Theater Owners Play It Again

The National Assn. of Theater Owners convention, which opened Tuesday at the Century Plaza Hotel, sounded like a replay of the opening of the 1985 New Orleans convention.

Jack Valenti told the same dog joke and took another bow for the success of the movie ratings system. Richard Fox reiterated the need for a six-month waiting period between the theatrical run of movies and their videocassette releases.

There were allusions to the continued competition from the VCR, which is now in 33 million American homes, and it was repeated more than once that the two keys to the success of movie theaters are good movies and good presentation.

If Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, and Fox, president of the theater owners group, were sounding similar themes, there were hints of the growing debate over the ownership of theaters by major Hollywood studios.

After more than 30 years of government-forced exile, major U.S. distributors have gobbled up about $1 billion worth of theater chains. If all of the deals made go through, about one of every six theaters in the country will be owned by a studio. The question to be kicked around during the convention, which runs through Thursday, is how these dogs and cats can learn to get along and how the non-affiliated theater owners can protect themselves against favoritism that distributors may show to their own theaters.

Ron Leslie, president of AMC Entertainment Inc. and the man credited with conceiving the multiplex concept two decades ago, said he thinks theater owners should initiate a code of standards covering everything from cleanliness to equipment maintenance.

Leslie even suggested an ongoing competition between theaters to be the cleanest and the best, with winners being rewarded by film distributors with contracts to run the best movies.

The organization’s annual awards, to those people who best prime the box-office pump, will be presented Thursday night to Sylvester Stallone (“Rocky IV,” “Cobra”) for star of the year, James Cameron (“Aliens”), for director of the year, Jerry Weintraub (“Karate Kid II”), for producer of the year, and Theresa Russell, who made her acting debut 10 years ago in “The Last Tycoon” and has not appeared in a movie this year, for star of tomorrow.