Oceania Grr bllody Aussie cinemas (We have to wait for Scanner Darkly)

But you would have nowhere to see it.

Think about this, it costs the cinema to rent the film print, I'm not certain how much, but it's a lot more expensive than your average video rental.

Then they only get between 10 and 20% of the actual ticket sale.

So, figure around $12 a ticvket for your average 600 seat cinema, and that comes to $7,200. Let's say 15% margin for the cinema, that means a total income of $1080 per screening.

If you think that covers all of the costs of running a cinema, then i suggest you stay out of that line of work.

But please people, keep buying the 3 cents worth of popcorn for $8 a shot. That way people like me who buy snacks in the shopping centre downstairs will always have a cinema to go to.

 

How much it costs to rent actually depends on the print, if it's a copy of course it's less.

I used to go to the Mecca at Kogarrah as it was only $8 there and it was an old-fashioned cinema with your choc-tops and popcorn that wasn't made out to be gold plated for the price you paid for it.

Of course, the Mecca is now shut

 

Any second now, Ender will post using the word "pitard".

 

As Sithy said, where would they sit?

I thought I was pretty clear that cinemas make their money on candy bar. Not some of their money. Not a small percentage. The lion's share of a cinema's profit comes from candy bar sales.

If you take a successful film which sells sessions out for, say, 3 weeks, it probably will make back more than the several-thousand-dollars spent on renting the print from the distributor (I think it's b/w $6000 and $8000 for a print). But then you have films like, for example, Basic Instinct 2 which last a who week and don't make nearly enough to pay for their $6K rental. Which is why the cinemas have to resort to huge margins on candy sales.

I have no idea what the hell Katana means by a copy. If you wanted to run, say, Superman I, II and Returns as a Marathon, you have to locate one of the prints in Australia. Good luck. That's why, despite being good ideas, old movie screenings and marathons are rarer than hen's teeth.

It's very simple economics; a company that continues to operate without the capital needed to run it is called either a pyramid (which will collapse within mere moments) or a charity. Since the cinemas in Australia are neither, they must make profit. Short of charging $30-$40 for admissions, they have little choice but to cover their costs with candy bar margins.

Given that's how Greater Union/BCC/Village does things, and it's larger than Hoyts, you can call it fact and take it to the bank. All we need now is someone to say, "I disagree" for more comedy gold.

E_S

 

I agree! AHA!

I always make a point of buying popcorn at least. It's not like Cinemas are rolling in the dough- it's like the local video store. They need that revenue to keep going!

I really enjoy movies- and I feel ripped off when I do the right thing by going to a cinema to see a film and find that some weiner has a copy from Bali- and feels like it makes them the most amazing guy in the world.

I also buy a lot of dvd's- and I feel the same when some jerk asks to borrow my dvd's to "burn them".

 

This is what I meant buy 'copies': The studio that distributes the film develops a certain number of 'original' prints as well as a large number of 'copies' of these prints. The original prints have better quality, sound etc but are only in a select number of cinemas like the REALLY BIG ones in major cities.

That's one of the reasons why people go to the big cinemas to see a film they really have been waiting to see, the quality is better.

And I can see the economic POV Ender, though I'm still sore at the little guys like the Mecca for losing out big compared to the chain cinemas.

And as for pirating, the only illegal copies of films that I have are ones that were given to me by friends or I gave them a DVD and they copied it.
I would never buy a pirate film, it's a waste of money for the poor quality though I heard in countries like China and Malaysia you have little choice due to censorship laws.