moriarty@fluke.UUCP (Jeff Meyer) (09/03/84)
Most of you who read my reviews have guessed how much I like this movie.
Perhaps some of you can satisfy my curiosity about a certain subject:
I was looking through my newspaper today and discovered that BB was not
playing anywhere in Seattle. After less than a month of playing. Now,
anyone living in Seattle knows how unusual this is... usually these movies
drag on for months at the repatory theatres. We still got Cannonball II
(shudder) around here at several small theatres. Well, I then began reading
my copy of this week's NEW YORKER... and discovered, 2 weeks after a fairly
favorable review, that Buckaroo Banzai is playing NO PLACE in NEW YORK!!!
Astonishing!
Sounds to me as if this movie was yanked. Anyone got some clues as to why?
Were the box office receipts THAT BAD? Anyone reading Variety or something,
any information would be extremely interesting. Thanks in advance.
"Where are we going?!"
"PLANET 10!!"
"When are we going?!"
"REAL SOON!!"
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc.
UUCP:
{cornell,decvax,ihnp4,sdcsvax,tektronix,utcsrgv}!uw-beaver \
{allegra,gatech!sb1,hplabs!lbl-csam,decwrl!sun,ssc-vax} -- !fluke!moriarty
ARPA:
fluke!moriarty@uw-beaver.ARPAbarry@ames.UUCP (09/05/84)
[]
I have also been unable to find BUCKAROO BANZAI playing in my
area (SF Bay), and I suspect I know why distribution is so spotty.
Until a couple of years ago, I worked as a programmer for Universal
Studios, working mostly on their film distribution system. One of the
things I learned about film distribution there, was the 'key cities'
system, which is, I believe, used by all film distributors. In essence,
it's this: certain metropolitan areas are designated as 'key cities'
by the marketing folks, meaning they're considered demographically
representative of a large number of similar areas. Box office receipts
from key cities were phoned in to Universal's main office nightly by
theater owners in these cities when a film was first released, as a fast
means of figuring out how the film was doing.
Now the kicker: sometimes, when a studio is particularly uncertain
of how a film will do, it will be opened ONLY in the key cities, in order
to evaluate its performance before going to the expense of nationwide
distribution. This is particularly likely to happen, it seems, to films
which are hard to classify. Marketing folks get very nervous, indeed,
if they can't decide who the audience for a film will be, because then
they don't know how to promote it.
While I do not KNOW (and would welcome more information), I suspect
that this is what is happening with BUCKAROO BANZAI. If the studio likes
how the film is doing in the key cities, it will go into general distribution;
if not, it will probably disappear. But it can get complicated. The reaction
of audience and critics to THE STUNT MAN, for instance, when it was tested
in key cities, was extrememly favorable, yet it was still nearly not
released for general distribution. Movie execs are quite capable of checking
key city performances, and then going ahead and doing whatever they damn
well please, anyway.
As I recall, Westwood (in Los Angeles) and Phoenix were two of
the key cities when I was at Universal, but they change frequently, and
no doubt are different for each studio.
- From the Crow's Nest - Kenn Barry
NASA-Ames Research Center
Moffett Field, CA
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Electric Avenue: {dual,hao,menlo70,hplabs}!ames!barryayers@convex.UUCP (09/06/84)
#R:vax2:-130500:convex:38900013:000:124 convex!ayers Sep 6 14:19:00 1984 Read my note from 8-29-84 entitled "BACK - Buckaroo Banzai" blues, II (not bad for a pale piece of pig's ear)
jim@randvax.UUCP (09/09/84)
----- It's still alive and well in Westwood. I tried to find it in the D.C. area when I was there on a trip yesterday, without success. I'm planning on spending a lot of time in Westwood in the near future, in case they yank it here too... Jim