Bob's Take: If your art-house movie finally gets here, hurry to it

You’ve read about it. You know it’s playing in other cities. But not Omaha.

This is the time of year most likely to produce queries that all read the same, except for the movie title. In fact, I got one just this morning in an e-mail from Mary Gerant:

“Why hasn’t ‘The Road’ opened in Omaha yet? Do you know when it will open here?”

I wish, Mary. Been trying to get a screening of it for weeks.

The Dundee Theatre and Film Streams have both tried to book it. But “The Road,” starring Viggo Mortensen as a father traveling through a bleak post-apocalypse landscape with his young son, still has no firm opening date for Omaha.

Why? Because the studio is following a gradual-rollout approach in which the movie opens first in the largest markets. Based on how the movie does in those bigger cities, the studio then decides how many prints to make and how many more screens to book in smaller cities like Omaha, which ranks in the mid-60s nationally in movie market size.

If the initial take is disappointing, the studio and the theaters may both cool on a particular title.

In the case of “The Road,” the buzz is loud enough that it will get to Omaha. It’s just a matter of time.

When it does get here, chances are about 95 percent that it will play at one of three theaters: the Dundee, Omaha’s only remaining single-screen theater at 50th and Dodge, which specializes in art-house and independent movies; Film Streams, a nonprofit art-house movie theater at 14th and Webster that plays classic films, independent films, documentaries and foreign films; or at AMC Oak View, which typically plays two or three art-house titles among its 24 screens.

About 138 of the 144 screens in the metro typically play the same broadly commercial films.

Studios are happy to stake out an opening date for those movies, which play 3,000 or more screens nationwide from day one. They have huge promotional budgets behind them. Web sites. Video games. TV ads.

When people write in to ask when a movie will open here, that movie is always a smaller, independent or arty title not expected to draw big audiences. The subject matter is weightier. They’re less about entertainment and more about art and enlightenment.

Right now titles with uncertain opening dates for Omaha include “Crazy Heart,” starring Jeff Bridges; “A Single Man,” starring Colin Firth; “Broken Embraces,” starring Penélope Cruz; “The Last Station,” starring Helen Mirren; and “The Lovely Bones,” starring Saoirse Ronan.

All those titles figure into the mix of award-season chatter. It gets people curious. And if that award contender includes your favorite star, or is based on your favorite book, you’re eager to see it.

Those movies have small promotional budgets, if any. Less awareness among the public means less box office.

When Omaha gets a movie depends, in part, on the relationship a particular movie theater has with a particular studio. Film Streams is lucky to have Connie White of Amherst, Mass., as its booking agent. Because she books for multiple art-house locations, she has more clout. And more personal connections.

Rachel Jacobson, director of Film Streams, has also worked hard to make sure studios know the box-office track record of her theater for this kind of film. That, too, is a factor.

AMC did not immediately return calls for comment. Its corporate headquarters in Kansas City, Mo., decides what movies play in all its theaters.

Matt Brown, manager of the Dundee, says it often takes persistence, and repeated phone calls, to nail a studio down on releasing a title. Some studios give preference to AMC because it has a national presence.

Film Streams and the Dundee each have only one screen dedicated to new releases. Some films stay multiple weeks, depending on contracts with the theater and box-office receipts. That means each theater books fewer than 40 titles a year.

Jacobson says there are far more worthy films out there than there are dates and screens on which to play them.

If the movie does open here but has no promotional budget, no word of mouth, no buzz — fewer people come.

The World-Herald runs a review on every new release within 24 hours of its opening. We try to steer you to the good stuff.

But if your movie finally, finally gets here, don’t wait to catch it. Lots of titles last only a week. If it doesn’t sell, it’s gone.

“We get a lot of requests to play things that have already been here or are on video,” Brown said. “A lot want the Dundee to book stuff AMC is playing because they don’t want to drive that far.”

But AMC often has exclusive rights to a movie title. And forging relationships with distributors takes time. And clout.

“We’re trying to build a core audience of film lovers in Omaha that studios can tap into,” Jacobson said. “I think distributors are beginning to realize what we can do for them, thanks to a loyal and terrific membership base.”

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