September/October Classic Movie Series (Regal/Cinemark etc) (1 Viewer)

I found the listing for the next classic movie series on the Cinemark site.

http://www.cinemark.com/cinemark-classic-series

All Showings are 2PM (Sunday) and 2PM and 7PM (Wednesday) unless otherwise indicated

1. Ghostbusters - Starting August 29th (They are counting the weeklong engagement to be part of the series.)
2. Scarface (Pacino version) - Sept 7/10
3. The Nutty Professor (Jerry Lewis version) - Sept 14/17
4. Dr. Strangelove - Sept 21/24
5. Gone With The Wind - Sept 28/ Oct 1 (extra 7PM showing on Sunday)
6. MASH - Oct 5/8

If they do any promotion at all, GWTW should sell out all shows.

Wonderful. GHOSTBUSTERS, SCARFACE and WIND are musts. Already seen MASH (don't care for the film) and STRANGELOVE on the big screen several years ago. I was hoping for WIND in another thread so I'm glad to see it show up.

Ciemark has already shown GWTW as part of the Classic Series (two years ago?), and I went. Great presentation. Empty theater.

bujaki said:

Ciemark has already shown GWTW as part of the Classic Series (two years ago?), and I went. Great presentation. Empty theater.

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That's why I said it would do well if promoted. Classics at Fathom Events always do well, they show Fathom ads right before trailers. The image quality of Fathom has much to be desired. If the theaters would show a short promo for their classic film series before trailers I have no doubt that for titles such as GWTW they would do very well.

If people don't know a movie is showing no one will go to it.

They do show the promo for the series as part of the trailers, and they have a poster in place advertising the series as well.
Mind you, I attend the Wednesday afternoon screenings, when most people are working, so other screening times may fare better. The only time I was in a crowded auditorium was for an evening showing of To Kill a Mockingbird. Of course, it was filled with students who have to read it for an English class. Surprisingly, they were enraptured by the movie, which attests to its quality, and applauded at the end. It was heartwarming. After all, how often have you witnessed spontaneous applause from teens at the conclusion of a drama without special effects, etc.?

I saw TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD when Fathom/TCM showed it a year or so ago. They showed it the same night one of the TWILIGHT movies opened. I walked into the theater and thought I had walked into TWILIGHT due to all the teens there. I was really shocked at the number of young people there but they loved it.

I haven't watched GWTW since I was probably 10. I kept holding out for the big screen treatment so I hope nothing comes up on those days. Now I just need them to show 2001. I will probably take my kid to see GHOSTBUSTERS with me.

Never seen a classic film series ad at my regal before trailers except for when at a classic film series movie. As a result, there always seem to be only between 3 and 10 people.

They have this same series often playing at the AMC Theaters near me. (I believe I've also gotten emails from my local Regal with the same). But as often as I go to the movies, and I'd say I probably go more than the average person does, I've never once seen a trailer promoting that classic films are going to be showing. I have occasionally seen a poster which had smaller thumbnails of each of the individual movie titles and posters put up somewhere, but it's the kind of thing you wouldn't stop to look at unless someone pointed it out to you first. (So many theaters also have classic movie posters hanging just because they look nice, so I think it would be easy for anyone walking past to see the posters used for these series and totally miss that it was promotion for upcoming dates and not just part of the decor.)

I agree completely that these showings should be better publicized, and that there's a cost-effective way of doing it that wouldn't cost the theaters or studios anything. Simply add the trailer to the 20 minutes of trailers that are already showing before each movie. Or, if you don't want to disrupt the trailers for new movies, show it before the trailers start during the part of the presentation where they usually show commercials.

Fathom Events promote the daylights out of whatever they're showing, and they're almost always sold out. No reason that a similar presentation of a similar title just done by the studios and theaters directly without Fathom shouldn't sell.

As an interesting comparison, a lot of the movies that are shown as part of the Regal/AMC classics series also end up showing in repertory in NYC, either as regular programs or for midnight showings. When I've seen some of these titles in rep, they've been pretty full, some of them sold out -- so that's at least a couple hundred tickets per movie, and that's just counting one showing where it may be playing for a week straight. And yet, AMC or Regal can show the same movie, and it can be in a similar neighborhood, similar showtimes, and possibly even a lower priced ticket, and people aren't showing up. I don't think there's anything inherently better about the repertory screens in showing these DCP copies of the movie -- if anything, the multiplexes are probably screening them on bigger screens with newer sound systems (whatever the smallest screen is at the AMC Empire 25 in NYC has got to be bigger than the largest screen at the Film Forum). I think the difference is promotion. As AMC and Regal rewards members, I get all of the emails, but the announcement of the classic series is usually buried at the bottom of a weekly or monthly email. On the other hand, Film Forum sends out emails promoting each title, and mails calendars to my home, plus they play trailers of the films they're about to show. For whatever reason, it doesn't seem like they're too invested in making the classics program succeed. Which seems a real shame to me. All of these movies have already been paid for, so you'd think any money brought in would be pure profit for all involved.

I sometimes wonder when I see things like this if they're not just trying to prove some perverse point. Like a bunch of executives got together with the theory, "No one wants to watch old movies anymore" and then come up with a way to prove that that's true. OK, that's probably way too paranoid, but if I wanted to release something and guarantee people didn't see it, this is probably how I'd go about it.

Agreed, Josh - Fathom really has a fantastic marketing machine behind it and that's why they are so successful. It would be great to see the classics campaign gear up like this.

I'm fortunate enough to live in NYC and know I'm going to be able to see classics on the big screen regardless of cinema, but for people who don't have specialized theaters, it would be nice if they'd hear about these releases. Though I suspect anyone who happens to be interested in classic film, would likely seek out such films in theaters. I don't know, perhaps that is what the marketers of this series are banking on? But they certainly won't reach the mass audience in this manner.

It would be great if they showed Frankenstein/Bride of Frankenstein double feature in October like they did 2 years ago.. I'd gladly go and see that again.

Bob - I couldn't agree more! I have the blurays and I have a projector, but nothing recreates the full on cinema experience!

Today I saw 2 films in a Cinemark in Plano, TX. Before both showings and before the regular trailers, the Classic Series was advertised, starting with GWTW. The 2 films I saw were: Calvary; and A Most Wanted Man.
My children have seen the Classic series advertised before Guardians of the Galaxy.
Quite different audiences...

Went to Dr. Strangelove today, only 2 total people in the audience. For those on the fence about going to see this on Wednesday, it was another fine transfer from SONY. Plenty of grain and no sign of DNR or EE. It looked good even though my theater left the 3D lens on the SONY 4K projector.

Gone With the Wind ended up being a Fathom Event. Don't let this discourage you too much, image quality for Fathom Events have been steadily increasing, it is no longer satellite reception projected on the theater's advertising projector. The last few non-live Fathom Events I have gone to have me thinking that they might actually send hard drives with DCP's out for non-live events.

One thing to think about though, GWTW had a whopping 4 minute intermission, that's right, only FOUR minutes.

Image quality was very good, no DNR, no EE, and it looked very film-like. The sound was about as good as you could expect for a film released in 1939.

When Cinemark showed GWTW a couple of years ago, the DCP included everything the then current BD had, including the organ music played during the intermission, plus 10 minutes to relieve yourself or buy stuff. Was this organ music not included during the whopping 4 minutes granted you to run outside the screening room?

They played the "intermission" music, then the Entracte then back to the movie. I didn't personally time it, but the Theater manager came out before the film started and said that there is a 4 minute intermission. It definitely wasn't much more than that if it was longer at all.

By the way, the screen was black during the Overture and Entracte instead of how the current Blu-Ray is with slides on the screen during them.

Thanks, Wayne. This was the way I saw it: black screen (how I miss those curtains slowly parting), no slides.
Were there many people at the screening?

It was in the largest auditorium and it was about 80% - 85% full.

Wayne_j said:

It was in the largest auditorium and it was about 80% - 85% full.

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And I saw commercials for GWTW before movies at the Regal for the last couple weeks. It's almost like advertising and people going were related.