Hate the Flick? Some Theaters Offer Refunds

By KATE KELLY for Wall Street Journal

FACED WITH SAGGING box-office revenue, studios and theater chains are testing out novel strategies for getting the public back into movie seats.

Those tactics will be in full force during the coming Fourth of July holiday weekend. Continuing a promotion unveiled last weekend, AMC Entertainment Inc.'s theaters plan
to offer full-ticket refunds to moviegoers who don't like "Cinderella Man"-a flick that opened to disappointing attendance.

The no-hassle money-back guarantee is a rarity in the business, where fans who sit through awful flicks usually leave with little more than bad memories. But AMC's are
encouraging enough that Cinemark Inc another big exhibitor, is planning a similar promotion for the three-day weekend.


To boost this weekend's attendance of "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge ofthe Sith," News Corp. 's Twentieth Century Fox is offering a buy.- three-get-one-free deal-an
obvious gambit to cram families into theaters (and maybe even lure them back for a second viewing). Fox is also hoping to compete with Viacom Inc.'s "War of the Worlds"
from Paramount Pictures, which opens today. Fox's tongue-in-cheek slogan: May the Fourth Be With You.

That campaign follows one from Walt Disney Co., which promoted its family comedy "Herbie: Fully Loaded" by offering free sneak-preview tickets to anyone whose name
was a derivation of Herbert.

The moves illustrate some of the pressures Hollywood is facing this summer. Compared to last year, weekend box-office receipts have been down for 18. straight weekends, the longest stretch recorded in at least two decades. So far this year, according to the box-office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co., box office revenue is down 6% domestically, and movie attendance has slumped 10% compared to last year. For a theatrical industry already beset by competition from videogames, video-on-demand,
DVDs, and piracy, it's a worrisome time.

The attendance-goosing efforts notwithstanding, some movie-business veterans are skeptical that the latest tactics will work. Tom Sherak, a partner at Revolution
Studios, says that in his experience, money-back guarantees can backfire. Mr. Sherak, the former distribution chief at Fox, says that studio tried such a gimmick for a
1994 remake of "Miracle on 34th Street," which resulted in people demanding refunds because they were late to a movie or couldn't afford to pay for tickets in the first place.

When it comes to the movie going public, "giving it to them for free, or giving them the ability to get their money back, it's just not a driving force" to boost
attendance, he says. The exhibitors offering "Cinderella Man" refunds disagree. "We just really believe that 'Cinderella Man' is a special picture," says Dick Walsh,
film group chairman at AMC, the nation's second-largest theater circuit. "It's first class up and down, almost certain to be nominated for Academy Awards, and we just
wanted to do whatever we could to help." Mr. Walsh remembers just one other time when his company undertook such an offer: 1988, with the movie "Mystic Pizza."

As the big-screen debut of Julia Roberts, who would later become a huge star, a money-back guarantee for that movie was a prescient move. Still, it was an isolated one: while the promotion bore "good results" at the box office, says Mr. Walsh, AMC didn't consider doing it again. That is, until "Cinderella Man." Based on the true story of Jim Brad dock, a down-on-his-Iuck boxer who rose to national prominence after winning an underdog championship match in the depths of the Depression, the movie cost roughly $90 million to make, before marketing expenses. But with director Ron Howard and actors Russell Crowe and Renee Zellwegger starring, Universal Pictures, a unit of General Electric Co., had high hopes for its success.

Over a steak dinner around the time of the movie's June 3 opening, Mr. Walsh and Peter Brown, chairman of AMC, told executives at Universal Pictures that "Cinderella
Man" was one of the best movies they'd seen recently. But the film took in just $18 million during its crucial opening weekend, and in the days that followed, it was eclipsed by the bad-boy behavior of Mr. Crowe, who was arrested for hurling a telephone at a New York City hotel employee.

Stung by the movie's disappointing box-office performance, Mr. Walsh called Nikki Rocco, president of domestic distribution at Universal, to suggest the money-back guarantee.

"This is your call, Dick," Ms. Rocco remembers saying. But she was thrilled with the idea. "It's just their innovative way of trying to get a message across," she says,
"and 'Cinderella Man,' I think, will be a film ... that people will remember." Since AMC and Universal share movie-ticket revenue, the decision to proceed was ultimately
a joint one. But Mr. Walsh says he's pleased with last weekend's turnout for "Cinderella Man," which has taken in $50 million since its opening.

"The drop it experienced from the preceding weekend was the least out of all the top-ten pictures [currently playing]," he says. AMC plans to press forward in the
coming weeks, and says that consumers so far are not abusing the offer. In rare cases, people did request their money back-with no questions asked.

Cinemark, the third-largest U.S. movie chain, decided yesterday to offer the "Cinderella Man" guarantee as well. Texas-based Cinemark is in heavy competition with
AMC in some big markets. "We'll try it in some select markets and see if it works," says a Cinemark spokeswoman.

"which resulted in people demanding refunds because they were late to a movie or couldn't afford to pay for tickets in the first place."

We have the same thing in retail. people use an item then return it and get the use for free. it's called a cost of doing business.

so could I bring my camcorder in and record the movie, then say it sucked butt dumplins and demand my cashola back? that would really be cool

mmmm thorazine

They really haven't got a clue, have they?

mmmmmmmmmm perkidan.
Last movie, Star Wars which is the only movie I saw in three years. Remake of a remake to remake not me. War of the remake! No more remake I just wonder why no one goes anymore. I wonder why (Why did you leave me, baby)
I wonder who (Whoa, who’s lovin’ you)
I wonder whatever happened to us (What happened to us)
How did we lose (How did we lose, baby) It's that remake again and again and yet again. I wonder is there something new.
mmmmmm Thorazine does sound good.

"So far this year, according to the box-office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co., box office revenue is down 6% domestically, and movie attendance has slumped 10% compared to last year. For a theatrical industry already beset by competition from videogames, video-on-demand, DVDs, and piracy, it's a worrisome time."

Suing customers still not a factor.

If you also take out the movie The Passion Of The Christ. From last years box office, you will find it about the same or a little more of movie goers.

Well obviously the studios are going to have to crucify somebody else and make a movie out of it to get box office back up.

This isn't new news. If you don't like a movie, you ask for your money back and get it.

What surprised me was that this article says that "some" theaters do it. I've never heard of one that doesn't.

"So far this year, according to the box-office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co., box office revenue is down 6% domestically, and movie attendance has slumped 10% ...."

10% less attendance with only 6% lost revenue.....Hmmmm....Could cost be a factor as well? Could it be overpricing combined with poor quality in conjuntion with easily attainable alternatives and a lack of respect for the customer causing this "slump"?

Personally, I hope it isn't just a slump, but more of a trend or maybe even a beginning of better things After all, the great depresion went into full swing when there was a run on the banks, right?

This refund idea is a damn good one...but let's not stop at movie prices...I already am developing a whole list of things I want a refund on...
1) Wife Number One
2) Wife Number Two (I deserve a double your money back on this one)
3) Girlfriend number 12 (I'd be rich if I just got HALF the money back on that one)
4) That Chevrolet Caprice my uncle gave us that burned more gas than all the oil in Iraq
5) That damn Non-Parametric Statistics series of math courses in Undergrad school...both of those f'ers!
6) My wasted vote for Gore (as an anarchist, my fear of Bush getting in made me betray my core beliefs and "participate in the process....lol..what a joke...Gore got the most popular votes and STILL lost)
7) All the taxes I've been extorted out of by the state and federal govs for the past 34 years (since age 1
Every shitty album, tape, CD of RIAA affiliated songs
9) A hell of a lot of MPAA affiliated movies I've seen in the past 34 years
10) All the friggin' popcorn and carbonated beverages bought at theaters in the last 34 years
11) Sparq external hard drives
12) Iomega drive disks that developed "the click of death"
13) The almost 900 bucks for that court reporter..arrrgggggh
14) overinflated gasoline prices
15) 8-track tapes...need I say more on this one?
16) Overinflated home energy bills
17) College books that are overpriced
1 Overinflated cable bills
19) A CD burner that never worked after I carried to my mother's house
20) Any money spent on inusrance in the past 34 years!

Sales are down some, but the MPAA is not loosing money fast enough to satisfy me. (Same goes for the RIAA of course!)

Code, how much did they charge you to vote for Gore? If this is a new policy, I hadn't read about it, but assessing a fee for voting for liberals is something I'd have to approve of.

Seriously, when I used to watch films on the big screen -- back in the late Bronze Age I think it was, I paid $2.50 for a huge tub of "buttered" popcorn. I didn't buy it that often, but occasionally I'd splurge. Now a small box at the mega-mallplex is $4.25. My bank gives popcorn away for free on Fridays. Consequently I find I am going to the bank a lot more often than I ever went to the movies. Theater owners, take note.

"Could cost be a factor as well? Could it be overpricing combined with poor quality in conjuntion with easily attainable alternatives and a lack of respect for the customer causing this "slump"?"

Gee, sounds like the same formula that caused the slump in music sales.

Perhaps this should be my new criteria for deciding to go to the theater:
can I get my money back if the movie sucks?

Answer: Yes - go to the movie.
Answer: No - wait til Netflix has it.

ALSO, THERE ARE A FEW MEALS AT RESTAURANTS I WANT MY MONEY BACK ON!

If they offer a guarantee of not wasting your time ...and it turned out to have actually been a waste of your time, by ALL means take them up on the offer!

I did actually ask for my money back at a movie. Van Helsing! of all things. I walked just about in the middle after the Frankenstien monster's voice made me think of Franky from (okay, dating myself here) the Groovy Ghoulies!
I didn't get my money back at the theater, so I wrote the company, and recieved in just about two weeks 4 passes to any show I wanted and they didn't expire. I kept two and have used the other two in another state.
my point is, it does happen, and if people did ask for their money back more often for all media (cds, dvds or what have you) it might send a big message.
Remember Metallicas last album? St. Anger? Walmart stores reported an average return rate (in new england anyhow) that was staggering! That was actually another topic, as the returns were mostly because people got caughty by Walmarts policy of 'editing' cds and that one got chewed up. The point remains tho, that if it CAN be done.. why not DO IT!?
If more people actually took a stand and said "that SUCKED and I want my money back!".. then I bet it would make a difference. It's not against the law for Walmart, or Target, or Record Barn to take back cds! It's against the law to COPY said cds!
nuff said. This is going to have repercussions for a while I think..
ttmmm

We pay too much for a movie to just sit there and take it if we don't get good value for our cash. The cost of everything is going through the roof, eroding any disposable income one might have for frivolities like the cinema.

Hmm, choices..............do I go to a movie, or do I put gas in the car (at 2+ dollars a gallon) to get to work?

It's a no-brainer for us folks in the real world, but it's no surprise that overpaid movie industry execs can't figure it out. Maybe they should ask all of us why attendance is down.