> One important point that you all seem to have missed is the fact that
> American Studios control their own cinema companies, thus if I want to go
> and see a movie here in Manchester I only really have the choice of one UCI
> multiplex from another.  What I get to see is carefully controlled by the
> major studios as they only market their own productions through the cinemas
> which they own. In simple terms they own all the shops and they only sell
> their own products.
 
What makes this even more bizarre is the Consent Decree in the late
1940s which forced the studios, in hot water for a federal anti-trust
suit, to sell off their theatre chains.  Now we have theatre chains
producing movies.  So far, it isn't quite as bad as the bookstore
chains, which have come to dictate to publishers here what can and
cannot be published.  Of course, at the local 12- and 16- plex, there
are only half a dozen titles showing, on two to four screens apiece, for
$7.25 a pop.  So much for expanded opportunities for independently
produced films here!
 
By the way: what are ticket prices in U.K. and elsewhere?
 
Paul E. Clinco
 
----
Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite
http://www.tcf.ua.edu/screensite