Thursday, February 02, 2006

more about the sad state of films on S.I.


I noticed today that 2 of the films nominated for Oscars, "Capote" (which I hated) and "Good Night, and Good Luck" NEVER played on S.I. Which in of itself is very telling.

A recent article on the front page of the advance belied the fact that there are many smaller, independent films that never make it to S.I. The reason given by the theater owners is that the distributors do not think S.I. is enough of a "market" to open the movies here.
What they fail to see is that given the chance, and over a long run, these films would make more per screen than the latest Hollywood "one-week wonder" films that permeate the island's theater bookings. C'mon, surely one can see that a film like "Good Night, and Good Luck" would out-gross something like "Doom" which plays one week and ony does halfway decent business the first weekend before heading to DVD 2 months later.
I refuse to believe that if these movies played here that people would not attend. Many have traveled off-island to see these already. Wouldn't it be great to have an "Angelica" type of indy movie house on the island?
STATEN ISLAND needs an independent movie theater. I think the Lane would be perfect.
If there's any millionaire film lovers out there that would want to tackle this project, let me know. The Lane is for sale/lease....most likely in the 2-3 million range. It would probably take another million to renovate and turn it back into a movie theater. I do not know if this venture would be immediately profitable, but I suspect that within 3 years, it should be able to pay for itself, and put some extra cash in the owner's bank account.
update:
these two movies DID open this fri. (feb. 3rd)....almost FIVE months after the initial release.
Better late than never?....hmmm...