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Industry
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November 14, 2006
Paramount Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and a fourth cinema to be renamed Scotiabank
Cineplex whose brands include Cineplex Odeon, Galaxy and Silver City, went hunting for a company to buy the naming rights for its four Paramount-branded cinemas acquired from Famous Players.
Negotiations with landlords are ongoing, but the five Scotiabank-branded Cineplex cinemas are expected to include the Paramount theaters located in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver.
Scotiabank will be advertising its products in Cineplex lobbies. The agreement also includes installing automated banking machines in the five flagship theaters.
For more, visit theGlobe and Mail(reg. reqr’d.).
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November 13, 2006
Bow Tie Cinemas acquires 95 screens from Crown Theatres
Bow Tie Partners, headed by Charles B. Moss, Jr. and Ben Moss, has announced they have signed an agreement for the acquisition of 95 movie screens in 12 locations in Connecticut and Maryland for an undisclosed amount from Crown Theatres, LLC. With this transaction and with the completion of additional Moss properties currently under construction, Bow Tie Partners will own and operate a network of 137 screens in 17 locations in Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, upstate New York and Virginia.
Charles B. Moss, Jr. and Ben Moss represent the third and fourth generations of the family owned Moss companies whose interests are centered in the real estate development and entertainment industries.
Bow Tie Partners specializes in the redevelopment of historic and architecturally significant properties by adding value through a combination of physical redevelopment, creative change of use, financial restructuring and market repositioning. The company is known for its circuit of deluxe, intimate, first run cinemas designed to bring style and elegance back to the movie going experience.
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November 10, 2006
Kerasotes behavior classes
CICERO, IL — I’m not really sure how to best summarize this without making it sound controversial… I know it will spur a lot of commentary here.
Basically, a Kerasotes theater outside Chicago is requiring teens that want to see movies alone at night to take a lecture on personal conduct with their parents.
A new 14-screen movie theater opened in Cicero Friday, but teenagers under 18 can’t go at night unless they’re with a parent. If they want to go unaccompanied by an adult, they have to take a class and get a “code of conduct” ID card.
Kerasotes started requiring ID cards last year at its theatres in South Bend, Ind. when three teenagers were arrested for fighting. In order to get the cards here, teens and their parents have to sit through a 10 minute lecture.
To read more about this interesting new practice, visitCBS 2 Chicago.
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October 31, 2006
Theaters experiment with discount passes
CHICAGO, IL — CBS News has a report about Chicago-area theaters that are experimenting with off-peak discounts on theater admission:
Theaters are already being creative. Chicago’s Kerasotes locations offer a Five Buck Club, where you can see any movie for $5 if you’re willing to wait two weeks.
“It works great,” Wilder said. “They send you an e-mail that tells you what movies are playing there that week and then what movies are good with the card.”
At Chicagoland AMC Theatres, depending on the location, you pay either $4 or $5 for a movie, as long you go on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays or holidays before noon.
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October 30, 2006
TIME’s list of top political films
Just in time for this week’s elections, TIME’s film critic Richard Corliss has put together a list of the seven top political films of all time.
Here’s the first film on the list:
CITIZEN KANE ORSON WELLES, 1941
Best film ever? Maybe. But beyond the epiphanies of film form and camera work, Kane offers an acute view of American politics that applies today as much as it did then. Like Silvio Berlusconi and Michael Bloomberg, Kane (Welles) is a media magnate who runs for office. Like Mark Foley, he is caught in a sexual scandal just before the election. The brilliant script by Herman J. Mankiewicz and Welles is about a powerful man’s need to be loved by the millions of people whose lives he dominates. And when they jilt him, he rationalizes the rejection by spinning tales of conspiracy. His newspaper runs the headline FRAUD AT POLLS.
Find out about the other films he picked and then comment with your favorites!
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‘Death of a President’ struggles to find exhibitor support
The new film “Death of a President”, which speculates what might happen if President Bush was assassinated, is having a difficult time finding theaters comfortable with the film’s subject matter:
Faux documentary Death of a President, which depicts the assassination of President George W. Bush, opened last Friday at less thatn 120 cinemas across the U.S. last week.
The nation’s two largest movie theatre operators deciding their viewers would not get the chance to see the film.
Regal Entertainment Group, the largest theatre operator in the U.S., led the way.
“We do not feel it is appropriate to portray the future assassination of a president,” said Regal’s Dick Westerling.
With AMC, the nation’s second-largest chain, and Cinemark, which owns Century Theatres, also lining up against Death of a President, the film has effectively been banned from at least 16,300 American movie screens.
The Adelaide Advertiser has the full report.
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October 17, 2006
Clickstar service allows downloads for recent films
Targeted more towards independent films, Clickstar will bring recent films to people online.
When you think of Morgan Freeman and Intel, you don’t tend to think of the actor and the technology company together. A new Web venture between the two and Revelations Entertainment will now change that.
The venture is a website that will allow independent movies to be offered online the same day they launch in theaters.
For more, visit Geek.com.
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October 16, 2006
Movie advertiser will launch IPO
With the box office back in somewhat of an upswing, National Cinemedia is trying to cash in.
National CineMedia, which sells on-screen movie theater advertising, on Thursday filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering.
The number of shares to be offered and the price range haven’t been determined, the Centennial-based company said in a statement.The one-year-old company, which has about 240 employees, is a joint venture of Phil Anschutz’s Regal Entertainment Group, AMC Entertainment and Cinemark USA, the three biggest theater chains.
For more, visit the The Rocky Mountain News.
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October 10, 2006
Theaters afraid to play assassination movie
With the new independent feature, “Death of a President”, about to be released, some major chains are starting to claim they won’t play the film. The controversial film that depicts a fictional assassination of President Bush was a hit at the Toronto Film Festival but not a favorite of Regal and Cinemark.
Yes. Absolutely. I believe the theater groups have the right to choose which films they will and will not show.
I find it a tad ironic that Regal and Cinemark are kicking up such a storm about this film, because films of this sort of caliber, of this, rather of this budget — and it’s made for British television — don’t normally show in multiplexes anyway.
Fox News has the full interview with the writer from Time Out Chicago on their site.
Since we discussed people’s thoughts on a theater holding back films based on supposed quality last week, how about people sound off on their thoughts regarding a chain holding back a film based on content.
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September 28, 2006
Same day burning now possible
A company called CinemaNow, is breaking out some new technology with its same-day release of the new Fast and the Furious DVD.
Online movie service CinemaNow on Tuesday said it will offer a version of Universal Picture’s “The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift” that customers can download onto a blank DVD the same day it is available in stores.
The “download-to-burn” Web release on the same day the DVD lands in stores is a first for a major Hollywood studio. Until recently, studios have been reluctant to offer downloads to “burn,” or copy, for fear of piracy and because doing so might cannibalize retail sales in the $24 billion home DVD market.
For the rest of the story, visit Reuters.