Montreal: When you think about Famous Players’ current megaplex expansion across the country, think added value, think big and think bottom line. The 81-year-old exhibitor’s expansion program is unprecedented in Canadian movie history.

Jean Rickli, fp’s vp eastern operations, says Canada’s population isn’t growing dramatically, but the new movie megaplexes are having the effect of roughly doubling attendance (from four to eight movie outings a year) on a per capita basis.

The exhibitor, founded in January of 1920 under the name Famous Players-Lasky Corp., made direct investments of $235 million in new megaplex venues in Canada between June 1999 and November 2000. The investment is part of fp’s national expansion program, in the order of $500 million in the past four years.

fp operates 105 theatre venues with 897 screens across Canada, including venues operated as joint ventures with Imax Corp. and Alliance Atlantis Cinemas. Seating capacity is approximately 250,000, with employment at the 7,000 level. fp is part of Viacom and is headed by Toronto-based chairman and ceo John Bailey and president and coo Robb Chase.

fp cinemas operate under four distinct banners:

* ‘flagship’ megaplexes located in downtown cores in Montreal and Toronto, with a third slated to open in Vancouver later this year;

* the Colossus cinemas, huge spaceship-shaped venues, typically with Imax theatres such as those in Laval, Que., on Highway 7 north of Toronto and in Langley, b.c.

* the Coliseum venues, basically circular-shaped buildings mainly located in ‘up-and-coming suburban areas’ and in locations with large surface retail outlets; and

* the SilverCity or StarCite banner, again typically located in the suburbs but housed in ‘a more rectangular-shaped building.’

All venues feature large screens, stadium seating concepts and national concessions such as Mike’s Restaurants, Starbucks, New York Fries and Pizza Hut.

Sound technology used in the cinemas is in an evolutionary phase. Three digital systems exist in the market, providing filmmakers with three options: dts, Dolby sr-d and Sony sdds. In its expansionary phase, fp has installed 252 digital sound processors in theatres across Canada. Eighty-nine percent of the theatres are equipped with Dolby stereo. Flagship theatres in major markets boast thx specifications.

The record-setting Paramount in Montreal is Canada’s number one grossing theatre and ranks among the top 10 in North America on a weekly basis. The Paramount in Toronto ranks second in Canada.

Producer concerns

Producers in Canada are worried their smaller-budget movies will be shut out of the new megaplexes.

‘Quebec releases more [Canadian] movies than Canada, but some producers are alarmed,’ says Rickli. ‘Our complexes are geared to the large blockbuster Hollywood-type of movie. We’re not hiding that. Nonetheless we are committed to the industry. I always say our complexes are built for everybody, and I think that thinking also extends to product. So if you look at the seating capacity of these complexes they go from 150 [seats] to 480, which gives us a lot of flexibility in moving product. So that might work for a more European or Canadian film which isn’t going as wide but will be perfect in a 150-seat auditorium at any particular moment. And we’re open to doing those things.’

As the incidence of megaplexes increases, Rickli says some older venues are sold off, but the transition also includes repurposing traditional cinemas. A case in point, the 12-screen Le Capitol (Quebec City), which now includes a ‘discount’ operation for six of the 12 screens, with the other six programmed for first-run movies. With the major exhibitors like fp extending operations to include discount and rep-house formats, the upshot might be more screen time and longer runs for smaller Canadian and foreign films.

‘You can look at us [movie exhibitors] as being retailers who don’t entirely know what product we’ll be selling,’ says Rickli. ‘We’re always talking film, but we’re always speculating about the [public] reaction and whether [a film] is going to work or not. And that is a considerable change compared to other retailers.’

fp’s third Paramount theatre, Paramount Calgary, is set to open March 23 and will have 16 screens in addition to a Famous Players-imax screen. It’s the first imax screen in Calgary with 3D capability and the eighth fp-imax theatre opened since December 1998.

The most recent report by Statistics Canada, released in October for 1998/99, indicates Alberta had the highest per capita attendance in Canada with 4.96 visits per person. Nationally, overall attendance increased for the seventh consecutive year to a 38-year high of 112.8 million admissions, up 12% over ’97/98. *

-www.famousplayers.com