Somerville Theater = AMC Lowes Harvard Sq?

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I understand the Somerville Theater strategy. They almost always have the same movies as the AMC Lowes in Harvard Sq. For example, this week:

http://calendar.boston.com/somerville-ma/venues/show/1135016-somerville-theatre
http://calendar.boston.com/cambridge-ma/venues/show/22172-amc-loews-harvard-square

I know that the ST has special events and all, but wouldn't it be a better strategy to do what the Kendall theater does? Try to differentiate themselves from the big chains to get the special artsy/geeky crowd in the area?... I'm sure there are issues I'm not aware of, but it seems to me they are not exploiting their niche.

PS: Check out the really fascinating explanation for this pattern by the man himself, svilletheatre  , near the bottom of the thread.

Comments

[svilletheatre.livejournal.com]

When I became the general manager at Somerville 7 years ago, among other problems there were these film bookings. Second run can do okay if the movies 'come off' first run quickly, like in the 3-6th weeks, but more screens and less movies being made meant that 2nd run now meant 8-14 weeks or more, by which time these movies had no life left in them. The theater was posting a 5-figure deficit year after year and attendance was low. Part of this was operational issues (when I got hired in 2002, someone said to me "Oh I love that place, you can just walk in without paying and nobody cares!") but again, most of it was that we weren't playing anything people wanted to see. I kept pushing for us to become first run but we couldn't break through. Finally a wonderful thing happened: AMC bought Loews, and AMC did not have a strict clearance policy... they were located in Kansas City, not NYC like Loews, and they barely knew the market they were buying anyhow. So we kept asking the film studios, and finally a nice guy at Warner Brothers who had once worked the Boston WB exchange and had fond memories of the city, was kind enough to visit the theater. He loved it, felt it was reasonable to consider us for a first run day-and-date with Harvard Square, and gave us a shot... with "The Lake House" haha. Not an auspicious start... but a start. When we opened "The Departed" later that year and gave them huge grosses, they were happy, and then the other studios looked at us again. Fox gave us the expansion run of "Borat" and were pleased. Universal tried a movie and they too realized we could 'perform' and soon enough, most of the distributors gave us a shot, but ONLY with Harvard Square, firstly because AMC didn't object, and secondly because we'd 'established a run'. The only studio that will not play first run with us currently is Disney, which is okay because so few of their movies play Harvard anyhow.


However, Fresh Pond (now under Entertainment Cinemas) and the Kendall still block us. With some of the very limited releases Kendall gets, this kind of makes sense - if you are only going to do one engagement in the whole Boston market, choose the big art-house. However, and especially with the lack of art product today, I wish we could play with them on the bigger movies, like when they played "No Country For Old Men" for 18 weeks and wouldn't let us play along. The Fresh Pond issue is less vexing (we really don't need to play, say, Final Destination XVI) but actually cripples the Capitol Theatre more so, since it remains 2nd run. We'd really love to play kids movies there on a first-run basis, but Fresh Pond gets 'em first. Even though, despite our lower ticket price, we often outgross them, the studios do not want to upset that situation. I'm sure someday Fresh Pond will close and that situation will change, so we are just biding our time and slowly upgrading the theater there.

So at Somerville, finally I had some audiences. We finally made some money, which I have poured back into it tenfold. Between renovations in 2006 and this summer, I think I have spent about half a million bucks just trying to get us up to speed and keep the old gal all shiny and more historic. I've programmed some midnight and double feature repertory stuff on occasion, and while fun, that kind of stuff barely breaks even, though I hope to do more again soon. But I DO try to balance out the schedule, using what movies are available to me. I don't want to be just another multiplex, which is why when I have an open screen I'll play a second run film like "Food, Inc" or "Moon" etc. Sometimes I am forced to carry something longer than I want to (first run has some obligations like minimum engagements) and don't have a spare screen but I do try and take some of the better 2nd run off of the Kendall. But my obligation is to keep that theater open and alive, and let me tell you, it is "The Simpsons" and "The Dark Knight" and "The Hangover" that are paying the bills, not the "Food, Inc" of the world.

[cynickalone.livejournal.com]

cynickalone likes this.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Thanks; that was fascinating.

[slinkr.livejournal.com]

Thanks for going into so much detail on this, it's really interesting to hear about how it works. And your theater is by far my favorite place to see a movie around here, thanks for keeping it going.

[kmac912.livejournal.com]

So interesting! Thanks for sharing.

[blackdove24.livejournal.com]

I third the thanks--very informative and interesting!

[blackdove24.livejournal.com]

(Uh, make that fifth the thanks!)

[ethanfield.livejournal.com]

I like the pattern I've seen a few times where the ST has a first-run in the main theater (payin' the bills) and second runs or expansions on the smaller screens.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU for explaining all of this so clearly. And I love the Somerville Theater. You rule.

[ron_newman]

Thank you Ian for taking the time to explain all this! Your theatre is a treasure.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Question: if somebody wanted to do repetory/midnight screening stuff, and just rented the theater (prints etc. on them, naturally), would that be more fiscally viable for you?

Friends of mine are spitballing a non-profit "film education" type thing, and one of the problems is making the financials work.

[dominika-kretek.livejournal.com]

I would love to hear more about this idea.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

It's little more than what you've read, at the moment. They do want to do screenings in a theater, but they also want to avoid having to beg for money.

[svilletheatre.livejournal.com]

Drop me a line thru the theater's website contact page and we can chat about this. This might work on a one rental at a time basis, but a whole season can be a challenge. Anyhow, I'm always open to ideas. We also have our new little 30 seat screening room if they were interested in doing it on DVD as part of a lecture type of series.

We're just wrapping up the installation of a new projection booth and system in the main theater this month (digital sound, and 70mm capability! woo!) that will enable us to play archival prints and makes running repertory/single showing titles easier (using a changeover two-projector system) and so I am hoping that next year I can program some classic titles around the first runs and live events in there on weekdays.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

70mm? Holy crap. Maybe I can finally see "Ben-Hur" as it was meant to be seen.

I'll pass it on.

[chumbolly.livejournal.com]

Another thank you for this fascinating explanation, and for running what is without a doubt the best theater in the Boston area. Frankly, I'd watch a blank screen just to eat your popcorn and wash it down with a Harpoon, but the movies are good, too. I've always been a total movie snob, and I think you do a great mix of smartie films and commercial films.

[dominika-kretek.livejournal.com]

This is so informative. I remember regretting that the repertoriness of the Somerville was going away, but a T-accessible second-run theater was still pretty valuable. Despite this, it was clear to me that something Important was happening when The Lake House opened (an underrated movie, by the way) and that moment is burned into my memory.

I am rueful that home video led to the demise of the repertory theater, because since the mid-90s, Videosmith, City Video, two branches of Hollywood Express, and the video store in the Garage have all gone out of business. But even in those days, when I haunted both the video stores and the repertories, the repertories filled a niche that remains unfilled even today.

For instance, a widescreen Prospero's Books is unavailable on any home format. The same goes for the short films of Jay Rosenblatt. Susan Streitfeld's Female Perversions. The other day I was looking for the films of Susan Sontag, and while those are probably completely unavailable, the only chance I will have to see them will be if a repertory theater digs up an old print. Not even Netflix is likely to carry these any time soon. But now we're getting to a serious niche market, and even the Brattle, which makes an effort, has to run things like Drag Me Back To Hell to make that kind of thing possible.

Anyway, the Somerville is a multifarious, chimerical glory, and if I can help it to survive in any way, I will.

[svilletheatre.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your kind words, and for everyone's kind words here. One thing that makes repertory programming especially difficult these days is a scarcity of film prints available. In the old days, studios had many film prints floating around the country because there was still a marketplace for this kind of stuff. Now, it is hard to get a print of even mainstream classic titles sometimes, nevermind something more obscure or independent. And the studios rarely strike new prints of old movies due to the high costs of doing so (anywhere from 5-15k.)

The Brattle is truly something rare and special. They are fighting the good fight when it comes to programming, and the people there really care about their mission. We are all lucky to have it nearby. We'd had a few chats with them when they began to go forward with attaining their beer and wine license this year - they wanted to know how we did it, our challenges, our rules, etc. - and I was happy to oblige. Someone said to me, "why would you help them if it competes with something that you do?" I said, "it's the freaking Brattle, man! Everyone should be helping them!" Plus it's not like we're playing the same thing. You could skip film school and just go to the Brattle for 4 years and you'd have a better education in the end.

[dominika-kretek.livejournal.com]

One thing that makes repertory programming especially difficult these days is a scarcity of film prints available. In the old days, studios had many film prints floating around the country because there was still a marketplace for this kind of stuff. Now, it is hard to get a print of even mainstream classic titles sometimes, nevermind something more obscure or independent.

That's so depressing. My hope was that the prints were still out there and it was just a matter of venue, that is, finding a market. But it sounds like the upshot is that plenty of films just aren't available, anywhere, in any format.

But you know what, if that's the situation, I would trade the possibility of real film prints for mere availability. Give me a reasonably hi-def digital video projection on a decently sized screen, and I'll be satisfied. But with some movies, I can't even do that at 480p on my home setup. Some kind of digital distribution would be so much cheaper than film prints... but no one's going to look into it if the audience isn't already there.

My personal dream is to curate a once-a-week film series that doesn't expect to get that much more than twenty people per screening. I know nothing about the economics of it, but if there were a digital distribution system, maybe there would be a chance that it could work.

You could skip film school and just go to the Brattle for 4 years and you'd have a better education in the end.

That's pretty much what I did! :)

[derekp.livejournal.com]

Just a note to say this was all great information and that The Somerville Theater is one of my very favorite things about living in Davis Square. Keep it up.