Films

I have recently found an old theater in my town for sale (on the cheap!) that has been unused for a few years now. I am thinking of renovating it and re-opening it as a place to show movies you wouldn’t likely find in other theaters. lots of good exploitation stuff (cannibal sub-genre stuff, biker movies, etc) foreign horror (suspiria, the beyond, salo, etc) and hopefully classics from the 70’s and 80’s like jaws, the exorcist, phantasm, blah blah blah…

the real question is: i have searched far and wide, how does a person go about acquiring prints of older films for use, and how does the pricing work?

you need to talk to the studios or a distributor.
you’re basically renting the movie print. movies that are not
first run are generally inexpensive to rent.
but classics like Jaws may be more than an old foreign flick.
you’ll need to specify if you’re exhibiting 35 mm or 16mm film.
you’ll probably need insurance to cover the cost of the prints (which are expensive) before you rent them.
in some cases, you can buy them, but they need to be stored in a special room with the proper humidity in order to keep them usable. (film gets brittle when it ages.)
below is a link to get you started.
hope this helps.

Posted old films |