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What is an Academy member in New York or Los Angeles to do if they want to see The Hunger Games?
Apparently they have to pay for it like everyone else.
My phone was ringing over the weekend with inquiries from more than one member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences asking if I knew why The Hunger Games was nowhere to be found on the Acad’s official Samuel Goldwyn Theatre screening members schedule for March — or even all of April (“I told my husband I guess we’ll have to go to an 11 AM showing and get the senior discount”, one disappointed member told me). Normally the Academy is given top priority by studios and distributors — whether it’s awards season or not — and it would seem to be a given (even if it’s not obvious Oscar material) to screen such an anticipated film, particularly one directed by a previous Oscar nominee (Gary Ross) and with a cast and crew full of past nominees and winners. But my sources tell me the Academy’s committee in charge of booking their weekend screening series did indeed approach Lionsgate distribution contacts twice in order to secure a March screening of the film for their NY and LA membership and were turned down. They also asked the distrib again before the March 15th cutoff for April screenings and were again turned down. I am told BAFTA-LA, which also has a screening program, was turned down as well. A Lionsgate source tells me they definitely plan a full round of guild screenings as well as an Academy screening, but the calendar for March and April just didn’t work in the case of the latter. On the other hand, Lionsgate did book it this month for San Francisco, where the Academy also has a regular screening series for Northern California members, but the great majority obviously live in NY and LA.
Academy members are accustomed to seeing movies in their state-of-the-art Beverly Hills theater within a week or two of release, often opening weekend , and sometimes even before. In fact Lionsgate’s own upcoming horror film, The Cabin In The Woods, is scheduled for its official Los Angeles Acad screening on Saturday April 7th, a week before it opens in theaters on April 13th. Next weekend’s two wide releases, Mirror Mirror and Wrath Of The Titans, are scheduled for the LA screenings on Saturday and Sunday in addtion to 21 Jump Street and The Raid. The rest of April is fully booked in NY and LA, so the earliest date Hunger Games could be considered is the first week in May.
Instead of seeing the most buzzed-about movie last weekend, the LA and NY-based Academy members had a choice of box-office bombs Gone and Wanderlust in addition to Will Ferrell’s Spanish-language Casa De Mi Padre and Act Of Valor.
Awards Columnist Pete Hammond - tip him here.
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My favorite part of Pete’s article – on about 5 different levels:
“ ‘I told my husband I guess we’ll have to go to an 11AM showing and get the senior discount’, one disappointed member told me.”
I completely agree, on 5 different levels. “11 AM”? “Senior discount”? “I guess”? HAHAHAHAHAHA… I haven’t been this amused in a while. Thanks Pete.
OH THE HORROR . . . THE HORROR . . .
I hope they get there in time to watch the 20+ minutes of commercials, first. Otherwise, it’s just stealing.
EXACTLY!!!
Dear Academy Voters:
This film is NOT FOR YOU!
Now you know why I avoid the 11am matinees!
Too many Academy members blocking the way in with walkers or big heads?
How sad, they have to pay for the movie like everyone else.
Oh man, poor poor people. They will have to pay the $15 the rest of NYers pay. However will they cope?
Maybe if they paid for all the movies, they’d collectively make better movies.
so when the movie doesn’t get any Oscar nominations, it will be blamed on this slap in the face to Academy members. What a sensitive group of people.
Do you have any idea how true your statement is?
In your face, Academy.
(“I told my husband I guess we’ll have to go to an 11AM showing and get the senior discount”, one disappointed member told me).
Hey Academy, your irrelevance is showing!
academy members too cheap to buy movie tickets for their own industry… that’s irony…
Academy Members…….cheap rich people. What a shock.
…. cheap, rich RETIRED people, one reason why their “best (whatever)” voting seems so out-of-touch.
You forgot “old”. Cheap rich old people.
(“I told my husband I guess we’ll have to go to an 11AM showing and get the senior discount”, one disappointed member told me).
Ouch. No more damning words have ever been uttered re: the Academy per these fine web pages. No WONDER “The Artist” won.
That said, I’ll pay to see “The Hunger Games” when they pry my hard earned American dollars from my cold, dead hands.
Make them pay!!
How about because we don’t want to see the film under the bullshit conditions of a public movie theater. I paid fifty dollars for three tickets to see THE RAID on the weekend at the Arclight in Hollywood – one of LA’s premiere movie theaters – and all I got for my money was asswipes texting throughout the entire movie on either side of me. So now I’m faced with a dilemma: Am I going to admonish the texters for fucking up my movie experience to have them give me attitude throughout the rest of the film – or even worse, ignore me and continue their shitty behavior. Now I’m feeling self-conscious about having called them out and my mind is not on the film where it should be. Or should I get up and summon an usher to do the berating for me. In that case, I’m bound to miss about five minutes of the film for my trouble. Either way I’m screwed. And this isn’t a one time occurrence. It happens every time at every public movie theater. On the flip side, I attend guild and Academy screenings all year under controlled conditions: excellent projection standards, no food and drink allowed into the theater and no cell phone use. And, I’m paying for the screening privileges out of my dues. I feel for the serious movie lovers in the general public because they are fucked. As a filmmaker and someone who needs the public to turn up for my films, I feel sick admitting that you’ll get more value for your money by choosing VOD or waiting for the Blu Ray. Until the theater chains start adequately policing screenings – and by that, I don’t mean tell the audience to summon an usher if someone starts acting up. I’m talking about having an usher present throughout the entire film and watching for cell phone light ups or even more overt bullshit behavior. So, yeah, I can understand why some Academy members are pissed.
Well gee, who’s more likely to get the theaters to take standards seriously – we random moviegoers or connected insiders? (Neither my UPS guy, next door neighbor, butcher or I will probably ever attend ShoWest or similar gathering.)
To think of ALL of the Oscarcasts I’ve sat through on tv w/ the obligatory “why we love the movies” propaganda bits while – according to you – the ENTIRE Academy agrees going to a public movie theater sucks. Why not take some pride in your industry and try and improve it for the customers instead of nestling in your ivory towers?
did you write this whole thing while sitting in the theater?
Really? Really??? We ALL put up with that shit. Not just you, on the apparently rare occasion that you deign to stoop to the level of the plebs and see a film in a “public” movie theater. Besides, why on Earth would an Academy member be pissed? They get to see the majority of films in these private Academy screenings. And The Hunger Games will eventually get there as well. If they’re so desperate to see it opening weekend, they can drag their elitist bums to a soda stained seat in a “public” theater, pay for their elderly discounted ticket, and see the movie with the rest of America.
“Policing screenings” suggestion = idiot.
Buy the DVD, we don’t want you in our theaters.
Sincerely,
The Normal Folks
I have to say – I was completely on the side of most posters here until I read the post by ‘Quality Viewer’. I’m in total agreement with him/her on all counts. Someone’s rudeness becomes the focal point of the movie and it falls upon the person not being an ass to now deal with a problem that should never have happened in the first place. What’s worse, the person who didn’t cause the problem now has to face hostility from those who did – further taking away from just watching the damned movie. And while I’m up here – I might as well point out how wrong it is for theater ushers to tell you to find them in the lobby if something is wrong with the projection. Why should I be on duty for the theater? I just paid for a ticket and don’t want to be called into action during the show. If theater owners are listening at all – they should give the notion of quality control a little test. It’s worth it.
All you had to say was, “Who wants to pay to see this crap?”
I agree 100%. That’s the beauty of watching any film at the Samuel Goldwyn theater- the ushers and the controlled environment.
Public theaters need to step their game up. Crappy food and a crappy experience, why would anyone still pay the hefty price to see a shitty film any way?
I watch a lot of films, and long ago found that watching them during the week, during school and work hours is the best way around this problem. But for those who don’t have that option, it’s a nightmare.
Chinese theaters were complaining of low attendance. Then they invested in new facilities, better food etc and now boom, attendance is an all time high.
I don’t like seeing movies in public theaters either. That’s why I watch almost everything on Blu Ray.
The thing is, the viewing experience is part of the product you’re selling when you make a theatrical movie. And your business model is based on theatrical distribution. If none of you want to movies in a theater, that should tell you something, yes? Maybe you could use your influence to help improve the theater experience?
I’m guessing movie theater chains don’t have ushers police the theaters in places like NYC and Los Angeles (and other major cities) because they fear for the safety of their employees!
This sounds like an argument for VOD. Lets do away with the theater industry all together.
God forbid you actually have to come down from your throne to mingle with regular people.
Do I feel sorry for how out of touch you are, Quality Viewer. I guess you’re the new spokesperson for the privileged 6000 members of the Academy.
What’s wrong? Were you replacing the seats in your home screening room that you had to trek to the Arclight?
Welcome to the real world. If you are so important, maybe you can do something to improve the conditions under which the rest of the audience sees films. Or are you that out of touch with reality?
Get off your ass and support the films you so vociferously claim to be supporting and pay to see them. I’d rather have your green dollars than your gold statues.
The audience at Arclight Hollywood are usually well-behaved. I’m there at least once a week.
If texting bothers you THAT MUCH as you’re watching THE RAID, you should NEVER go to a public theater to watch a movie. Occasionally, I see someone TALK on their cell phone during the movie and even at the Arclight, those last couple people are let in after the movie has begun.
What’s worse is when people talk to each other during the film or yell out their prediction of what’s going to happen next. These are things you’re going to have to deal with. TEXTING should be the least of your worries and I’m wondering just how great the action is in THE RAID if a lit cell phone screen put you in such a dilemma.
Advice: DON’T EVER WATCH A MOVIE AT THE GROVE. You may end up killing a high school kid.
@Movie watcher: you’re kidding, right? You don’t mind lit phone screens while watching a movie? Texting during a movie is fine by you? You might want to up your standards just a bit there.
Does it bother me a bit? Yes. Does it do this to me?
“So now I’m faced with a dilemma: Am I going to admonish the texters for fucking up my movie experience to have them give me attitude throughout the rest of the film – or even worse, ignore me and continue their shitty behavior. Now I’m feeling self-conscious about having called them out and my mind is not on the film where it should be. Or should I get up and summon an usher to do the berating for me. In that case, I’m bound to miss about five minutes of the film for my trouble. Either way I’m screwed.”
No. You might want to lower your standards a bit there. I don’t know where you watch your movies but a lit cell phone screen bothers me as much as the guy next to me taking 3 minutes to open his pack of Red Vines. Like some have mentioned above, there is much worse. I could only imagine somebody next to me translating an entire movie to their friend… that’s when I would ask for a refund.
@yikes-
Does it bother me a bit? Yes. Quality Viewer’s dilemma? No.
I think you should lower your standards a bit there. I don’t know where and when you watch your movies but a lit cell phone screen, whether to text or check the time, is becoming normal for my movie experience. Nice people, loud people, rude people, ignorant people… deal with it, that’s life. If not, stay home or try the drive-in.
By the way, be careful what you ask for. Ticket prices will rise.
A ripoff. $1 is too much for this crap.
The spoiled brats sound like they live in the Capitol. Boo hoo hoo.
Give me a break. This movie will receive no nominations for any catagories much like the Twilight Saga movies. None of the wonderful songs in Twilight were nominated, even though they could only come up with 2 original song nominations for the Oscars. So, why should Academy members get to see a movie for free that they will “dis” when it comes time for nominations. They only want the free tix so they can take their teenagers.
How horrible! Watching the movie with the unwashed masses, how does one not commit suicide or murder or both?
They don’t pay for tickets? Are you kidding me? seriously it’s no wonder they create such drivel 99% of the time, they can watch it for free. And feel affronted when they don’t get it for free.
Any idea why Lionsgate wouldn’t screen it, though? they certainly dont need their money.
I now frequent the new Laemmle NoHo 7 Theatre on Lankershim Blvd. in the NoHo arts district. Although I’ve seen My Week With Marilyn, The Artist, The Iron Lady, A Seperation, Albert Nobbs, The Descendants, The Salt Of Life, etc. there, the audiences at this theatre were quiet and respectful, like an Academy screening but with popcorn.
Oh Oh here comes the test – they were showing Hunger Games that I was curious about. The show was at 4:30 on Saturday and was quite full. Audience made up of pre-teens, many young adults, and yes quite a few old geezers like myself. I was ready to expect the typical Universal City worst type of crowd, but guess what, not a single cell phone lit up and no talking throughout this very long film. Was it the fact that it was a brand new Laemmle Theatre or that Laemmle gives off a vibe to show respect for your fellow filmgoer? I don’t know, but this is my new favorite theatre.
If even the ACADEMY think it is too expensive to see a movie, why do they expect rest of the public to pay for tickets, geeeez.
And those members have memories like elephants, which will be reflected next January.
Poor Academy Members. They have to see movies with *gasp* REGULAR PEOPLE?!?! With their entitled attitude they’re not going to get the movie though. They’ll be cheering with the Capitol at every death and asking each other what’s so wrong with a world like that.
Academy members can line up with the squealing tweenagers like everyone else.
Um, Wah?
OMG…Do they usually get their popcorn for free, too?
Well that is something to consider — that you should be guaranteed a better movie-going experience than the rest of us schmucks because you are an Academy Member and you have to vote on the film. I can almost buy into that if it weren’t for the fact that I think you need to vote on the same movies we see – and the movies we see are definitely shaped by the circumstances under which we see them. For example… audience reaction to the shared experience – that influences how we perceive a film. You don’t get that from VOD or industry screeners sent for your consideration. So I think you should have to see the exact same films we see in the same way we have to see them. That being said, perhaps it is time those of you in such positions of influence in the industry get together and use your influence to demand movieplexes install signal jamming hardware that makes it impossible to use a cellphone for any reason while in a theater.
Agreed. The only way to stop idiots and their incessant texting during movies is to install signal jamming devices. Unfortunately, some numb-nut would sue claiming they couldn’t be reached during a family emergency, someone died, you’re to blame, blah, blah, blah. Too bad. Your access to a cell signal isn’t a right. What did people do before cell phones?
I agree, Victor. I too think that part of the movie going experience is to be part of the audience reaction. To always be in a nice theater with industry people makes a very different experience than in a mixed roomful of teenagers in a crappy theater with old seats and an almost burnt out bulb, as it was when I saw “Hunger Games” with my kids. I was just so grateful I didn’t have to shell-out for craptastic 3D because our theaters’ screens are so dark and murky.
Here’s an idea for the academy: Have screenings (since Quality Viewer says their dues pay for them) for members, but allow them to bring family and friends, so there are non-Hollywood types in the audience. I sure the matinee senior discount lady has grandkids or friends with grandkids who would love to see the movie in a great environment too. T
I agree with Quality Viewer. I was almost ready to blast them for being entitled but they make a very good point. Every single prime time movie showing I have been to has been invariable ruined by idiots on their phones. I usually yell at them from my seat and try to shame them into stopping. Rarely works but I feel better. I do not have the option of attending guild screenings so now I do the next best thing when I want to see a film in a theater. I go and do some market “research” and check out a matinee on a weekday. You will meet some of the nicest seniors who either watch the film intently or get up and leave 15 minutes in. A glorious experience.