Hollywood's Newest Formula For Success: Rereleasing Old Movies (nytimes.com) 64
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: There's an overwhelming sense of deja vu at multiplexes these days. In August alone, "Black Swan" (2010) is returning to theaters, along with the Tim Burton "Batman" movies from 1989 and 1992. Audiences will be able to revisit the oceanic terror of "Jaws" (1975), as well as the comic mystery (and multiple endings) of "Clue" (1985). Or they could groove to Prince's "Sign o' the Times" concert film from 1987. And it doesn't look like the rerelease trend is slowing down. In September, "The Breakfast Club" (1985) is returning, Pixar is bringing back "Toy Story" (1995), and "Apollo 13" (1995) is blasting off again. "Casper" (1995) will haunt screens for nearly the entire month of October, while "Avatar: The Way of Water" (2022) will run for about five days, teeing up the forthcoming "Avatar: Fire and Ash." And there are still more to come before the end of the year.
Rereleases have long been part of the theatrical ecosystem. After all, "Star Wars" movies have been heading back to multiplexes routinely since 1981 -- before "Return of the Jedi" even debuted. But recently, studios have been digging deeper into their archives for a variety of reasons -- only some of which have to do with nostalgia. "Black Swan," from Searchlight, which is now owned by Disney, took over around 200 IMAX screens to commemorate its 15th anniversary. Universal's specialty arm, Focus Features, rereleased both "Pride & Prejudice" (2005) and "Brokeback Mountain" (2005) earlier this year. "Pride & Prejudice" ultimately grossed more than $6 million domestically this time around, about 16 percent of its original U.S. box office haul.
In total, Universal has 12 rereleases on its 2025 slate -- not including a partnership with another distribution company -- compared with just four in 2024 and two in 2023. "We very much pay a lot of attention to our repertory business," the studio's president of domestic theatrical distribution, Jim Orr, said by phone, explaining, "We just think it's not only great fun for audiences, but a great business to be in as well." Orr explained that the size of Universal's rerelease slate this year was "more coincidental" than anything else, with all the films hitting anniversaries in 2025. Still, there is a strong business motivation: The rereleases help studios and exhibitors pad out relatively thin slates. "The truth of the matter is studios don't have enough product right now to give theaters, so that's why you're seeing an influx of these nostalgia plays," said Jeff Bock, senior media analyst at Exhibitor Relations. He added, "It doesn't cost a lot for them to do an anniversary edition or a 4K edition." There are several other reasons why Hollywood is rereleasing old movies, according to Orr. Rereleases are far cheaper to put out than launching a brand-new title. Studios also target films that already have strong, enduring audiences, "whether that's 'Pride & Prejudice,' with its meme-able depiction of yearning, or 'Casper,'" which he said had elicited 'decent' interest every year.
Then there's what Orr calls "opportunistic dating." "There might be a window where something goes thematically or holiday-wise, whatever kind of fits in, or there might be some more screens available in specific formats," he said. Specialty format releases like IMAX, Dolby, or 3D also help bring moviegoers to the theaters.
Rereleases have long been part of the theatrical ecosystem. After all, "Star Wars" movies have been heading back to multiplexes routinely since 1981 -- before "Return of the Jedi" even debuted. But recently, studios have been digging deeper into their archives for a variety of reasons -- only some of which have to do with nostalgia. "Black Swan," from Searchlight, which is now owned by Disney, took over around 200 IMAX screens to commemorate its 15th anniversary. Universal's specialty arm, Focus Features, rereleased both "Pride & Prejudice" (2005) and "Brokeback Mountain" (2005) earlier this year. "Pride & Prejudice" ultimately grossed more than $6 million domestically this time around, about 16 percent of its original U.S. box office haul.
In total, Universal has 12 rereleases on its 2025 slate -- not including a partnership with another distribution company -- compared with just four in 2024 and two in 2023. "We very much pay a lot of attention to our repertory business," the studio's president of domestic theatrical distribution, Jim Orr, said by phone, explaining, "We just think it's not only great fun for audiences, but a great business to be in as well." Orr explained that the size of Universal's rerelease slate this year was "more coincidental" than anything else, with all the films hitting anniversaries in 2025. Still, there is a strong business motivation: The rereleases help studios and exhibitors pad out relatively thin slates. "The truth of the matter is studios don't have enough product right now to give theaters, so that's why you're seeing an influx of these nostalgia plays," said Jeff Bock, senior media analyst at Exhibitor Relations. He added, "It doesn't cost a lot for them to do an anniversary edition or a 4K edition." There are several other reasons why Hollywood is rereleasing old movies, according to Orr. Rereleases are far cheaper to put out than launching a brand-new title. Studios also target films that already have strong, enduring audiences, "whether that's 'Pride & Prejudice,' with its meme-able depiction of yearning, or 'Casper,'" which he said had elicited 'decent' interest every year.
Then there's what Orr calls "opportunistic dating." "There might be a window where something goes thematically or holiday-wise, whatever kind of fits in, or there might be some more screens available in specific formats," he said. Specialty format releases like IMAX, Dolby, or 3D also help bring moviegoers to the theaters.
Old movies (Score:4, Funny)
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Rerelease 'Life of Pi' 3D (Score:4, Insightful)
Going to a rerelease only makes sense if the theatre experience will be better than what you'd enjoy at home. This is true of relatively few films, but the 3D version of 'Life of Pi' is an exception; the only film I've made an effort to see twice immediately at the cinema when it came out. My only other reattendance? '2001', which despite its age still works; the special effects still 'wow' after all these years.
Re:Rerelease 'Life of Pi' 3D (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, but it's in line with what cinemas said since the advent of TV: You're not paying for the movie only, but for the experience of a night out. And - for people who enjoy that experience - it makes sense to not only watch new movies (read: uninspired sequels or unnecessary remakes) but classics, too.
And with the time frame for exclusive theater distribution got shorter and shorter with discs and streaming services, you can't charge anything anymore for seeing a movie two weeks before it hits the streaming services. If you tried to fill that gap with more and more new movies, you would end up producing nothing but B-movies and worse.
And third: technology made it possible. A 35mm copy can cost as much as a car and has to be hauled around from cinema to cinema by big trucks. For digital movies, you put a few SSD into a UPS box and can ship it out for a night or two.
A cinema here has a surprise classic movie every other Thursday. Alternating a dubbed and original versions. Tickets are 6 bucks each, get a beer with it for 4 more. And the target audience is people who like movies more than annoying other viewers.
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Unfortunately, the experience has seriously degraded, with the advent of cell phones first, then smart phones. It is very hard for me to enjoy movies in public anymore.
One of those times was for a theatrical re-release of Ghostbusters. I think it was 35 years. My husband had never seen ot.
We went to a late weeknight show, and had an entire theater to ourselves.
Sadly, he didn't care for the movie.
Re: Rerelease 'Life of Pi' 3D (Score:2)
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Personally, I love Ghostbusters. You might not like it simply due to having different tastes, but there are other possibilities, mostly related to acclimation problems due to what you're used to. When I was young, I remember having the same issue with black and white movies (I've gotten over it as I have gotten older). Basically, if it was black and white, I would think "oh, this is old" and that was that. I remember that's exactly what happened with "The Wizard of Oz" when I was a kid and it was on TV (not
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The first 5 minutes of the Wizard of Oz are sepiatone. I used to think it was black and white/sepia film, then I visited Kansas and realized it's just that Kansas IS sepia tone! :-)
That aside, Hjostbisters was one of my favorite movies from that time. I have even made reference to "the Twinkie" occasionally.
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Even decades ago, this is often what kept me out of the theater. I would see a promo for a movie I might like to see, but by the time a week or two went by before I had a chance to go see it, it wouldn't be in the theaters anymore. And most of the movies actually in the theaters at any given time weren't really capturing my interest. Now the (multi-plex) theater nearest me is shut down, vacant, and sad looking.
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Main reason why I go to the movies is to get the tasty popcorn. Sometimes I just get the urge for it.
I have a commercial popcorn maker at the proper ingredients to make it at home too. Even so, sometimes I go out for it. I dunno why. Simple pleasures.
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A lot of the time you get stale popcorn. That didn't happen back in the day.
They also switched to some nasty soy "butter" or some shit. I bring my own fresh melted butter from home.
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if the theatre experience will be better than what you'd enjoy at home.
What what you don't go to theater or festivals to see old classics, or movies you had never heard of before?
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I saw "Taxi Driver" in the theater recently (last 5 years or I think). I don't really remember why. But I did enjoy watching it.
I guess I could have watched it at home. If I could remember why I saw it in the theater, I could probably tell you why I didn't watch it at home.
Oh well.
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There are many films where the experience of going to the theater to see it would be much better than the experience of watching it at home on a 32" TV with built-in or an even smaller computer monitor.
If the price wasn't obscene I would absolutely want to go and see films like the original Top Gun, Ghostbusters (1 AND 2), Days of Thunder, maybe Die Hard (the first one and that one at the airport only) and maybe Johnny Mnemonic.
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Rereleases are not exactly a new thing (Score:2)
Going to a rerelease only makes sense if the theatre experience will be better than what you'd enjoy at home.
Rereleases are not exactly a new thing. They've been more a niche thing until now, not mass market
An old local theatre, single screen, predating the multiplex at the mall. They would occasionally show classic films. I was not old enough to have seen 2001: A Space Odyssey and Lawrence of Arabia during their original releases. I only saw them on TV. When I did see them at the old theatre it was absolutely amazing. So many details that get lost on the small screen. I was not alone in that opinion. A bunch
Keep them coming (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Keep them coming (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's like how EA and Activision always want Sony and Microsoft to put out new hardware because new hardware means lots of new sales for them.
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I mean the movie theater doesn't take any risk to speak of from movies so I'm not surprised that they want more of them to be released. A movie theater can quickly pull a dud with minimal losses where a studio loses millions.
A lot of modern theaters were built for the volume of movie releases we had been getting for decades up until covid. Less movies means less customers meanwhile theaters are still paying rent on the same amount of space they were before.
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I believe that, on the contrary, for the typical movie theaters they don't get enough in box office receipts to pay for operating costs and overhead. If they can't get enough people buying their overpriced concessions, they will go broke like the theater nearest me.
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old horror movies don't hold up (Score:2)
Calling for help with your cell phone breaks the plot of so many of these. Plus no getting stuck in the dark when your phone is a flashlight.
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They hold up fine. That's a super easy suspension of disbelief. I don't watch My Cousin Vinny and get bent out of shape that nowadays the judge could check Vinny's legal status without needing to contact anybody.
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For a re-release, that makes sense because someone watching it will adjust for the time period. My Cousin Vinny is actually a great example of that because the audience already had to make exactly that adjustment for other aspects of the setting. In other words, as audiences we accepted that Vinny could pull it off because this was a little low-resource town out in the boonies (relatively speaking, it was a city compared to the town I grew up in, though). Obviously accepting that, and other parts of the pre
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I don't get it, if a movie is set in the "modern day" of when it was made and said "modern day" didn't have cell phones why would it bother you that there arent any? I feel like cell phones being in those movies is what would ruin my experience. These movies are essentially period pieces at this point.
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That's only because Amazon doesn't deliver to Antarctica. But soon!
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Will you be happy when they re-release Birth of a Nation?
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what a snowflake. you want a safe space and some white male dei you big fat baby
Re: Modern Hollywood is MAN-HATING and WHITES-HATI (Score:3)
Discounted ticket prices? (Score:2)
With $0 production costs, there needs to be a massive ticket price discount. There are very few movies that I would pay $100 for my family of four to watch for the second time. Hell, there are very few new movies I would.
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For new release the theater/studio ratio is heavily skewed toward the studio, they take like a large majority of the ticket sale. As weeks move by the theater takes in more on the ticket.
Every film has royalties to pay on every showing so there always is a sort of minimum price on it so the cost is never $0.
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In Anchorage, we used to have a discount theater. All movies were $2 and they played non-current-release movies.
They made their money on nice (not theater) food and beer and such.
Then the price went to $3, and up and up. Last I saw it (I've not lived there for a while), it was just like any other theater, but with really nice food.
Now I'm curious, I'm gonna google......
Yep. Still there. You can get a ticket for Clueless for $7:
https://www.beartoothak.com/ [beartoothak.com]
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There used to be a discount cinema near me that played slightly older new flicks (usually around the time when they'd hit VOD services). The building was run down and disgusting, and you certainly wouldn't want to eat anything served there.
They recently went out of business.
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With $0 production costs, there needs to be a massive ticket price discount. There are very few movies that I would pay $100 for my family of four to watch for the second time. Hell, there are very few new movies I would.
Nostalgia bands make people pay WAAAAAAAAAAY more than you'd pay for newer acts. I'm sure Hollywood would take a look at that and think the same should be true for older movies. Though, to be honest, it's very few films I think are worth paying for just to see on a big screen with a huge sound system. I've got a pretty good surround system at home. What's the theater really offer these days? Obnoxious other patrons?
Thereby providing conclusive proof that... (Score:2)
...studio execs hate creativity
There are plenty of writers and directors with new ideas, but they are ignored as studios prefer reboots, remakes, retelling of old stories and now re-releasing old stuff. People love the old stuff because it was once new and creative
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Not even just that but audiences don't care so we take some of that blame. Studios are going to make what people show up to see
Original Movies in 2025: Oops, All Flops! [youtube.com]
Sinners being the exception but original movies don't make as much money as rehashes and sequels these days.
Dollar theater (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, this used to be called the dollar theater, like back in the 90s. You could watch older movies for 1/4th the price of a new release. There were entire theaters that just did these older release movies all the time.
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repertory cinemas (Score:2)
Lord of the Rings! (Score:1)
I'd pay good money to bring my kids to see LOTR in the theater again... Just like I spent good money to bring them to Revenge of the Sith back in May.
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I fell asleep during the second one. When I woke up there were all these walking trees everywhere. I was like aggghggghhh!!
Copyright Duration (Score:4, Insightful)
Make copyright for 14 years, as it is supposed to be. Then we will be spared all this nonsense, together with umpteen Star Wars and Marvel spinoffs and endless remakes. Maybe Hoilywood will produce something original, for a change.
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Yep.
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Make copyright for 14 years, as it is supposed to be.
Copyright terms will continue to grow until all countries remove their current regimes. There is not a single government on this planet that cares about the individuals they are supposed to be organized for. Instead, they are all beholden to corruption and power. Don't get me wrong, some are better than others, but none are in an acceptable state for individuals.
Great idea actually (Score:2)
And most of the time when I want to watch an "old" movie (meaning a classic not made by Netflix) they don't have it.
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And most of the time when I want to watch an "old" movie (meaning a classic not made by Netflix) they don't have it.
Then you go over to Amazon Prime and find that they do have it, but you have to pay extra for it.
No funny? (Score:2)
This story had mucho potential for funny.
Union didn't see it coming. (Score:4, Interesting)
Union residuals are generally not paid from theatrical re-release revenue, because the original union agreements (SAG-AFTRA, DGA, WGA) never required it.
Theatrical re-use wasn’t seen as a major market when residuals were first negotiated in the 1960s. The focus was on new exploitations (TV, home video, now streaming), not re-runs in cinemas.
Initial theatrical release is considered a one-time “work for hire” situation.
Re-releasing it in cinemas later is still treated as part of that same window, unless a new contract is negotiated.
Unions didn’t foresee a trend of re-releases making significant money (e.g., IMAX runs, 40th anniversary editions, etc.), so no residual formula was ever written into standard contracts for that.
If someone gets money from a theatrical re-release, it’s usually through profit participation, not union residuals.
The omission is historical. It’s not that unions “decided” against it recently, it’s that they never fought to include theatrical re-runs as a residual trigger in the first place.
Make film mash-ups instead! (Score:2)
Don't take old films and re-release or re-make them. That usually destroys the film and our memories of it. Instead, shot exactly the same film but swap the main character(s) with another film.
I'd definitely watch Home Alone staring Samuel L. Jackson as Jules from Pulp Finction instead of Kevin... ("Say that you're going to burgle my house, mother...er!") or The Wizard of Oz with Depp's Mad Hatter from Alice.
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Old movies are better (Score:1)
Other than money grabs, simply better movies. (Score:3)
They have linear plots, and the plot doesn't require jumping back to the past to tell the story.
They have better acting, granted this is just one opinion.
They are re-watchable because the characters have, um, character.
The movies are self-contained and don't require knowing a universe just to understand the plot or who the fuck the characters actually are.
The audio is usually better on a watch-ability level. You can understand what is said without captions because the audio mixing is correct and the actors know how to pronunciate.
Characters that you actually can root or care for.
This is personal taste, but the actors were more attractive, but maybe that's because we didn't have HD so good you could see every imperfection and pimple.
When older movies are better than newer junk.... (Score:2)