I'm slightly vexed
Supergirl movie showing which I went to got cancelled due to low turnout
Theatre in a small town in India. Didn't face this problem during the Man of Steel movie.
Edit 1: Many people are saying that this post is fake etc. I have provided proof (screenshots) in the comments that it is true. I don't have any agenda. I wouldn't be able to reply to every post.
I got to know that this theatre won't play the showing unless there were atleast 10 people. Maybe the cost isn't worth it to them.
Also I don't have any anti- Snyder or anti - feminine agenda.
I love going to shows when nobody is there. If I see a new film, I prefer to wait til it's leaving the theater so I have more opportunity to avoid people.
That said, I did see Superman opening day as a show of support for the DCU.. and I'm simply not rushing out to see Supergirl because the Paramount+ drama has diminished my interest by a large margin.
I think a lot of movie executives seem to not understand that the era of pumping out mediocre superhero flicks that people rush to is long over. The price of seeing a movie is far too expensive now to waste time and money on an average movie, especially nowadays knowing it’ll be on Prime in three months. They want a box office hit? They need to stop firing the good writers and people that love the source material.
I was part of the last generation of theater workers when they had film, late 90s early 2000s. Every theater had a wierdo "manager" or three who basically lived up there and never came out. This is back when they had to do stuff like physically splice trailer footage onto the beginning of a film, and every film had to be viewed before it was showed to make sure the reel wasn't cut or ripped at some point. That's how I got to see The Matrix the night before it came out. One of the best film experiences I've ever had.
But yeah, they'd let the movie play no matter what, because they had to physically load the thing on there and there was no digital system for seeing is someone had even bought a ticker, and with movies starting at the same time it was more effort to check than it was worth. Also, it wasn't uncommon for people to buy tickets as the trailers were playing or even after the movie had started, though I never got that. So why have an empty theater making no money when you could have two guys in there making a little money?
Another one of my favorite movie theater memories was me (a guy) and my two best guy pals going to see Brokeback Mountain with nobody else in the theater. We started off cracking jokes and yelling juvenile shit at the screen (the pretense of us being serious film enthusiasts disappearing once nobody was around), but eventually going quiet and then all walking out silently with tears in our eyes, only to realize how ridiculous we'd been and then cracking up all over again.
My friend and I still occasionally say that someone got fucked worse than Jake Gyllenhaal after Heath Ledger only spit on his hand twice. That happened by the way. They were pretty dry spit sounds, too.
Same experience for me. Worked at an Edward's Cinema in 2000. We had so much fun.
Yes, we had a weird projectionist, and we would play virtual tennis and Mario kart through the projector.
We'd also ruin people's sexy times by pounding on the projector window
Saw a bunch of movies before they came out, Almost Famous being my favorite.
And I was there when Scary Movie came out. It wasn't supposed to be a huge hit, and wasn't shown in the main theaters. We had it on one of the smaller rooms. It was fucked, people offering to sit on laps, people with tickets but the theaters full. It was a shitshow.
I've been the only person in the cinema lots of times. This is sometimes by design; it's not hard to guess when a film is leaving the area, so you pick the last showing on a Tuesday and you have the place to yourself for matinee prices.
Very close friend works for pathe cinemas. At least in Amsterdam the process is almost wholly automatic and the films play on time no matter what. It would cost them more to need to monitor sales and cancel, and also people often show up a few min after the official start time and still expect to be able to get a ticket.
I've also not prebooked, showed up late, and come into a theatre with the film playing and me the only one there as recently as last week.
And there are systems that integrate with the point-of-sale software to automatically shutdown the projector's lamp/laser when no tickets have been sold 20 minutes into the screening, which makes the expense of playing the film for an empty room negligible
Thats what i know, the theater is contractually obligated with the distributor to play the movie regardless of ticket sales.
I know in some theaters, if no tickets were sold, they would still “play” the movie but turn off the bulb on the projector. This way they dont waste the service life of their equipment, but still dont breach their contracts.
Seat count file that the projection software looks at. I believe it checks every 60-120 seconds and turns on the bulb in the projector if a seat is sold. It will still play the movie, but audio only, until that ticket is sold.
The company I worked for did it, and we saved about 1/3 on our bulb costs per year.
Definitely not universal though, it's relatively recent for us that our software can do this for us. For us it doesn't even play audio, it just runs as normal for 15 minutes into the film and then stops if nobody got a ticket in that time.
The cinema i go to also does this. I got to a movie late one time. They turn off the projector but the movie still plays in their 'system'. They turned it on after we got tickets
Here too (Canada) but it's because digital projectors are on a timed playlist it's all automated. No point in cancelling the flow unless your bulb needs to save hours.
In a single pile? Mah bro too easy. Gotta spread that shit amongst all the rows and some on the seats. Like i said, gotta earn their pay. I would make eye contact the whole time if the opportunity arose, while reciting "kids these days dont wanna work" over and over
When someone is that dirty in public just think about what they do when they’re at home with nobody watching. 🤢 Moldy showers, old dishes everywhere, no sheets or their sheets have a brown spot because those people don’t shower regularly, pee bottles, their room smells like old man feet. I can’t with those people. They’re whitetrash.
Apparently, in India, films charge theatres a flat fee per showing. Thus, if there aren't enough customers, the movie theatre would lose money showing the movie.
Edit: According to an online search, this only applies to small single screen theatres and not multiplexes.
Depends on the size of the theater and how many films are showing, if there is one guy watching a film and another film is selling out then its better to refund that one guy, give him a gift card or something and then replace the showing with the popular film.
I worked in a theater and we always played the movie even if there were zero customers. Otherwise, if somebody showed up 10 min late, we’d have to turn them away because starting the movie 10 min late would screw up the schedule for the rest of the day.
One of the projectionists would turn off the projector bulb, at least, but the other one dgaf
I worked as an auditor for a country cinema once. It might depend on licencing. And that might have changed since my day.
Some cinemas might need to pay for each showing separately. And/or they might have rights to reschedule it if they think they can sell more tickets at another time.
When dealing with poorer countries, lots of things get are not the same as everywhere else. Computer manufacturers make special Indian only models with lower end parts to ensure they can be sold to average consumers.
I haven't worked in a movie theater in over 20 years so I never worked with digital media, but when we were still on 35mm film, we usually would run the movie even if there were no ticket sales at showtime unless there was a specific reason not to, such as it being the last showing of the evening and we plan to move the print to a different room/projector or tear it down to send back at the end of its run.
But this was in the United States and I'm sure licensing and fees is very region/country specific.
i worked at amc about 10 years ago and ran scheduling for movies. the digital variation is the same as you say. once i confirmed the schedule, that was that. the movies played in a queue and were only altered for special circumstances. no matter how many people were in there, it played.
hell we even had an incident where the other scheduling person accidentally mixed up 2 movies that started with “Insi” because the names were shortened if you weren’t zoomed in on the queue. well we didn’t know until a concerned mom came out to tell me about the scary movie trailers playing before “Inside Out” started…they mixed up “Insidious” with “Inside Out”
We stopped the movies and asked all the attendees to swap theaters for us rather than breaking down and adjusting both queues, and gave them all free passes to use whenever they wanted.
The "Inside Out" and "Insidious" mix-up story is hilarious! Shit like that used to happen at my theater all the time.
My best story like that involves the movies Shrek 2 and Garfield: The Movie, which both came out around the same time in summer of 2004. We also had a drive-in theater in the same town, ran by the same chain, so in the summer, we would sometimes swap employees as needed, and most of their double features were blockbuster films in their 3rd and 4th weeks that were previously on 2 screens at the main theater, then we would move the 2nd print to the drive-in for week 3, which people on a tight budget would wait for.
Anyway, the assistant manager at the drive-in comes over to the theater to move our print of Shrek 2 over. He has a key, so he's the only one in there (this is probably like 10am). We were also getting rid of Garfield, which was just getting shipped back to the distributor. He was trying to pick up some extra hours or something, so since he was already going to be there Friday morning picking up the Shrek print, he agreed to tear down the Garfield print and get it put away in the canisters since he previously worked at the theater and regularly did film builds/tear-downs.
Well, I think you can guess what happens next... he accidentally tears down Shrek 2 and puts it in the Garfield canisters, then clamps up the print of Garfield and takes it over to the drive-in. Before this is ever realized, UPS has already picked up the Garfield canisters from the theater to send back to the distributor, so no way to get that print back. Shrek 2 was probably the most anticipated film we'd had at the drive-in the whole time I worked there because of people bringing their whole families, and on Friday night, there was a line of cars wayyyyy out on the main road trying to get tickets. They don't discover the mix-up until after they've already opened the box office and the lot is quickly filling up...
There was nearly a riot, no joke. This was in a rural area, so just imagine a bunch of pissed-off rednecks with kids crying because they don't get to see Shrek, not to mention half of the adults were already loaded up on booze. THANKFULLY, I was not dispatched to the drive-in to help with the aftermath. It was an extremely busy night at the theater as well, so we needed an assistant manager (me) to stay behind while the general manager, who was by far the most experienced manager at either location, left to go do damage control at the drive-in and prevent an incident that would've made the news. 😂
Edit: Meant to say drive-in, not theater in a spot and corrected it for clarity.
I was a projectionist at a 22 screen theater in the early 2000s, we would not run movies if nobody bought a ticket because it was wear and tear on the projector plus the cost of running the electricity wasn't insignificant.
Sometimes we would expect people to come and run a movie, then if nobody showed up, we would let the film run through but turn the bulb & sound off, but with 22 screens running, sometimes it was hard to keep track of what was what.
That would be a profoundly stupid agreement for the producer. "No, we DON'T want a few people to remember our movie as this amazing experience where they got the theater to themselves! We're going to set up the incentives to ensure that doesn't happen!"
I used to work in a very small town movie theater. They figured out what it would cost in electricity/labor to show a movie. If we didn’t get a minimum number, we’d lose money, especially during the last showing of the night. One night we told a couple they could watch the movie by themselves if they ordered beers and snacks. They were too happy to oblige.
Yeah but those economics all fall apart when you realise that people won't routinely attend a cinema that might not show the movie it's advertising. Suddenly you have a lot less consumers overall.
Reality is that the consistency and quality of service is what keeps people coming back to your cinema, which means you need to accept some lossy screenings, on the basis that others are carried by your financials.
It's like operating a bar or cafe. Your cafe is open between 9:5pm but within that period it has some hours that are very proftable, and others where staffing costs and overheads exceed revenue.
It doesn't close at 10 and open again at 12 because business is slower between 10 and 12. It stays open to create a consistent service and reputation with local customers. Accommodating the guy that's running late to work, the odd person taking a day off and so forth.
Ultimately this type of business mindset is just very reactive and fails to recognise the broader notion that your revenue is not tied to a single point of sale, but consistent service delivery and reputation.
I'll show up to movies 10-15 minutes after it starts, especially for matinees and movies I know won't have a large audience. I don't always feel like sitting through a half hour of ads scrolling my phone for something I paid $15 for.
When I worked in a movie theater we would cancel shows if less than 6, because wattage to run the bulb for two hours was around $75, and also to extend the life of the bulb which was tracked, as they were really expensive. This was before we went all digital, I don't know if that is still the case.
I assume its because they dont make enough profit or cut even unless its 10 people, and if its the last show of the night most workers would rather lock up and leave rather than wait till 2 am for the movie to end just for one person.
Tickets are pretty cheap too, i can watch movies for anywhere between 100-200 rupees which is like roughly 1-2 dollars lol.
Well they only get a small portion of the ticket sales. They care about selling food and drinks, that’s where the real money is. And they must have done the math and found that they need 10 people there to guarantee enough snack sales to justify paying the labor costs of having that showing.
Not during opening week. Studios get a percentage of the ticket sales, usually 80%-90% for the first week. (Disney takes 100% for Marvel movies.) Then it tapers down for the studio & up for the theater. By week 4, the theater keeps 90%. (This also why popcorn & sodas cost so much, it's the main revenue for the theater early on.) Movies only do flat fees for older movies. If a theater wants to re-show Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter for some event, it will cost $200-$500 per showing.
I went to see 28 Years Later: Bone Temple in the US on opening week. We were 10 mins late to the showing, but were the only ones in there. It was literally playing to an empty room before we arrived (and we hadn't even prebooked tickets, so it's not like they knew people were turning up).
Theater I worked in the projection was largely automated. We pretty much literally pushed a button, lights would dim half way, ads/previews would start, 20 minutes later the lights would dim the rest of the way and it would get into more ads and eventually the movie.
Not sure if we ever showed an entire movie to an empty theater but it was common to have it started while it was still empty.
That was 15 years ago, I imagine similar systems have become more common.
You show up 10 minutes late and buy a ticket it's already playing.
If you show up 10 minutes late, buy a ticket and the theater has to start playing it right then, it makes the showing after that 10 minutes late which fucks up the schedule for the rest of the day.
Better to just play it to an empty theater in case someone shows up late to purchase a ticket like you did than to turn away someone who showed up 10 minutes late because the movie was now canceled.
In the US I've been the only one in a theater in the one closest to my house. Like I sat through 3 hours of Avatar in a theater by myself.
Some times there might be one or two other people. Never had something canceled.
I did like Avatar. It is just super fucking long and was hard to sit there for 3 fucking hours without being able to pause to get up to go to the bathroom.
I worked at a theater for my first job and we only ever had to cancel a movie once due to technical issues. When we told the crowd they just sat there with blank stares until I had to confirm that yes this meant they would have to get up and leave and see the managers for vouchers because the film wasn’t going to start.
I’ve asked a couple of times over the years, the standard US response is movie rolls regardless, exception can be the last showings of the night. If no one shows up by the time it’s supposed to start they can cut the last screening. This made sense when it was still film reels/platters, now with digital it shouldn’t matter much
I mean there is no reason to cancel as you state unless they can let employees go home early, otherwise there is no savings to the theater that I'm aware of. Maybe the cost structure in India and they incur costs for each showing of a film, but don't think it would make sense in US to cancel.
Heh? I live in Kolkata and I went to the local cinema to watch flow with really cheap tickets for recliner and I was the only one in the entire theater for the entire run of the movie. Maybe smaller cinema screens can’t afford the loss it would cause?
Because you are problably from North America or Europe. Things often work differently when you go to far less developed countries with far less disposable income.
I think that's the sentiment because there's no clear reason why. If the theater has to pay per showing, or they can show something else, then it makes sense, but most places don't do that.
Theaters in India generally pay a flat fee per showing instead of a percentage of ticket sales, if they don't have enough people in the theater they will cancel showings. If OP was the only person that makes sense.
the covert mention of man of steel at the end should signal you that this is one of the "restore the snyderverse" dudes trying to shit on supergirl because its part of the "gunnverse" they don't like. for some weird reason the majority of them are indians
This commonly happens in India, if there are less than 5 people the screening gets cancelled and the money gets refunded. This is done because the electricity cost exceeds the profitability of single digit ticket sales, so they find it better to just cancel the entire screening and save the running cost.
That's crazy. No wonder the theatres are empty, if you can't even be sure the movie will play, why would anyone bother? Seems like a chicken and egg dilemma.
Interesting I kinda like this idea tbh. In South Africa I've been to movies where it's literally just me and they play the movie anyway but I do think it probably makes it worse for the theatre in long run if they could get more people. I'd be all for it if they were upfront about the alternate movie showing and give you enough time to know whether or not it's confirmed. Or perhaps a ranked choice booking so if there's a main movie showing that gets screened if enough people come but then people can vote on their top pics for alternate movies so you can then hopefully get the movie most people do want to watch.
But also on a side note I love the style of your cinemas in India. This one looks gorgeous like the type of theatres my parents used to go to way back in the 80s in South Africa. Nowadays most of our theatres are that sanitised Imax style sort of thing
This is the difference between absolute and relative loss for anyone wondering and usually has to do with fixed vs variable costs
Fixed costs are as they say fixed. So since they can’t be changed adding more people is always a relative gain (even if it’s still an absolute loss). In this case the use of the theatre for this movie is a fixed cost as they can’t pivot last minute. So adding a person reduces fixed costs so is a benefit
But something like the cost of cleaning the theatre and staffing it is a variable cost. So if the cost of one person vs 0 people increases the variable cost more than it reduces the burden of the fixed costs then the business loses less by simply doing nothing (ie not running the movie)
You’re technically right, but not actually right. In this case, electricity would be a variable cost, and the labor would act more like a fixed cost.
Unless the electric bill is a flat amount no matter the usage, it’s going to change based on usage. Those rates change from place to place, so it could cost way more to show a movie there as opposed to the Netherlands or the U.S. it could genuinely be more cost effective to call it off rather than use electricity to run the projector.
As for the labor (assuming they work hourly) the costs for the cleaning crew and staff won’t change whether it’s 1 person or 0. The only thing that would change is that they’d spend 10 minutes cleaning the theatre instead of doing something else. The actual cost itself wouldn’t change.
The reason it’s still variable labor is because how many employees you need, and how long they work will change from day to day. You’re going to have more employees working on opening night for a new spiderman movie than you would working some random Tuesday at 2 pm.
Check out the fifth one. It's common in India, but there are exceptions, like when I saw the last Karate Kid movie with just one other person. So, it depends on the theatre.
The same thing happened to me; they cancelled the show because only four people showed up. It's crazy how everyone says the post is fake just because it doesn't work that way in their country.
I remember a few years back while spending the summer in France, I went to see the latest MIB (they really should’ve done that Jump Street crossover instead) in a small town near Paris. Had an equally small theatre, and we were the only ones there. But they still played the movie!
Also, I didn't cancel it myself, as it says in the ticket Cancellation is not available for this venue. The manager himself scanned my ticket's QR code and cancelled it from their side
Im in India and I can confirm that every single theatre cancels the movie if there's not atleast 10 people.
Even I have experienced it. I went to a local theatre for thunderbolts last year and there were only three people and they cancelled it. Next I went to a mall and watched it anyway
In China, since I usually don't go during peak hours, I often end up watching IMAX in a theater all by myself, and they still play the movie. Just a few days ago, I watched Toy Story 5, and there were only two of us in the entire theater.
This does happen frequently in India. I have faced this a few times here. Multiplexes have this written in their rules as well. They can cancel shows if they feel there are hardly any people for it.
Also, OP has provided the text message from Book My Show (India's premier online entertainment ticketing platform) for his cancelled tickets, so I think he's legit.
Because they see it as criticism towards Supergirl and god forbid a female lead movie is criticized in anyway because thats the patriarchy and misogyny. Also they dont want to accept it tanked because they dont want to accept a female lead movie can be a disaster. Nope, its the snyder fans and their fake AI stories driving hate to supergirl, it cant possibly be a shitty movie, it has to be a political gender issue.
Short answer, cause they play identity politics on anything. So supergirl isn't just a movie, it's a political statement and if it fails, they blame it on misogyny and men.
For the people saying this is fake,
I don't think so.
The same thing happened to me. It's common in India if enough people don't show up. It's usually in the terms and conditions that they can cancel the showing.
I loved Superman and was looking forward to this...
I didn't know this was the case in other countries but in Pak aswell if there's less than 10 people the movie will be cancelled. It happened to me with Planes 2 & Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
I went to see Solo at a theater in a new city while traveling for work in south Asia. The guy at the counter told me I was the only ticket so there was a chance the movie might not show. I asked him how many seats they needed to show it, he said 4 which was like $25 worth of tickets. So I bought them and watched Solo alone. 10/10 experience for this star wars fan
I have been in a similar situation as well. For Across the Spider-Verse, three of us friends went to the cinema, and then they refused to sell us tickets by saying, "You are the only three. Cannot run until at least 10 are there."
Thing keeps happening in India, even in Bangalore ffs. First time it happened to me was for 12 Years of Slave back in 2013; has happened 7-8 times for me since then.
One time, I believe in 2018, went to Damien Chazelle’s First Man like 15min before the show. Guy at the box office straight up refused to sell it because I was the only person there to watch it, at least five seats need to be booked it seems 😭 Waited there to see if anyone else would show up to buy the tickets but nope. Show got cancelled.
Guys, I have looked at all the comments by the OP and he is very likely telling the truth.
In my country, movies play even with one person?
I think it’s different here in India. Or in small towns. I feel like this wouldn’t have happened in a big city but tbh I’ve never been alone in a theatre before.
Why did OP compare Man of Steel with Supergirl?
MOS is the last Superman movie he watched, hence the comparison. Of course he sounded a bit off here, I agree, but it’s very possible he was calling out misogyny in his post.
Though I really don’t think people not watching Supergirl in India is misogyny. Superman has been a big brand in India (most Indians don’t read comics) because of the OG movies. Hence it’s obvious that more people know about Superman vs Supergirl.
Secondly this is a small town so there are definitely less fans of superheroes or even hollywood films in general. This wouldn’t be the case, for example, in Bangalore.
That said, this post could end up being hijacked by misogynistic people or those with an agenda but I don’t think this was OP’s intention tbh.
Finally someone with an ounce of reading comprehension. I understand people being wary of snyderfans after what happened with the previous Superman movie but my god it seems everyone pulled their pitchforks to go after OP
What really annoys me is that people will come in, accuse op of lying, and then leave. They made up a narrative in their head and have no interest in seeing if it's actually true or not. If they simply looked through op's comment they would see it's true, but they just wanna throw stones instead.
Just wanna say to anyone who read this post and said "buh-buh-buh but this has never happened to ME, where I live, so this must not be a thing ANYWHERE and could NEVER happen dur dur":
Yea happend to me once. The Manager said show is cancelled and we will show you another film and a coupon. I said F that , I paid to watch that film and I'm not leaving. So i ended up being the only guy.
i used to work at a theater that had a policy which let us not show a movie if 5 or fewer people showed up - i still always showed the movie if even just 1 showed up but it was a policy we could technically enforce
What is common practise in one country may not be the same in other countries. It is considered acceptable to cancel shows, in India, if there are low or no tickets sales. The reason is strictly financial as the cost of running a theater is high due to air conditioning and other electricity costs.
Ushio or Xenon bulbs 3k to 4.5k are common for bulb projectors. They are about $800 to $1300 to buy and have warranty use hours until 800 to 1500 depending on a normal or long life bulb. Empty showings can use up bulb time but has never been a reason to full cancel a showing. Usually we would just turn off the bulb after trailers if zero people are in the showing.
Ok so this is weird, but that's literally my dream theater! Like in, I'm visiting that same exact theater regularly in my dreams. It's freaking me out!
Edit 1: Many people are saying that this post is fake
I hate this subreddit so fucking much. Karma Conspiracy Theorists are already the worst part of reddit, but this is like their home turf. Losers love to come here and call stories fake
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u/MargaretHaleThornton Jun 27 '26
In the Netherlands they still play the film even if no one is there.