From Variety (Nov. 6th):

Even though major studio films are typically released at 3,000 theaters these days, distribution execs say the wider release patterns are driven more by ego than by economics, because to book that many screens requires playing pics at a lot of little theaters that can't do a lot of business.

For instance, when "Mission: Impossible III" opened to $47.7 million at 4,054 theaters in May, 90% of its opening grosses (or $43 million) came from its top 1,469 engagements. That means the bottom 2,585 theaters generated a paltry $4.8 million, an average of $1,847 per location -- barely more than what it costs a studio to manufacture and ship a film print.

That pattern was repeated two weekends ago when "Saw III" opened to $33.6 million at 3,167 theaters: The top 1,535 engagements generated $30.2 million, while the other 1,632 theaters were responsible for just $3.3 million.

"The lesson is that you don't have to have all these screens to do big business," said a studio distrib topper. Or, as another studio distrib prexy said, "It just goes to show that anything over 1,500 (theaters) is crazy."

Wowza.

Hopefully studios won't start abandoning the extra 1,500 theaters then. THAT would be bad. Reeal bad.

Seriously, people could make it to the movies just fine a 10-15 years ago when the biggest theatre counts were 2000+, there's no reason why people wouldn't be able to make it those same theatres now, the tc expansion thing has been ridiculous.

What would be REALLY interesting to see is how many theaters made up the top 90% of the opening weekend for movies like X3, Spider-Man and Pirates 2.

Question: If studios cut back on theater counts by cutting all of the big releases in half, would that cause a lot of smaller theaters to go out of business? Because that would suck.

I think what you would see is fewer theaters in a particular area covering the same bases. If you live in an area like mine, where the average resident lives within decent distance to like 10 theaters, it makes no sense to have "x" movie that isn't going to hit very hard to be playing at like 7 of those theaters.

Its the old 80/20 business rule. Thos extra theatres make very little impact on a film's opening weekend - but losing them would be bad for those of you who live in areas that would lose theatres.

2,500 theatres would seem like a perfect balance and also help create a more event like atmosphere with sold out shows which could result in spill over business for other films like the old days.

Well I think a lot of the bigger theaters would have to resort to closing, not sure about the smaller theaters though. I know in my area, there are a good dozen theaters within a decent drive, well within distance I'd drive to see a good movie. It has gotten to the level of over-saturation that a local art-house theater ends up with the really, really wide releases (PoTC2 for example).

I don't think the movie industry would be negatively hurt, but some of the economies would be. People go out to eat after/before movies etc., plus the theaters make a huge profit off concessions, parking (at some places) etc. So it is more then just ticket prices.