November 24th, 2001
'Harry's' Trailers Come With a Hitch; Warners Forces Theaters to Run Double the Usual Film Previews
By Paul Farhi
Washington Post
At 7:32 p.m., the lights come down for the first evening showing of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” For a few hundred excited kids inside the Regal Theater in Rockville, the wait is finally over. Only it isn’t.
First, a public service announcement appears onscreen. Then an ad for Mountain Dew materializes. Then an ad for Chevy minivans. Then a trailer for “Scooby Doo.” And another for “Lord of the Rings.” And another for “Jimmy Neutron.” And still another for “Stuart Little 2.” And one for Meg Ryan’s new movie, and Jim Carrey’s new movie, and also one for Tim Allen’s. Plus, a reminder to visit the snack bar.
Fifteen minutes after the lights dimmed, the giddy excitement gone, the screen finally flashes these cherished words: “Our Feature Presentation.” An actual movie begins.
In cineplexes nationwide, it’s hurry up and wait. Audiences are sitting longer than ever through what theater owners politely call the “pre-show.” A generation or so ago, the pre-show might have meant a short comedy or a cartoon, and perhaps a couple of “coming attractions.” Now the pre-show is all business, consisting of slides advertising local businesses, commercials for sneakers and sitcoms and an ever-growing number of trailers.
The Warner Bros. release of “Harry Potter” is being closely watched in the theater business not only because of its record-breaking box office but also because of its effect on the pre-show. “Potter” may be the movie that sparks an industry-wide trailer war.
Along with the 8,000 copies of the movie it sent to theaters, Warners included five minutes of promotions for its upcoming films—double the time limit under a longstanding agreement between theater owners and movie studios. The pent-up demand for “Potter” gave Warner leverage, and the company took it: Theater chains had to agree to play Warner’s pre-"Potter" trailers to show the movie in the first place.
But other studios wanted on the “Potter” bandwagon. They hounded theaters to play their trailers before Warner’s blockbuster, too.
Thus, “Potter” audiences are waiting longer to see the feature than for perhaps any film in years. Instead of the typical three or four trailers, some patrons are sitting through as many as eight or nine. That is in addition to the ads that theaters show to their customers, a once-controversial practice that audiences now passively accept for the most part.
Result: A nonstop sell-a-thon, followed by a movie that begins 20 minutes or more after the announced starting time.
“I think there’s going to come a point where moviegoers say ‘Enough!’ and just stay home,” says Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, an organization chaired by Ralph Nader that opposes excessive commercialism. “People don’t want to feel that they’re part of a captive audience.” Ruskin’s group wants theaters to disclose when the movies—not the ads and trailers—start.
Although advertising still draws a mixed reaction, movie exhibitors say many of their patrons like trailers. The film previews are an effective marketing tool—studios and theaters use them to keep folks coming back—and can be entertaining in their own right. Witness the trailers for George Lucas’s “Star Wars” films, which are mini-events in themselves when they hit theaters.
Still, many chains recognize that too much of a good thing can backfire. “Theater owners must be careful with the total number of trailers they show,” warns John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theatre Owners. “Distributors and exhibitors have to properly manage trailer placement. Otherwise, we’ll lose the marketing potential and alienate our audiences.”
Fithian wouldn’t comment about Warner Bros. directly, but his organization is clearly concerned about the studio’s recent actions. Both the theater owners group and the Motion Picture Association of America, which represents major movie studios, reportedly raised objections to Warner’s plan to offer five minutes of pre-"Potter" trailers when it surfaced last month.
The 2 1/2-minute rule has been in place for decades, said Bethlyn Hand, senior vice president of the MPAA. “It started when there weren’t many trailers around,” she said. “Now, there’s a whole plethora of them.”
Some executives say Warner’s actions could permanently alter the fragile agreement that guides how trailers make it to a movie screen.
The system is based largely on cooperation among movie distributors and theater companies. Typically, the studio that produces the film being screened has the right to add a few trailers for its other releases. Theater owners then add other trailers from rival studios, to ensure that a mix of upcoming films gets exposure.
The worry is that Warner’s screen-hogging might lead to similar practices. Other studios—particularly those that have a blockbuster like “Potter” on their hands—could insist that theater owners play more of their trailers, too.
“This is going to make all the [rival studio] distribution guys unhappy, and they’re going to want to do the same thing,” said one industry executive, who asked not to be identified. “If that happens, it will collapse the [voluntary] program” that has guided the industry. “Everyone is watching this as a potential precedent.”
Warner Bros. head of distribution, Dan Fellman, could not be reached for comment this week. A spokesman for Warner Bros. declined to comment.
Ultimately, if pre-show clutter grows unabated, theater owners and distributors say, it could result in a reduction in the number of times a movie can be shown each day—something that would hurt theaters, producers and patrons. A two-hour movie usually can be played five times daily. But if the pre-show grows much longer (or the movies themselves do), four screenings might be the maximum possible.