Well, if you combine the titles of my last two posts, you get a pretty cute James Bond girl.
Quantum of the Solace (the new James Bond movie) came out on November 5th in Egypt. That's 9 days before it came out in America. Yet, while it was being shown all over Cairo, it wasn't shown in a single theater in Alexandria until the 26th.
The 3 week delay in getting the new James Bond movie into theaters in Alexandria just doesn't make sense, and neither does the theater industry in Alexandria.
1) New Releases are not released on time
This turns into a lose-lose-lose situation. The consumers (you and me) have to wait longer for the movie to come out; we can't get the satisfaction that we're on the cutting edge of action pack Hollywood. The theater loses potential profits because people will substitute away from the theaters that are slow to show new releases. The production company loses potential profits because a not as many people will show up for the movie. If it comes out 3 weeks after the initial hype of its release to theaters, than people simply won't be as interested because the hype has already passed. But most importantly, it doesn't cost the theaters or production companies anything more to release movies simultaneously throughout a country, so why not be smart about it. It's not like we need to do a pilot showing for 3 weeks to calibrate distribution in a nearby city.
2) There is no Fandango
People don't know what is playing where. If I don't know what's playing and I have no easy way of finding out, I'm not going to bother with going to the movie theater. If I have a website with the summaries of every movie in theaters and what movies are playing at each theater, I have a better chance of considering going to a movie. I actually found a blog that posts what movies play where in Cairo and Alexandria, and it's great compared to everything else in Egypt, but it's nothing compared to a site like Fandango.
3) All movies start at the same time 3, 6, and 9
This is good because the spread of information is slow in Egypt and a staggered scheme would just be too confusing because 1. no one checks the internet for stuff like show times 2. there is no place on the internet to check for show times. This almost seems like a chicken and egg problem, but once there's a good site in Arabic (English would even be fine) with movie times, people would start checking it (if they haver enough money to watch a movie in theaters, they most likely have internet access).
The theaters need a website to display the different times that the movies are playing to target specific audiences. Staggered movie times are important for optimizing resources and minimizing crowds. With staggered times, 1. more movies can be fit into the schedule 2. More combinations of movies can be fit in (4 James Bonds and 2 Madagascar 2s instead of 3 and 3) 3. Employees can be employed optimally without downtime 4. Food lines will be shorter leading to more people considering purchasing food leading to greater profits (because that's where theaters make profits on popcorn... what do you think the profit margin is on a $6 bag of popcorn?)
4) There's an intermission
I just want to see the movie without stopping. This is just really annoying to me, but I think it actually might be good business. What are you going to do during intermission? Buy another drink and refill your popcorn... $$$ for the theaters.
