|
Vanna White, the television personality
then conducted a mock "Wheel of Fortune" game in which every
clue referred to films coming from Sony this year, including
"Godzilla" and "The Mask of Zorro." As Vanna White announced
each title, actors from the film in question rushed onto
the stage----among them such stars as Michelle Pfeiffer,
Julia Roberts, Nicolas Cage, and Antonio Banderas. All of
this was followed by excerpts from the films. A highlight
of sorts came when the stage suddenly filled with dancers
costumed as characters from Sony's movies.
Robert Goulet played the part of Jeff
Blake and sang, to the tune of "The Impossible Dream":
This is our quest, To be king of the
box--There'll be lines round the block
When that big hunk Godzilla is finally here
And you'll know what we've done for you lately
When we beat the unbeatable year.
A private meeting held after ward, in
Sony's Las Vegas conference room, was far more grounded
in reality. A top Sony executive immediately set the tone
by observing that the presentation had cost Sony four million
dollars (a gross exaggeration, it turned out) and then quipped
that next year, instead of hosting the event, Sony would
just send a ten-thousand-dollar check to each of the chains'
film buyers.
It became apparent at this meeting that
the negotiations did not concern whether a chain would show
Sony films on their prescribed release dates that was taken
for granted. At issue was the terms under which they were
to be played and positioned against the films of competing
distributors--for instance, the number of screens they would
be shown on in a multiplex, the guaranteed length of each
film's run, the amount of free advertising there would be
in the form of trailers and lobby displays, and the division
of the box-office receipts.
For example, regarding "Godzilla," the
executive outlined the enormous marketing campaign, supported
by worldwide licensees of three thousand "Godzilla" products,
as well as promotional tie-ins with such retail partners
as Taco Bell, Sprint, Swatch, Hershey's, Duracell,Kirin
beer, and Kodak, which were designed to drive a huge and
voracious audience of teen-age boys to their theaters. This
particular audience, as he described it, was not concerned
with the quality of the film, or even whether it was in
focus, as long as there was action and popcorn. He joked
that the theaters' potential popcorn sales should persuade
them to agree to give Sony a larger opening-week cut. Joke
or not, the implication was not lost on Stephenson's film
buyer, although for the moment he successfully resisted
Sony's suggestion. (As it turned out, the "Godzilla" campaign
succeeded in "driving" people to pay seventy-four million
dollars to see the poorly reviewed lizard in its opening,
Memorial Day weekend.)
The next private meeting, in the hospitality
suite of Twentieth Century Fox, was more relaxed. After
offering Stephenson a soft drink, the Fox executive discussed
the strategy for the summer season, which provides the largest
audience for theaters. Indeed, of the nearly 1.4 billion
tickets sold in 1997, some five hundred million were for
the summer season, when, as the Fox executive put it, "Every
day is a school holiday." (Another two hundred and thirty
million were sold in the so-called holiday season, between
Thanksgiving and New Year's.)
This summer, Fox was facing competition
from a number of catastrophe films, such as "Godzilla,"
"Deep Impact," and "Armageddon," which early tracking polls
showed were attracting the attention of large numbers of
male teens. These polls I saw, which were conducted by the
National Research Group, had divided respondents into five
demographic "quadrants"--under twenty-five, over twenty-five,
male, female, and a racial category--and asked about their
awareness of, and interest in, upcoming films. On the basis
of these data, along with other research supplied by the
company, the major studios can avoid simultaneously competing
in the same demographic categories and dividing up their
opening-weekend audiences. Even in March, the Fox executive
reckoned that competitors' films, particularly "Godzilla"
and "Armageddon," would dominate two crucial quadrants--male
and under twenty-five--in the early summer. He therefore
opted to counter-program, which meant scheduling romantic
comedies, such as "Hope Floats," that would appeal to the
female and over-twenty-five quadrants.
Although the Fox people had an easier
style than their Sony counterparts, they wanted the same
limited commodity: the chain's better screens, play dates,
and in- theater advertising. So did the four other distributors
Stephenson met with during Sho West. By his count, in four
days he watched brief excerpts from some fifty films. "They
all tend to blur together," he said, and plots were never
described. Instead, the accompanying pitches identified
them in such jargon as "Clearasil" (coming-of-age), "genre"
(teen-age horror), "romantic comedy" (love story), "ethnic"
(black characters), "franchise" (the carbon-copy sequel
of another film), and "catastrophe" (volcano, comet/asteroid/monster,
loud sound effects). The Holy Grail was a film like "Titanic,"
which appealed to all five quadrants.
The last and longest meeting was with
Disney's distribution arm, Buena Vista; its senior executives
were eager to spend an hour or so discussing marketing plans
with Stephenson. While they voiced some concern about the
proximity of July's "Armageddon," in which the earth is
on a fatal collision path with an asteroid, with Paramount
and DreamWorks' "Deep Impact," in which the world is on
a fatal collision path with a comet, they had an ingenious
scheme for differentiating their product. Holding up a rectangular
box, their executives explained that it contained a kit
that would help theater managers to build a mock asteroid.
Disney planned to distribute this package to theaters playing
"Armageddon" and award prizes to theater managers who used
it to create the most forbidding cosmic rock. The theme
would then be amplified through such stunts as end-of-the
world parties hosted by local disc jockeys.
Later, Stephenson, along with several
of his top executives, toured the trade-show pavilions located
in two giant tents behind Bally's, where delegates to ShoWest
were somewhat greedily sampling popcorn, jelly beans, chocolates,
licorice, frankfurters, nachos, and other snacks, many of
which claimed innovative new flavors and aromas. Others
were getting a look at the non-consumable products at the
booths, such as loudspeakers, projectors, ticket rolls,
cleaning equipment, marquee letters, plastic cups, and remote
ticketing systems, such as MovieFone.
As we walked around, a theater executive,
who was assessing different popcorn-topping oil, said that
salt was the secret to financial success since it drives
customers back to the concession stand for drinks--where
they buy more popcorn. Stephenson stopped to try an oversized
Wetzel's pretzel, which comes in flavors that include cinnamon,
garlic, or pizza. According to the representative, the Wetzel's,
though about three hundred calories, would appeal to diet-conscious
non-popcorn-eaters, such as women who wait on the concession
line with their boyfriends. This, of course, is a domain
where the theater owner is in control. "We are in a very
high-margin retail business," Stephenson said.
[back
to archive]
|
