It is common for a movie distributor to take 90% percent of the revenue from
opening night, leaving 10% for the exhibitor. After the first week the
percentages usually move to 70% Distributor/ 30% exhibitor. If a movie is
highly anticipated, the distributor will demand guarantees, and will not
allow the distributor to accept discount/free passes and such. So, in that
sense, the distributor does make the ticket price part of their contract
with the exhibitor.
With one particular movie that I worked on recently, we also demanded that
theaters show our movie on their largest screen for a minimum of 8 weeks,
and if they showed the movie on more than one screen, they had to keep the
movie for 8 weeks on both screens.
Movie theatres rely on movie goers returning to see a movie a second and
third time. When people only see a movie once, they tend to lose out. (At
least, that's how the theatre owners see it.)
Michael Giesbrecht
IT Operations Software Engineering
Lucasfilm Ltd.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: david friedman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Friday, December 01, 2000 10:14 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re[4]: Movie popcorn prices
>
>
> I remember being told by someone who had looked into the question
> that the contracts between theaters and the film distributors often
> include restrictions on how the theaters can run the food
> concession--I assume maximum prices, but I don't really remember.
> That suggests that the distributors are concerned with the risk that
> theaters will use high prices for food and low ticket prices to
> transfer revenue from the distributors (who get a share of the ticket
> revenue) to themselves.
> --
> David Friedman
> Professor of Law
> Santa Clara University
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
>
