With 20 theater screens in Joplin, it seems "ridiculous" to some that movies like Scream 3 and The Whole Nine Yards need two screens, while other films, such as Next Friday and Being John Malkovich are not even playing.

"It's ridiculous," said Esdra Lamy, a senior mass communications major. "There's a lot of movies out there that come out that we never get to hear about."

Lamy felt the local theaters, such as the Northstar 14 and Joplin 6, should not dedicate as much time and as many screens to certain films and allow other movies to come to the area.

"For the most part, I feel we have a great variety," Lamy said. "Then again, there's a lot of movies that we don't see that go to many other places."

One of these movies is Ice Cube's Next Friday, sequel to the 1995 comedy, Friday.

"They seem to vary the movies," Lamy said. "If the majority of the actors seem to be minorities, we seem to have a lot of those movies not come here."

Taffy Coker, a senior mass communications major, said she thought movies, like Being John Malkovich, should come to Joplin.

"I'm used to bigger cities that have more of a variety," Coker said. "They do need to get more artistic movies."

Richard Sechrist, general manager of the Northstar 14 theater, said the process of selection is not an easy task.

"It's a lot more political than the general public thinks it is," Sechrist said.

Hollywood Theaters selects their films based on the number of copies the studios print for the market. The wide-releases and big commercial movies are picked up, but some of the other independent films don't get chosen.

In the case of The Cider House Rules, which was nominated for seven Academy awards, many markets did not pick up the film.

"That is one that started out as a small, independent art picture," Sechrist said, "but as time went on, word of mouth spread about it."

"They made some more copies available to the theaters and we are getting it this Friday."

However Being John Malkovich, another independent film that was nominated for best original screenplay, will likely not be coming to Joplin.

"They did not add any more copies for some reason," Sechrist said. "As far as I know we will not be playing it."

Many movies, including Wes Craven's Scream 3, played on multiple screens at the Northstar 14, while other films did not play at all.

"Scream 3 was a big deal because it was the final one in the trilogy," Sechrist said. "Miramax released 3500 copies of that movie, which is the largest print release for any movie in history."

"It was a good thing we had two screens because I sold them both out on opening weekend."

Sechrist said the criteria for movies that come to Joplin is based on the studios.

"If the studio feels that maybe they don't have enough faith in the picture, or for marketing, demographic, or regional reasons, then they only release it in metro markets such as New York and California," Sechrist said. "A lot of these specialized art films tend to end up this way."

So will Next Friday ever come to Joplin's theaters?

Sechrist said they have been waiting for it to come off of some of the other local markets, such as Tulsa, so they can pick it up.

"I know a lot of college students want to see this," Sechrist said. "Tentatively, I have it scheduled for March 10.We are definitely looking to play it here."

Sechrist added that he had some further information concerning the sequel to this sequel.

"I just found out the other day that Ice Cube signed to do a third one," Sechrist said. "It's going to be Friday After Next."

Published by The Chart on 2-25-00

Article's Posting at the Chart's Website