THB #515a: ShoWest and Trailers
I went to the movies yesterday. Double feature of Godzilla x Kong and The First Omen.
But before the movies… the trailers.
This feels particularly of the moment, as I am headed to CinemaCon this week for the first time since COVID hit. ShoWest, the former name of the CinemaCon event, is really responsible for me writing this newsletter or really having any kind of career in entertainment journalism.
I went for the first time in 1994, as a freelancer for The Chicago Tribune. I gave up on entertainment journalism soon thereafter and the only assignment I sought each year was that trip to Vegas. Loved the event. Loved how journalists floated amongst people who actually put movies on screens in America and the world. It was still a couple years from AOL making the World Wide Web available to its subscribers. So when you sat in that ballroom for 3 days, watching mostly trailers and extended sequences, it really defined the year to come.
1994 was the year of Forrest Gump and perhaps the height of ShoWest. Everyone in that room could feel what was coming. The only movie that was bigger that year would be The Lion King and that was a super-event from Disney, starting with the still-unfinished screening of the film, followed by a live performance in the theater that was part Cirque du Soleil and part the feeling that would become Broadway’s The Lion King, followed by a party in a tent with live animals and carnival games the feeling that anything was possible.
There were some great moments in the years after… but more with studios trying to recreate that 1994 year and coming up a bit short. Don’t get me started on the Anastasia on Ice presentation or the year New Line served lunch to the massive ballroom in tin lunchboxes.
But my personal favorite highlight of ShoWest, year after year, was sitting in a room with Jack Valenti and both being massively charmed - usually with a quote from someone in his political years, performed like Laurence Olivier - and often moved to arguing the spin that he was putting on whatever issue was at hand that year.
Jack retired from MPAA (now MPA) in 2004. The lead slot of MPA has been held by a former Secretary of Agriculture, a Senator, and now a former Ambassador and former Assistant Secretary of State. All good men (particularly Glickman, who was a huge movie fan and “regular” guy), but none of them have been Jack, who was a remarkable showman, on top of being a great lobbyist… which is what the job really is.
ShoWest became CinemaCon in 2011 and moved to Caesar’s Palace…
…which also meant switching from building out the massive ballroom at Bally’s for each presenting studio to presenting most of the event in the big 4100-seat Caesar’s Palace The Colosseum showroom, famously home for periods to shows from Celine Dion to Elton John to Adele to the current occupant, Garth Brooks. This is easier on the presenting studios… but a very different vibe.
Moreover, there is this thing called The Internet that changed everything about this kind of experience. Like the effect on ComicCon, there is still a thing about being in the room when things are presented. But the reality is that nothing is happening there that will not be quickly followed up on with the general public. As for the exhibitors, CinemaCon is an important convention for gathering and both continuing and expanding relationships.
But the domestic market now looks like this (based on wikipedia details)…
Companies with
6 Companies - more than 50 venues - 1971 venues - 21,447 screens
17 Companies - 20 venues to 42 venues - 508 venues - 4995 screens
75 companies - 1 to 19 venues - 629 venues - 5534 screens
More than 6500 people, including International Day visitors, come to Vegas every year for this event. But 83% of American screens are in the hands of 23 companies… 67% in the hands of just 6 exhibitors. So what does that tell you?
It should tell you that CinemaCon is now about people in an industry gathering and connecting more than about the the immediate business of selling or distributing movies. Nothing wrong with that. Bur back in the day, 30 years ago, it felt like selling that entire room of people, from the single-screen operators to the small state family chains to the big chains really mattered to the future prospects of these movies. Now, I think that is a lot of us wanting it to feel like that.
And for the record, I was recruited to Entertainment Weekly at ShoWest and a couple years later, I was recruited for roughcut.com, where The Hot Button started in August 1997, but could only become a full-length column in 1998 because the technology offered new options. I really was done with entertainment journalism. I was really there for the love of movies. And all these years later, I am going back for the first time in 5 years for the same reason… I still love all this stuff. (And like and subscribe… ha.)
Now on to the trailers…