Film prints in theaters

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Originally Posted by WiWavelength

Film prints will continue to be exhibited in repertory theaters for decades, if not centuries to come. So, your "last day to watch a movie on film" will likely be the last day that you are alive. However, your last day to watch a new release on film may come soon.

AJ

I actually doubt that very much, except in the case of museums and universities who own their own prints.

The expected date for the end of film distribution in the U.S. is now expected to be at the end of 2013 and the end of 2015 globally. Once this happens, the majors are not going to want to pay for the storage costs of 35mm prints, so they're going to do what they've done so many times in the past: they're going to dump them (maybe they'll keep one copy for an archive.) Maybe some will be returned to a producer or director. Maybe some will be donated to museums, so they can take the donation as a tax break. But for the most part, they're going to be gone. Even before the advent of digital, the major studios didn't keep a lot of prints after the initial run.

We'll be lucky if they're smart enough to keep the negatives and intermediates. You know after the 3-strip Technicolor era, the idiot studios frequently tossed two of the three strips, thinking they were duplicates.

I don't think the theatre in the OP has anything to worry about right now, but they will after the end of the year. And by the way to the OP: NATO and Cinedigm via the "Cinema Buying Group" does have a program for small theaters. They've helped more than 3000 community and local theaters with funding, conversion, installation and operations. The theatre should contact NATO for details. (That's the National Association of Theater Owners, not the North Atlantic Treaty Organization).

As of the end of February, 2013, over 33,000 of the U.S.'s 40,000 screens have been converted to digital. Almost 14,000 of those are 3D capable. Over 2800 screens in Canada have been converted of which over 1100 are 3D capable.

According to BoxOffice magazine,

"it appears that a perfect storm of events may bring about the end of film around the end of 2013 due to either a worldwide lack of film stock and/or the closing of processing labs. Studios are weighing carefully the cost to make and distribute film versus the revenue from those limited prints."

And there are actually very few repertory theaters left. Home video and streaming killed them off. Some cities have one or two and some college towns have a few, but most of them are already playing movies digitally or using DVD or BD because prints are no longer available.