You and a Guest are Not Invited

Last summer Disney flew some 500 Hollywood types to San Francisco and ferried them over to Alcatraz Island for a lavish premiere of “The Rock,” an action thriller produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and set on Alcatraz. The event--held on the island that once housed the famous maximum-security prison--drew widespread coverage in the press, on television entertainment shows and news segments around the world. The film had a very successful opening weekend, grossing $25 million.

Two months ago the same studio flew about the same number of Hollywood insiders to Las Vegas on commercial commuter airlines, then bused them in “prisoner transports” to see a premiere of “Con Air,” a thriller also produced by Bruckheimer about some brutal convicts who hijack an airplane. The event got far less coverage than the other Bruckheimer film and left many guests grumbling about the unaccommodating transportation and frantic itineraries. But such carping didn’t affect the box office; “Con Air” opened successfully anyway, taking in $24 million its opening weekend.

Given such experiences, it’s probably no wonder that some studios are beginning to question the payoffs for the huge amounts of money spent for that hallowed Hollywood tradition, the premiere.

For a radically different approach, DreamWorks, whose first film, “The Peacemaker,” opens Sept. 26, decided that since it has no opulent studio tradition to uphold, it would introduce its first production with far less fanfare. The studio will hold its premiere screening next month at Mann’s Chinese Theater with cast and crew members, free popcorn, candy and drinks--but no glittering catered gala.

In fact, some scaling back has already begun. In May, the premiere for “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” was held in similar low-key style at Universal City’s Cineplex Odeon theaters. Lots of stars turned out anyway, and the film made a record-breaking $90.2 million on its opening four-day weekend and went on to become one of the year’s biggest hits to date.

So, just what is the value of the red carpets and searchlights in today’s Hollywood?

“There’s no value at all in terms of ticket buyers,” said Mike De Luca, president of production for New Line Cinema. “There’s some P.R. value. You can maybe read about it in a magazine. It’s an industry thing.”

The posh events, which are largely confined to entertainment industry attendees, are characterized by one Hollywood insider as “the same thousand people going from premiere to premiere, eating the same food.”

Increasingly, studios are rethinking these glittery bashes--whose price tags range from $200,000 to several million dollars--especially in the cases of such films as “Evita,” whose premiere featured an elaborately decorated nightclub motif and tango dancers, and “Men in Black,” whose gala had sets from the film and video screens playing Will Smith’s video in a continuous loop. In many cases, the studios are questioning their place in an overall marketing campaign.

“People are beginning to shy away from the really lavish ones,” said a Sony executive. “Everyone is interested in controlling costs.”

As the marketplace has grown ever more competitive, with a larger number of films competing for moviegoers’ dollars, studios have had to develop sophisticated yet cost-effective strategies to attract attention to their movies. Sometimes it can make more sense to spend the half million dollars in other--more directly quantifiable--ways.

“A $600,000 premiere [like that spent on “The Rock”] can buy an awful lot of media,” said Gerry Rich, MGM president of worldwide marketing. “The money may be better spent on television or additional radio or more newspaper ads. It’s not always a prudent idea to have a premiere.”

One of the more elaborate premieres of recent memory was for “Hercules,” held in June in New York City. Disney estimates its cost at $3 million-$4 million, but others in the industry say the figure may be closer to $10 million. The premiere virtually shut down the city with a parade along Fifth Avenue.

“When it gets into the stratosphere, it’s about ego and who can have the biggest premiere,” De Luca said.

“There is a tendency to spend more and more in an effort to make your premiere stand out among the glut,” Rich said. “At a certain point you have to stop the madness.”

On the other hand, a little madness can prove fruitful.

Premieres are often a win-win proposition for both studios and news organizations. For the huge number of outlets clamoring to fill entertainment news holes with movie coverage, premieres fill the ticket nicely. For studios, staging a star-studded event can net hundreds of thousands of dollars in free air time. This is an especially attractive lure, given the increasing costs of marketing and advertising films.

The “Hercules” extravaganza got its considerable investment back in media coverage, with a reported 100 news crews from around the world covering the event, according to a Disney executive.

“This is supposed to be about show business, it’s supposed to be about glamour,” said Dick Cook, chairman of the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group. “It’s supposed to be about bringing attention to this world of imagination and fantasy. And premieres are certainly one way to do it. We can all buy television advertising. We can’t all do the events and premieres.”

In the late ‘80s premieres started to become more elaborate, say those who plan and organize them. Many point to the 1988 premiere for “Working Girl” starring Harrison Ford and Melanie Griffith as a turning point. The industry buzz on the movie was modest. After its premiere--a re-creation of portions of New York City including Rockefeller Center and its ice rink--drew widespread media coverage, the movie was a surprise hit. The premiere was widely thought to have been influential in its box-office success.

“It was the first time anyone had done anything thematic and it sort of set the standard,” said an executive who helped to organize it. “We spent $500,000. It paid for itself in spades, even though [at the time] it seemed like a shameless waste.”

But since the mid-’90s, fiscal conservatism has come up against the demands and desires of high-profile filmmakers and stars.

“You can easily throw money at these things, but then all you’re doing is creating more excess,” said Jeffrey Godsick, 20th Century Fox’s senior vice president for publicity and promotion. “A couple hundred thousand into a premiere is fine if you feel you can really generate the coverage out of it. . . . The coverage is worth millions, but that doesn’t mean that’s what you should spend on a creative event.”

In some cases, exotic premieres are held per the dictates of filmmakers or stars.

“It becomes a talent relations issue,” said a studio executive, who requested anonymity. “People will point to one and say, ‘I want what Jerry Bruckheimer got.’ If you try to do it on a cheaper level, then they cry. It is no different than your 5-year-old screaming they want their birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese.”

Conversely, the real heavy hitters may not even show up at premieres, or if they do, they just make an appearance. Often, their invitations are passed on to assistants, or assistants’ assistants.

“The people with real power in Hollywood don’t go,” said the studio executive. “They show all these movies in their home screening rooms. It’s the hand-slappers, the wannabes that go. You see the people associated with the movie and all of their hangers-on, and then you see all the people who hope to be in business with the person whose movie it is. It’s a $500,000 suck-up.”

Some actors and studio executives say they will attend premieres if they must but would just as soon catch the movie elsewhere and skip the hype.

“If it’s a friend of mine’s film and he asks me to be there, I’ll go and support him,” said actor Andy Garcia. “Other than that, I’d rather just see it with an audience.”

Others suggest that these industry-only affairs are less effective as promotional events than if they were to include the general public.

“ ‘The Rock’s’ premiere was really clever,” said an executive at a rival studio. “It also made thematic sense. The ‘Con Air’ premiere was a clever idea, but they missed the boat. It was celebrity-poor. We [in the industry] go to Vegas all the time. They should have made it a promotional thing where a regular Joe Schmo could have won tickets to attend.” And no amount of opulence will impress or distract a premiere audience if the movie itself does not hold up.

“If the movie doesn’t play, I can’t say a premiere is a wise strategy because you don’t need negative word of mouth before the movie opens,” Rich said.

Most studio officials agree that holding too many premieres makes them lose their effectiveness.

“I think you need to look to see if it makes sense,” said a DreamWorks executive. “We’re not cheap. The three guys here [founders David Geffen, Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg] get more money than anyone I know. Not all movies lend themselves. [“The Peacemaker”] is a great movie, but what would be the theme of the premiere? Premieres don’t really lend themselves to ‘Let’s go Play a Nuclear Disarmament Game.’ ”