How do movie theaters get their movies?

Answer 1

The larger theater chains have central booking departments that work to secure the movies that will be shown in their theaters nationwide. Therefore, a head office based in, say, New York City, might be responsible for deciding which films will play in all of their locations across the country. Local theaters may be able to suggest to their head offices which films would be successful at their location, but, generally, they have little influence in deciding what plays on their screens. Independent movie theaters and small chains generally have much more control over the films they play. However, where competition with larger chains exist, the larger chain usually wins.

Booking departments negotiate with distributors to obtain the most lucrative product. Sometimes they may promise to play a distributor's B-list movies or they may agree to fiscally restrictive terms in order to secure a hit.

Generally, contracts come with a sliding scale of revenue distribution, meaning that the longer a film is in a location, the more favorable becomes the revenue ratio for the theater. For example, the opening two weeks of, say, Star Wars, might see 100% of box office revenue go to the film distributor, weeks 3-4 might see a 90/10 split (where 90% of revenue goes to the distributor and 10% goes to the theater company) and so on. These percentages are negotiated prior to theater companies securing the presentation rights. Theater companies will accept these extremely restrictive rates of return because they are hoping to recoup their operating costs through the sale of concession items.

Prints of the films are distributed to individual theaters via delivery agencies that work in conjunction with the film distributors. These are usually companies that specialize in print and media delivery, and not just your local FedEx.

Answer 2

Typically they just come in random brown tubes from UPS which I'm pretty sure are sent from the production companies since its their task to get the word out about the movie, if your trying yo get posters the same way that a theater does then good luck cause its not going to happen

I know one of the dm (district managers) and he gets me any poster I want. You have to know someone that works at the movie theater. You can go in and ask if you could have the poster when they're done with it. I have the Eclipse poster and a twilight, new moon, and eclipse long skinny poster. The posters there are transparent I guess you can say. the picture is on one side and backwards on the otherside. Its a really weird material though.

Answer 3

After a movie's been showing for awhile, the movie people will start to replace that movie's posters for more recent movies' posters. So the answer is ask. Just ask the manager if you can look through their old movie posters or to save some. Usually they're pretty cool about it. Or you can be lame and steal them from the theater while they're still up.

Answer 4

The primary use is advertisement, but once the need for buzz and hype for the movie diminishes, nostalgia and personal residence decoration are common uses. Theaters sometimes donate posters to schools and other nonprofits for decoration and education.