Word: multiplexes
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...favorite present: a record-breaking frame at the box office. According to early studio estimates, North Americans spent some $263 million at theaters this Christmas weekend, obliterating the $254 million mark set in July 2008, when The Dark Knight and Mamma Mia! both opened. And what did the multiplex crowds want on the first days of Christmas? Sing along: foreplay from Meryl, three sassy rodents, two blue Pandorans and a sleuth with a killer right hook. (See TIME's 2009 holiday movie preview...
...mammoth totals are the surest indication of a new Christmas Day ritual: Americans rip open their presents, gulp down the turkey dinner, speed-kiss their relatives goodbye and rush off to the multiplex. Or maybe the whole family goes - the kids to Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel; young males to the action film Sherlock Holmes; older females to see Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin in It's Complicated; and just about everyone sampling James Cameron's enviro-alien epic, Avatar. The record $85 million amassed on Friday accounts for a lot of tickets, even given...
...Bell month at the movies. Bell, who in the '90s made his late-night show Coast to Coast AM home for believers in all manner of paranormal activity - a kind of true-life radio version of The X Files - must be tickled to see the November lineup at the multiplex. He and his guests talked about the psychic phenomenon known as remote viewing, which is the subject of this week's George Clooney semicomedy, The Men Who Stare at Goats. Bell promoted the notion that Mayan mystics predicted some great cataclysm to befall the earth...
...studio estimates, which is more than the $23.6 million it cost to shoot the thing. This spawn of Shaun of the Dead helped Hollywood rebound from a lethargic frame a week ago; the industry's total take was nearly as burly as the same weekend last year, when the multiplex was ruled by Beverly Hills Chihuahua, another comedy about the invasion of Los Angeles by odd-looking creatures. (Read TIME's review of Zombieland...
...Because multiplexes shut out foreign, art and documentary films. They cannot find screens in some cities or even some states. Because it is so costly to "open" a film. And because theaters don't allow them time to build an audience. The filmmakers get them made, but can't get them to audiences. With their focus on films aimed at the 18-25 demographic, the big exhibition chains are alienating older filmgoers and failed to grow and diversify their audiences. Many adults can't find anything they want to see at a multiplex...