William A Chapman Jr Posted February 20, 2008 Share Posted February 20, 2008 This is probaly on odd question but I thought I would ask here. How dose movie theaters work? Dose the studio get a percentage of the box office sales or do they rent/lease the film for a certain rate. I would guess it goes by ticket sales. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Bowerbank Posted February 20, 2008 Share Posted February 20, 2008 Dose the studio get a percentage of the box office sales I believe with new releases this is how it's done. Theatres, by the way, get a very low percentage. Which is why, if your local theatre is struggling, you should purchase some concessions more often. That's really where they make the most money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Walter Graff Posted February 20, 2008 Premium Member Share Posted February 20, 2008 Here you go. A film booker leases a movie to a theater for a set period of weeks. The percentage of ticket sales that the studio takes decreases on each week that a movie is in the theater. If the screening was arranged by an independent middleman, he also takes a slice. So the movie has to pull in sizeable audiences for several weeks in order for theater owners to make any serious profits. During the film's opening week, the studio might take 70 to 80 percent of gross box office sales. By the fifth or sixth week, the percentage the studio takes will likely shrink to about 35 percent. If you've got a blockbuster like Titanic or The Lord of the Rings, with audiences that keep streaming in for weeks, everybody's happy -- especially theater owners. Studios also pay theaters to show trailers. But they pay for them after the fact, based on the number of people who saw them. Studios send a couple of new trailers every week and they send new commercials. Theaters call in the numbers every night to the film companies, and they give you 'x-amount' per person. And then you have the concessions. Popcorn yields more than 90 cents of profit on every dollar of popcorn sold. http://www.slate.com/id/2133612/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Drysdale Posted February 20, 2008 Share Posted February 20, 2008 And then you have the concessions. Popcorn yields more than 90 cents of profit on every dollar of popcorn sold. http://www.slate.com/id/2133612/ Which is why they prefer films for the 15 to 25 age group, older people tend not to buy so much popcorn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Hayes Posted February 20, 2008 Share Posted February 20, 2008 I believe the advent of digital projection is going to change the theatrical situation. Before digital all trailers and commercials had to be on 35mm. This means only big companies like Coke could afford 35mm prints. Now you are going to see more local ads which mean more revenue for the theaters. Also because more theaters have digital projection smaller independent films can get theatrical releases with out having to absorb the cost of making a 35mm print. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy_Alderslade Posted February 20, 2008 Share Posted February 20, 2008 (edited) Which is why they prefer films for the 15 to 25 age group, older people tend not to buy so much popcorn. A cinema manager once told me that popcorn is most profitable product on the planet, you buy the seeds for pence and sell the end product for pounds... Edited February 20, 2008 by Andy_Alderslade Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William A Chapman Jr Posted February 21, 2008 Author Share Posted February 21, 2008 Thank you to all that responded, That clears things up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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