Mark Cuban's Move Business Challenge re-visited...

[Meryem Ersoz]

ok, redusers, this is an old post, and Mark Cuban's Movie Business Challenge is closed, but I thought it might be interesting to discuss here, since the Broncos are dying out there, on this Sunday afternoon:

http://blogmaverick.com/2006/07/23/the-movie-business-challenge/

How would you re-invent the business of theatrical distribution? Is there a holy grail? If you had a Mark Cuban-sized budget and a chain of dying theaters, how would you rebuild and re-energize them? How does the paradigm of communal viewing need to shift to make money like it used to? Or is it dead in the water?

I reserve the right to abandon this discussion, if the Broncos show a spark...c'mon Donkeys!

 

[David Birdy]

Fun stuff.. I actually responded to Mark's post in 2006.

My suggestion was to make theaters a "Hub" for entertainment, food and drink making it a place to spend the entire evening...not just a few hours.

I also suggested that the theaters get involved with local community activities
and host community parties and group functions...Mark seemed to think it was going to be too costly.

 

[Elsie N]

Technology needed - A way to stream Red 4K to their set top box and low-cost projector located in the movie theater. Perhaps from a dedicated satellite or other downlink.

Then, you stream simultaneously to a network of theatres. Ticket sales are recorded at the ticket window and uplinked back to the distro site so charges to individual theaters can be determined. Maybe even a monitoring feed can be uplinked from each theater so that distro central can check quality of the feed and suggest settings to the projectionist.

In other words... I got nothin'. But the Texans are also getting smacked so I just decided to come here and do this.

EDIT: Still would not solve the problem of watching a movie among an impolite audience, but that could be addressed by catering to small community theaters with audiences made up of people who are from the same neighborhood or community. Normally they tend to act alike and anyone that goes beyond the boundaries could be put in timeout.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Best theater I've ever been in was in Christchurch. Giant lazy boy reclining seats. Roomy Aisles. Big screen and good sound. Call me old fashioned but anything to improve comfort and picture/sound quality is best. However that market seems to be pretty much saturated in the US by the big chains (minus lazy boy seats) so I would say you have to do something unique.

http://www.central-cinema.com/

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

I responded to him back in 2006 as well.

You can read what I wrote then here.

Basically I said they need to close the window.

At the time I decided that it was politic not to notice that copyright violations were closing the window with or without industry's participation.

 

[Jeff Coatney]

I say improve the food and beverage options. The reason older adults don't go to the movies is because their doctors forbid them from eating and drinking any of the 12 year old kid food that they serve. Why is there no Starbucks or Ice cream available? How about a deli sandwich? Would it kill them to serve fresh brewed iced tea?

How about sit-down restaurants that show movies like the Enzian in Winter Park, FL? That's a great way to see a movie. Exhibition sucks because no one is applying any creativity to it, its fundamentally unchanged since the 1920's.

 

[Elsie N]

Bring back the drive-in movies. Cars now-a-days are so comfortable that one couldn't ask for a better cubicle to watch a movie from. Maybe send the sound through a weak fm signal to the car's radio.

Kids don't have to go to drive-ins for courting in this era... they have their own wing in the family home where they can have sex... so that wouldn't be a distraction from the movie. Bad weather would preclude showing a movie, but you shouldn't be out in bad weather anyway.

ADDITIONAL: Just had another idea. The drive-in could have electrical outlets so EVs could plug in and recharge while watching the movie.