An Exhibitor Fires Back at the Gloom
Marcus Theatres CEO Greg Marcus on why the end may not be at hand
I’ve written a lot of late about the serious doubts I get when I look at Team Studios and consider whether they’ll be able to muddle their way through this rough patch and find that bright, better tomorrow. But for all one can get caught up in our foibles and see film’s future through that lens, out there among the moviegoers, the view isn’t quite so gloomy.
To get a taste of what this slump looks like at the multiplex level — and a sense of what needs to happen to turn it around — I turned to one of the smartest voices I’ve heard in the exhibition space.
Greg Marcus is CEO of the Marcus Corporation, which includes Marcus Theatres, one of the oldest theater chains in the nation, currently operating about 100 locations in the Midwest. He spoke to me by Zoom from his office in Milwaukee.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Richard Rushfield: What do you think of the studio’s product this year?
Greg Marcus: Given the last month, I can’t say I love what’s happened, and I don’t know what’s going to happen. Things like Deadpool look like they’re going to be good. It’s going to have a great opening weekend. And I watched the original Inside Out last night on ABC and enjoyed it as much as I did [in 2015]. I love the first Joker. So this could be a great one with Lady Gaga. So there’s all sorts of potential out there for good things to happen. As we look forward, the cadence will pick up. August looks pretty crowded. There’s more stuff coming.
RR: Are you concerned about the quantity though?
GM: A tent doesn’t stand up without a pole. You need the tentpoles so that people come in and see the other stuff they might want to see, which might not be as big. That’s one of the reasons you need the tentpole: to hold the tent up. That tentpole that will drive a lot of people to see those trailers and say, that’s the next movie I want to see, which they might not have noticed because it’s a little smaller.
[To put it another way:] You can’t just have one meal a day and survive.
