure they would get a good turn out.

DonnachaOne

A nice idea but one that doesn't succeed in practice. The sad thing is that us movie buffs make up very little of the paying audience; the cinemas get their money from the unwashed masses who buy forty dollars worth of cola and popcorn as they watch the latest IQ-repellant photocopy of last year's sequel.

I work at a cinema, and we tried this out. I live in the cultural wasteland of the Chicago South Suburbs, however, so Joe Six Pack and his brood decided they'd rather watch their home videos than watch The Matrix on the majestic big screen. The only successful one we had was Pink Floyd: The Wall, and weeks later Auditorium 2 still smells of pot.

Some cinemas get by with doing this, in the bigger cities where enough movie buffs (and pretentious, ignorant 'films-are-aaart' posers*) attend. Mallrats is playing in LA this weekend. It'll be packed. Kevin Smith has said he hasn't seen it in a while, so he might even attend himself.

If there's a LOT of fans willing to spend enough money, sure, they'd screen the classics all the time. But there aren't a lot.






*That's not to say films aren't art. These are the kind of people who will attack and berate you for never having seen ______'s films or not knowing what "_______ism" is, even when it's obvious that they don't know what the hell they're talking about...

The Bus

Your only chance is to see it in big cities or in college towns where the University's theatre runs free movies.

For example, my friend in NYC just saw Wet Hot American Summer with a large part of the cast, and in my town they run series of new-run movies on Fridays and Saturdays ($3.50 I think), foreign language movies on Sunday (free), and old blockbusters on Wednesdays (also free).

http://www.english.udel.edu/ifs/

garmonbozia

well, in the pre-home video days films were often re-released in theaters. besides tv, this was the only way people got to see older films. then came home video. people stopped going to see older films when they were re-released. most theaters stopped showing old films. studios, for the most part, stopped re-releasing older films in new theatrical runs.
there are some exceptions (the Star Wars SEs did well theatrically for example).....but for the most part, the only way to see old films in the theater are in major cities that have revival theaters. it's probably just not financially feasible for all theaters (outside of major cities) to do this.

even the theatrical re-release of E.T. last year did not do so well.

LivingINClip

There is a local cinemaplex that screens forgeins movie's and classic movie's, but that is the only one I know of. Oddly enough, it is right next to a college and has college kids running it.

SunMonkey

When I lived in Tucson, there was a theater that showed a lot of indie/international/art house stuff, but for their midnight show on Friday they did just that. I remember they had Alien, but I had to miss it.

Samuel

I always wanted to see JAWS on the big screen. I'd definitely see Ghostbuster again, probably more than once if it was released into theaters again. I think that movies that became more popular on Home Video would be good to rerelease. I missed out on The Die Hard and Lethal Weapons as well, not to mention Terminator and T2.

Movies I think would do well if re-released:

Goonies
Ferris Bueller's Day off
Breakfast Club
Fast Times At Ridgemont High
Pee Wee's Big Adventure
Night of The Living Dead Trilogy
Halloween

I'm sure there are many more, sorry for hijacking.

resinrats

A local theater near me did this sort of thing a few years ago. They would only show the movie near midnight on Friday and Saturday nights. It also tended to be a movie with a 'cult' following. Basically a movie where people go nuts over and obsess about it for years after it comes out. I remember them showing the Star Wars movies and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

El-Kabong

I've lucked out, I guess. In Seattle we've got several theaters that show old movies from time to time. The Cinerama, in fact started running The Adventures of Robin Hood today - you know I'm taking in a movie tonight, baby!

The Bay also shows the occasional Midnight Movie series. They've run Alien, Goldfinger, The Good Bad and Ugly - real good stuff. I hope we're due up for another go-round soon.

There used to be the UA150 - every weekend was an old school midnight movie of some sort. Sadly that theater went out of business years ago.