What is your best guess on which will be the bigger film? I'm trying to decide which one gets the extra 50 seats in our largest auditorium for next week end and it seems to be almost a toss up. What do you think?

King Kong is 180 minutes and Narnia is 132 minutes. You can have more shows for Narnia so perhaps the smaller auditorium if you use that logic.

I am concerend about the running time of King Kong. Narnia is generating a lot of buzz here.

Both have good buzz here but my choice is which one gets 300 extra seats. That is much more difficult than 50. Narnia will be on week two. I know I will be packed on week one but will it have legs?????

I don't know which will have more legs but 3 hours of a big ape is just too much in my opinion and there are other more family friendly movies to see - Cheaper by the Dozen 2 and Dick & Jane. I just hope they all do better than these Thanksgiving duds.

Kong is generating almost no buzz here. I'm not as concerned about running times as as I am about the general lack of excitement at our poster-o-meter. (Need I mention Lord of the Rings or Titantic or Dances with Wolves?) I guess that kind of answers my original question (for us anyway). Narnia has generated lots of buzz from banner which has been hanging over our concession stand for months.
I am questioning Universal's marketing strategy for this one esp. since we weren't able to get a one sheet until after Showeast. It's like they were either so sure of it or so afraid of it, they held off on everything.
Anyway, all we can do is hope and leave it to the final judges on what is going to do business or not--our customers.
I'm reallly hoping that with all the late December openings that something will have the legs to go into January and possibly even February. NBC is reporting over 1000 people at the premier last night. Is that good for a premier? No comments on the film though. Has anyone seen it?

My booker told me the Kong screenings were private (no theatre owners) and were kept secret. They were to call him the morning of the screening with the location and the time. Whatever the reason, I think it's ridiculous. In my experience, when they 'hype' a movie so much and do things like this, the movie usually fails. Dick Tracy comes to mind from years ago.

Good luck to everyone this Christmas!

Thanksgiving duds? I've done very well with Harry, Walk/Line and even Chicken held up well.
My Nov this year was up 12% over last.

If Narnia is truely aimed at a "Rings type audience" it will only do "ok" in my town. Just like the 3 Lord movies did just "Ok" in my town. The Narnia trailers and TV spots sure don't do anything for me. Yawn.

If Kong proves to be the "Action Adventure Extravganza" that Universal suits say it is, then here is the rankings in my town.
1-Kong
2-Dick & Jane
3-Narnia

If Kong is an overbloated oscar fed ego fest, then
1-Dick & Jane
2-Narnia
3-Kong.

My booker said the biggest fault he saw with Kong is that Kong doesn't appear until 110 minutes in.

My 2 cents give or take a dollar.

And remember, there is nothing wrong with having sold out shows. It's good to get the word of mouth flowing.

I still find the King Kong trailers boring. It's been done before with the original and the Jurassic Park movies.

Just got terms/info on Kong for around here.
Terms: 70/70/50/40
$1000 advance
$1500 advance
7 day pay

I smell a dud for my town but it's impossible not to play it at this point.

I wish my Thanksgiving had been better. HP4 had one good week then was out. I think it's because I don;t take credit cards LOL

Prepare for Narnia!

=$2500 advance then I guess?

Here is a blurb from an industry insider that I trust. He has lots inside of sources of pertinent info . He is not one to pull punches.

"There is too much positive buzz about KK to believe it will flop. So far all test screenings have come back with extraordinarily high numbers and the industry is abuzz with talk of another titanic type epic.

This one will have some legs to it, I think much like titanic did. With HP and Narnia out, people are having to see more movies than they are used to, so give it some time.

I don't see this picture as having much pre draw. It isn't a cultural phenomenon... yet! Harry Potter has that automatic buy in from the book series, KK just has a string of floppish remakes, and the original that makes our young cringe."

Sorry, the $1500 is suppose to be guranteed. The usual blah blah contract stuff that makes them the million dollar corporations and us the lowly peons who do all the work for them.

I'm already looking ahead to January. Any thoughts on whether 2006 will be a 'down' year again or do you think it will bounce back due to the product or changes in the economy, etc?

Heck I don't know.
I think Nanny McPhee looks good.
Curious George could be alright. The Shaggy Dog could surprise, Tim Allen draws around here. Ice Age 2 is a no brainer if they haven't screwed it up. Beyond that, I have no idea. Really.

Which one of you asked for Mission Impossible 3? Barffff..... Tom Cruise needs to go off by himself and act weird, public could care less.

You know, I've not paid any advances or guarantees in years. Must be because I take CC's and you don't.

Screened Narnia last night and was not very impressed. The directing was poor and FX were sub par in my opinion. Heck I'm still trying to figure out what exactly it was about (I've never read the books or even heard of them till this movie).

Hollywood's way of saying Merry Christmas!

So how did Narnia go? I think we were down from what I expected of it.

Narnia gets more poster buzz than Kong. I was talking to our checker yesterday and he said the promo stuff for Kong was messed up from the start. They had big plans but most of the standees were damaged in shipping. Other items never got launched or came in late. My booker still says its a must play.

HP4 sure did die fast this weekend.

I was also expecting more from Narnia than we did. I'm thinking it will hold well though. I have 6 schools scheduled to see it between now and next Tuesday, so maybe that's why we were down from what I expected. At least they will help the grosses.
King Kong is starting to generate a little more buzz, so I'm feeling a little bit better about it. Only time will tell though.
And what about Universal's "creative" delivery? We are getting reel 8 today and rest of the film tomorrow. Do they really think that if someone wants to pirate it that this will stop them? Just makes things more difficult for us, to say nothing of their "creative bookkeeping on terms.

Narnia for me did about what was expected. I have several schools as well booked to see it the next 10 days.

This weekend is not known to be a strong weekend for me, so I'm happy with Narnia.

If Kong doesn't perform at least above average for all of us, then it's time we hang it up and all go get a real job. Word is that Kong should grow as word of mouth builds.

The reel 8 debacle is about to begin, wait til all the reports of theatres that start flooding out that they have all reels but #8! Oh yeah, and this ludicrous shipping schedule sure does stop the video pirates, Kong is already available for download online. Gee, don't think it's the theatres faults now do we.

By the way, Kongs RT is 187

No comment

We had reel 8 Friday! They used the same carrier so all 9 reels were in the warehouse together! If they want to pull out one reel for special delivery then they should have sent it FedEx or UPS so it was not in the same warehouse.

Once again proof that the suits in Hollywood have no clue about reality outside of their office door.