A Case for Bringing Back the Roadshow Format

There is something to be said about the magic of movies- and that can mean many different things to many people. To some, it may be a weekend outing to the local theater or multiplex with a few friends or family to see the latest big-budget blockbuster film, to others it can be the fascinating intricate behind-the-scenes process as to how an epic large-scale movie is made to be enjoyed on the big screen, but to a lifelong film enthusiast like myself and as someone who has worked part-time in the entertainment industry it can all come down to the wonder and sense of awe of experiencing a visually spectacularly made movie rife with drama and incredible cinematography with a large sweeping scope on the giant screen- the totality of which all creates a larger-than-life experience that cannot be replicated by the television or streaming service and can only be experienced in viewing on a big screen in the movie theater.

Now, it is no small secret that the Movie Theater industry has been struggling for well over the last decade to bring more people to the movies with a noticeable decline in movie tickets admissions and box office ticket sales. And while throughout the 120-year history of the modern-day entertainment industry, the film industry has typically had to compete with home entertainment innovations like the television in the 1950s or home video in the 1980s and of course more recently with the onset of DVDs and online streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon or Hulu, the decline in overall movie theater admissions has increasingly been more noticeable in recent years. The explosion of online content on not only streaming outlets like Netflix, but other new media platforms like YouTube and social media sites like Facebook have made it especially difficult for traditional movie theaters to compete with such a plethora of content. Having so much content and an endless array of material can get overwhelming for the regular consumer that finds less of a motivation to take a typical trip to the movie theater. Also, with inflation, the price of movie tickets has become far more expensive where in many cases a ticket in a big city can cost well over $20. However, that is only one part of the problem. In this hyper-commercialized atmosphere, so much of the focus from the big studios has been to make as much money as possible through opening weekends like the expectation that a film has to gross over $100 million in its opening weekends certainly puts great pressure on a big tentpole release. And because of that pressure, there has been a great emphasis on endless sequels and remakes to whether it’s a popular fantasy franchise like Harry Potter or an adaptation of an obscure comic book or a remake of a popular cult sci-fi film from over 25 years ago. Eventually, regular people get tired and fatigued by the onslaught of franchise-based content. A good example would be how the big-budget spin-off of the Star Wars franchise Solo: A Star Wars Story drastically underperformed at the box office in 2018. With a budget of roughly $275 million1, it grossed less than $400 million despite positive reviews and the name-recognition of such a pop culture phenomenon like Star Wars, with the studio considering it a box-office flop. To top it all off, the multiplex screen format common to big cities where a theater often has multiple screens showcasing different movies oftentimes leads to an experience where theater screens are smaller, and the overcrowding of patrons diminishes the quality of the moviegoing experience for many people. This has led to a giant disconnect between the big Hollywood movie studios, who often make movies aimed at the wealthier demographic living in coastal cities like San Francisco and Boston, and the demographic of Middle America in the inland United States who tend to be more middle-class. And this COVID-19 pandemic has only seemed to magnify this problem on a grand scale where the movie theater industry has taken an especially massive blow throughout 2020. And while the Movie Theater Industry has been experimenting with formats such as the old-fashioned Drive-in movie theater format to accommodate social distancing, the conundrum these big movie studios face has still kept them on a bit of an impasse. The big studios such as Disney or Warner Bros or Universal Studios have all these great big budget blockbuster franchises to take advantage of whether it’s a fantasy franchise like Harry Potter, a sci-fi series like Star Trek and Star Wars, or the vast amount of material in the Marvel Comics Universe or DC Comics pantheon. These properties have so much potential when it comes to the moviegoing experience and yet they are not able to achieve their full potential. So, the question is, how to reinvigorate an aging form of great entertainment? In recent years, the giant screen IMAX format has been able to reverse the decline a bit as well as the 3-D movie phenomenon that was ushered in by James Camron’s groundbreaking sci-fi film Avatar in 2009. But those have not been enough to reverse the decline in movie theater admissions. However, one format that seems to be overlooked is the Roadshow Release formats that figured prominently from the late 1930’s and continued onwards to the early 1970s that were typically reserved for big-budget Hollywood epics that were lavish in scope and visually spectacular and often featured a “cast of thousands”. The Roadshow release format was such a big event in its day, it was comparable to going to a live concert or a Broadway-style musical at its peak. So the question is: how do we take that medium of yesteryear and not only bring it back, but also update it for the 21st century and in an industry heavily dominated by social media and the streaming industry? Well, we need to look at what worked well in the old format so magnificently over 60 years ago and take a look at the strategy of the post-blockbuster era dominated by comic book movies and franchises and combine the best of both worlds. We need to make the moviegoing experience an event-going experience once again.

Now firstly, it is very important to understand what the Roadshow format exactly was and how it came to be. The Roadshow release format for the film industry was largely based on the business model of touring companies that would showcase theatrical stage productions across multiple different cities on different dates similar to how a high-profile singer today like Adele will have a concert tour across many different big cities on different dates hence the informal term “roadshow”.2 The earliest incarnation of the application in the movies began in the silent-film era in the early 20th century where normal budgeted silent films would play in smaller local theatres but a larger-scale epic film like the controversial D.W. Griffith silent epic The Birth of a Nation (1915) would play in bigger cities on a reserved-seating engagement. This trend in the silent film-era continued in the 1920’s with Biblical silent film epics like The Ten Commandments (1923) by Cecil B. DeMille and Ben-Hur (1925). Then with the advent of sound or “talkie” pictures with the release of The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson in 1927, it continued into the 1930’s with the release of films like King Kong in 1933 and A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1935. The experience was absolutely an event worth going to. The films would begin with a musical overture composed for a live orchestra, then in the middle of the picture there would be an intermission followed by an entr’acte (or between the acts) that would precede the second act of the film with musical score, and in some cases after the end of the film there would be exit music. The experience truly was magnificent. And this is just in the 1930’s.

The format would evolve and experience its golden age with the innovation of 3-strip Technicolor film that finally offered an alternative to Black-and-white movies. The first film that arguably gave a preview how successful and extravagant the format would become was David O. Selznick’s lavish legendary Civil War-epic filmed in glorious 3-strip Technicolor- Gone with the Wind in 1939. Gone with the Wind took advantage of the format in every possible way imaginable. It had the lush overture, followed by the entr’acte and intermission, and finally closed off with exit music at the end of the picture. In an era where most movies were rarely longer than two hours, Gone with the Wind ran at a whopping nearly four hours which was why the roadshow engagements were typically limited to maybe two or three showings per day. After its premiere in Atlanta in December 1939, it would play at reserved seating roadshow engagements for almost two years in a staggered release format first playing in exclusive lavish theaters first in Los Angeles and New York City and then it would move on to big city theaters in Boston and San Francisco and other big cities across America at ticket prices almost three times as much as a ticket at a regular movie theater until it would finally open in conventional movie theaters in smaller cities and towns at normal “popular” prices. The roadshow theater engagements were truly a fabulous experience that included souvenir programs containing pamphlets showcasing photos from the film as well as information and bios on the actors and production crew. The success of Gone with the Wind was such that to this day, more than eight decades after its original release, it still remains as the highest grossing film ever made when ticket prices are adjusted for inflation. However, due to the outbreak of World War II, the number of films being released in the roadshow format substantially decreased due to the cost of showcasing films in the format and the focus of the industry being redirected towards propaganda and films that supported the war effort until the end of the war in 1945. Regardless, the success of Gone with the Wind and other films in the format like Walt Disney’s Fantasia (1940) and The Best Years of Our Lives in 1946 would only foreshadow the massive success the roadshow format would have in the postwar-years of the 1950’s and 60’s.

With the advent of the family television taking off and populating the homes of middle-class America in the 1950’s there was suddenly a new medium of entertainment ranging from sitcoms like I Love Lucy (1951-57) and Leave it to Beaver (1957-63) to variety shows like The Ed Sullivan Show that began to explode all over this new lucrative industry in cable TV. And this put a lot of great pressure on the big movie studios in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s to compete with this new medium. So in response the big studio executives at studios like Paramount, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and Warner Bros began to churn out lavish large-scale epics in the 1950’s like Quo Vadis (1951), The Greatest Show on Earth(1952), The Ten Commandments (1956), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), and Ben-Hur (1959). Like Gone with the Wind (1939), these films were usually epic in their scope, typically historical, had large budgets and production values, and typically featured a cast of thousands. Biblical epics like Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments were especially gargantuan box-office megahits. And these large-scale epics unsurprisingly took full advantage that the roadshow format had to offer and this led to spectacular box-office returns. There was simply just a magic to having an Overture and then an Intermission almost as if you were watching a live concert or a Broadway musical or a theater stage drama. And as you can imagine, among the figures in Hollywood who took the greatest advantage of this format in the 1950’s included: the legendary showman filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille, most notably with The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) and The Ten Commandments (1956); and of course, the animation mogul himself Walt Disney who took advantage of the format to release Fantasia (1940), Sleeping Beauty (1959), and later Mary Poppins (1964). Those two figures whose showman personas encapsulated their careers were a natural fit for the roadshow format. In addition to Walt Disney and Cecil B. DeMille, there were additional filmmakers who wanted to experiment with different technologies to enhance the theater viewing experience utilized the roadshow format to do just that: for example with the Cinerama process that utilized three synchronized projectors showing an image on a giant curved screen which was famously utilized in This is Cinerama (1952) and the previously mentioned western How the West Was Won (1962); another filmmaker who used the roadshow format to showcase a new experimental format was Michael Todd who showcased his Todd-AO format which shot film at 30 frames per second as opposed to the traditional 24 fps on 70 mm film in the 1956 adaptation of Jules Verne’s novel Around the World in 80 Days.

Many different genres took great advantage that the roadshow format had to offer whether it were: sword-and-sandal epics like William Wyler’s Ben-Hur (1959) and Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960); more contemporary historical drama-oriented war films by the great British filmmaker David Lean who made epic historical dramas like the World War II epic The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and the Russian Revolution-centered drama Doctor Zhivago (1965) and of course very famously the World War I epic Lawrence of Arabia (1962); Westerns like How the West Was Won (1962); and especially musicals such as Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins (1964) and The Sound of Music (1965) which was so popular it ran on the roadshow format for nearly a good four years. And many of these great spectacles of all these different genres were shot on 70 mm film which was twice as large as the more conventional 35 mm film format. You could say that this Golden Era of the Roadshow Release Format peaked in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Watching a movie with an intermission, overture, and a souvenir package really was a magical experience like no other.

Beginning in the late 1960’s and early 70s, despite the massive success of films like The Sound of Music, Doctor Zhivago, and Mary Poppins as well as different more avant-garde films like Stanley Kubrick’s groundbreaking science fiction masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968 or the biographical war-epic Patton (1970); a downward trend began to take shape with the high-concept roadshow release format. These big spectacles became increasingly over-budgeted and bloated and were not generating enough return at the box office to compensate their lavish expenditures. For example, during this period we saw very lavish and well-made but costly flops like the infamous troubled production of Cleopatra(1963) starring Elizabeth Taylor or the musical Hello, Dolly! (1969) starring Barbra Streisand. Additionally, as a result of the turbulent social and cultural upheaval of the Civil Rights era of the 1960’s which also saw the Vietnam War protests as well as the Hippie countercultural movement, those big flashier films began to lose their appeal a little bit as the cultural taste of moviegoers migrated towards more independent, or indie, and realistic dramas that included The Graduate (1967) starring Dustin Hoffman, Bonnie and Clyde (1967) starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, and the Korean War black comedy film MASH (1970). This phenomenon was largely known as the “New Hollywood” era that lasted from the late 1960’s to the late 1970’s. And many of these new, younger more avant-garde films became giant box-office hits like The Graduate and the western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman.

However, this “New Hollywood” era was rather short-lived as the 1970’s saw the birth of the “wide release” format. In many ways, the 70’s were a transition period that combined the large scale epic approach of the old Hollywood epics released in the Roadshow format and the new emerging younger generation of avant-garde filmmakers that defined the “New Hollywood” era. This new “wide-release” format where a high concept movie would open in hundreds of movie theaters all over the country and accompanied by intense advertising and marketing campaigns spawned the era of what we now call the big “Blockbuster” movies. The term “blockbuster” arose from the idea that long lines of crowds and people would form around a neighborhood block to view a certain movie. The first movie that really took advantage of this release concept was Francis Ford Coppola’s mafia gangster epic The Godfather in 1972, now considered to be one of the greatest films ever made. Based on the novel by Mario Puzo, The Godfather was unique in the sense that it did have the feel of an old-fashioned lavish big budget Hollywood epic with a large cast and sweeping scope and yet it was also the embodiment of the more sophisticated and realistic avant-garde character dramas by younger filmmakers that defined the “New Hollywood” era. And despite running close to 3 hours, The Godfather did not feature an overture or intermission that was typically associated with the more traditional roadshow epic movies. Utilizing this new, more commercialized wide release format, The Godfather not only was a critical and artistic masterpiece, it also smashed box office records and became the highest grossing film at the time. But the colossal financial success of The Godfather would soon be overshadowed by the even greater financial success of Steven Spielberg’s shark horror-thriller Jaws in 1975 and then by George Lucas’ science fantasy phenomenon of Star Wars in 1977 both respectively becoming the highest grossing films of their respective times. And it was this wide release, or “blockbuster”, format in the 1970’s that made mega box office hits of not only those three aforementioned films, but also William Friedkin’s supernatural horror classic The Exorcist(1973), the underdog boxing drama Rocky (1976) starring Sylvester Stallone, Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), the smash hit musical comedy Grease (1978) starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, and the first modern-day large scale comic book superhero film Superman (1978) starring Christopher Reeve. Like The Godfather, all of these blockbuster megahits of the 1970’s combined the lavish big-budget epic scope and spectacle of the old Hollywood with the more sophisticated stylized character-driven dramas of the “New Hollywood” era. And starting in the late 1970’s, many of these high-profile blockbusters increasingly became fast-paced action and adventure films that usually ran around two hours and in many cases were dominated by films of the science fiction and fantasy genre. And it was also common for many of these movies to be released in the summer or winter Christmas holiday season to effectively capitalize on the times of the year when kids would be out of school or be more likely to watch movies with their families in the holiday season. But as a result, the phenomenal success of this blockbuster wide release format essentially rendered the old Roadshow format largely obsolete by the early 1980’s.

The new wide release blockbuster format continued through the 1980’s and has largely continued through today despite competition from technological innovations in home entertainment like the VHS and laserdisc in the 80’s as well as the DVD and PC age of the late 90’s and early 2000’s, and then later on streaming and social media in the late 2000’s and early 2010’s. The wide release format has without a doubt seen spectacular success particularly at the turn of the 21stcentury but in recent years has begun to show its limits with the overemphasis on franchises, sequels, and making money as quickly as possible.

Now, before we get into why the wide release format has begun to show its limitations in recent years, it is important to understand what in many ways was the Golden Age of the wide release blockbuster release format. The blockbuster era really began to take off in the 1980’s and 90’s especially with the onset of Computer-Generated-Imagery, or CGI, visual effects becoming a common staple in these movies. And the success of this format was largely exemplified by the legendary visionary filmmakers Steven Spielberg and George Lucas who saw spectacular artistic and commercial and artistic success with the Star Wars sequels The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), the adventure series-inspired Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) starring Harrison Ford, and Steven Spieberg’s science fiction classic E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial in 1982 to name just a few. And the innovation of CGI visual effects led to the colossal success of Spielberg’s dinosaur science fiction film Jurassic Park (1993) as well as the science fiction epic Independence Day (1996) and of course most spectacularly with James Cameron’s epic historical-disaster drama Titanic (1997) which saw humungous box office returns. But the real Golden Age of the wide release blockbuster era that emphasized opening weekends really lasted from the mid 1990’s and then began to reach a crescendo in the late 2000’s but then began to overheat to a great extent in the middle of the last decade.

Now, the beginning of the new millennium saw the dominance of comic book film adaptations such as Spider-Man (2002) which was the first film to gross over $100 million at the box office on opening weekend, Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies that included the spectacular critical and box office success of The Dark Knight (2008), and the expansive Marvel Cinematic Universe that kicked off with Iron Man in 2008. And without a doubt, the age of the internet and later social media played a great role in generating hype and anticipation for not only the aforementioned comic book movie franchises but lucrative fantasy and other science fiction franchises that dominated the first decade of the 21st century such as the film adaptations of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series that capitalized on the worldwide cultural phenomenon of the book series, Peter Jackson’s big screen adaptations of J.R.R Tolkein’s The Lord of the Rings series, and also Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean series based off the Disneyland theme park ride and starring Johnny Depp- just to name a few. The strategy of building word-of-mouth and anticipation internet forums and online review websites such as Rotten Tomatoes coupled with glamourous media coverage of the movie premieres in large prominent coastal cities like New York City and Los Angeles as well as prominent places internationally like in European countries has without a doubt made these big fantasy and larger-than-life franchises into both critical and commercial megahits. In addition, with the explosion of the social media age in the last decade of platforms like Facebook and Twitter, the fun and excitement is magnified and circulated in a way that is unparalleled.

However, despite the spectacular success this Golden Age of the High-Concept Wide Release format that emphasizes so much on opening weekends has shown its downside in many instances. With so much emphasis on maximizing profits and revenue as quickly as possible in such a competitive hyper-saturated market, the hype of a particular movie can flame out relatively quickly and see diminishing marginal returns. Part of the reason is because in contractual arrangements theater owners and theater chains have with major film distributors, the movie exhibitors obviously want to collect as much of the film rental fees as possible and there is usually less of an incentive for film distributors to keep a movie running in theaters for more than three or four months at a time. And there have been instances where high-concept films make a lot of money at the box office by normal standards but not in a proportional manner relative to their large budgets. In 2016, Batman v. Superman was a notable example where it had incredible opening weekend numbers and grossed almost $900 million worldwide, a massive financial success by conventional methods of measuring box office performance, was considered a financial disappointment by the studio Warner Bros because given its production and marketing budgets that totaled nearly $400 million, the film had just barely “broken even” to recoup the costs and budget. However, despite setbacks such as this, we have seen attempts in recent years to reinvent the theater viewing experience and actually bring back elements of the old roadshow format when releasing new movies.

For example, the resurgence of 3D that was ushered in by visionary Titanic filmmaker James Cameron when he released his technologically groundbreaking 3D science fiction epic Avatar, which utilized 3D in a new and revolutionary way we had never seen before, brought about a new push to film or even retrofit movies into 3D as a new way to get people back into the movie theaters in a flashy way that evoked the showman-style presentation of the old roadshow format. And the large scale IMAX giant screen format many of these 3D movies were released in recalled the roadshow days where giant epics like Lawrence of Arabia and Ben-Hur were shot in 70mm format as opposed to 35mm. And not only that, but there have even been attempts at bringing back elements of the old roadshow format for example with filmmaker Quentin Tarantino filming his 2015 revisionist western The Hateful Eight in 70 mm and even releasing the movie in a limited, semi-roadshow format for about a month before going into general wide release. Tarantino even had reasonable financial success but unfortunately was somewhat hampered because it was costly for many theaters to retrofit their cameras to project the 70mm film he had shot. Another example included Ridley Scott with his director’s cut of his 2005 epic Kingdom of Heaven which unlike the theatrical release version was over 3 hours long and included an overture and intermission and was considered by many critics to be superior to the theatrical version because of the old-fashioned roadshow style. And even with high profile comic book franchises, you’ve seen elements of the old staggered release strategy where for example, Disney and Marvel released The Avengers in a gala premiere in April 2012 and then the film went into general release a month later and shattered box office records and became a cultural juggernaut.

Another example where elements of the old roadshow format are used include independent, or indie, style films or arthouse movies, sometimes colloquially known as “Oscar-bait” or “Award show films” that are released for a limited time in a limited number of theaters during Christmas season which is usually shortly before awards ceremonies for about a month or so before they go into general release to capitalize on the Award show buzz.

Another alternative strategy to the “wide release” or “opening weekend” strategy would be the “viral” or word-of-mouth strategy that made box office sleeper hits out of Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Forrest Gump (1994), and The Sixth Sense (1999). In fact, Quentin Tarantino owed a lot of success to the word of mouth strategy after the incredible stellar reviews Pulp Fiction received at the Cannes Film Festival before it had a wide release in 1994. The Shawshank Redemption (1994) is another good example of how word-of-mouth really affects a film’s reputation. The Shawshank Redemption was initially a box office disappointment but had such immense popularity upon its release on home video that it was re-released back into theaters and became a box office hit in addition to one of the most critically acclaimed films in the last 30 years. In short, there are a multitude of other successful alternatives to the “wide release” strategy that the entertainment industry can consider in order to reimagine and reinvent the moviegoing experience in a post-COVID age.

Now, in dealing with the entertainment industry in post-COVID age, the question ultimately becomes how can we combine the best of both the modern wide-release approach with that of the old-fashioned roadshow release format. It is important to understand first that we are moving into what could be called a post-information society (or rather a post-information economy) transitioning into an experience-driven economy. And the entertainment industry certainly without a doubt needs to adapt to that reality and really consider how we can bring back the magic of making a big movie theater release as an event. But first, one thing most of us can agree on is that from a business and economical standpoint, the entertainment industry is just far too concentrated and centralized in the regions of Hollywood in Los Angeles as well as New York City. Another thing that should be acknowledged is that movies today typically run in theaters for approximately 4 months or 16 weeks and theaters typically have arrangements where they take 40% of the ticket sale proceeds until the end of the theatrical run where they begin to take a larger percentage of the box office revenue which makes the financial and busines relationship between the film distributor and theater exhibitor a bit unbalanced.

One of the ways we can address these issues is for example for big epic franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero franchise and Harry Potter, we can have a staggered release format in big cities that include not only New York City and Los Angeles, but many other big metropolitan cities as well that are rich in thriving industry, arts culture, and sports scenes that include Cleveland, Atlanta, San Francisco, Austin, and so forth. Of course we cannot do what film distributors did generations ago in the 50’s and 60’s where movies would play in the big major cities for one or two years in the roadshow format or even 4 years as was the case of The Sound of Music, but what we could do is try to have big tentpole releases or big epic blockbusters play in big cities for about four to six months which is the typical length of a regular wide-release of a blockbuster today and subsequently use positive word-of-mouth and viral marketing techniques to build the positive reputation in the big cities. This approach would not only generate more money and hype, but the quality of watching a movie in the theater would drastically improve because movie theaters would be incentivized to make the quality of watching the film as entertaining and enjoyable as possible. That would generate a great degree of surrounding economic activity in the leisure and entertainment industry as well such as venues such as sports, stage theater productions, outdoor activities, stand-up comedy shows, and so on. And social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter and Yelp would certainly help stimulate that communal and economic activity. Some examples of that would include the VuduViewingParty for new movies released on the Vudu streaming platform and other connective events of the sort. Then after four to six months, we can move to the wide release in the summer and/or winter which is the high time for big blockbuster releases and really take advantage and capitalize on opening weekends which would be potentially maximized even more because of the hype and word-of-mouth built on a movie during the roadshow-like release.

In general release, the film distributors would likely and preferably charge more reasonably affordable prices for the general middle-class population after the roadshow-like release. That release phase would last about four to six months, the length of a regular wide release today.

In conclusion, what we are doing in essence is combining the best of both the old and new strategies to make a truly innovative and pragmatical business model for the entertainment industry that genuinely balances artistry and quality with economic pragmatism that is affordable to everyone. It is combining the best of both worlds and finding a middle path forward.

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