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Amazing response. Thank you for taking the time. You put a lot of thought into it, and I love learning about these things.

Posted by: lobogotti on Sep 15, 16:46 in response to Moviesnob's post Booking is a negotiation between the distributor's...

The point about theater count not really telling you how much actual screen capacity a movie is getting makes a ton of sense. A movie being in 2,000 theaters sounds impressive, but if it's playing once or twice a day in a 100-seat auditorium, that's obviously completely different from another movie getting four or five showings a day on one of the biggest screens.

While I have thought a lot about the economics from the theater's side, especially the rental percentage, that's only because of past conversations we have had. So interesting that a movie doing less box office could actually be more valuable to the theater if they're keeping a much larger percentage of the ticket revenue. That adds an entirely different variable to the equation.

But your AI/Moneyball comment is the part that really got me thinking.

Is anybody actually building tools to do this today?

It seems like there should eventually be a system that is constantly looking at per-screen performance, auditorium size, showtimes, capacity utilization, presales, walk-up patterns, ticket prices, rental percentages, PLF demand, demographics, dayparts, concessions, historical performance, etc., and then telling an exhibitor:

"You're leaving money on the table. Move Movie A into this auditorium, add two showtimes, reduce Movie B, and your projected revenue/profit increases by X."

And then keep recalculating as the actual performance data comes in.

Basically, instead of just forecasting what a movie might do before release, use the actual real-time performance of every movie to optimize what happens next.

Is anyone in exhibition/distribution actually doing that at a sophisticated level already? Or is this still largely bookers, studio relationships, contractual requirements, and human judgment?

Because it feels like there has to be a massive opportunity there if nobody has really cracked that yet.

And if no, then why not you?!

Odyssey made more money per screen yesterday than any film with 1000+ screens. $100+ more than PRAC2! it's Day 60 and still over $1M. lobogotti Sep 15, 12:08

higher ticket prices {nm} Moviesnob Sep 15, 13:39

you'd know a lot more than me on the subject, but it seems like there would be strategy to re-expand a film like this? lobogotti Sep 15, 14:08

Booking is a negotiation between the distributor's goal and the theaters space and how titles are performing in a specific venue Moviesnob Sep 15, 14:34

at least for the true IMAX screens like the Chinese it's weirdly killing anything now that might have otherwise gotten a few weeks in the jimothy Sep 15, 16:04

something I didn't really much think about that. btw, I did see DStars in IMAX and it was worth the time to do so. lobogotti Sep 15, 16:47

Amazing response. Thank you for taking the time. You put a lot of thought into it, and I love learning about these things. lobogotti Sep 15, 16:46

Keep going, please ... I still wanna see it get within $100m of Return of the King adjusted + beat Jurassic World! {nm} Qix Sep 15, 17:21

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