Quote:
Originally Posted by ZoetMB
If you turn it into an event, it can make money. And it doesn't have to make a lot since prints don't have to be made and it doesn't have to be heavily promoted.
Every summer in Bryant Park in NYC, they have a once-a-week film festival where they play old WB movies. It's free and it's outdoors and you get to hang out with your friends and have wine and food. Over 6000 people show up each week to watch a poorly projected movie on a too-small screen in which you can hardly hear the dialog because the sound (mono) bounces off the surrounding buildings and causes echo. But it's an event, so everyone comes and people have a great time. Seeing a movie with 6000 people instead of 250 is a completely different experience.
The promise of digital was that because expensive film prints don't have to be produced and it's easier to load up a DCP than to wind a film onto a platter, there could be far more variation in what theaters played and more independent films could be presented. That hasn't really happened.
But it seems to me that if a digital IMAX theatre is playing a film that's not doing great, they could certainly alternate some showings with another film and that other film could be an older film brought back in revival. Even though digital IMAX is not as good as true 70mm IMAX, there's still enough of a difference to get people out of their homes and into the theatre. Most films make most of their revenue on the weekend. I see no reason why an IMAX theatre couldn't play other films during the week. (Their contracts would probably prevent them from doing so in the first few weeks of a film, but they could probably do so afterwards). And this could definitely be done in complexes that have more than one IMAX theatre. I think films like the Harry Potter series, Interstellar, Gravity and Hobbit/Lord of the Rings could do quite well in IMAX revival if the theaters create an event around it. In fact, in cities that have multiple IMAX theaters, I could see one being dedicated to nothing but revivals.
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They have tried to the return to theaters thing in IMAX. Wizard of Oz, Forrest Gump, and Raiders of the Last Ark. Rereleases rarely ever make much money.