..News
..Oscar Race Charts
..15 Weeks to Oscar
..The Top 10 Chart
..The Top 20
..The Critics List



..Gary Dretzka
..Leonard Klady
..David Poland
..Ray Pride

March 4, 2003

LAS VEGAS - When he wasn't referencing Ralph Waldo Emerson in his breakfast chat with reporters at ShoWest today, MPAA czar Jack Valenti was offering some rather unique solutions to the recent scourge of white-collar crime.

"I'm against all this greed and avarice you've been hearing about," the silver-haired octogenarian told his audience of sleep-deprived journalists. "Do you want to know how to put a stop to it? Send these corporate criminals to a maximum-security prison and lock them in a cell with a big burly guy who's only interested in their fleshier qualities.

"That will stop all this greed."

To which, one reporter glibly responded, "Jack, are you recommending prison rape for corporate crime?"

Not really. But, you could tell that Valenti wouldn't be all that unhappy to see a few digital pirates forced to walk the plank for their sins against Hollywood.

Although his state-of-the-industry address was mostly upbeat, the feisty president and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America declared what amounts to a jihad - a "moral crusade" - against the piracy of intellectual property under his watch. It was the latest in a series of stinging warnings he's delivered recently about the "brooding menace" of piracy.

"This menace is thievery," he argued. "Its seedbed is mainly Internet abuse, and recently the counterfeiting of DVDs. Attacking this thievery at its core, and greatly reducing it, is the highest priority of the MPAA and its member companies."

It was the same message he'd carried previously to students at several major universities, and delivered to an international body of exhibitors here on Monday.

Enter Emerson, whose time-honored doctrine -- "For every gain there is a loss; for every loss there's a gain" - the proud Texan interpreted to mean, "For every piece of good news, you have to accept some less-good news, and vice versa."

Or, something like that.

The good news was there in spades. And, the National Association of Theater Owners couldn't have been more pleased.

"Theatrical box office lifted to new heights, never before achieved: $9.5 billion, a leap of 13.2 percent over 2001," Valenti announced. "That's the highest year-to-year increase in 20 years. ... There were 1.64 billion tickets sold in 2002, an expansion of 10.2 percent over 2001, the largest admissions increase in the past 45 years.

"Moreover, admissions per capita rose to 5.7. This mean, every living person in the U.S. went to the movies 5.7 times in 2002."

John Fithian, president of NATO, also pointed out that admissions in Canadian theaters were up 9.8 percent, adding another 145 million tickets to that total.

Among the reasons cited by Fithian for the large boost in business was the "important trend toward family-friendly films," including all of the top-20 films at the box office.

"Year after year, the box-office results tell an important story about movies and the ratings. Most family-friendly films sell big, while most R-rated features do not."

During the morning presentation, the audience of exhibitors was shown clips from several of last year's blockbusters, including Spider-Man, which, Valenti noted, logged a jaw-dropping $115 million in its opening weekend.

Fithian also said he was optimistic that theater owners and distribution companies would soon begin the process of drawing up a technological and economic blueprint for the evolution from film to digital cinema. Serious talks are expected to begin this winter.

At last year's ShoWest, he noted, a representative of George Lucas's company warned exhibitors about not getting Star Wars: Episode II, if they didn't upgrade their theaters.
Few took the bait, Fithian boasted, primarily because the technology wasn't "ready" and a sound business model wasn't in place.

In other news, the average price of a ticket sold in the U.S. was $5.80, up 2.5 percent from the previous year.

Fithian also was able to report that the domestic screen count held steady at 35,592, in 6,134 sites. In 2000, there were 37,000 screens in operation.

""With 10 percent growth in admissions and a stable screen count, American exhibitors significantly improved their profitability in 2002," he said.

On the international front, where piracy is a much more pressing matter, Valenti said admissions were up 7.5 percent, nonetheless, to 7.3 billion tickets sold. The box-office take was up 20 percent, as well.

Another menace cited by Valenti was Hollywood's inability to hold down production costs. In a year when marketing costs actually decreased 1.2 percent, to $30.6 million per film, the amount spent by the seven MPAA member studios to make their movies skyrocketed 23.3 percent, to $58.8 million.

To combat piracy, the MPAA not only is working with studio executives and engineers to find new encryption tools, it also initiating a "moral crusade" to appeal to the public's sense of fair play and ethics. This will include trailers and other publicity material targeted specifically to audiences.

Whether this will be enough to stem the tide of international piracy remains to be seen. Holding the threat of "prison rape" up as a deterrent, as well, probably wouldn't hurt.

Email Gary Dretzka
.