Screenings Trickier With New Studio Security

Intensified security measures at the major studios after FBI warnings about terrorist threats have resulted in an increase in bookings at independent screening rooms, as some companies shift media previews of movies away from theaters on their lots to lower-profile venues.

Walter Moshay, owner of Sunset Screening Room in West Hollywood and Burbank, reports a “noticeable uptick” in bookings. “What’s happening in the screening room business, I think, is the major studios don’t want a lot of strangers, especially on press night, where you can have bunches of people just coming in and saying they belong to the press and they’re going to a screening.

“It seems like I’m getting a lot more bookings from Paramount, and Sony, Warner Bros., Universal, MGM,” Moshay said. “The academy screenings [for Oscar consideration] and the acquisition [screenings] and dailies and all those kinds of things are coming our way.”

Studio representatives were reluctant to discuss policy publicly. But interviews with a variety of sources suggest that at least one studio is now scheduling the larger, all-media previews at commercial theaters off the lot. Other studios say they’ve maintained a normal schedule of on-lot screenings, albeit with tightened security measures in place.

Florence Grace, a spokeswoman for 20th Century Fox, which has two theaters on its lot, said, “Sometimes we do screen films for small groups of press on theaters on the lot, and that has not been affected. We obviously have increased our security, and that’s been our stance since Sept. 11.”

Besides showcasing in-house features, studio theaters are routinely rented to outside film production companies that don’t have screening rooms of their own.

For example, Melissa Holloway, director of West Coast publicity for Lions Gate Films, said, “The main studio we use is on the Sony lot in Culver City. They have a nice screening room. It’s really close to our office, and we use it all the time.” But a few weeks after the Sept. 11 attack, Holloway said a screening for the upcoming release “Monster’s Ball” caused inconvenience for invitees when the main entrance gate on the Sony lot was unexpectedly shut down, forcing guests to be rerouted to a rear entrance on the opposite side of the lot.

“About three weeks ago,” Holloway said, “we realized that screenings may be a security issue at the studios, and those security issues were going to affect scheduling. Usually, the big studios screen mostly on their lots. They may not be doing that now. [In case] they’re going to be using all the little screening rooms across town that I use, we decided to book our theaters from now all the way through February. Normally you’d do maybe half in October and then book [again] later. The Oscar screenings for academy members--those are already booked, done.”

Tony Angelotti, a veteran of several Oscar campaigns as head of publicity firm the Angelotti Co., said screening availability is always tight this time of year, because pre-nomination screenings for members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the various craft guilds begin to jam the by-invitation-only screening pipeline. Still, he says, this season may turn out to be more frenetic than usual because of a reduction in screenings on studio lots.

“Do I feel that there’s a pinch out there? Let’s put it this way. It hasn’t helped the situation at all. There are screening rooms that are booked from now until God knows when. The only businesses that you probably could say are as strong as ever, at least this year, are those screening rooms. They’re doing [big] business.”

Entertainment journalists have lately encountered some new rules for one of Hollywood’s long-standing industry rituals: the studio press screening.

One: Clean out clutter in car trunks to cut down on the time required for the now-commonplace car search. Two: RSVP promptly. Guest lists are now faxed in advance to entrance-gate security guards instead of being casually dropped off a few minutes before a screening begins. Three: Bring government-issued identification. Foreign reporters may be asked to produce passports.

Said one movie publicist, “It used to be that publicists worried about how many people were going to show up for a screening. Now it’s, ‘Is anybody here going to make trouble?”’

Another promoter contrasted the casual atmosphere that prevailed before last month’s terrorist attacks. “Before, you’d say, ‘I’m here for the screening,’ and they’d wave you in. Now, they have to check your name. They ask for ID, they check the trunks of some of the people. I totally get it: It’s necessary. But it’s so different.”

Charles Aidikoff, longtime proprietor of the Beverly Hills screening room that bears his name, said bookings have surged in recent weeks. “When the attack happened on the 11th, for about two weeks ... there was no business, nothing,” he said. “But since then, my business has almost doubled and sometimes tripled. Today I started at 8:30 this morning, and we’re running until about 7:30 at night. Last night I ran until 10 at night, which is very unusual. And Sunday I have three shows booked in already with two big studios.”

As for the effect of recent events on the industry as a whole, Aidikoff, who’s worked in Hollywood since 1934, said, “I’ve never seen anything like this in all the years I’ve been in the business, even when you had studios shutting down, or when they had the strike years back. It’s a completely new twist.”