This anecdote involves THE ORPHANAGE and CLOVERFIELD, but I'm posting it here because I'm more interested in talking about what (I think) the theater showing those films is doing than in the films themselves.

My friend Nikki and I tried to see THE ORPHANAGE tonight. We were surprised that it was only playing at the Carmike, an older multiplex here in Greensboro, NC, that has not, to my knoweldge, ever shown a subtitled film before (unless it was something in really wide release, like CROUCHING TIGER). Foreign language and arthouse fare usually plays at the Carousel, although the Grande (until recently, the town's largest and newest multiplex) occasionally snatches up a popular title.

It's in its second week of release at the Carmike, and at least one critic for a local tabloid has reviewed it, although he didn't say whether he saw it here or in nearby Winston-Salem. But when Nikki and I went to buy our tickets, the guy in the booth (who looked like a manager or assistant manager, rather than just some kid) said "oh, the Spanish movie, right?" We said yes, the Spanish movie. "The screen is cutting off the subtitles. Unless you can speak Spanish, you're not going to understand what's going on Is there something else you'd like to see?"

We were annoyed, but bought tickets for CLOVERFIELD instead, which was showing at a slightly later time than THE ORPHANAGE. Inside the multiplex, after we'd taken our seats, I told Nikki I was going to check to see just how bad the subtitles on THE ORPHANAGE were.

Onlt thing is, I couldn't find it. It wasn't advertised on any of the little title screens thingies above the various doors to the auditoriums. In the main lobby, a larger title screen thingy claimed it was playing in Screening Room 8, but none of the screening rooms inside had visible numbers and all seemed to be showing something else.

As a further data point, we were originally directed to one screening room for CLOVERFIELD, in which the 8 p.m. show was still playing (our tickets were for the 9:45 show), but before they actually let us in, an usher directed us to another room, which is where we ended up seeing it.

It was only afterwards that I thought "wait a minute, this is a scam. They wanted an extra screen for CLOVERFIELD, and they figured nobody was going to go see the subtitled film."

This sort of thing has happened here in Greensboro before. Back when KILL BILL, PART 1 was over a month into its run, I persuaded some friends to go see it (I already had, of course) at 1 p.m. on a Saturday. I believe that SHREK 2 had opened the day before and every showing of that film was sold out. This was at the Grande, not the Carmike, and when we asked for KILL BILL tickets, we were told that it was sold out, too.

It was only later, when we were eating a late lunch, that we talked about it and decided just how unlikely it was that a month old R-rated film would be "sold out" at a Saturday matinee. Clearly, we decided, the theater had wanted that screen for SHREK 2, and we kicked ourselves for not saying something like "Oh, really? Please inform your manager that a friend of ours knows Tarantino, and that if you can't take me back there and show me a sold-out auditorium showing KILL BILL, I'm calling him. Unless, of course, you can make it worth our while not to with some free tickets."

I'm seriously thinking about going back to the Carmike this weekend and seeing what happens if I ask to buy a ticket for THE ORPHANAGE. And my question is this. Assuming that they are pulling some sort of scam or shady practice, and they can't actually show me a screening room in which the movie is playing with cut-off subtitles, who can I contact to get them in trouble for this? I mean, aren't they contractually obligated to be showing that film, at least through Thursday? They're certainly still advertising it on their marquee.

Obviously talk it over with the manager first if it happens again the second time. If he is no help, ask for the number of his regional/district manager. If that doesn't work, go to the corporate office. If anything, you might end up with some free tickets! :)

From their site:


If you would like to contact someone at the Carmike Cinemas homeoffice by mail or phone, following is the correct information:

CARMIKE CINEMAS, INC.
1301 1st Avenue
P. O. Box 391 (31902-0391)
Columbus, GA 31901
706-576-3400

That helps, thanks. And it might also help, methinks, to contact the distributor of THE ORPHANAGE.

I know the theater is only going to have so many prints of CLOVERFIELD, but I'm told that this wouldn't necessarily prevent them from showing it on another screen (although that might be a contractural violation involving CLOVERFIELD as well as THE ORPHANAGE), if the screen they used was right beside the one that was scheduled to be showing the blockbuster and they played at the same time.

It's possibly I'm unduly cynical, and the theater simply doesn't know how to frame a film with subtitles. But the KILL BILL experience, where an obvious lie was told (no way was that film sold out on a Saturday afternoon a month into its run) has made me suspicious.

Personally, if I came across such a practice, I'd go directly to the distributor. Why should I contact the theater manager? He must clearly already know that he's doing the wrong thing (or he's such a bad manager that he has no clue what his employees are doing). Contacting the theater's corporate office could result in some hand-slapping and stop the practice from happening again, but why let them off the hook so easily?

I'd go straight to the distributor. They're the ones that are being ripped off. Let the theater show the distributor ticket receipts for every single show of THE ORPHANAGE that the theater was contractually supposed to play. Why were there no tickets at all sold for the 8pm show? Not even one ticket? Is it only the busy nighttime shows when the subtitles were cut off? I don't even have to be there and it's clearly a fraud.

Subtitles cut off? Utter bullshit!

THE ORPHANAGE is 2.35:1 scope ratio. The only way the subtitles could be "cut off" is if they have set their scope masking at something even tighter, like 2.55:1, and are projecting them on the black matte beneath. In other words, a lie just pathetic enough to fool the layman, but not an experienced moviegoer.

Now then, some theatre chains do have what are called "house minimums," meaning that a certain number of people must show up or else they will cancel a show. And some theatres can and do indeed flat out cancel slower-performing films in order to interlock a more popular film in that auditorium, but generally those shows are during the week, after the theatre and the studio have seen the bad weekend gross and mutally agreed to give up the ghost. (This often happens for promotional sneak previews that exceed attendance expectations) But what is being described here is pretty greasy: it sounds exactly like the theatre is trying to boost their opening night gross on CLOVERFIELD at the expense of a slower movie by doing all they can to dissuade patrons from watching it. The contract violation would be all on ORPHANAGE: there is nothing wrong with a theatre using one print to service two auditoriums, multiplexes do it all the time.

You should call Picturehouse, and ask specifically to speak to distribution, because they would be in charge of collecting on box revenue. Tell them what went down. Since they are an offshoot of New Line and both owned by Time Warner, they would have the muscle to exact consequences on Carmike by withholding product from sister companies.

From what I've been told by former employees, Carmike is a lousy theatre chain anyway, not above doing shenanigans like this.

I don't know if it was the same exact circumstance, but I have a friend in Chicago who also couldn't buy tickets to THE ORPHANAGE one evening last week after being told it was "sold out".

I wonder what would have happened if you'd said "That's OK, I speak Spanish"?!

and, ...and, ...and the theatre could pay you to stand at the front of the theatre and shout out the English translation for the English-only faction in the audience.

!Que bueno!

:wacko: