Theater Owners

The Force will be with us for at least another six weeks, and exhibitors can live with that.Thanks to George Lucas and 20th Century Fox's insistence that theater owners show "Star Wars: Episode One -- The Phantom Menace" for at least 12 weeks, the summer's big blockbuster is still only halfway through its contractually mandated run.And while the box-office returns haven't been enough to make the film the unprecedented blockbuster some had predicted, there's...

President Clinton and a major industry group representing movie theater owners agreed yesterday to require age checks of teen-agers trying to get into R-rated films.Critics of the entertainment industry have long called for tighter controls on access to violent entertainment by children. Those calls have become increasingly strident since the April 20 massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., in which two students with an apparent fascination with guns and violent video games killed 13 people before taking their own lives.

Underwhelmed.That's the reaction of many people directly affected by Tuesday's ballyhooed announcement that a majority of American theater owners would more rigidly enforce the motion picture ratings system -- requiring picture IDs for admission to R-rated films.President Clinton made the announcement at the White House, surrounded by representatives of the National Association of Theater Owners (N.A.T.O.), a group whose members operate 65 percent of America's movie screens. The policy was billed as a show of responsibility on the part of film exhibitors, a sign that they had learned from the tragedy at Littleton, Colo.

The Snowden Square 14 Megaplex in Columbia has drawn big crowds since opening Dec. 19."Business is doing great," said Dennis Daniels of United Artists, which owns the theater along Snowden River Parkway.With only two other movie theaters in Columbia, there has long been demand for a third. The new one is large -- with 3,000 seats -- and has stadium-style seating.That attraction and advertising have helped to draw people from a wide area."I really like the stadium-style seating," said Michelle Pihos of Randallstown.

The critics have ranted against it, the filmgoers have flamed it, it's tanking at theaters as we speak. But even though "Godzilla" seems to be getting its due out there in the world, something more is in order.Something like, well, moral outrage.Because even though it looks as though justice is being served in the marketplace, it's not. After all, the film's stars were handsomely paid to stand in front of a blue screen and pretend to be scared. Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich, who co-produced and co-wrote "Godzilla," took their money and will live to make movies another day. Sony Entertainment, the parent company of the film's distributor, Tristar Pictures, will most likely break even on its investment, albeit after a few sleepless nights (they just sold the broadcast rights of "Godzilla" to NBC for a piddling $25 million, at least $10 million less than they had planned)

The planned expansion of the Charles Theatre cleared its last financial hurdle yesterday after the city agreed to give a $79,000 grant toward construction of the movie house that will grow from one screen to five.The Board of Estimates unanimously approved the grant in hopes that the expanded theater will be an economic boon to surrounding neighborhoods that are beset with empty properties and crime."This will really help that block that is struggling now," saidBeverly Fuller, executive director of the Midtown Community Benefits District, a neighborhood organization that includes the theater.

At the Havre de Grace city fair last month, parents were offered an unbeatable bargain: videotapes of the just-released "Pocahontas" for $10 a pop.But some of the parents who snapped up the videotapes discovered something disturbing when they let their children watch the animated Disney feature. At the end of the movie, there was some footage that clearly didn't have anything to do with John Smith and Pocahontas. It was adults-only fare.After parents complained, a Baltimore man was arrested at the fair for selling two pirated videotapes to an undercover officer.

At 15, Bob Weinholt lied about his age to get his first job in a movie theater as an usher. He never left the theater business, working his way up to manage concession stands, run the projector, manage a theater, then head a district full of theaters.Today, the Bel Air 40-year-old is one of the biggest independent movie theater owners in Maryland, with nine theaters, 44 screens and 150 employees."Movies," said Mr. Weinholt, "are here to stay. They have survived two world wars, a Great Depression and the advent of television.

A Govans construction company has filed court papers to foreclose on the historic Senator Theater, but one of the theater owners says cinema buffs need not worry about the future of the city's last remaining art deco movie palace."

When you pay $6.50 for a movie ticket, you know some of it ends up, at least theoretically, in the pocket of Kevin Costner or whoever is up there on the screen entertaining you. But when you pay $3.50 for a bucket of popcorn -- where does it go? Are there some farmers in Iowa whose kids are getting the best orthodontics and college educations that money can buy?"Most people don't realize that it's the popcorn that keeps the theater's doors open," said Cathy Kasberg, concessions director for the United Artists movie chain, the nation's largest.

It's an elegant little word that ends any number of dramas, from Othello to the Merchant of Venice to - who knows - maybe even High School Musical. Exeunt. The common stage direction, the actors' cue to exit a scene, is Latin for, "They go out." In real life, though, exits tend not to be so simple. Lights don't fade to black, curtains don't fall with finality, the dramatis personae may go rogue and simply refuse to exit, stage left or right. So it went on Wednesday, when the long-running drama of Baltimore's Senator Theatre headed not necessarily toward its final conclusion, but at least the end of one act. Having teetered on the brink of closure for years as a result its owner's mounting debt, the Senator was going to auction.

A feature in which Sun writers and critics sound off about the movies. Going to the movies can be a drag, regardless of the quality of the film. Bad enough that ticket prices keep going up and concession prices tend toward the absurd ($3 for a cup of popcorn?). Worse is what happens when you sit in your seat, and then have to put up with the guy behind you who keeps trying to impress his girlfriend with his knowledge of the movies, or the gal in front chatting on a cell phone, or the couple to the side who can't keep their opinions to themselves, or the two dudes one row back who seem on the verge of fisticuffs.

SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- With evidence increasing that the American moviegoing habit is in decline, theater owners are undertaking a concerted campaign to bring it back. The National Association of Theater Owners, the primary trade group for exhibitors, is pushing to improve the theatrical experience by addressing complaints about on-screen advertisements, cell phones in theaters and other disruptions, while planning a public relations campaign to promote going out to the movies. Some exhibitors are hiring more ushers to ride herd on inconsiderate patrons and are thinking about banning children after a certain hour, to cut down on crying babies in the theater, said John Fithian, president of the trade group.

Nicole Kidman pushes Chanel No. 5. Val Kilmer points a Coolpix 2000 digital camera. Robert De Niro, wandering the mean streets of his New York, rhapsodizes over American Express. Not quite Oscar-worthy roles, but they've all made it to the big screen. Commercials, once considered a rude interruption, have emerged as a multimillion-dollar cash cow for theater chains across the nation. Though many viewers find the ads annoying, it's Hollywood's younger ticket buyers, ages 14 to 34, who are generating the demand to produce more such spots.

LAS VEGAS - The price of making a movie soared substantially last year, with the average major studio production costing nearly $59 million, a 23 percent increase from 2001, the Motion Picture Association of America announced this week. It was the biggest percentage increase since 1997 and a little more than double the $29 million of 10 years ago. In his address to theater owners at the annual ShoWest convention, MPAA president Jack Valenti lamented the skyrocketing costs of making movies and attributed the increase to the special effects and high technology now used throughout the filmmaking process in many movies.

The struggle to integrate the Northwood Movie Theater, which began in 1955, was rooted in the successful integration that year of the Read Drug & Chemical Co. lunch counters by Morgan State College students. On April 29, 1955, Morgan students, aided by a small contingent from Johns Hopkins University, approached the theater in the Northwood Shopping Center. As the students approached, an excited manager quickly posted this handwritten sign in the theater's box office: "Until the Motion Picture Theater Owners of Maryland, of which this theater is a member, and the courts of Maryland advise otherwise, this theater reserves the exclusive right to select its patronage.

A flock of blockbuster original movies and sequels this year -- from Spider-Man to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets -- has the movie industry breaking box office records for the second straight year. Helped by a record November, the movie industry already has surpassed its entire 2001 box office take with sales of $8.21 billion, according to Nielsen EDI Inc., which tracks the movie industry from Hollywood, Calif. For all of 2002, sales are expected to exceed last year's $8.13 billion by 9 percent to 12 percent.

It was Friday, opening night for the new Richard Gere and Winona Ryder movie, "Autumn in New York," but only 25 people sat in a theater built to hold 365 at Loews Glen Burnie. The following night, "Hollow Man" - the latest Kevin Bacon thriller - played to a half-empty theater at the General Cinema complex in Towson Commons. Those are startlingly low numbers, especially for Friday and Saturday nights, prime time for the movie industry. But it's a pattern being repeated across the country - the result, in large part, of the recent binge of acquisitions and construction by large theater companies that has produced a glut of movie houses, many of which will not be able to financially survive.

The Force will be with us for at least another six weeks, and exhibitors can live with that.Thanks to George Lucas and 20th Century Fox's insistence that theater owners show "Star Wars: Episode One -- The Phantom Menace" for at least 12 weeks, the summer's big blockbuster is still only halfway through its contractually mandated run.And while the box-office returns haven't been enough to make the film the unprecedented blockbuster some had predicted, there's...

Underwhelmed.That's the reaction of many people directly affected by Tuesday's ballyhooed announcement that a majority of American theater owners would more rigidly enforce the motion picture ratings system -- requiring picture IDs for admission to R-rated films.President Clinton made the announcement at the White House, surrounded by representatives of the National Association of Theater Owners (N.A.T.O.), a group whose members operate 65 percent of America's movie screens. The policy was billed as a show of responsibility on the part of film exhibitors, a sign that they had learned from the tragedy at Littleton, Colo.