Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (1963)

Wkt They're Talking About □ □ □ In the Movie Business □ □ □ The Universal -NBC Deal — Is It Feasible? There is much discussion in movie circles about the potentials in the projected deal whereby Universal might produce a series of full-length features for the NBC network. Is it feasible? Film BULLETIN asked an experienced television executive for his analysis of the idea. Here it is: The plans of MCA-Universal to make feature length movies for television showing on NBC and subsequent theatre use are currently in too early a stage to be judged realistically. Nevertheless, a few general observations should be in order about the envisionable limitations and consequences of such an undertaking. The idea of making feature length movies for television is hardly new in itself, NBC's series, "The Virginian," meets the description perfectly, for example. The fact that the purported budget of the MCA product is much higher seems merely to indicate that ordinary television showing will not cover the nut. If that is the case, either overseas sales or theatrical bookings will be fundamental to the financial success of the venture. Let us then consider a little of the past history of the often uneasy partnership of films and television. We can point to some television dramas which became theatre film successes as well, like "Marty", "Days of Wine and Roses", and "The Miracle Worker" (though the latter was a case where the film came from the Broadway play rather than the original television treatment.) But it is well to remember that in these instances the whole show was restaged for the movie cameras. It was not a kinescope of the television drama. The production values of television and theatre films are different. Television can accommodate the big scenes of movies a lot more easily than the huge theatre screen can accommodate the inescapable intimacy of the constant close-ups and two-shots which dominate video drama. Even in a Western, television uses tighter camera angles than a theatre motion picture. This is a technical point, but it is an important one. It may be one reason why even in an era when television uses film for so many of its shows so little of this film winds up on a theatre screen. Another point which will ultimately have to be resolved is the question of compensation for actors. Where will subsequent run theatrical showing of a television drama fall into the scale of residual payments? Leaving aside the question of theatrical bookings, let us consider the production of feature length films as purely a television undertaking. The budget figures quoted for the productions along rumor lane have varied from a low of $500,000 to a high of almost double that amount. Even a $500,000 spread over two full hours of prime time is way over the current top program price-except for a championship pro football game or something of that unique character. Thus there would have to be expectation that the program would be reshown several times on the network and then in syndication, in order to make the budgeting economically feasible. Would this subsequent-run technique of television booking represent a new kind of competition with the neighborhood movie theatre? You can answer the question for yourself. Is Saturday night at the movies, or any of the other prime time television movie programs, competing with Saturday night at the movie theatre? Of course it competes. When you show theatrical movies on television, you are competing with theatrical movies at the theatre. Perhaps this competition is minor when the TV movie is the late show, but when the home movie and the theatre movie both start at 8:30 or 9 or so they are in direct opposition to each other. The customer has to pick between them. Now if the MCA features for NBC turn out to be television features rather than theatrical movies, they will be less competition, of course. They will also be less unusual. If this is all they turn out to be, the chances are that they will also turn out to be a lot less expensive. In such event, we may all be asking ourselves what the shouting was all about. So let's pose the question right now. Until we have something to see, what's all the shouting about?