A good friend of mine is considering shutting down his theatre in High River for a period of time. The attendance has not been good and he struggles some weeks just to cover the cost of the movie rental, employees and utilities.
We've been showing classics from the past as the rental costs are much lower and have had up and down results. Showing double features on weekends for a 2 for $7 rate still doesn't draw great numbers. Last weekend we gambled on "Unhinged" and had break even results. Predicting what people will come to watch is a coin toss.
When a major studio requests that he has to show "Tenet" for a minimum of 4 weeks, that isn't going to work financialy. Disney is another studio that is very difficult to deal with. You can tell the studio as much but they don't care. A friend of his owns the Napier in Drumheller and he made the mistake of taking "Tenet". In the second week he was averaging 6-10 people per night and he's not happy.
All the above makes me wonder how the big chains are surviving. It's clear people are still afraid to go the movies because of this pandemic
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