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

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

I rather like the fact that the Somerville has a mix of events (movie-based and otherwise), art-house-type films, and mainstream movies. Particularly since the Capitol (its sister theater just down Mass Ave in Arlington) is already pretty Kendall-like. I think the Somerville fills a lot of needs and wants by not picking a specific nitche (serving beer and wine doesn't hurt either ;P).

[vanguardcdk.livejournal.com]

I think there's two things going on:

Part of it is different chains going for the same basic crowd, the art crowd and students. (and arty students of course)

Plus the Somerville has shifted it's movie strategy to include one big release along with their second runs, so you'll see at least one of the same film opening at both.

With those two factors I can easily see the Harvard and the Somerville going head-to-head.

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

I've been wondering about the movie selection for a while, since they stopped doing 2nd run/arthouse.

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

it makes more sense for them to compete with the harvard sq theater (which sucks) than the Brattle, which is an institution in its own. However, I don't really like their movie lineups of the past year or so.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Um, they haven't. They recently had a second run of up and ran both "Moon" and "(500) Days of Summer", neither of which were huge Hollywood releases.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

They ARE catering to their niche. Somerville is a pretty broad mix of families, students, and, well, yuppies (I suppose >SIGH< that I qualify for that last). So's the Harvard Square Loews. Cambridge and Somerville are not, in the end, terribly different in their populations.

But they also have to stay in business, and it's hard to do that without bringing in at least one Hollywood movie. You have to understand that what really makes a blockbuster a blockbuster isn't the special effects or the movie stars or the franchise it's a part of: it's the marketing. Something like "Moon" or "(500) Days of Summer" just isn't going to have the same level of awareness and thus, not sell as many tickets.

The Kendall is a unique case; actually it's something of a throwback to the days when studios owned their theaters. It's part of a chain of theaters called Landmark (their sister theater is the Embassy in Waltham), which is owned by Mark Cuban. He also happens to own Magnolia Pictures, its subsidary Magnet, and the HDNet channels. So, essentially, a good chunk of what you see in a Landmark theater is content that's been paid for by an eccentric billionaire, who controls the content pipeline from the first frame projected onto the screen right down to the last credit roll on the premium movie channels.

That's the entire reason the Kendall is entirely stacked with indie (well, "indie" in most cases) movies. It's designed that way.

[acidgalore.livejournal.com]

The AMC theatre in Harvard tends to run more indie/alt flicks and fewer blockbusters. I HATE it, and I'm glad that Somerville Theatre runs the same films (more or less), so I don't have to go to AMC. And, yes, the Somerville together w/ the Arlington Theatre pretty much cover the Kendall arthouse-films.

[ron_newman]

I'm sure that Ian (svilletheatre) will show up shortly, but he's told me in the past that exclusivity agreements generally prohibit him from booking the same movies at the same time as Landmark (Kendall and Embassy) or Fresh Pond. AMC doesn't restrict him in this way.

[dominika-kretek.livejournal.com]

Wasn't there a discussion here where someone involved with the Somerville explained that they're prevented from going head-to-head with the Kendall and/or the Harvard by some kind of weird anti-compete arrangement?

So they get second-run and second-hand first-run movies, regardless of whether they are art-house or Hollywood. I would love it if the Somerville could be a full-time art-house theater, but I doubt it is viable. If they run things like Dark Knight or The Simpsons so that they can run some smaller films, that's probably good enough.

Somewhere along the way, the idea of an "art-house" theater in Boston became pretty precarious. The Kendall runs plenty of "indie" (as opposed to "independent" (http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail203.html)) movies, and the Brattle does their best to do long runs of art movies and rereleases that get a lot of press, but weird new movies and neglected but interesting older movies just don't seem to turn up anymore.

Maybe I just lack the time to hunt all these things down. The MFA has been filling the niche somewhat, but who has the time to go all the way down there?

[dominika-kretek.livejournal.com]

Oops, ron_newman beat me to it, as usual. :)

[ifotismeni]

/*the more you know* shooting star

[ron_newman]

But you went into a lot more detail. I tagged this "somerville theatre", and if you click on the tag you'll probably find the earlier discussion somewhere.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

The Brattle's really its own thing. It's generally a rep theater, and God bless them for it.

[squonk.livejournal.com]

And knowing is half the battle.

[closetalker11.livejournal.com]

Jesus. Does Mark Cuban own everything?

[closetalker11.livejournal.com]

BEST link ever.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

No, but he wants to. And then he'll create a libertarian paradise.

[spatch]

And frankly, if the same film were showing at both the Harvard Square and the Somerville, I'd go see it at the Somerville, no question.

[svilletheatre.livejournal.com]

Our strategy is that we are trying to survive! We do not exist in a market where we can play whatever movies we want; we can only book movies that the film distributors make available to us.

The short answer is that we differentiate ourselves from the chains by charging less, offering fresher popcorn, selling beer, etc. and being a little more funky/less generic than they are. We show less ads, we try to patrol for disturbances more (no, we are not perfect, but I know we are better than they are in that regard.) We don't have stadium seats, but we do throw a much brighter/cleaner image than Harvard Square, because our projectionists care, and our booth staff became union just about the time that the other chains threw the union out - so we have a projection staff of veterans with over 100 collective years of experience, versus Harvard Square or Fresh Pond where the popcorn seller is probably the same guy in the booth. And lastly, it has been my personal goal for the theater to become more involved in the community, which I have endeavored to do through donations, etc. After all, I am a Somerville kid at heart.

For the long answer:

First, a bit of background: From the early 20th century until the early 1970's, most movies opened downtown, at one or two big theaters per title at most. They would play for 21 days and then the neighborhood theaters (like Somerville) would get them like clockwork. Then film distribution patterns changed (as did populations, neighborhoods, and so forth) and films were released en masse. ( Jaws, the first 'wide release' movie, only opened on like 500 screens, yet today Harry Potter goes on 3,000) Because of this, many neighborhood theaters, including the Somerville, were forced by the film distributors to become 2nd run, or sub-run locations, or else closed completely. In 1982 after the original owners gave up, Garen Daly leased the Somerville and began a repertory/art schedule, similar to what the Brattle does. This worked well and was continued by present ownership for a while in the early 90's but that audience died off to a large degree, mostly due to home video. There is a reason there are so few repertory houses left, and a reason the Brattle had to go non-profit to survive.
So Somerville reverted to 2nd run features in the mid-90's, which were not programmed all that thoughtfully if you ask me (I did not work there then, haha.) At that time, non of the other theater chains would allow Somerville to play with them. Loews was very aggressive in the market @ Harvard & Fresh Pond as was Landmark when they built the Kendall and they all blocked Somerville through a practice known as 'clearance' whereby you essentially have to get permission from them to play the same title. Film studios do not get involved in these situations and very much go by the status quo.

Part 2, below:

[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]

I'm so mad Moon disappeared before I had a chance to watch it.

[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.