Motion Picture Theater Management (1927)

CHAPTER I The Object of the Book THEATERS, and particularly motion picture theaters, are to-day an important part of community life throughout our country. In many instances they are housed in the finest public buildings of the individual town or city. They represent investments ranging from one hundred thousand dollars in a small town to as much as three and four million dollars in one of the greater centers of population. The modern motion picture theater, a marvel of comfort and luxury, seats as many as six thousand persons. From some nine thousand theaters in 1910, the number increased to twenty thousand in 1925, with a total seating capacity of almost eighteen million, and an estimated average weekly attendance of one hundred million. In New York, the Paramount Theatre and Building embodies an investment in land and structure of nearly eighteen million dollars. This, of course, is the exceptional instance, because the outstanding one. It is significant as representing a peak, a climax in the history of operation. The tremendous capital invested in motion picture theaters throughout the country is an indication of the sound foundation on which the motion picture theater rests. In one sense, the motion picture is an industry. From that point of view it is not merely national in scope, but even ranks with the preeminent industries, being in fact fourth in importance. Furthermore, it is a business as soundly stabilized as it is extensive and notable. When a single theater brings a gross revenue of two millions and more a year — and there are now many such theaters — it has reached a position second to that of no single interest in the commercial world. Indeed, the progress of the industry is one of the romances of American initiative. Born in 1896, and founded on the basic patents of 15