Getting the reels?

Go to the forums at www.bigscreenbiz.com

They are primarily into the business end of movie theater operations. Studio and film distributor contacts are there as well as film bookers. You can spend hours there reading the FAQ since your questions have been asked (and answered) there many times.

There are many folks who own & operate classic theaters on the forums too.

i run the film operations for a historic theater in south jersey and its a pain to get set up in the begining but im allways looking to help drop me a line with any questions

nerwallfilms1@yahoo.com

Find a film booking agent in your area, they can get you set up with all the distributors and help with the booking of fims for your theater. You can do all this by yourself but is is time consuming as you must set up an account with each distributor and you will be spending all you time on the phone calling each distributor trying to secure prints for the various films you might want to show.

A booking agent is the quickest way to get you name in the loop. However, once you are established with the movie companies, you can book movies yourself. The movie companies are more interested in how much money you make them than who is booking movies for you. We used a booker for about a year before we started booking ourselves, and we have no problem getting first run movies.