Exhibitors Convene Amid War, Recession

The hit movies “Ghost,” “Pretty Woman,” “Home Alone” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” are the kinds of escapist fare Americans--now, with recession and war, more than ever--want to see. That’s the consensus among the nation’s movie exhibitors gathered here for the 1991 ShoWest ’91 convention.

Those four films accounted for a large share of 1990’s $5-billion box-office receipts, and the people who showed them are hoping Hollywood will keep them coming.

But it was talk of the war and of the economic recession that permeated the halls of the Bally Casino Resort, where more than 4,000 people are meeting through Thursday. It was apparent in the pullbacks by some major studios, which normally come here armed with product reels, posters and videotapes to meet their key customers and do some heavy selling. This year, Paramount, Disney and Warner Bros. all scaled back, while 20th Century Fox--flush from the blockbuster success of “Home Alone”--is here in force.

Orion is also making a big showing, returning partly to remind the exhibitors that it was in this building a year ago that they got their first glimpse of “Dances With Wolves.”

The war has had surprisingly little effect on attendance. Participation by American exhibitors is about the same as a year ago, and ShoWest spokesman Tim C. Warner said that only 10% of the 450 foreign delegates canceled.

Most exhibitors echoed Warner’s sentiment. While not quite believing the film business is recession-proof, the theater operators feel people are looking for escape from the bad news on their TV sets.

“People are getting tired of watching CNN and the news,” said Marvin Troutman, who owns nine screens in Millersburg, Pa.

“People’s tastes don’t change because of a war,” said Cineplex-Odeon Executive Vice resident Neil Blatt. “But for most people, the issue is a matter of getting away from their homes for a few hours.”

In his “State of the Industry” speech Tuesday, Motion Picture Assn. of America President Jack Valenti said that going to the movies during troubled times is a “basic human instinct,” but he had bad news as well. Valenti said the combined cost of making and advertising the average major studio movie in 1990 was nearly $40 million, and added that only 30 of the 410 movies released last year cleared more than that.

To the delight of exhibitors, Valenti scalded those religious groups who have called the adults-only NC-17 rating an invitation to spread pornography and said that their views threaten basic American freedoms.

“What we cannot do is allow zealots or self-anointed special groups who claim divine vision to intimidate us or coerce us or frighten us,” Valenti said. “In this free and loving land, adults are free to choose their way of life, the books they read, the TV programs they watch, the movies they view, the music they hear.

“Too many brave young men have died on battlefields, and are dying now, to protect, defend, and preserve our right of choice . . . for any of us to stand mutely by when a few people insist on telling a lot of people how to live their lives.”