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..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington



LAS VEGAS -- After 37 years on the trail, one old Texan is making ShoWest his last roundup.

Houston-native Jack Valenti, who’s led the Motion Picture Association of America since 1966, used part of his annual state-of-the-industry address to exhibitors to announce that this year’s convention will be his last as the organization’s president and CEO. The movie industry’s top lobbyist in Washington said the search for his successor has been going on for the last year and a half, and he’d like to see it completed before he reaches his 38th anniversary in the job.

So far, the search has produced more headaches for the organization than hope for the future. Long considered the front-runner, Rep. Billy Tauzin decided to do his lobbying for the pharmaceutical industry, and fellow legislators Sen. John Breaux and Rep. David Dreir also passed.

“It’s difficult to tear yourself away from something that you’ve been so much a part of for 37 years,” the 82-year-old Valenti told reporters before the speech. “But it’s better to leave before you’re asked to go, and no one has done that, yet.”

Calling it “a bit of a sad day for NATO,” John Fithian, president of the National Organization of Theater Owners, said he will miss Valenti’s “oratory skills, negotiating skills and strategic insight.”

Before riding off into the sunset, though, Valenti reminded reporters that piracy remains one of the major hurdles facing the industry. He said that 90 percent of all uploaded material came from camcorders mounted on tripods in theaters.

Although the MPAA’s efforts to combat piracy by banning screeners for awards voters and critics were thwarted by the courts, Valenti said that he stands by the decision. Arrests made after the ban was lifted proved that screeners intended for academy members did, indeed, find their way into the Internet marketplace.

The MPAA, he added, no longer will dictate screener policies, leaving those decisions to individual studios. Valenti said that he didn’t become completely aware of the problem until an MPAA researcher informed him that more than half of the 68 screeners sent out in 2002 were known to be copied.

Valenti and Fithian jointly announced that 2003 was a “terrific” year for exhibitors, even though total admissions dropped 4 percent year-to-year, to 1.574 billion. It was the second largest number of admissions in 46 years.

Monday, Valenti said that the foreign box-office take, including Canada, rose 5 percent, to $10.85 billion. This figure represents 53 percent of total revenues for member studios, which was put at $20.34 billion.

On the Hollywood front, Valenti reluctantly admitted that member studios had succumbed to a “cost tapeworm” that drove them to go on a spending spree in 2003.

Negative costs were up 8.6 percent over 2002, to an average $63 million per film. Even more startling – or embarrassing, take your pick – was data showing that prints-and-marketing costs skyrocketed to $39 million per film, up 28 percent year-to-year.

Although Fithian refused to characterize the deal-making process surrounding The Passion of the Christ, he called Mel Gibson’s blockbuster a “major picture in our marketplace.” Like Titanic, TPOTC inspired “a whole group of new people to come in droves” to theaters that were vastly improved from what many customers may have remembered.

“I predict we’ll see them come back,” he said. “And, yes, it did sell some popcorn.”

Some positive movement was acknowledged on the move toward creating economic and technological models for digital cinema. Nonetheless, it remains a technology of the future, not the present.

The average price of a ticket increased to $6.03. As usual, both gentlemen argued that movie-going remains a bargain compared with other spectator sports.

One area of concern for NATO was the continuing shrinkage of the time between the theatrical release of a film and its DVD launch. Fithian said that the window has gone from 5 months and 4 days in 2002, to 4 months and 23 days last year.

The convention continues through Thursday, at the Paris and Ballys resorts. Valenti will be honored at the closing banquet with the ShoWest and NATO Medal of Honor, and a testimonial from “close friend” Warren Beatty.

Anyone interested in filling the cowboy boots of the former adviser to LBJ is encouraged to contact the executive search firm, Spencer Stuart. Bring your own saddle.

- by Gary Dretzka