Goldberg74

I saw The Avengers today... again. It was my third time.

Dragon Tattoo

Because no one even knows who these superheros are in Japan.

d2cheer

You sir are an enabler...

MarineCorps

If I had more free time I would go see it a third time. Probably anyways

Matthew Chmiel

As I mentioned in another thread weeks ago, I thought Dark Shadows had a legitimate shot of doing $40 million, if not more, during its opening weekend. However, I don't think any of us were expecting The Avengers to be the juggernaut it is. With bad word of mouth already spreading, the film will be out of theaters by the first weekend of June.

I still think Finke and others are/will underestimate The Avengers like last week. It also might see a massive jump tomorrow with kids out of school.

Supermallet

Movie studios do not suggest or enforce showtimes to theaters. If they did that, you'd see every movie starting at the same time because each studio would have done tracking to see when ticket sales are highest and then demanded all their movies be shown at those times.

resinrats

Because Captain America still doesn't have a favorable view of the Japanese. To him, they bombed Pearl Harbor only a few years ago. So he is making them wait.

Giles

I also really don't understand why this movie was giving the IMAX treatment - nothing really screams out 'IMAX' worthy.

DonnachaOne

Hi.

Distributors do not dictate showtimes absolutely. That's up to the cinemas. Still, none of the posts above are too far off the mark.

Tracking for high ticket sales is a huge factor. Time and again, whether it's tradition or convenience, it's been proven that most audiences come to see movies that start between 7pm and 8:30pm. Before 7 is seen as too early; 8:30 onwards is seen as too late. Naturally, there are some customers who intentionally target times before and after this time period. As a result, cinemas will schedule these primetime shows first, then work backwards from there to fill out the rest of the day. Typically, you will see a show scheduled five times a day, roughly every three hours, in the 10am, 1, 4, 7 and 10pm hours. This will naturally vary with the length of the film and the availability of screens.

Cinema chains have bookers who negotiate print rentals for the individual theatres. Since both the cinemas and the studios are looking to make money here, they tend to work as smoothly as possible together. The studio distribution arms do not want to directly compete too much either, because it's difficult enough as it is to maintain relationships with lucrative filmmakers, and when two films competing for the same target audience come out on the same day, both usually suffer.

Take for instance The Avengers. I have it on two 2D screens and two 3D screens, and thanks to some recent negotiations between IMAX, Warner Brothers and Disney, I can play it once in the afternoon and once in the evening, after the primetime period. Dark Shadows had the IMAX booked for months before The Avengers, since WB usually books IMAX for its event films (in case you were wondering why it's in the IMAX. Hey, Rock of Ages is too! Awesome...?). This is why The Avengers was initially a one-week "limited time only!" release, and therefore no 70mm prints were struck for it. Still, no-one wants to leave that sort of money on the table after a record-breaking weekend, and WB relented. You can't blame 'em. One day they might need a similar favor from Disney.

Now, to the schedule: for my four screens of The Avengers, I'll start my having a 2D and a 3D in the prime period, spaced far enough apart that customers won't be getting easily confused. I normally make this about forty minutes - customers don't confuse the showtimes as much, and the box office/concession lines won't overlap significantly. The busier showtime will usually be first so that customers who come late and don't like the seats have the option for the next showtime, or another film. So, let's say I have a 7:10 2D and a 7:50 3D. I'll throw in an 8:30 2D as well for the folks who come a little later (and for those who come at 7:50 and are disappointed to see it's 3D) and use the other 3D to fill out the schedule, in the 6 or 9 o'clock hour. I then work backwards from there and try for five showtimes in each auditorium.

It gets tricky with the length. The Avengers is two hours, twenty-three minutes long. Add fifteen minutes of trailers to that (this can be as much as nineteen minutes for surefire hits) and a turnaround time, which will vary depending on the size of the auditorium and expected turnout; this turnaround is usually half an hour at least, because advertisers book commercial blocks in the pre-show time. A 2hr 23m film just became a 3r 8m unit of time at least. I might be only able to show this four times in a day.
Good thing I have four screens of it.

If you have a bunch of screens, you can do it regularly: have the four prints of The Avengers play every fifty minutes, or close to it. You play 'em too close together though, and you'll have large gaps throughout the day.

Some studios get picky about this. For years Fox would absolutely refuse to allow a film of theirs to be scheduled in the 6 o'clock hour, because with the turnaround time, you won't get another showtime until 9ish, avoiding that juicy prime period. Now the bookers and distributors agree to have at least one show in the 7-8:30 period; everyone wins that way. Genre flicks, which usually aren't expected to gross much anyway, are not as strictly overseen - the freak crowd usually don't like to mix with the normies, so they'll more likely come to an 8:45 or 11-something show anyway.

This means that 7-8:30 usually gets stuffed with at least one showtime of each flick. That can be difficult for crowd control and customer satisfaction, but that's when most people want to come, so you plan as best you can. I may have four screens of The Avengers, but I also have three screens of Dark Shadows booked for us, and I need to make as many potential customers happy as I can. We look at tracking numbers for Dark Shadows and estimate how well it'll play at our location. The Avengers is still expected to be number one, so I'll schedule that first; Dark Shadows, I'll schedule accordingly, between Avengers shows so I don't have too many customers coming at once.

There's more complications, of course. Most chains will have at least one screen of an anticipated title on sale weeks in advance, so I could be stuck giving some plum showtimes to the title expected to fare less well. I might have to narrow the breathing room to increase traffic, so I might have to schedule The Avengers very close to my preexisting Dark Shadows times. Also, in the event of a sellout, I'd hope to have an available showtime of the same film (or a similar title, though that usually doesn't happen) soon after. 7:10 Avengers sold out? See Avengers 3D at 7:50, or the 2D at 8:30. Don't feel like waiting that long? I've got Dark Shadows starting at 7:30, and it's been well-promoted, so you might have been likely to see it at some stage anyway - and hey, you're here, you got all dressed and set to go out, so why not give it a shot? And remember the popcorn and drink.

I think that wraps much of it up...

Paul_SD

good info- thanks for posting that!

Supermallet

Yeah, what DonnachaOne said.

I've done show scheduling in the past, but don't do it regularly.

Draven

Saw The Avengers for the 3rd time tonight, 2D screening and the theater was mostly full. More full in that particular theater than a lot of opening weekend movies I've seen. It's truly impressive.

d2cheer

I loved the movie.. but anyone that thought this would make 100+ mil this weekend sorry just not going to happen... I posted 77 mil in the other BO thread and I still think I will be very close. If proved wrong then so be it...

And DonnachaOne great post.

Anubis2005X

I'm 30 years old, and I don't really know what Dark Shadows is. I heard it was some weird gothic soap opera? Does that still has some kind of audience? Huh...

resinrats

Twilight crowd whole loves vampires. Also, if there are a bunch of people who thought Titanic was a made up movie, not seeing the old show won't effect them wanting to see it or not.

Draven

Looks like you are on track to be wrong.

stingermck

Wow

RichC2

That isn't very surprising, Avengers is mammoth.

d2cheer

Cool!! Not may times that I am happy to be wrong though.

arminius

Sometimes a director actor team really work (Herzog/Kinski) for many movies. Then again sometimes it just gets worser and worsest.

Matthew Chmiel

DonnachaOne

That's terrible journalism (where is it from anyway?); Warner were under no obligation to give up Dark Shadows showtimes and could have exercised their right to the booking if they wanted - no-one forced them to give up their shows. It's better business to let Disney share the house, though, because if WB need a favor later they'd prefer friendly terms. Plus, that The Dark Knight Rises trailer gets seen my thousands more customers this way.

bluetoast

Thanks for that post DonnachaOne, very informative.

Supermallet

Herzog and Kinski made five movies together, and Herzog said that by Cobra Verde the partnership was falling apart. Burton and Depp have done eight and will probably do 100 more if people give them money, because they're not aiming to make great movies. They just want to have a laugh together on set, it would seem.

I don't know how it works in digital IMAX, but in film IMAX the studios do have a say in what is shown. My theater can opt not to book a film (we skipped Titanic because the logistics of it would be a nightmare), but our options of what we can book are limited because the studios do require X amount of showings on our IMAX screen per day.

superdeluxe

It got over 29 million on Friday, several box office sites have upped their estimates to over 100 million