NEWS ANALYSIS : Company Town : Distributors, Exhibitors Leave ShoWest Convention on a Bullish Note : Film: Among the reasons: healthy box office receipts, an exploding foreign market and the graying of the population.

Distributors and exhibitors may have come to the National Assn. of Theater Owners convention here in a down mood over this year’s sluggish movie attendance, but they left feeling bullish about the short- and long-range prospects for their business.

If nothing else, the four-day NATO/ShoWest ’95 convention reaffirmed that the industry offers vast opportunities, both here and abroad.

Mitch Goldman, president of marketing and distribution for New Line Cinema, said this was the first time he could remember ShoWest “not having its naysayers.” He added: “All looks good for the future, with no danger signs ahead.”

Exhibitors are also “feeling buoyant about the industry,” said Howard Lichtman, executive vice president of marketing and communications for Toronto-based Cineplex Odeon. Among the reasons: Domestic box office receipts are healthy, the foreign market is exploding, the graying of the population is likely to boost moviegoing, and production continues to grow.

Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, was also characteristically optimistic in his state of the industry address, boasting that domestic box office receipts last year reached a record $5.4 billion and admissions climbed to 1.29 billion--the highest in 34 years.

The “not-so-good news,” as Valenti said, is that the average cost of producing and marketing a studio movie has ballooned to $50.4 million.

And judging from the increased number of big-budget pictures coming out of Hollywood this year, led by Universal’s mega-priced “Waterworld” at more than $150 million, cost containment and profitability on the home front will continue to be uphill battles.

American movie companies will increasingly target the more rapidly expanding revenue streams overseas. If there was one industry buzzword coming out of this year’s ShoWest, it was international.

Never before have international delegates had such a presence. NATO/ShoWest General Chairman Tim Warner estimated that nearly 1,000 out of about 8,500 participants came from 45 foreign countries, an increase of between 20% and 25% over last year.

According to industry experts, international business is growing at twice the rate of domestic, mainly because of the surge in new theaters and untapped revenue from emerging, densely populated markets such as Korea, China and India.

While Valenti and others acknowledge that the United States is a mature market, they also believe there are more dollars to be reaped here from theater expansion and new-media outlets, such as video-on-demand and pay-for-view.

Just prior to ShoWest, a vote of confidence in the growth of theatrical exhibition came with the announced $300-million-plus merger of Cineplex Odeon Theaters and Cinemark USA to form the world’s largest movie chain, with 2,839 screens.

In the short term, theater owners are looking forward to this summer’s product lineup to revitalize domestic box office revenues, which are down 12% over 1994 due to a crop of generally lackluster movies.

MGM/UA disappointed exhibitors at the convention’s opening luncheon by not having a product reel to show. It wasn’t enough that the studio’s distribution president, Larry Gleason, outlined the company’s upcoming films.

“We come here to see the movies, not hear about them,” said one dissatisfied exhibitor from the Midwest.

But spirits lifted noticeably Wednesday, when Warner Bros. unveiled a product reel that included clips from sequels to “Batman,” “Ace Ventura,” “Free Willy,” “Under Siege” and “Grumpy Old Men,” as well as the Clint Eastwood-Meryl Streep romancer, “The Bridges of Madison County,” and the suspense thrillers “Eraser,” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Richard Donner’s “Assassins.”

Paramount Pictures also wowed exhibitors with glimpses of “Losing Isaiah” and the next installment of “Star Trek.” Participants in Thursday’s Columbia and TriStar session were wowed with clips from “Bad Boys,” an action comedy starring Martin Lawrence and Wil Smith; “The Net,” which stars Sandra Bullock, and director Jerry Zucker’s “First Knight,” starring Sean Connery and Richard Gere.

In addition to giving the nation’s theater owners a peek at upcoming films, studios often trot out their biggest stars and filmmakers at ShoWest. This is particularly important to the smaller exhibitors, who look forward to their once-a-year trek to Vegas to see Hollywood stardom up close.

But until Warner Bros.’ star-studded lunch Wednesday, celebrity sightings were in short supply.

“I thought there was going to be a lot more glitz,” complained Gregory Smith, an exhibitor from Montana attending his first ShoWest convention.

“We like to see the stars so we can tell our friends back home about it,” said Fran Eigenberg, who owns a fiveplex in Raton, N.M.